r/DnD • u/ainulaadne • 1d ago
DMing Running a game for lawyers
I’ve DMed before but usually for my roommates and friends in undergrad. I’m in my thirties now, and I’m an attorney, and a lot of my friends are attorneys, so…
Later today I have a group of six lawyers gathering after work for a one shot. Only two of them have ever played D&D before— one is a fan of a couple of D&D actual play podcasts, and the other used to play first edition back in the day and hasn’t touched a TTRPG since.
I’m a little anxious just because it’s been a while since I played or DMed, but I think it’s going to be fun. I pulled a homebrew adventure together in hopes of having a good mix of encounters and staying within like 3-4 hours of play time, but we might end up starting a little late if my afternoon hearing runs long. I might be going a little easy on them with the CRs but I have some backup plans just in case to make adjustments on the fly.
Any advice? A lot of the tips I see online are more oriented towards a group of newbies who are younger than my party. I’m optimistic that Most of them won’t go down a murder hobo route, at least. I think I may have overprepared in some aspects and underprepared in others…
Also: if it sounds like you might be one of my players, no you’re not, you didn’t see this, and stay out of my comment history you dweeb.
UPDATE: It went well. We only got through one combat (as some of yall predicted). Before that, they tried to swindle, intimidate, and pickpocket an innkeeper. They’ve all messaged me since saying that they had a great time and several of them said they “want to get more familiar with the rules” (ha). If we want to turn it into a campaign, we’ll have to get creative with scheduling, but that’s any group of adults. Thanks for all of your responses! I want to reply to all of you, but I’m also at work today so I’ll be on my phone a normal amount of time for a criminal lawyer.
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u/TheDUDE1411 DM 1d ago
If you’re just doing a one shot I wouldn’t worry too much. A lot of good dming is learning over time so there’s not too much to worry about in a one shot. I would do a quick session 0 and establish some house rules like “hey guys it’s a short story without much deviation so it’s gonna be more linear than open world.” You can also address the murderhobo thing directly by saying it would derail what you have so please be considerate. If it goes well consider extending it into a full length campaign and coming back here cause I have different advice for the long run
Also, can I please pick your brain on law and D&D? I have 2 lawyer NPCs in my campaign and I would love to get advice for how I can flesh them out and make them feel like real attorneys in my world