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[DeKaFu]

3.5 edition, and "Play something better!" isn't the sort of advice I need.

Here's the deal: Me and two friends decided to try Dungeons & Dragons. For all intents and purposes, we're all brand-new to roleplaying games. We chose 3.5 because two of us played a lot of NWN, so had some basic familiarity with the setting, classes, rules etc. We'll probably be using Fantasygrounds to play it online, since we're spread out geographically across a couple countries. So far nothing has happened except character creation.

Anyway, I'm going to be the DM because nobody else was willing to, and it's looking pretty intimidating. I've read the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide pretty much cover to cover, but I still have a lot of pretty basic questions and uncertainties that I'm really hoping someone with some experience can help me with.

1. I'm making my own campaign from scratch, and one of my big concerns is properly balancing the monster encounters. The whole CR and EL system is sorta confusing, and I'm not sure how accurate it really is for a party of only two characters. Also, both player characters are pretty heavily combat oriented (one is a lance-wielding dwarven fighter with a warhorse, the other a bow-using ranger, both with fairly high attributes), which I'm worried will skew things in the other direction. So on one hand, I don't want to flatten them right out of the gate with something way over their heads, but on the other hand I don't want big showdowns I've been leading up to to be pitifully easy.

2. As of now, we don't intend to play with a grid. My feeling going in was that the grid and figures setup gives it a bit too much of an artificial video-gamey feel, when the whole point is supposed to be using your imagination to interact with the world. However, that was before I saw how much of the ruleset is designed explicitly to use one... Given that I'm not very good at estimating distance in real life, is this going to be a viable way to play?

3. This may be a stupid question, but are enemies supposed to have the same "death at -10 HP" system that PCs do, or do they die at 0 HP? I couldn't find anything in the books that really stated either way.

Besides those, I'd really like some general advice on running a game, even from the perspective of non-D&D. So far I have paper copies of all the character sheets and a notebook for planning and notes. How much planning-ahead is enough? Too much? Part of me wants to map out the entire starting area and name all the shopkeepers and write up mini-quests and draw up NPC statsheets, which is way more than I'm realistically capable of handling right now. And what about random encounters? Is it worthwhile making up charts for them, or do they just seem out-of-place?

I'm sure there's someone here with some experience with the game. Help. 

[Little]

Not sure how to really help you on one, I DM a game with five people and I generally use groups of enemies roughly equal in level with my PCs, throw in a surprise or two every now and then to shake it up. Your boss encounters don't always have to be monsters, you could just have to have the players pass a series of hard skill checks while in some dangerous situation while you plan out later boss battles.

For two, I say don't use the grid, but describe everything and note down how far apart everything important is(for ranged attacks/magic/checks/movement). You don't have to use a grid, but you should have an idea of how far apart places are. It's more fun to use your imagination, in my opinion.

For three, yes, death is at -10 HP(in most cases, in my world, Elementals dissipate at 0, for example). How else can you knock out a goblin scout and do Intimidation checks to make him reveal the location of the camp? 

Well, how much planning generally varies from group to group. I have a basic list of names, a reference book so I don't break canon, and a basic idea of what's going to happen, but my games tend to be non-linear. Your players will occasionally see a completely different angle of doing something, and you have to be fairly quick on your feet to come up with something. Random encounters, I say don't bother, but again, that varies from group to group.

[ein]

http://www.dungeonmastering.com/blog
Have fun.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Draw up some loose guidelines, some enemies to fight, and a few basic events, then wing it. Writing up stats for enemies is very time consuming, if you're not using premade ones, and in most cases they're kind of cut and paste. Let your players follow their own path, and just build the story along that. If you've got a story planned out, just make it so that some version of it ends up happening no matter their actions, rather than forcing them into specific situations via ultimatums or deus ex machina. If they choose to cut a deal with your villain, roll with it and have the villain betray them or something, or if they choose not to go into the random crumbling tower, perhaps they run into the residents returning to it, or that sort of thing.

