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New to GMing - tips, suggestions, warnings?
Dak
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello! A group of friends and I recently started up our first role-playing group - we've always wanted to get our dice rolling but never had the opportunity. I recently got some dice, a grid map and the Serenity handbook for Christmas so we decided to finally get it on. We played a couple of practice sessions and decided Serenity while having an awesome system, we didn't really take to the setting too well, mainly because some of our characters were non-combat (mechanic, pilot) so it was a bit boring for some of us.
That being said, we modified the system a bit and now we're playing a variant that deals with super heroes, and we're definitely having a much better time with this.
Basically after our first few sessions I was elected to be GM, so I'd like some tips to make the role-playing/combat/experience enjoyable for everyone. I'd like some dos and don'ts on the subject of GMing. What I find my main problem is, is that we have a large group - seven people. Sometimes the quieter friends tend to get lost in the role-playing and I feel they're left out. I've been working to correct this by incorporating elements of their backstory/origin in the campaigns, but any pointers you can give would be great too!
Feel free to ask questions so I can tell you what I'm doing wrong.
Edit:
tl;dr - Newbie to roleplaying is GMing with seven friends, would like tips.
That being said, we modified the system a bit and now we're playing a variant that deals with super heroes, and we're definitely having a much better time with this.
Basically after our first few sessions I was elected to be GM, so I'd like some tips to make the role-playing/combat/experience enjoyable for everyone. I'd like some dos and don'ts on the subject of GMing. What I find my main problem is, is that we have a large group - seven people. Sometimes the quieter friends tend to get lost in the role-playing and I feel they're left out. I've been working to correct this by incorporating elements of their backstory/origin in the campaigns, but any pointers you can give would be great too!
Feel free to ask questions so I can tell you what I'm doing wrong.
Edit:
tl;dr - Newbie to roleplaying is GMing with seven friends, would like tips.
Dak on
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It also might help if you pair up the quieter guys with the types that are more outgoing, especially if they can back each other up well. Like a combat character and a charismatic character, or an putting an electronics wiz togehter with the pilot when he needs to fly somewhere. So when you throw a problem at them that the outgoing type can't solve, the other guy can pipe up, and will feel good for saving his buddy.
Also, with that many people, you'll probably want to split the party just a bit, like I said above. Give them two different things to do, but try to keep them in the same area. Sending them to two parts of the city will bore whoever isn't up. Sending one group around a corner to unlock a gate so the other group can slip in and grab someone is more the idea.
Have combat mapped out, and try to get everyone to think of what they want to do while everyone else is going/rolling. Try rolling to hits and damage dice at the same time to speed things up. If someone is a bit slow with the rules, pair him up with someone who really gets it. Let them sit together, so he can help coach him before his turn comes up.
I babbled on for a while. That help any?
Never count on them doing anything, especially if you haven't played with them much before.
Don't be afraid to invoke rule 0.
Incorporating quiet players can be good, but don't make anything dependant on them becoming active.
That's a great idea - When I'm writing my sessions I tend to focus more on the events and stories, these little minute details escape me. This will probably make things more interesting, and it sounds easy enough to do.
My question is, how do I pair them together in game, as in, what excuse do I give? As GM I have little influence as what they decide to do as a group - I can say "the group needs to split up" but it might end up that the two teams are less than optimal?
Oh, that sounds very exciting, and makes sense. I was very reluctant to split up the group in any way because during our first session, our GM had half the group go planet side while the other gorup stayed on the ship. So not only did he split up the group, he also gave one half absolutely nothing to do. But this is a viable way to encourage team work, maybe forge some chemistry between the palyer's characters.
I find that a lot of the time that goes by is a player taking too long to decide what to do. Now, in the Serenity rulebook, it says the GM can skip a player's turn and say "you spend your turn trying to decide what to do." I may want to implement this, but I'm afraid of player reaction. Obviously no one wants their turn skipped, but it just serves to keep things so much more fast-paced, which is important in combat.
I was thinking of getting one of those little hourglasses and giving them a time limit, how does that sound?
Very much, thank you.
We foresaw that - basically when someone is absent we just say he has other superhero/civilian duties.
What's rule 0?
As for how to convince people to split up like you want...some ideas. Use NPCs that can order them around, or whose suggestions they'll listen to. Try making it very obviously as well. Such as pointing out that the bad wiring on this ship reminds the engineer of an old piece of junk he used to fly on that was always breaking down. Or just say, "Hey fighter, since you're going to try to get that info out of that mook, why don't you bring along someone else that can do the talking for you?"
And if some sort of 'accident' or other event you set up happens to split everyone up...such as a scramble to some life rafts/pods, a room collapsing in the middle, etc. you can just seem to 'randomly' split them up just like you want.
Say someone figures out how to use the exact word of the rules to make their character night unstoppable. They love it, but it takes all the fun and excitement out of the encounters. All the other players are bored and annoyed at that player. So, Rule 0, you say it doesn't work. And that's final.
You can maintain player trust by readdressing major issues later, after the game, and trying to fix any mistakes.
planplanplanplanplanplan
For EVERYTHING.
You should check out http://treasuretables.org. I've found it to be a wealth of GMing help.
Awesome android RPGs are made by my friends; check them out.
This is a bad idea. Over-planning leads to railroading, as Gabriel pointed out. Players like to have choice. Plan what you need to, but improvisation is much more useful and leads to more satisfying games. Familiarize yourself with the rules and setting to make this easier.
It can be helpful, if improvisation is difficult for you or for whatever reason not useful in a given situation, to give the players an illusion of choice. The easiest way is to change the hook to fit the direction they're going, rather than the direction you expected them to go. This can be easier at some times than at others. If the players know they weren't actually given a choice, however, it winds up no different than railroading.
Someone in the "You wouldn't believe it" thread actually had a story where a player sent some giant-type creature toppling into the side of a random building, which the DM had pre-planned as containing the campaign's main villain and henchmen, thereby ruining his own adventure by his own rules. Rather than keep the result quiet and move the previously-hidden bad guys elsewhere, he announced the result to the party and began to cry. Suffice to say a looser sense of planning would have been in order.
I liked to write up pre-made vehicle damage results for D6 Star Wars, giving the players quicker and more-detailed descriptions than searching through a table for default options. I'd write up the encounter like "Two pirate Y-Wings, pilot stats:..." followed by a quick note like "1-7 damage, left maneuvering vanes are sheared off, reducing the fighter's agility OR shot slices into fuselage which begins venting gas; 8-11, the shield generator is blown out OR one engine cuts out; 12+ fuselage bursts open and ship is violently destroyed OR cockpit is blasted apart and engulfs remains of fighter in flames."
I guess I didn't really mean plan what the players would do.
I meant plan everything the players COULD do.
For example, in the last RPG the GM had the following for every city and town in the area (this was Warhammer Fantasy, sort of D&D-ish):
1. A detailed map
2. A list of establishments (stores, taverns, etc)
3. A detailed price list for the stores
4. Full characters generated for many of the most important people, and generic characters for the rest
So when we went off on wild, crazy tangents, he was prepared and could go with it while trying to generally steer the party back the way he wanted them to go (see my story in the "Greatest Moments in Tabletop Gaming" thread for an example of a tangent - there were many more along those lines).
Obviously you don't have to go to these extremes, but the more you know about the world, the better you can accomodate your players and the more fun you will have.