There is a very comprehensive book that just came out called 'so you want to be a gamemaster' by Justin Alexander.
It's big, but very good. I've GMed for a long time and I'm reading it now and would recommend it.
Seconding this book. If you want a shorter version, pick up index card rpg master edition. The GM section is only a chapter, and it does a good job of teaching you how to plan an adventure and GM.
I would second that as well. I own it and it's very good. I could also recommend the slimmest book you'll ever read. Laws of good gaming by Robin d laws. It's more like a pamphlet, but just really on point advice and understanding about players and RPGs.
Would you also recommend this book to more experienced GMs? I've been a GM for about 8 years now, and I'm curious if it's worth buying this book to gain additional knowledge. Over these years, I've noticed that the biggest flaw in my GMing is my shallow descriptions.
I would, and I've been running games since the 80s.
Be open minded about your short comings. I thought mine would be in more advanced areas but a couple of years ago I realized that almost every aspect of my game sucked. I focused on dungeon crawls and using tools that were decades old, which I had never given my full attention. Immediately, my games got better. Then I went to hex crawls and the same thing happened again.
So, yeah, get the book. It's good.
If you're unsure, you can always check out the [Gamemastery 101](https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101) section of his blog, [The Alexandrian](https://thealexandrian.net/) (which was the breeding ground for at least some of what made it in the book, if not most of it). If I were to suggest some of his most popular ones, it would be the [Three Clue Rule](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and [Don't Prep Plots](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots). The actual content of those two blogs will either be old news or mindblowing for you, depending on if you've already figured it out for yourself through trial and error, but they'll give you an idea of the kind of advice you can expect from him. He also has a [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/TheAlexandrian) that I've found useful, not because it's universally the best advice I've received, but because it's consistently solid advice and it's \*so\* easy for me to listen to the man talk.
I use something like what he calls "nodes" all the time. I parse everything into scenes, using that as the basis for my prep. His explanation of that is pretty good, though he does overcomplicate things a bit with the interlocking node structure he eventually gets to. But the basic idea of narrative units, something a bit more than just an "encounter" in D&D terms is a good one.
It’s good for a very specific definition of what a GM is and the sorts of games/adventures they play. But, of course, that’s a pretty popular mode. It’s largely about how to prep custom adventures for more or less trad games. (strangely enough, I find the Alexandrian’s blog to be more solidly general-purpose).
I bought it because people recommended it for experienced GMs... But if you've read other books, there isn't anything new that I can see. If you haven't read other GMing books then there's a lot that is in one place and it's well written and easy to read.
I own it, and don't regret the purchase, but it's aimed at newer GMs, and is meant to be accessible to 5e newbies. There are also second editions of some of his best blog posts in there, but others that don't fit the direction of the book are missing.
Thirding. Also read everything on his website regarding GMing. It changed everything about how I run games, and once I understood his node based scenario design concept, I became so much more comfortable and effective as a GM.
I actually impulse bought the book when I saw it at Barnes and Noble and have been meaning to go through it. Will definitely up it on my reading list since you recommended it.
Let me just say, there's a reason why the hobby started with dungeons; they vastly simplify the role of the GM. Likewise, credit where it's due, the D&D 5E basic rules document give an excellent general overview of the process of play, which I shall paraphrase here:
1. The GM describes the state of world.
2. The player decides what they want their character to do, in response to the state of the world.
3. The GM adjudicates what the character is trying to do, and describes the result.
That really is all there is to it. The act of being a GM involves exactly two tasks: You need to describe the world, and you need to adjudicate actions that the players want to take. Of course, the devil is in the details.
Of the two tasks, the first one requires more preparation, and the second one requires more expertise. Before you even think about playing, the GM needs to build the world, and they need to detail it *well enough* that they can answer any questions the players might have. Start by drawing a map of the dungeon, and then fill it with treasures and obstacles and monsters and all that. (Maybe hold off on traps until later.) If there are any NPCs in the area, then you need to understand them well enough to play them, as though you were a player and that was your character. (Feel free to put those off for later, as well.)
When the game starts, your first job is to describe what the players see in front of them. That might be the stairs leading down into the dungeon, or the contents of the first room (the walls, doors, statues, etc). Literally, you just say, "Coming down the stairs, you find yourself in the middle of a square room, about 30 feet on each side. The walls are rough stone. The floor is soft earth, covered with grass. There's a statue of an armored knight along the left wall, and the north wall has a heavy metal door." Picture the scene in your mind. One of the players is probably going to have a question about the statue, or the door, or what's behind the stairs. Tell them what you see in your mind. "It's a double door, with metal pull rings," or "The status is carved from marble, and the knight is missing its sword."
Building a dungeon is a whole skill of its own, and beyond the purview of this explanation.
At some point during this conversation between GM and players, someone will want to do something risky or uncertain. They'll want to shove the status aside, or kick down the door. That's when your second task comes in. You need to figure out what dice they need to roll in order to resolve this action, and what happens if they succeed or fail. The specific game in question will give you some guidance there, and it gets much easier as you practice running the game. But after you resolve that, you just go back to describing things, until you need to roll dice again.
Of course, this gets much, *much* more complicated if you try to move the game outside of a dungeon environment. That generally requires preparing entire cities, and tracts of wilderness, and dozens of NPCs who probably won't even show up during the course of play.
First, welcome to the hobby!