For encounters, start of easier than you know they can handle, and try to get a feel for the stats. For a particularly tough encounter, just come up with a rough HP range or something, and if it proves harder than you thought, just reduce its HP or fudge a few of its rolls (if you keep rolls hidden from the players to make it less of a numbers game on the surface) to avoid steamrolling the players unintentionally.

I would say, if distance is really important, draw up some rough diagrams for your own use, and just write up relative distances. Using a grid is silly when you don't really need the physical representation in front of you.

That's how I handled things, anyways. It worked fairly well.

[fenrif]

The number one rule for a DM should be "story beats dice" If you drew up an encounter thats meant to be realtivly easy, and theyre really struggling, knock off some HP from the baddies, have an NPC come save them, etc.

I'm pretty sure the CR system is based on a full party of 4, so some things might be a bit tough for a 2 man party, but as i said, you can fudge it down quite easy. And i never use the -10 hp thing for enemies, since its more of a way to let PCs survive being downed, but having the rest of the party win the fight. You could use it for enemies, but i dont know how usefull it'd be.

I wouldnt worry about the grid stuff, I never really bother with grids when i run games. Sometimes i use minis, but just do a rule of thumb for the distance. Most of the time you can get away without anything like that, just keep track of where everyone is in relation to everyone else, eg. the dwarf is fighting kobold A, kobold B is sneaking up behind him... the half-ork is about 10 feet away fighting kobolds C and D. It depends alot on how much crunch you want in your combat. I find that if you follow all the rules for it, it drags on far too much, so i tend to follow the rules pretty loosely.

Every DM prepares for a game in different ways, writes different levels of notes, etc. Ive seen people run a game entirely improvised, and others turn up with 2 binders full of detailed notes and descriptions. It all depends on what kind of person you are, and how comfortable you are at improvising. I would definatly say though, that a list of names for NPCs and places is a good tool to have in a pinch.

I wouldnt worry too much about random encounters. They arent really necissary, unless your players are really into randomness for randoms sake. I never use them, since a planned out encounter, integrated into the story is much more memorable and fun for everyone, but thats just my opinion of course

As for general advice; its always a good idea to save 5 or 10 mins at the end of the session to ask your players what they liked/disliked about the game, just a little input from them can give you alot of help in planning the next session.

Also check out http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/ Its a pen and paper RPG podcast, and they talk alot about dm advice, how to deal with specific problems with players and characters, etc. They've done alot of shows, so you might have to search around, but it's pretty entertaining, so it's worth a listen anyway.

Hopefully something in there will be helpfull, if you have any more questions dont hesitate to ask... and let us know how the game goes

[MrWiggles]

Uh, there a lot to cover here. I mean a lot. Its really hard to break it down to bite size chunks to help you.

First thing, is really scale down. Just scale it down. Concentrate on one adventure in that requires being in one site. The site should be pretty straight forward, one level, 90 degree turns as if following graph paper grids.

Start the character at level one. Have each player have an extra character they can pop in. 3.5 low tier character are fragile and their going to die from player inexperience, gm inexperience and unexpected game events. (Probably the best reason to die.)

Use only the core rule books, PHB1 DM1 and MM1, the other numerous books are really fluff that offer interesting way to play the game to add more interesting things to do, but you can have hours and hours with just the core books.

Don't worry about having a grand story from the start. Don't worry about having a grand world from the start. Don't worry about having grand characters with intricate backgrounds with preexisting interpersonal relationships. Try to keep key NPC with few personality traits for RP notes.

Keep notes. With this being a play by post game, you have a real advantage with taking your time in replying, it gives you a chance to review your notes and keep things straight. In a live game, you have to have a pretty good mental index cards of notes along with written ones for future retention.

