First time DM prep. What could go wrong?

For the past few months, my family and I have been running D&D campaigns over the weekends. So far we have never completed a campaign as they were either too long-winded or life just got in the way for everyone and the adventure fell through.

Currently my brother-in-law, Josh, is DM’ing a campaign centered around the starter kit for Icespire Peak. I’m playing a neutral chaotic, barbarian gnome who eats anything and anyone he sees (I always tend to play the completely unhinged characters.) So far, we’ve discovered a small town ravaged by a dragon from Icespire Peak and set out to gather magical items from a nearby gnome kingdom in preparation for the battle.

In our time there, we fought a frazzled engineer, stole valuable treasures without getting caught, and fought a mimic whom disguised itself as a large wine barrel. During our fight, the mimic ate a resident gnome and knocked one of our teammates unconscious; he luckily survived and was able to be recovered. I delivered the finishing blow with the flat side of my battle axe and squished the mimic like a bug. I then proceeded to eat most of it including the undigested remains of the gnome inside.

After all was said and done, we left the kingdom; and that’s when terror struck. I’m guessing Josh rolled something unfortunate for us because as we crossed a nearby river to return to town, the dragon of Icespire Peak landed in front of us. We then left off on that, and everyone agreed to prepare a new character because when we return, we do not believe we are anything other than “fucked.”

That’s when my wife asked if I could DM the next adventure. Considering my affinity towards writing, she believes I could write a pretty compelling tale. At first I was indifferent to the suggestion, but the more I play the more I realize I could craft some exciting encounters and scenarios that require more than just rolling for the most basic of checks.

So today, I picked up three D&D books to help me learn the rules and nuances of DM’ing: a monster manual, a dungeon master’s guide, and a notebook to plan my campaign. I daydreamed a bit about my story and decided it will take place in a haunted house with dark secrets and mystic histories.

I’ve become really excited for this, and now part of me hopes our party is completely wiped in tomorrow’s fight against the dragon.