God , that thing ' s a disaster . <| sep |> Didn ' t you know that fires cool down the longer it burns ? He was just following proper safety procedures . <| sep |> Lol ! I ' m on my way ! <| sep |> I just started DMing 5 th Edition a few weeks ago , using the Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign . Personally ? I went on Mike Schley ' s site and purchased hires versions of all the official maps . You get the DMs version , which has all the room numbers , traps and secrets labelled , and a player ' s version , which is just the basic layout . I ' ve printed out the player ' s versions onto A 4 and let them have that . They can metagame to a certain extent , but they can ' t see any secret areas or traps . We don ' t use minis if positioning is really important for a certain fight , we use Scrabble tiles to represent people . As for reading ahead , I read the whole adventure and just kept in mind who the major NPCs were and what their motives are . My girlfriend ' s gone offscript several times , but so long as you know who is who , you can adjust . Glasstaff escaped the Redbrand HQ , for instance , and doesn ' t show up again in the text , so I thought about what he ' d do next . I decided the Black Spider would give him a mission to redeem himself , and he ended up in Thundertree , trying to parley with the dragon Venomfang , where my girlfriend encountered him again and this time captured him . Just learn who the major players are and you ' ll be fine . Best of luck !