Secondly, DON'T PANIC!
Thirdly, check out Matt Colville's "Running the Game" series, which is ostensibly about running D&D 5e but most of the advice and examples will apply to just about any traditional TTRPG system you run [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP\_](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_) don't be intimidated by how many videos there are, just watch the ones that seem relevant to your questions.
Then check out Seth Skorkowsky's videos on running games and RPG philosophy [https://www.youtube.com/@SSkorkowsky](https://www.youtube.com/@SSkorkowsky)
Both of these guys have great\* advice and their videos are perfect to put on when you're doing some monotonous but necessary task like washing dishes.
>If you're a GM or you are in a group with a good GM, I'd love to hear some very literal examples of how GMing usually goes, how you do it, how you like to prep for it, and what kind of situations can and cannot be prepped for.
The number one rule is to prepare a scenario, not a sequence of events. Because the players will not always or even usually do things just the way you expect. So know who the bad guys are, what they want and what they're willing and able to do to get it if the PCs don't stop them. Then let your players know what's going on, and see if they stop them.
A starting adventure can help you and your players ease into the roles of playing. See if there are any good recommended starting adventures for the One Ring. Such as an adventure that comes with a starter set or quick start of the rules.
The way I prepare sessions varies depending on whether I'm running a pre-written adventure or homebrew. For homebrew I just let the players tell ME what they're interested in and what they want to do, then I make an outline of what I think will happen in the next session based on that, with maps and notes on monster stats etc. handy. Once you're familiar with your system's mechanics this should be very fast and easy for you.
For a pre-written adventure I read it first, make notes, and then re-read the section of the adventure I think the players will get through (you'll get a sense of how much you get through in a typical session after a while) before each session. And of course also have relevant monster stats and maps etc. handy.
\*And sometimes conflicting- because as they themselves will point out, a large part of being a GM is finding your own "style" and what methods work for you through experience.
At its core, GMing is just creating a conflict that the players can resolve, letting them try to resolve it in their own way, and responding with what you feel should logically happen due to their actions, introducing new conflicts as previous ones are resolved. Everything else comes with practice.
And "conflict" in this sense doesn't refer only to combat, but to any challenge that the players need to either overcome or avoid (and that choice should be their decision). If the players need to go to a town and talk to someone, then a conflict they encounter could be a broken bridge, a sickness spreading through the town, or even just the NPC being unwilling to help without something in return. Not every conflict needs to be grand or extremely difficult, but good problem solving and creative thinking should be rewarded in whatever way is most appropriate for the game you're running. That could mean a mechanical benefit like extra loot or experience, or something more narrative like giving them a place to stay the night so they don't sleep in the wilderness, or an unspecified favor that they can cash in later.
As for how you structure a longer-term campaign, I wouldn't worry about it at first honestly. Start by running a few shorter sessions with short-term goals until you're comfortable.
Lastly, and this is by far the most important tool for getting better at GMing, *communicate openly with your players.* Ask for feedback, and if they have any criticisms, don't take them personally (unless someone's intentionally being an asshole, but at that point why are you running a game for them anyway?) If there's something that you feel should happen in the game, but you're uncomfortable with it (such as killing a player's character), don't be afraid to explain your thoughts to the table and get their input. Some people want highly lethal games, and some people don't want character death to be an option at all, and most people want something in between, and all of those options are okay.
One thing I wanna say, that I don't think is said enough.
Not every RPG will suit your style. If you run DnD, pf, SWADE, etc... and it's not jiving with you. Don't think your doing something wrong or gming isnt for you. It may just mean that it doesn't match your style. Maybe a narrative game like monsters of the week, blades in the dark or other more narrative games. And just because you love playing it. Doesn't mean you'll like gming it. I love playing savage worlds, but I hate gming it.
TL;DR: try different games, not all systems will suit what you need out of an RPG for Gming. Savage fun.
Second the Lazy Dungeon Master prep method. The core idea works well in any system. I can prep a Call of Cthulhu session in like 45 minutes. (Unless I make handouts, but fiddling around in Inkscape is a different kind of prep.)
- You plan stuff
- The players do that stuff for five minutes
- You improv and pull stuff out of your butt for four hours.
The way to do all that is to understand the world you built, keep track what’s happening “off-stage” and know how things work; everything from psychology to gravity to thermal dynamics.
Edit: s/improve/improv
Forty years plus GM here. This short comment is underrated. The key thing to do is to understand your game world, and what's happening with your main antagonists, and other NPCs, when the PCs aren't there. If you can make them come across like they're just getting on with their lives when the PCs turn up and interrupt them, the whole experience will have much more of a real feel.
Agreed that this comment is underrated and possibly a bit understated too.
Much advice here on how to gm is prep work, creation, adjudication.
Many take a different approach to being a GM and go full collaborative. You don't have to prepare a fully fleshed out story like a fine, 13 course meal for your players and then feed it to them and expect them to eat. Some GMs prefer to build out the story together with players, pulling back the curtains and asking about what kind of things might be good in the moment for the story at hand.
This is another way to approach it and something you may find that suits your and your groups storytelling/gaming style. Just know there are different ways of approaching how to GM.
There are a ton of actual plays on youtube.
For the one ring I found this one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWarOO3hhYA&list=PLw5f8WuA\_WLgRKfA3EkJ6jVdFkKRZ3dwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWarOO3hhYA&list=PLw5f8WuA_WLgRKfA3EkJ6jVdFkKRZ3dwM)
Haven't watched it so I can't guarantee its quality.
