GM a tabletop game

[Lupe]

I have wondered off and on about GMing a tabletop game. Now that we are playing in the Dresdenvese I really am wondering what a person has to know and do to run a successful tabletop.

I look at the book (I have a copy of 'The Dresden Files, Book One') and ask myself, "do I really need to learn all of what is inside it? Or can I just read it for later recollection and review.

So, I know there are more then one table top GM in Safe Haven, how much is enough? Is it like learning the computer language php? Do I have to have 5 other specialized languages to use?

[Long Hall]

Ah, but you forget, there is also a book 2. :D

You don't have to have the books memorized - that's just not possible - but you do have to read all of the rules and understand them enough to make judgement calls. Anytime someone starts to GM a new system, even if they are an experienced GM, the first thing they really need to do is familiarize themselves with the system they are going to use.

I personally read through the free FATE rulebook 2 or 3 times before I ran the first game and, as you know, I kept the first couple of games down to a small group so I could concentrate on learning the ropes. When I decided to go ahead and use the Dresden Files rules, I sat down and read both books cover to cover (well, not in one sitting, but over a week's time). I've read through the more important sections (detailing game mechanics) a few more times since we started playing as well because, once you start running a game, you start to realize what rules you need to understand and what ones you don't understand well enough. For instance, I was totally flubbing the magic rules in our first couple of games. I knew something wasn't right and so I read that chapter again and now I think I'll be able to handle it correctly in our next game.

The two most important things a GM needs are:
1) Know your game system mechanics well enough that you don't need to stop every few minutes to read the book. Nothing with bog your game down worse than having to look something up. It's better to fake your way through the encounter and then look up the correct rules later on, than to hold the game up.
2) Know your story. Whether you're writing your own adventure, or using one from a publisher, you need to know the entire story, front to back. Players will always find a way to get outside the story plan and you need that understanding of the overall story so that you can handle those curve balls without messing up later events and still have fun doing it.

[Long Hall]

LOL Here's a good "outside the story plan" example. It might sound a little familiar, although I'm not actually referring to just one event. I've had things like this happen many times:

Your first scene is an encounter on the road. The player characters are accosted by a group of rude thugs from the nearby town. In order to proceed on to the next part of your story, the player characters need to interrogate the thugs and learn about the dark and mysterious events happening in the town, but the overly enthusiastic barbarian kills the thugs without questioning them. Now it's up to you, as GM, to find a new way to get the player characters to the next scene.

What will you do? What will you do? :D

[Lupe]

She only returned his slap with one of her own... of course she was holding the two handed war hammer and I rolled very good doubles.

[Valentine]

not sure i agree with you at all Rob.

The first bit sure enough, but frankly if you're with a good enough crew (who know the rules better than you) then they aren't going to mind if you ask for a little help here and there. Checking in on the rules is bad, but friends know that it's a learning thing too...Rules are ONLY there to make the game fun.

for example the first game i ran at uni was shadowrun, having never played the thing before or met the players. But their regular GM wasn't going to be back, and they needed someone to help them set up their gig in Chicago (bugspray instead of dry-ice). Lots of experienced players, and me. ten minute briefing on the way pools worked, and damages another five minutes explaining bug spirits... hey presto game on.


As for knowing your story, sorry that's not the way i see it at all. The best players i have run for, the best games, have all come entirely from the players. Sure you present a world, a place to play, and maybe a few fun things to hook them in, but as long as you have a handle on the setting then what you really want is for them to find the story, their story.

So for instance the Warhammer game I am in just now, the GM presented us with a start in some hills, we met some orcs, and interrogated one.. he came up with the idea that they were getting tip-offs to bushwack caravans.. one thing led to another, and now we've gotten a pub landlord convicted of various spurious crimes, so we can empty his cellar.. poison the lot and try to kill ALL the orcs.

After that we're going to use the booty they have collected to fund a small mercenary company to go after some more money.. to fund a full scale expedition to a fallen hold...

His story had the orcs as a throw away encounter, the mention of the hold likewise.. but the players found it interesting and are running with it..

And we're all very grateful he's not trying to shoehorn us into a story he thought up.


So Lupe, yup know as many rules as you can take in with some work, but in the all paraphrased Cyberpunk famous quote, "Style over substance", get a feel of the game, get your creative juices going, and let loose the puppies of war with their machine guns.