ECL and CR, is sorta broken. ECL is if you are trying to add PC classes to monsters, or PC playing monsters, its annoying broken balance mechanic. Ignore it mostly. CR is what you'll be mostly dealing. Keep in mind the game expects you to have a party of four to five. The CR reflect this. So if you have a CR one, then you may want to gimp it slightly, or send in reduce numbers. In the MM1 you'll find in the back a list of monsters arranged by CR. Try to keep to CR3 and under until fifth level or so. By then you should get a feel for how much damage they can take, and how high of an AC they can hit in a given three rounds.

Cheat. Cheat all the damn time. You're the DM, technically you can't cheat. Fudge die rolls, fudge stats and HP. Keep the game moving and fun. Rule layering is boring. Try to keep constant with rulings. Have clear house rules.

-10 =death is universal (except where noted), for most encounters you can ignore this. If a creature reaches zero they are out of the fight and presumed dead. Generally, its very unlikly for a player to get a creature HP to exactly zero. The killing blow will always spill over into the negatives. You can use this rule for bosses with means of healing or riving themselves in order for them to come back, or just have more staying power. 

The grid combat, oddly predates video games. Its a derivative off of wargames, specifically chainmail if memory serves.  The combat system in 3.5 is very verbose offering a multitude of actions that can be location sensitive. This in my opinion is one of the hardest things to replicate with a play by post environment.

Generally I would say learn the vanilla combat before ad hocing it, but the environment makes this very very hard. Another good rule of thumb is the +2 or -2 dice adjustment. If by doing this makes you slightly harder to hit, then a -2 to attack rolls by attackers to this pc so on. You can do this ad infinitum. This can be used for everything in the game can ask for a die roll.

The things I would keep in mind is flat footed and cover. Cover is a d% roll to see if its a straight miss. There a section on that in the PHB1.

Flat footed is where you are denied your dex to AC. There a few special ability that require this information.

If both parties are aware of each other and engage in combat, no one is flat footed.

If neither party is aware they are consider flat footed until they act in combat.

If one party is aware and the other isn't. The aware party is not flat footed, and the unaware party is flat footed until they act in combat.

I suggest playing on rpol.net. It has a a great ascii 3.5 suppliments, and a wonderful dice roller with a lot of support for 3.5. Its all easy to use. Its the best out there that I've seen. I could explain the gist of the site but that would be nother wall of text.

[LordBucket]

Hello.

<-- years and years of DM experience.

one of my big concerns is properly balancing the monster encounters.

Don't get too attached to your plan or your module. Remember that you are the dungeon master, not the paper. If you see that encounters are too difficult, change them. It doesn't matter if the module says there's a half a dozen orcs in the next room. You can make there be only 3 instead. Or 10. Or goblins or trolls or whatever. Just watch the party as they go, and adapt as needed.

Also, both player characters are pretty heavily combat oriented
(one is a lance-wielding dwarven fighter with a warhorse, the other a bow-using ranger

...two players is not ideal. In my experience you really need four or five. You can juggle numbers and systems, but with only two players a game loses a lot of the "experience" of the game. And yes...that party will be awkward to manage for lack of support characters. The obvious solution for lck of support would be to encourage them to acquire a henchman or two. But that means that you will be "playing" those henchmen, and that can be a bit much for a new DM to deal with.

I don't want to flatten them right out of the gate with something way over their
heads, but on the other hand I don't want big showdowns I've been leading up to to be pitifully easy.

Again...adapt. Do not set anything in stone. That big showdown your'e all excited about? Don't get too attached, because the players may decide to go somewhere totally else and do anything but what you expected. Flexibility is key.

don't intend to play with a grid.
is this going to be a viable way to play?

I've not used electronic tools like you're describing, but I have used minuratures extensively, and assuming it's similar...then yes it's viable, but once you've played with a map that you can look at and move around on, you probably won't want to go back. It adds a lot to the experience.

This may be a stupid question, but are enemies supposed to have the
same "death at -10 HP" system that PCs do, or do they die at 0 HP?

Does it matter?