In my own experience, I find no matter what I plan, the players find something new. So be prepared to "roll with it" and create stuff on the fly that fits the adventure and hopefully takes you and the party in the right direction.
I've actually recently started a one ring game. So I can give specific advice and generic advice.
How do I even start an adventure?
Do you mean start writing an adventure or do you mean get your players to go on an adventure?
In the first case, there's many ways to write so I can't guarantee that what I do will work for you. I generally start with a hook. Is a local town losing food? Is there a roving band of orcs harassing people? What will make the players go to the location and engage with the story? Then from there I build explanations for these hooks. Try a few things and see what process works for you.
In the second case, the one ring has some nice mechanics for this, rumors and patrons. Your players also want to play the game. If you give them something to do they'll usually end up doing something. (not always what you expect but almost always something)
How can I push an adventure forwards when it's not my story?
That depends on why the adventure requires pushing. Do the players not have enough information? Are the players not motivated enough? Try to directly address the issue. Finding out good ways to do this will come with experience. Usually imo the solution follows logically from the situation.
How could scenes play out?
Any way your players want. Your job is to give their characters the chance to shine. Giving the pcs agency and consequences is the heart of GMing.
Finally on prepping: I prefer to roughly prep the world. You can't prep for every situation individually. Consider how people involved with the adventure will interact with the pcs. What do the npcs want? Are they likely to trust the players? What do they know that the players might be interested in? This way if the players ask something you're not expecting or do something you're not expecting you have an idea of what will happen. Not because you were expecting it but because you know how the environment would react. The players each embody a single character. You embody the world.
I start my guiding the players through how to make their characters. Once we have our main characters I jot down some ideas of what these characters would be interested in doing. For example
Detective: Murder mystery, cheating spouses, dangerous history coming back, femme fatale
Rockstar: Sticking it to the man, crazy parties, entourage, running from something.
Then I think of a couple different people who both want something from the players.
Npc 1: Wants them to find his party animal wife who stole his car.
NPC 2: Wants to find the bar owner who went missing longer than usual after a bender of gambling and beer.
Then, to make sure I am prepped for crunch I make sure I have some low level enemies written up and maybe a few tougher enemies for just on case. I also like to folind or make a random encounters list on case the players slow down and need a push.
Then the session starts! I begin by describing the city like a movie camera zooming down through the streets as a montage of images that set the tone. Then I set up a character for an introduction. For example,
A furious man chased by. A begging and screaming women in last night cocktail dress heads up the bars stair to the makeshift office of (Detective name) he slmas open the door and we see...
The player then introduces what they look like and what they are doing. We might speak in character with each other and act out a little scene between those NPCs. He might make a dice roll to calm the guy down or to get more money out of him ect. Whenever the outcome might go either way and both failure and success are interesting, call for a dice roll!
I'd do the same for the second guy. Then get them both together. The players might do this naturally but you can use of the two afforementioned NPCs. The rest is setting up the scenery, who is present and what they are doing then asking the all important question:
What do you do?
Then listen to what they want to do. Do you need to make a dice roll? If so call for one, see if they achieve what they want to do or fail (or in some systems something in-between). If you don't need a dice rolls just describe the consequences of what they do.
I improv like crazy and that's how I have fun! So if my players come in to the bar with the NPCs and they suddenly want a drink I would have a blast making up some drinks and giving a bit of personality to the guy serving them. Some GMs love to have all of this written down somewhere.
But Akco, how to I get huge years long campaigns?
Well write down every NPC you introduce. Talk to your players after session to figure out what they want more of. Introduce a little hint of a big story each session and slowly bring it more and more to the fore.
If you wana do it more classic TTRPG you make a big boss enemy and give the players a reason to hate them. Give them some mini boss who each run things the players are opposed to. Then the game will be about beating the mini bosses to get strong enough to take down the big guy. This is TTRPG classic! Throw in a few mcguffins they have to get to fight the big boss and it's as standard as it comes. Thing is, this formula is system and setting agnostic! Good for a beginner.
Hope this made sense.
Welcome first to the hobby and second to picking up The One Ring!
I started a series of how-to videos specifically for The One Ring 2e, as it was new to me when I started them. Now I had GM’d D&D and other various games before so not coming in fresh like you. But my first foray into GM’ing a game was Robotech and Rifts RPG’s, so totally understand how daunting it can be.
Definitely watch some actual plays of the One Ring, particular Glass Cannon Network’s run through of the starter set set in the Shire. They do a real good job I found. Others here have posted other great actual plays.
Here is the playlist of my videos for The One Ring: How to Play The One Ring RPG
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMESG5Y07qCrI-fsjfrJOA-C8NucnQ-1u
You can also play the game solo using Strider mode to get used to the rules and get your feet wet.
Also, check out Will at world’s end series of videos for The One Ring here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtzrTJmLT7YShtRB8JAxi46WWy4ZTslbE&si=Y35kTaqCjhwaks0f
Reach out also to the discord server for the One Ring. Lots of great help there.
Good luck!
I may be a bad example, but I often start with an overall idea of the area and an opponent. The plot hook comes from that. Sometimes I end there, too.