Your first games might not be world shaking, but as long as you're fair the players will be back, and each time you'll get a better handle on everything.. they can learn with you.

[Long Hall]

You bring up a good point, Valentine. There are lots of different styles of play.

Warhammer, if I'm not mistaken, is more of a wargame (correct me if I'm wrong, I've never played it). If you go into a big gaming store you'll probably find hundreds of little warhammer figures for people to paint for their armies. In my experience, most young guys prefer this sort of gaming. I know I did when I was young.

Fate, on the other hand, is a roleplaying oriented game. Combat is less important than good roleplaying. This style seems to be preferred by women and by old farts such as myself.

Those two games probably represent the two major styles (combat oriented vs roleplay oriented), but there are lots of different variations.

Story is also something that is used in varying degrees; some people don't use it at all (pure wargamers and roleplayers who just want to play their character's lives in minutia). Combat is the same way; some games are all combat and some have none.

I think Valentine and I both agree that the point is to have fun! The difference being that he prefers not to worry about the rules and I prefer to know the rules so I don't have to worry about them. :P Actually, Valentine, I think you misunderstood me there. I never said to memorize the rules, I said to make sure you understand the mechanics (i.e. how the rules work) so you can make decisions on the spot without needing to look anything up. And, yes, a good group will happily wait for you to look something up, or help you out if needed, but that doesn't change the fact that it slows down the game. If you've got all day to play that doesn't matter as much as it does when you only have a 3 or 4 hour window.

I don't agree with Valentine at all about improvised games, however; not for a first-time GM anyway. Unless you're running a wargame or something like that where all you have to worry about is putting bad guys on the field, I would never recommend that a first-time GM run an improvised game. Not if you have a chance to prepare ahead of time. As a first-time GM you've got enough to keep track of without having to worry about thinking up a game on the fly. Don't hesitate, of course, to throw the prepared game away if it's getting in the way of having fun, but it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. I improvise games all the time, but I've been GMing for almost 30 years. I have a vast storehouse of ideas stored in the chunk of concrete I laughingly refer to as a brain.

[Linette Geraud]

It still depends on the individual really, whether to use prewritten modules or create one one of your own. My first time of running a game was from something I created just a basic idea. I looked at the modules that were prewritten and I just.. couldn't handle the feeling of confinement. The modules did however provide a possible idea of an outline and how the outline of the game could go. or not to go.

I had a beginning, a possible ending unless something should happen to change it.There are people out there who are storytellers just adding the mechanics of the game for just a little bit of spice as in, Did my character get killed. did they barely escape death by just a hair. I've known GM's who have used Modules when they first ran their games, I know of GM's who when they first ran the game they improvised, going from characters backgrounds.Or just popped us into something right off the bat. Another game I'm playing which is gamma world the GM is just learning and there isn't a module he is running from, he is improvising. A couple of the other players ended up getting the books just to help him work the game out and they didn't know the game themselves so its still just a learning process.

Plus it depends on the game system you end up running too. Some are simplistic others can get very, very, detailed in the mechanics of the game.

I don't know if that made any sense but that is from my experience of running games and playing in games.

[Lupe]

I was thinking about the Fate and Dresdenverse, set about 2001 in New Orleans and the Atchafalaya Basin.

New Orleans is nice and old, lots of history. Plenty of black magic happened there, and still does. Civil War battles, slavery, drugs, and anything else you can think of. You have the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi river, the biggest swamp in the US.

[Valentine]

sorry i should have been more explicit, i was talking about the roleplay of warhammer, not the wargame, it's a dark, gritty low fantasy game where long term characters have a tendency to end up missing bits and more than a little deranged; that is heavier into personal interactions than most (esp the high fantasy DnD types)

While i like some war in my rpg for the high drama factor, i don't do wargames... they are totally about the rules and therefore completely wrong for what i want (same problem with bean-counting games like most MMO's.. where stats really do define your character).

Saying, "I use my 'mega power feat 4' to do maximum dps" is never going to be as fun as.. 'feinting low with the left, I go for his eyes with my right and when he blinks knee him in the 'vitals'. The colour of the system doesn't come from the rules and only wargamers are really there for them.

Also please don't get me wrong, pre-defined stories have their place, especially for a gm new to a world, but they are never going to grip characters-players as much as something they genuinely decided they wanted to do.

