Don't worry! You're not alone!
Some quick resources for new DMs, particularly those who have never DM'd before!
First, I recommend watching these:
PAX Celebrity Game
Dungeons and Dragons: Robot Chicken
There are other PAX DnD videos (and hours worth of audio at Dungeons and Dragons.com). If you've never played a pen and paper role playing game before, they're an incredible resource for how a basic game should go, and since the some of the Robot Chicken guys have never played before, you can see what the normal learning curve should be (so nobody should feel stupid.) If you're playing 4E it's even better, since that's what they're playing, and Chris explains some of the rules (and occasionally Wizard's reasoning behind them) explicitly.
If you're DM'ing with your laptop (which I am, because it's awesome) there's some great DM programs.
If you're playing Pathfinder (or I imagine 3.5, possibly even 4E), this makes combat about 10,000 times easier (well, if you're an organized person, then it may be only slightly easier than just being prepared with a pen and paper and notes about your monsters).
Combat Manager does a great job of helping you keep track of initiative, turns, and my favorite: Monster Stats. I was keeping all of my stat blogs in my adventure notes on my pc, but once I started using this I just let it handle that for me. It's working pretty well so far.
For Character creation I found two programs, one of which I liked, and is free, but ran really really slowly, and then quit working completely. But I recommend giving it a go and see how it works for you, since I found a lot of praise for it online. (If anyone gets it working well, let me know, I'm curious if it's just me.)
What I ended up going with, is a non-free solution, but it does run really well.
Hero Lab is a fine program, I have no bones about it at all, except that it's not free. It's not super expensive either, but you do have to pay for each system you use it on, and each source book that you want to use. As far as I can tell there's no way to add custom feats or anything either, so you're at the mercy of the books you've purchased through their website. Not a huge deal, but I'm a pretty laid back easy going DM, so I've told my players they can use any Feat/Power/Spell/Race/Class they can find in any pathfinder or 3.5 source book they can get their hands on, something the NPCs of their world won't be able to do.
And finally some super necessary web sites that you should learn to love:
Pathfinder Treasure Generator (Combat Generator, linked above, also has a treasure generator built in)
The Hypertext D20 SRD - A fantastic resource for looking up the rules for 3.5+ fantasy games
The D20 Pathfinder SRD- Similar to above, but specific to Pathfinder
The Pathfinder Database - All sorts of useful tools for pathfinder (a lot of it would be useful for 3.5 or 4E also)
Abulafia - A random list generator. Many, many of the lists that have been created are DM tools.
A couple of other notes:
I chose not to DM "town" interactions that aren't part of the campaign. By that I mean: I don't DM the pc's trips to the store to buy and sell loot, or pick up new torches, etc. Do you want to DM being a shopkeeper? I don't. I want to DM being an orc about to crush someone's head in.
So between sessions I've been sending out a facebook update with everything the store has on hand "today." I told my players items sell for 50% of their value, commodities sell for 100%. They can do their own math, they're smart people. I figure if anyone wants to cheat, they can cheat, but that's no fun (and my group is all cool people, so I'm not at all worried about it.)
I also include any "news." For instance, in my first update:
After that there were 5-6 more distinct jobs that people wanted their troupe to do, as well as a few general rumours.
A couple of other notes:
I chose not to DM "town" interactions that aren't part of the campaign. By that I mean: I don't DM the pc's trips to the store to buy and sell loot, or pick up new torches, etc. Do you want to DM being a shopkeeper? I don't. I want to DM being an orc about to crush someone's head in.
So between sessions I've been sending out a facebook update with everything the store has on hand "today." I told my players items sell for 50% of their value, commodities sell for 100%. They can do their own math, they're smart people. I figure if anyone wants to cheat, they can cheat, but that's no fun (and my group is all cool people, so I'm not at all worried about it.)
I also include any "news." For instance, in my first update:
As the five of us go about our regular business, we discover that news of our adventure has spread throughout our small town, and we've all become a bit of celebrities. While the attention is nice (and the free rooms at the inn are great for hook-ups), it also means that people are coming to us with their problems, and problems they have!
A number of options for adventure present themselves. We can do one of these adventures, or something else entirely. All choices have their consequences though, so choose wisely.
Missing Dwarves:
Some Dwarves passed through town a few days ago inquiring about an old gold mine just outside of town. Unfortunately, nobody has seen or heard from them since then. The Mayor would like us to go investigate.
Time Frame: No Travel time, 1-2 days to complete
Rewards: 100 gp each, plus any items we find along the way.
Possible Costs if we avoid: Dwarves may not survive.
After that there were 5-6 more distinct jobs that people wanted their troupe to do, as well as a few general rumours.
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