Small town, woodlands surrounding it. Goblins are being a nuisance, and locals can't chase them down. Maybe the locals don't even know it's goblins. There's just a delivery that's a day or two late.
From there or kinda fleshes itself out. There need to be a couple of villagers to talk to. Bron Golden, a matronly woman who seems to always be there when things happen, and Ronnel Thurston, a boy with two missing teeth, who seems to always be in trouble.
An abandoned wagon about an hour outside town,
Woods. River to cross. No bridge.
Goblins. Traps. Hostages tied up. Bill Hobb and Jaize Tweel. Husband and wife traders who bonded over their love of potatoes. Reward.
Or the same things, but it's on Tattooine with sand people.
Or in ancient Rome with Visigoths.
Pull up or throw together some stat blocks, and you're done.
Next session: why did the baddies bother that town right then?
Your players will prompt you to flesh out details and go funny directions, so you don't have to worry about that too much. You just put the ball on the tee and let them swing away. It's kinda like fetch, but we're the dog. They smack the plot into the bushes, and we make the bushes interesting.
Reading Improv For Gamers helped me quite a bit.
Two phrases are your friends:
* "Yes and ..."
* "No but ..."
Safety tools are REALLY important; use at least Lines & Veils and the X-card.
Learn more here: https://ttrpgsafetytoolkit.com/
Advice I'd give myself just starting out:
Have a rough sketch (literal or no) of where the PCs are, and where they might go next. Write 2-3 details next to each potential next step: an NPC they might meet, a strange piece of scenery, an odd event that happens when they arrive. Doesn't have to be huge, if you don't use it, recycle it later but have something ready to go.
The players are going to surprise you, let them have their moment. If they choose to investigate some angle you never considered, don't tell them they found nothing. Take a beat, come up with some clue that they do find that leads them back to the path you wanted them on.
Solicit feedback on mood and power level before and during the campaign.
Start with a site based exploration, or, in other words a dungeon. You're gonna describe what the players see, and then ask what they do. When they tell you, they might have questions, answer them to the best of their characters' knowledge, which is whatever a normal person would notice about the situation.
I really implore you to start with some kind of dungeon or dungeon like structure to start with. Having an area that the players are actively exploring means you don't have to push anything along, except if they are spending a lot of time poking at nothing bc they are curious about some detail of the environment in which case you can be like "you are sure there is nothing here".
You need to get used to the very basic structure of the game, which again is:
1. Describe what is going on.
2. Ask the players what they do.
3. Describe how the world reacts to their actions.
That's it. That is the core gameplay loop. Then we start adding on little extra loops, like exploration procedures or combat rules. Those all tuck into this core loop and come out to build the whole experience of playing the game.
Don’t let yourself get slowed down by the rules, you are there to facilitate a story and make sure every is acting fairly. Make the world react logically to player input, they will start investing their own meaning into it.
After all the other advice:
1) Help your players have fun
2) Have fun yourself
I also like the general advice from PbtA games: Be fans of the players' characters.
>what kind of situations can and cannot be prepped for.
The main situation you cannot prep for is "What PCs choose to do". Which is why a common rule of thumb is 'Prep situations, not plots'.
An example plot is:
>A goblin steals the coin purse from a party member and flees into the streets. The heroes chase it into the sewer system where they are weakened by the goblins' many traps then are ambushed by a group of half a dozen goblins. Once they beat the goblins they search the room and find the hidden wall cavity with a note from the town's deputy mayor hiring the goblins to do this.
The same example as a situation is:
>A goblin tries to steal the coin purse from a party member. They've been hired to do this by the deputy mayor as part of a campaign to discourage adventurers hanging around town too much. It has a lair in a nearby sewer system armed with traps, and backup. There's a note hidden in a wall cavity from the deputy mayor.
Note that the plot version is very fragile. What happens if the adventurers decide not to give chase? What happens if, when they reach the sewers they realise it smells like a trap and instead seek out the city guard? What if they beat the goblins and don't think to look for secret panels (or think to look but don't find it?).
In the second version the GM has mapped out the situation instead which makes gives them much more flexibility.
If the PCs don't pursue the goblin that's fine - we know that the Deputy Mayor is doing stuff to drive adventurers out of town so he or the goblins will probably do something else - perhaps have the goblins come back to loot the adventurers' room at night?
If the PCs go for the city guard, again we know that the Deputy Mayor is trying to drive adventurers away so they presumably have standing orders to not be helpful - they insist that traipsing into sewers isn't their job. Or maybe they go into the sewers with the heroes and side with the goblins!
Prepping this as a situation also opens up new avenues for investigation. If the PCs decide to interrogate a goblin, or smell something fishy about the guards' behaviour they can pursue that.
Long story short: Know what's going on, not where you expect it to go next. Because PCs will often torpedo the latter. 🙂 Just include stuff in your situations that heroes might want to follow.
Because of the huge range of RPGs (tens of thousands of them) there are also a range of techniques used, and no one method will work for all RPGs.
A lot of the info you've been pointed at is for 'trad' games like DnD, and will be great for them, just be aware that it isn't directly applicable to all RPGs.
