Random thoughts as a very new DM/player

I just finished my second-ever campaign (a oneshot) and it's been a blast so far. I somehow convinced my friend group to try it and for some reason it went really well. Sorry for the incoming ramble, I've just been having a great time with it:

  1. I first introduced DnD to my friend group a few months ago with very low expectations. I wrote up a very simple oneshot expecting them to lose interest and dropping it for the other board games I brought, but I was so surprised at how much they got into it. I've read that it's easier to make DnD players into friends than friends into DnD player but I'm so lucky I was able to do the latter.
  2. I DM'd the game having never seen an actual DnD game being played. Dunno if that's good or bad. I think I probably ran it well enough, but I'm curious as to how people who know what they're doing actually do it.
  3. Of course they tried to seduce the pretty tiefling NPC. Of course. And it's not even the bard who did it, but the rogue, whose player I expected to be the most rational one.
  4. Same dude also somehow insisted on drinking a bottle of wine that they've already deduced is poisonous with a Nat 20 Investigation check, and was surprised when he got poisoned from it.
  5. I was prepared for them to murderhobo through the entire story if they wanted, but I was pleasantly surprised to see them actually make the effort to prioritize persuasion, negotiation and occasional deception over straight-up violence. Given a choice between assassinating a corrupt merchant NPC and blackmailing, they actually chose to dig through the town library for dirt on the dude instead of just mercing him.
  6. I'm so bad at rolling my enemy NPCs' dice, my bard somehow stunlocked a goblin boss with Hideous Laughter bc of my shit saves.
  7. They like the game but they just don't want to read the PHB. Totally fine with me, but we now have an agreement that they can't question any of my rulings unless they've actually read the relevant part.
  8. The sheer joy of randomly rolling dice behind the screen just to fuck with them
  9. Since I had no one to play with before, my DnD books stayed for two years untouched on my shelf since I bought them, until this year when I got to bring them out... Just as the new rulebooks dropped.
  10. I need more dice I need more dice I need more dice eeeeeeeee

I wish we had discovered DnD sooner when we were still in college and had more free time, but I'm still thankful that we could play. I hope our schedules keep aligning this coming year, I have so many other stories to inflict on these poor dudes.