You are the DM. Not the paper. The paper is there to guide you. So are the rules. Rules are flexible. Remember that the players don't know how many hit points a monster has. If in the middle of an encounter you decide that the monster needs to be tougher...guess what? You can add 10 or 20 hp and they will never know.

And don't tell them. The function of dungeon master is to create an experience. So, create that experience. Rules that don't help you create a fun experience are not good rules. What constitutes a "good rule" or "bad rule" may change rom encounter to encounter. Oh sure...to begin with you'll probably want the same framework of a firm, established set of rules, but try not to become too attached to them. You're there to have fun, not pretend to be a lawyer.

Now to answer the question...personally I tend to answer it with "yes" but anytime a creature hits negative hp it starts a 1hp/round bleed until healed or bandaged. So, it's assumed that any monster the players down will bleed to death if not treated. If the players leave thre or four kobolds bleeding to death in the woods, it doesn't really matter to you or them whether or not they die after they've been looted. Don't worry about it.

How much planning-ahead is enough? Too much?

It will make a huge difference in your game if you are sufficiently prepared that your players can do anythingthey want without feeling that you're guiding them to where they need to go. But, do not become attached to any particular adventure or monster and dungeon or anything else. By that I mean...don't spend 20 hours creating a super mega epic adventure, because when they find the destroyed caravan in the middle of the woods, they might decide to loot it and leave rather than follow the footprints leading away like you expected.

Do not ever set up any "plan" that depends on the players doint what you expect them to. Very often they won't. To deal with this, it will help you tremendously if you have enough adventures planned such that no matter where they go, there will be an adventure waiting for them. My own guideline was to always have at least one dungeon, one town adventure, one water or underwater adventure, and one overland wilderness adventure ready and waiting on top of whatever campaign storyling arc you have running.

Never be caught in the position of havign to explain to the players that "uhh guys...if you do that I dont' know what to do because the adventure is over there instead."

Players are unpredictable. You are not an author. You are an interface to the world. Allow them to interact with it as they please.

And what about random encounters?

Make them up as you go. Make a generic template of stats for any monsters in the "theme" of the area the party is in...orcs and goblins, or spiders and bats, or skeletons and zombies, or whatever. When you want an encounter (Never roll for it. You're the DM. If you want an encounter, have an encouter. If you don't, don't.) simply draw up a list of numbers for monsters on a piece of paper and list hp next to each. (Zombie #1 has 8 hp, etc.) On a map, I use miniatures for players, and dice for monsters. Simply set the each facing up with the number corresponding to the list, and you can quickly and easily match map to monster on your list. Don't get caught up in anything that will slow the game down. For stats that matter, consult the template. You don't need to write out a full set of stats for a dozen zombies when only their hit point totals will change over the course of a battle.

The real purpose of random encounters is to give you a means to control pacing. If the party is doing something fun and is all excited about it...throwing random goblins at them is going to be a nuisance distraction. But if they're standing around struggling with something and getting bored, that's when a patrol wanders in. "Random" encounters shouldn't be random at all.

I'd really like some general advice on running a game

Absorb the above and come back with more questions.

[Sowelu]

1) While you're still getting the hang of it, err on the side of weak monsters.  It's only important that the PCs THINK they're fighting for their lives...use vicious descriptions and ominous portents to hide just how lopsided in the PCs' favor it is.

In general, I like to balance my encounters around this assumption:  a good fight is about as hard as one monster equal in power to the party's tank.  That's about how many hit points the party should need to whittle down, if it's just one enemy.  Make sure they can actually hit its AC though, and that it won't one-shot the squishies (beware of orcs in the early game--1d8+3 is painful for level 1s!  An orc might be around CR1 but that doesn't mean you should throw one at a level 1 party!).  Monsters that the players can one-hit kill though, are still totally awesome.  If I remember right, the DMG considers "CR 5" to be "level 5 monster" and "a typical challenge for a party of four level 5 characters", so it's pretty much in line there.  There's rules for, like, two CR4s equal one CR5, or some weird stuff like that, but as long as the players can hit the enemies, won't get one-shotted, and are unlikely to lose the HP war of attrition, it's all good.