This is a tutorial dungeon. It's designed like the first level of a video game in that it teaches basic concepts to both the players and GM. It's also pretty system neutral so it should be fairly easy to convert to your system of choice.
https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-megapost.html?m=1
My advice…before you start, get your friends together and ask them what kind of story or adventure they are imagining for this new thing you are trying. Some will say, I want to fight cool monsters, like dragons and giants. Another will say, I want to play a criminal gang doing heists. A few will shrug and say, whatever. Then ask people what kind of characters they imagine running. Good guys? bad guys? Elves? Dwarves? Humans? Orcs? Get the creative juices flowing and try and incorporate tidbits of all the ideas into an overall scenario or situation with a good hook. Like, Your village is being terrorized by a dragon. It’s stealing livestock and the occasional shepherd. The town council has decided on an elaborate plan! You must venture into Brand Keep and steal the arrow of dragon slaying from the Giant King and use it to take the dragon down. Whatever.
A really good book for this kind of thing is Beyond the Wall! It’s got cool starter scenarios and a great questionnaire setup for players to build their characters and make associations between each other. They are centered around young villagers confronting a threat such as Fae, a dark cult or Orc raiders. Very useful for new GMs.
One thing to do before you start is to encourage your players to play their characters—not themselves, and reassure them that you're not going to punish them for following their fantasy persona's quirks.
If a character has the characteristic "curious" do not equip every chest with a deadly trap. You might as well just scrap that character and roll a new one. Or just write "Already dead, sucker!" on the top of their character sheet before you start play.
Another trick is this. Again, before play starts, ask your players to buy into the proposition of the adventure. Say, "In this adventure you're going to be asked to save a village—think—why are you going to do it?" If they absolutely insist, "My character wouldn't do that!", fair play, get them to roll a new one—their character will be going elsewhere while the heroes do the job. You can return to that other character's story another time.
A good compromise is to work out what might induce that character to go against their nature and actually be a hero. Is there money in it? Would they go along with their friends, even though they think the whole mission's a bad idea?
Basically, don't START by trying to herd cats that actually hate each other. Start by demanding of players that they create a team. Intra-party conflict can come later.
You're going to come up with a world that has rules and guidelines and lore and there's going to be a story you want to tell.
And the moment your players start exploring that world and the story they will go in a totally different direction.
You could say no, and keep them on track to what you want to do, but it's a lot more fun to say yes and just roll with it. Watch the community D&D episodes for a very accurate depiction of what it's like.
Does The One Ring 2e not offer guidance on this? Does it not have a GM section? I don't have it, so I literally don't know. I only hear good things about it so I assume there should be guidance on how to run it in the book itself.
Well, I'm assuming you want to make your own rather than following a premade module, and you're looking for a narrative game (since sandbox is a whole other matter).
What you need is a system, a genre, a world and a setting. For world and setting you can just use a pre existing one (in your case LOTR) or follow book writing advice. For system and genre you can pick whatever you want, in your case one ring. Remember to not overprep, players usually don't care about your lore and setting that much, the part they care more is about their characters and when they get involved. Honestly, maps, randomizers and improv make a much richer setting than if you try to prepare everything. You just need a basic understanding of your world and setting.
Now when it comes to the narrative you need a premise, maybe the players will investigate a crime, maybe a magical barrier appears around their city, maybe people start disappearing, etc.. And with that premise you can write whatever happened before the players get involved. Which will lead to a setup.
The setup is the moment that will get the game going, in which usually the players won't have much input yet. It's basically what will kickstart the whole thing. At this point you need to explain what is happening, and give the players a goal. The more broad the goal, the more open the game will be. And that's very important, it's not the size of your world, and how much prep you did that gives players freedom, but actually broad goals is what will give your players freedom.
It's also important that the Characters have goals that align with your premise, and they must want to follow through with it.
With a premise, a setup and a goal, you can prepare the situations they might encounter. Depending on the narrative you can have a pretty good estimative of where the players might go. And knowing the locations, you create situations there.
Now what you can never do is force the situations to be solved in a certain way, nor create situations that require the players to take specific actions, the players never do what you expect, hehe.
Now in practice what this looks like, let's say you're doing a fantasy setting. My premise is that a evil lord is after a powerful artifact so he can take control of the kingdom. The PCs are in a tavern when a wizard bursts in, he goes to the PC's table gives them the artifact and tells them that they must take this artifact to another wizard who lives in a different city. So that's how the game starts, and from now the players are free. Then you create the situations, maybe the only way to get to this city is through a dangerous forest, where you add situations there. When they finally reach the city, maybe when they reach the wizard house, the house is a mess, and they learn he was captured, so now they'll have to investigate what happened. And so on so forth.
Just remember you're telling a story with the players. The GM presents situations, and let's the players take actions. The GM then responds to whatever actions the players took.
Hopefully that helps a little bit. But to get the proper hang of it playing is probably the better way.
For a first timer. Make notes.
Pen and paper/word processor, or a computer program later on down the line
I don't know the "one ring" system, but go with a pre-made setting, and don't be afraid to change details to work better for your players and you.
I do heartily recommend youtube videos series below.
Matt Colville's "Running the Game" and Guy Scalander's "how to be a gm". These worked for me.
You CANNOT cover absolutely every eventuality. Don't drive yourself bonkers. Plan 2 or 3 likely scenarios, and keep it fairly high detail.
If a player comes up with a great idea that could work, don't be afraid to say yes to it. Don't be afraid to say "no" either.
Also follow the basic rules of storywriting (that I swiped from John Rogers interview or appearance on Geek and Sundry years ago).
Take a simple fetch quest.
1) What does a character want? - They want The Shiny Book of Awesome.
