Your first few games of Dungeons & Dragons can be daunting, and even more so if you’ve chosen to play the role of the Dungeon Master.

While at the table, the DM will be required to occupy various positions, including coach, referee, and narrator. The following three tips will help you run the game and ensure that you and your players have an unforgettable experience playing the fifth edition of the best RPG in the world.

Start small. Many Dungeon Masters want to create their own worlds and narratives, but creating elaborate adventures and campaigns is an immense task from the get-go and a rudimentary understanding of the rules can get in the way of the momentum needed to push through a complex story and result in a daunting first experience.

Whether you are running the introductory adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver, found in the fifth edition starter set, or an adventure you have done yourself, it is important to start small and allow yourself plenty of room to make mistakes.

Read the rules found in the Player’s Manual, choose an environment, choose an environment, read about one or two types of monsters, and send your adventurers on a short mission that requires them to traverse this environment to interact with these monsters in this setting. Give them some gold and a piece or two of gear if they successfully complete the mission.

Leave room for improvisation. It’s impossible to prepare for everything players can think of. Time spent developing intricate backgrounds for Daggerford’s good folks is wasted when your adventurers decide they don’t want to go to Daggerford, but rather sleep in the woods on the outskirts of town. To avoid wasting hours, or even days, of preparation, you should avoid going into too much detail when creating non-player characters, locations, monsters, etc.

Give each non-player character you make a name and one or two defining characteristics (such as a large scar on his right eye or six fingers on his left hand) so players can easily identify them, but let the finer details come out. the light while you’re actually playing the game. Once a character, location, monster, etc. has appeared in your game, have a token with their name and key characteristics, as well as what happened to them in-game, handy for later sessions.

Stop. Collaborate and listen. New Dungeon Masters often mistake their role as a litigator for that of a tyrant, but Dungeons & Dragons is a collaborative storytelling experience, with both the DM and the players contributing to what happens in the narrative. Being responsible for creating the entirety of the world your players inhabit is intimidating, but remember that they are all gathered to play and have fun, yes, even the Dungeon Master.

Get in the habit of asking your players questions about their characters, such as “Having been here before, what is your impression of Baldur’s Gate?” and “Have you fought insect bears before? If so, how did it go?” This makes players think of the world from their character’s perspective and allows them to contribute to building the world, taking some of the burden off you.

If you’re really comfortable with your group, you can even answer questions like “What’s a good name for a nervous shop owner?” and work together at the table to get to the base of a non-player character. The more you include your players in your world, the more invested they will be.

There is no limit to the number of tools available for a DM to consider, but keeping these three tips in mind will help any new Dungeon Master feel right at home.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to be a better Dungeon Master, check out Matt Colville’s YouTube series Running the Game here.