I'd agree that two players is a very low number.  Three is barely workable, four is really ideal.  I've never run a two-character-per-player game but you should consider that.

2) Chalkboard or whiteboard, VERY important.  You need something.  I'm not very fond of grids myself, but battles lose ALL their tactics without something.  At the very least, get some spare dice or pennies or something and arrange them on a flat surface so you have a rough idea how far things are from each other.  I don't recommend trying to describe battles with only words--it'll be a disappointment for everyone.  Anyway, you can keep track of initiative and HP on a corner of the whiteboard/etc.  It's totally kosher to keep track of monster initiative/damage where the players can see it, as long as they don't know the total hp, btw.

3) Enemies die at 0 HP because the players don't care.  Sure, they technically die at -10, and that might be important if they decide they wanted to take a prisoner after the fact.  But seriously, any random goblin that survives is going to stay the hell away from them once it recovers anyway, so don't fuss over it.

General Advice)  Homebrew campaigns are awesome.  RPGs are games of information control.  What the players don't know, sure can scare them.  Depending on your players, you may not want to actually force them to solve puzzles and mysteries...but if your game system works a little weird, has enemies that don't quite follow the rules, or has a few weird physics anomalies (maybe the clouds are different colors or something for some reason etc), that's a huge plus.

But yeah.  Make your enemies weaker than they look, by making them scarier than they mechanically are.  If your players don't know what rules the enemies follow--just that their magic is weird, or they have some bizarre planar stuff going on--you can make games a lot more tense without making them more dangerous.

Players are going to want to focus on the big mysteries, and they probably won't focus on random town NPCs.  Players like to assume that anything you put a lot of detail into is important...I've frequently had players say "Oh the GM really described that random town yokel in detail, he must be important!"...so if the players aren't interested in your random shopkeeper NPCs, and you can't hook them in a way that they like, don't be afraid to lay off the detail and worry about something else.  Seriously.

Write down enough information that you can think on your feet, though.  If you tell the players that the blacksmith's name is Bob, make sure you'll know it's Bob the next time they visit him.  And of course, it goes without saying that if the players develop a huge liking for Bob as a character, you'll want to build him into a full and believable character on the fly.  Stats, not so important.  When I build a town, I like to write down the names, classes, and levels of the proprietors for the major establishments.  If you know they'll run into the Captain of the Guard, just write down "Capt. of Guard, Jack Bradley, Ftr. 8".  Maybe also write down "Town has 20 guardsmen, Warrior lvl. 1-3".

Town maps are good.  Map handouts are good.  If you have a rough overview of the town and its districts, with maybe a couple tavern names on the map, that's awesome.  Players love fussing over maps and saying "Maybe we should go to this inn, the other one is kind of in a shady side of town".  And heck, any time you can get the players talking like that is awesome--take what they say and run with it, because they just told you what they expect to see if they wind up in that part of town!

In case I didn't make a big enough deal earlier, that's an important thing.  The players' own narrative should be a driving force.  If the players are worried about going into the bad part of town, even if you'd never considered it as a threat...well, you're practically obligated to give them a reason to go there, and a minor threat when they're only partly expecting it.  If the players are really interested in how they're going to set up camp and provide for themselves, hunting animals or whatnot, that can turn into a big thing--otherwise, you can gloss over it completely.  Etc.

[DeKaFu]

Wow, much bigger response than I expected, thanks.

I'm probably guilty of too much concern with following the rules to a letter, which I know will slow things down until I really get a handle on things. Neither of my players have ever played before, and because I'm the one who's read all the rulebooks it's going to fall on me to teach them how to play, and I'm afraid it might just confuse everyone (including me) if I skim over/change too many things right away.