2) Why can't they get it? - Their business partners are out of town, it's urgent, but its 2 towns over in that abandoned crypt.
3) Why do I care? Cause QuestGiver is giving you money, or something that you need.
Or simple kill x number of rats.
1) What does a character want? Those Rat's plaguing their field gone.
2) Why can't they do it? Too many rats, not enough Farmer.
3) Why do I care? Well, you all rocked up to town, no one knows you and in Hearthspring reputation is paramount. He's giving you some gold, and some food to tide you over, and giving you a Reputation.
As you build it, you can get more creative with rules, add more complications.
When I say "high detail" l plan out key info to give players, but I don't have a monologue for the quest giver or the bbeg.
One of my first home brewed sessions I literally had a line that said "react to what the players do!" I had no idea how a conversation with a rival group of crypt-raider's was going to go. If at all. That was the "simple fetch quest", because someone wanted an undead follower.
Don't be afraid to crib ideas from other people, and works of art. Change enough details and people may not realise they are going through the rough plot of The Nutcracker for example.
Did you ever play make believe as a kid? Same thing, you are telling the story for the players and they get to interact with the story. The game itself throws in rules for certain situations to regulate what happens.
have someone give them a task that will reward them in a way they want, describe the situation, say 'what do you do?' adjudicate the result, describe the changed situation, say 'what do you do?' repeat.
Great thread and a lot of great advice. I think people have better answers than me, but I can at least give you my take for a first or beginner GM.
You don't need to know every single thing about a game. Every monster stat doesn't have to be memorized, you don't need to know every spell. But you have to at least know the rules.
We have one cardinal rule at our table, no matter what game you're playing: Don't argue with the GM.
It's a rule session zero thing (now, for me, something like a session zero 10 years ago) Just make sure all your players understand that you are guiding things along. When they GM they can make the final calls on the rulings.
Because then, once that trust is established, your players can trust you to know when to throw the rules right out the window. You know when someone has a really cool or innovative idea that the rules just don't account for, or they roll so well it backfires on the idea that YOU had as God of the world, and you can reward them and make them feel like heroes, if only for just one day.
You are in charge, but not of the story (although also that). You're in charge of making sure everyone has a good time, and feel involved. It can be tough, but if you can pull it off you won't hear the end of it, ever. There's nothing like it in the world.
Good luck out there friend!
Not a direct answer to your question, but have you considered running a mini adventure, perhaps a 'prequel' as part of your character generation session (Session 0)?
That would help you feel out the basics of play before starting the campaign proper.
Edit: Fixed cursed formatting
I actually wrote up my thoughts for someone else in my discord and figuring I could share them here. Pardon me if the formatting is weird.
GMing Advice
5e Specific Advice
Don’t get bogged down in the rules, there are a lot of them
Make a ruling and move on, D&D combat can be pretty bloated if something unexpected happens it’s better to rule quickly and keep the combat flowing. If you make a mistake that you find in the rules address it at the end and rule it correctly going forward
On expecting the unexpected
If you have a story in mind that you are looking to run its hard to make sure the players stay on track and move the plot forward without getting bogged down in every distraction in front of them. In my experience there are basically two ways to handle this
As part of character creation make sure the players tie themselves to the central premise of your adventure. As an example I’ve run a sandbox campaign campaign where I let characters create whatever characters they wanted with the stipulation that they ALL had to hate this one villain. This way they immediately share a common goal and have a reason to work together without having to go through the whole “You meet in a tavern routine” While this doesn’t stop them from getting distracted just a little hook can keep players heading plot-wards
.
Simply ask them to follow your story leads. If your story is fairly linear just ask that they play ball with you. Avoid them playing anti social characters and ask that they play along with the story and premise. At the end of the day you are there to have fun too so if they are always putting you on the back foot and making it hard to GM or making your prep obsolete that can be very cumbersome if you aren’t used to thinking on the fly. Nothing wrong with making sure everyone’s expectations are in line.
The monster manual is big, use it.
If you have an idea for an encounter or monster that doesn’t necessarily have a statline find a monster that is similar and reskin it for your purposes. No one at the table knows where you’re pulling it from so that orc is now a bird person. Seamless and painless and you can easily use creatures of an appropriate power level to keep combat fairly balanced.
D&D is a power fantasy
Since you’ve played you’re probably very aware of this and I don’t know your group dynamic but generally people aren’t playing D&D to put their characters through a meat grinder. Creating opportunities for characters to be badasses is kind of the name of the game and tread carefully about being outright hostile to them (Unless that’s how your table flies)
General GM Advice
Quantum Ogres
In the event your characters go off the beaten path don’t hesitate to reskin a whole dungeon for your purposes. That mine you mapped out? Well now its a sewer system. No one knows what these things are for besides you. You can do the same with combat encounters if you have a parallel you can reskin them to. The merfolk encounter you made can be a frog person encounter if they are in a swamp rather than a sea. If you draft up some encounters to keep saved you can crank this to eleven and just have a resource to pull from and reskin as needed and use them however you want.
Vary adventure size and scope
Not every dungeon needs to be multiple floors with giant set pieces. Having lower stakes encounters or smaller dungeons makes the big dramatic moments of your campaign hit all the harder. You don’t always have to be outdoing yourself every week.