All I am saying is that you definitely want to be running a game that was living and vital, where the characters feel like they have a choice.. most new paths can be that way, but the older ones... forget it.

The best adventure supplements aren't the 'temple of elemental evil' types they are the cities and areas, the ones littered with hints like this man runs this racket, this cave is said to be the home of a witch, the snotling king seems unusually smart for someone who is basically an ambulatory mushroom...Case in point an adventure in WHFRPG's empire in flames campaign, the adventure took you to Middenheim, you had to collect some votes for an election, but it also came with a wonderfully detailed city to play in... my players discovered cults, took over a guild, set up a coach company, bought into a bar, went to court(once suitably attired)....one got married...and along the way they got the votes

Like Herr Hall I have been running games for a good many years, but then so have you, because every book you've read, every good film you've watched, and every game you've been in has given you ideas, and all the style i'm talking about requires is that you go with those ideas rather than let someone else tell you what suits your group.

As a player the two things that would ever cheese me off seriously would be the Dm being monstrously unfair (you step on yet another invisible-undetectable trap and now you die.. no there was no way to avoid it), or them forcing my character into doing things just for the sake of a story they defined as going one way.

okay i also get mildly cheesed off when dm's drop super characters in for 'background colour'... if a DM drops Drizzit do'urden into a DnD game I want to stove his head in.. not worship his pointy-ness, if they drop some uber-solo into my 'punk then I am going to be thinking about plans to gank them and half-inch their gear, not follow their lead and accept my mediocrity

Bottom line, you know your world, you have some fun ideas bubbling about what wonders they might find in NewOrleans.. decide what sort of story is going to suit your players (or better ask them), rough out a few details and polish up that deep south creole voudun .. you're good to go.

[Long Hall]

same problem with bean-counting games like most MMO's.. where stats really do define your character.

Yeah, seems like MMOs are all about what uber gear you get anymore. City of Heroes used to be nice because it didn't have any of that, but then they got the idea that they didn't have it and should and so now it's just like every other cruddy MMO out there.

Also please don't get me wrong, pre-defined stories have their place, especially for a gm new to a world, but they are never going to grip characters-players as much as something they genuinely decided they wanted to do.

You haven't played in one of my pen & paper games. I think you and I are touting the same ideas, but wording them differently.

Pre-defined story doesn't necessarily mean the player characters get hammered into a role that's been predetermined. I have my story outlined and know where I want to go, but as soon as I start to understand the player characters I start folding them into the story, mixing the players ideas with mine. I also don't force players down a linear story line. That's why I think it's important to understand your story forwards and backwards; If I know the big picture and where events outside the players control are going, then I can let the players take their own course and still keep them integrated into the overall story.

The next game, for instance, is integrating 3 different story threads; one is part of a store-bought campaign that I'm ripping out of it's setting to use for myself, one is a story of my own design, and one is a new thread the players started on their own in our last session based on an idea they got off an idea I inadvertently gave them. LOL

I've played in games, though, where the GM has a story and they plan to stick to it no matter what the players do and, you're right, they're no fun.

I have to admit that one of my biggest problems is that I have to be able to connect with the player characters. I have to be able to see, hear and feel their story so I can shape the overall story around them. If I can't make that connection, then I have a really, really hard time running games for them.

[Long Hall]

It still depends on the individual really, whether to use prewritten modules or create one one of your own. My first time of running a game was from something I created just a basic idea. I looked at the modules that were prewritten and I just.. couldn't handle the feeling of confinement. The modules did however provide a possible idea of an outline and how the outline of the game could go. or not to go.

That's how I tend to use store-bought material, if I use it at all. Almost all of it is designed for D&D and is more combat oriented than I'm interested in anymore, so I take the bits I like out and use them and throw everything else out the windows.

[Lupe]

Well, I have GMed 2 full games and one 1on1, I am hooked.

I changed the date setting a bit, instead of 2001 it's 2010

http://www.theagency.st-bob.net/

I GM when Rob wants a chance to play a character or when he is unavailable for the GM slot.

I guess I can announce it and put the site in the BoB listings.

[Long Hall]

And saved my butt the other night when I was sick as can be. bleh Thanks, buddy.

[Valentine]

looks like a great game!

curse your half-a-world away aspect :P

enjoy :)

[Graywulf]

pen n paper RPGing can still be a lot of fun, I'm in a really great warhammer one (fantasy rather than 40K)

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself Lupe :)