That said, the monster-balancing-on-the-fly advice is really good. I'm planning to have a short, one-off tutorial session to let them (and me) figure out combat and get comfortable with the basic rules and interface before actually dropping them in the campaign world, so I should be able to use that as a starting reference point. I was thinking maybe using some dire rats as the first opponent, and throwing in something bigger if they obliterate them too quickly.

Also to clarify, we'll be using Fantasygrounds to play, which is basically a chat client with integrated dice and some other features for roleplaying. So we will still be playing in real time, but it should be a little more forgiving for long pauses and things than face-to-face playing (based on how we usually chat). We also most likely won't be starting for a while yet, which gives me time to prepare myself as best I can.

I have more to say but I have to run somewhere, so it'll have to be later.

[Goron]

3.5 edition, and "Play something better!" isn't the sort of advice I need.

How about: 'That is the best one!'  I am a big 3.5 fan.

I know you already got a lot of excellent advice (admittedly I didn't read it all), but I will also add my two cents:

Here's the deal: Me and two friends decided to try Dungeons & Dragons. For all intents and purposes, we're all brand-new to roleplaying games. We chose 3.5 because two of us played a lot of NWN, so had some basic familiarity with the setting, classes, rules etc. We'll probably be using Fantasygrounds to play it online, since we're spread out geographically across a couple countries. So far nothing has happened except character creation.

What is fantasygrounds? I've never heard of it and can't really look into it right now. (EDIT: Started this before you posted your description of it... so ignore this question)

Anyway, I'm going to be the DM because nobody else was willing to, and it's looking pretty intimidating. I've read the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide pretty much cover to cover, but I still have a lot of pretty basic questions and uncertainties that I'm really hoping someone with some experience can help me with.

As a DM you have one big advantage: You are right always, book is right most of time
Fudge numbers when needed. Make rules up when you don't know any better (But be sure to go back and find the real rules out after the fact for the future, and don't be embarrassed to let your players know you made a mistake and from then on you will be playing with the 'real' rule). Cheat for the story. Cheat for the party. And Cheat for the general fun.

1. I'm making my own campaign from scratch, and one of my big concerns is properly balancing the monster encounters. The whole CR and EL system is sorta confusing, and I'm not sure how accurate it really is for a party of only two characters. Also, both player characters are pretty heavily combat oriented (one is a lance-wielding dwarven fighter with a warhorse, the other a bow-using ranger, both with fairly high attributes), which I'm worried will skew things in the other direction. So on one hand, I don't want to flatten them right out of the gate with something way over their heads, but on the other hand I don't want big showdowns I've been leading up to to be pitifully easy.

I used to try to follow the CR and EL stuff. Then I met the best DM I ever played with. He pretty much threw that crap out the door. He would make encounters using his gut to tell him when to stop adding enemies or what level to make them. If it ended up being a little too hard he would create some reason for the encounter to turn to the players advantage, and if it was too easy he would throw in some more pre-spun enemies. He never fudged rolls in combat, though. He would only adjust the strength of the teams or the environment we were in. Mind you, he was also the hardest DM I have ever played under, but still the best:-)

2. As of now, we don't intend to play with a grid. My feeling going in was that the grid and figures setup gives it a bit too much of an artificial video-gamey feel, when the whole point is supposed to be using your imagination to interact with the world. However, that was before I saw how much of the ruleset is designed explicitly to use one... Given that I'm not very good at estimating distance in real life, is this going to be a viable way to play?

I must really say a grid is near essential. You don't need to draw out perfect images of what you want the players to see on it, just use it for positioning and then use your words to describe the setting. In my opinion it actually helps with imagination and interaction since you need to worry about distances and remembering positioning less and can thus spend more time imagining what the setting looks like and how you want to interact with the world around you.
It also very much so helps the DM to have a pre-drawn map (on grid paper) of locations. That way you don't need to spend as much time trying to remember what places look like or trying to describe layout of settings- you can just refer to your map, draw the physical boundaries and points of interest on the grid, and then go into detail about their descriptions- all without worrying about explaining positioning and stuff.