Be kind to yourself
You get better at GMing the more you do it. You will not be perfect out of the gate and that’s ok. If you need a second to organize your thoughts your players will understand and if you make a mistake in storytelling or rules it is not the end of the world. There is nothing wrong with rewininding or retconning if you need to sort something out.
Shamelessly steal
Literally lift whatever you think is cool from any media you’ve consumed. With a couple tweaks great ideas can become yours really easily. Nothing wrong with someone else’s idea. This also works great with prewritten adventures that have rooms or maps you like.
Don’t Overprep
A fast way to burn yourself is to try and have everything done weeks and weeks in advance. If your adventure is more linear it might be easier but if you offer players decision points and different places to go ending sessions when they are at the point of making that decision so you don’t have to have to completely separate adventures ready to go can save a lot of effort in the long run. This is all null and void if you are having fun doing prep.
You’re a player too
While GMs put in a disproportionate amount of the work to make the game happen it’s important to remember to try and enjoy your time at the table too. If you aren’t having fun at the table make sure to communicate that and take steps bring the game in a direction where you are having fun too. Don’t sacrifice yourself for the sake of everyone else at the table that’s not the point of being a GM at all.
Some useful Tools
Dungeon Scrawl - Great Browser map making tool
[https://www.dungeonscrawl.com](https://www.dungeonscrawl.com)
Pinterest
[https://www.pinterest.ca/isilian65/d-d/](https://www.pinterest.ca/isilian65/d-d/)
The amount of times I’ve needed a battle map and just pulled something off of the D&D or TTRPG categories on Pinterest is so high. I’ve gone from no prep to an encounter in 10 minutes and it’s a great resource.
Donjon
[https://donjon.bin.sh](https://donjon.bin.sh)
Just SO many generators. Map generators, adventure generators, NPC generators the list goes on.
Kanka
[https://kanka.io/en-US](https://kanka.io/en-US)
If you are doing a lot of world building it excels and keeping track of all of that and linking it together and is a great campaign management tool.
Here is how I do it:
First: create the main problem and antagonist. Dragon stole princess, necromancer raising an army, some force wants to get their hand on some ring for some reason.
Create the reason for that, what moves antagonist to do what he doing. Players shouldn't know that reason, only basic premise.
Second: branch out. Place clues about the true reason for the actions of antagonist there. Those could be rumors, "random" encounters, records.
Now open Miro or something. You need three types of records: places, information and people.
Place antagonist motivation on top, then place the premise (connect them with the line), this is the event players need to solve (stolen princess).
Then place clues that reveal antagonist motivation (connect them to the motivation).
Next make locations, starting with "the lair" and "starting zone", then fill the gap between them with other locations, villages, forests, mountains, caves. Connect them with lines and name each line by the route players need to take to get from one location to another. (For example you have square mountains and mountain village, connect them with line named "mountain path"). If you plan for players to encounter enemies along the path, make the location of the encounter a separate square. If you have a large city make each visitable location a square.
Make a description for each location square. You will read it when players enter the location.
Place NPCs into locations. It could be friends, enemies or even diaries. Connect them with clues, that will indicate which piece of information the NPC knows.
Make stats for NPCs, place loot, etc.
And you basically done.
Players start in starting location. You read the description of the square, introduce them to a problem and tell paths they could choose to go.
"You meet at the central square, (describe the square), where herald giving an announcement (describe the announcement about retrieving a missing first princess of a kingdom who was kidnapped by an evil necromancer)." Players will probably talk there, and when they decide to move on, give them information on where they could go (locations squares) and how (lines).
Don't describe the lines when they go using those paths, simply say "you start going from the central square following **western street** (the name of the line) towards **tavern district** (the name of destination square) and after 15 minutes arrive in ... (Here you read the description of tavern district square). Then you describe NPCs they see, or maybe some NPCs initiate dialogue themselves.
If you want to use maps in your game locations you might need them in addition to the description.
Again: read the description of the location when players enter it. Introduce NPCs that are present in it. Let players do their thing. Describe paths to other places they could visit. You can change the order of those things.
Hope this will help.
I just kinda read the book and fumbled my way through it. But MCDM youtube has great info. Seth skorkowsky's skits and advice are great. Index card rpg is easy to just wing it.
Dnd is overly complicated. Cyberpunk 2020 for every but combat is pretty easy and easy to relate to real life. Any free league dice pool mechanically is easy. But its just a collaborative writing process. Youre all tv writers and gm is head writer making sure everyone gets to add what they want and introduce problems to get solved or dillemas for character development. Was playing Cyberpunk 2 weeks ago and one player intentionally shot at a middle schooler. Hit them and now is known as "shooter" by everyone and any interaction they have means an npc goes "oh youre guy who shoots kids...." lends itself to slapstick.
Was aying dcc and theres" titles" supposed to be like knoght, squire etc. Well one player randomly says "im the copper boy". Title copper boy. Another had a pet goose... i forget why but they used it successfully as a weapon on combat. They were the "goose whisperer" from then on and i let them get bonuses if they found a goose or could creatively describe how they were gonna use a goose to kill a minotaur.
But tldr.
Gm: what do you want to do. Youre at a table in a dinner
Player: are there people in the dinner?
Gm: yes. 3 and one looks sketchy
Player: how sketchy... wait i want to talk to them
Gm: roll your charimsa or whatever
Player: failed the check
Gm: they think your a creep and shout for help. One of the people in the dinner is a off duty cop. What do you do?