3. This may be a stupid question, but are enemies supposed to have the same "death at -10 HP" system that PCs do, or do they die at 0 HP? I couldn't find anything in the books that really stated either way.

enemies go unconscious at 0 just as players would. But, assuming the players win the fight, no one will bother to heal the enemy, right? therefore enemy dies from wounds.

Besides those, I'd really like some general advice on running a game, even from the perspective of non-D&D. So far I have paper copies of all the character sheets and a notebook for planning and notes. How much planning-ahead is enough? Too much? Part of me wants to map out the entire starting area and name all the shopkeepers and write up mini-quests and draw up NPC statsheets, which is way more than I'm realistically capable of handling right now.

The more pre-planning you do the easier it is for you to seamlessly run the game at gametime. That said, if you only have time to do a bit of planning then so be it; you'll still hopefully have fun! I will mention that my favorite DM that I talked about above did exquisite amounts of pre-planning. He had every map drawn out, every name figured out, every enemy pre-rolled, auxiliary enemies pre-rolled (to be added if needed to make things harder), characters developed (from a story-side point of view, in addition to numbers), and the main story arc figured out. I always knew we could sit down for a session and play nonstop because he had his shit figured out. Unlike me, DMing, I probably spend 30% (if not a lot more) of the session time trying to fumble around figuring stuff out and setting stuff up.

And what about random encounters? Is it worthwhile making up charts for them, or do they just seem out-of-place?

Its nice to make a bunch of pre-created characters/monsters/NPCs which you can just throw into the mix when you see fit. Don't attach them to the story in a specific way when you create them, that way you can use that lvl 5 human sorcerer to be that crazy hermit they pissed off, or that friendly adventurer that offered his help, or that young prince that they randomly decided to visit.

I'm sure there's someone here with some experience with the game. Help. 

My biggest tip to you is to be confident.
Just do it. Have fun, play a lot, and by the time you finish your first couple of sessions you'll get a hang of what you're doing and develop your own style. I've been talking about my favorite GM a lot, but mind you I don't GM like he does. Its not my style. It was his. So make sure you play YOUR way and have fun.

[Cthulhu]

If you fudge stuff, don't let the players know you're doing it.

[Pathos]

1) Get Pathfinder sourcebooks / adventure books.
2) Play a much enhanced version of 3.5 in an interesting setting.
3)
4) Profit!

No, really, Pathfinder is brilliant.

My little bit of advice: It's your player's game more than it is yours. Roll with what they're doing within the limits of the game, encourage them to be creative but not exploitative and make sure they're challenged but not broken.

[beorn080]

First session, run Tomb of Horrors. Then start normally. If they see your an asshole DM who won't pull punches and will arbitrarily kill off PCs, they won't notice you fudging as much to help them win.

[Siquo]

If you fudge stuff, don't let the players know you're doing it.

What do you mean "if"? But yeah, pretend to look at the dice when you throw them behind your DM screen, but never really do what they say. 

[GlyphGryph]

Also supporting the dual approach - run a one or two session campaign first, let the players know you are absolutely serious and their characters WILL die the moment they get unlucky and make a mistake, and then once the actual session starts fudge the hell out dice rolls - you are god, remember, and thats why the DM gets a shield.

Of course, personally, I love throwing my players against enemies they can't defeat, who are far to high a level, etc. At least to hard to defeat in straightforward combat... and I'm of the opinion that my players should be smart enough to realize that dangerous things are dangerous, and running at them while yelling is not always the best way to deal with situations. But I like puzzles more than encounters, and even my total novices tend to be pretty clever at figuring out interesting ways to achieve victory. And I come from a Call of Cthulhu background and they know it, so actually fighting the monsters is generally a last resort thing and I make that clear... and I don't hesitate to kill players who deserve it, though I will sometimes fudge an unlucky roll.

But what I mean is that you're the host, its your game. Ignore, interpret, fudge whatever rules or rolls you need to to ensure your players are having fun and/or you are having fun.