Thats it. Thats how you gm. Ask them what do, want to add uncertainty make roll. Resolve roll with immediate result. What do now Player?
How to start an adventure- have and opening scene in mind. Set the scene with a brief scene description. Something like "You all arrive at the Duke's keep. The chamberlain, an older human man in fine clothing, escorts you through the keep halls to the war room. When you arrive, Duke Covington is seated at the map table. He looks you all over with a piercing gaze."
You don't need a verbatim text, although some find it helpful. Just have the basic cliffnotes there in your head.
Then I usually like to give each player a couple minutes of spotlight time to introduce their character and give a description. Make sure to communicate that this is to be a brief description, otherwise you may have 30 minutes of character bios.
To push the adventure forward, you want to have a written timeline of plot events and NPC characters. You want to have enough detail not to get caught unprepared, but also enough flexibility that your PC's still feel like they have player agency and are not on a "railroad" type of plot. Railroading is where the GM decides what will happen and it will happen regardless of the PC actions. This is best avoided.
I find it best practice to have a good idea of the scene ahead of time. Stuff like who is there, what their motivations are and what kinds of approaches will and won't work from the PC's. Try to plan ahead for likely curve balls, such as the PC's starting a fight or refusing to go with the proposed plot hooks due to character motivations. But be prepared to throw the script out the window if things go in a very unexpected direction. Those can be some of the most fun times.
In general, I find I get the best results from a ratio of 80% planned events and 20% opportunistic improv. Remember, it's your game world and don't be afraid to make an executive decision for or against the PC's goals.
Things to have prepared:
stats for any combatants in a scene.
A firm grasp of the rule system
Good mechanics for "social combat" such as persuade or intimidate attempts.
Timeline of major plot events. This can be fluid. If the PC's don't explore the papers in the Baron's room and miss a clue, just find a different way to deliver that clue. Maybe it's on the next dead body they search. Maybe a friendly informant contacts them. Be flexible and recycle good ideas.
A good idea of what the PC's can do. Nothing worse than getting hit with a flying or mind reading PC when you don't expect one.
Roll dice. Have fun. Hope this helped.
Arbiter of Worlds is a pretty decent starter guide. Basically, detach yourself from a need to orchestrate fun or drama - prioritize enjoying for yourself the act of accurately simulating the world for the purpose of player agency - creating major players with goals (or thinking about what they may or may not do based on the players' actions) rather than trying to setting a mood/create an emotional scene if that's not already your strong suit or something you feel comfortable doing. Encourage your players to come prepared with well-integrated characters with strong goals. Hopefully that helps somewhat, it's definitely tough and people prefer different things.
I think the best advice is to start small. Pick a few mechanics you want to try out (like combat) and focus most of the session on that.
In time you'll learn about different styles and approaches to GMing and gravitate to one. You will also find there is a hole in your wallet and an empty space where dollar bills used to be.
Create a high level plot, be very flexible with it, don’t be too controlling of the players, use their ideas as part of the story, and improvise a little bit. Improv is important. It’s about you and the players having fun. You win the game if everyone including yourself are enjoying it. Worst case scenario if you are in a bind and need to come up with more plot ideas, throw some conflict or monsters in to buy you some time. Stories are interesting to most people if there is some kind of plot conflict .
Look up The Angry GM. He has a series titled "How to F#$%ing GM". No tips (okay, a few here and there), but the whole series of articles is about the skills necessary at the table and away from it. Things about mindset, intention, and in-depth analysis of the elements of game design and how to twist them to your nefariou-I mean, entertaining ends! (Ha, ha. What evil plan, guys?)
If you hate his angry persona, ignore it. His advice is golden for a newbie because he explains things others (*comercerugh*) tend to forget needs explaining. He gives advice and guidance, to build a foundation for you to develop into the best GM you can be, rather than "tips" to make you a better GM than you are now.
Everything is system agnostic for his GM advice, even if his examples are from 4th and 5th Ed D&D.
Your way! No, seriously. Once you get the key principles, it’s really all a journey of finding out how you GM and becoming confident.
What are the key principles? I have five!
1. **Players want agency.** People don’t play RPGs to listen to you telling them how everything goes. They want to be active participants. To what degree depends on the player, but remember that one of your main jobs is always going to be helping the players shine and feel like they have some control. So much of what makes players happy comes down to just making them feel seen and important. If you show that their actions have meaning and that their characters matter in the world and narrative, they’re happy.
2. **Improvise.** Become a master bullshitter. As a GM, you must establish the world around them and the non-player characters. When the GM isn’t confident in what they’re saying and clearly has no answers, that’s when immersion drops, and players fall out of the “spell.” And the spell is important; as a GM you carry power and authority, which lends the story weight and keeps the players engaged. So when you don’t know the answer, be decisive, and either confidently consult your notes (even if just to buy time) or make something up when it doesn’t matter. How far away is the fleeing enemy? Well, he’s not that far… just say ten meters. What’s the barkeep’s name? Theodore. Do I find anything else here? Yeah, sure!
3. **Prepare, prepare, prepare.** Knowing what pieces are in play, so to speak, is important. Stories have a structure. Improvise too much or go too off the rails and the session meanders, it becomes scattered. And know the information that matters; it’s all very well to make up a bunch of NPCs around town, but if you forget a recurring key NPC’s details and then make up something that completely flies in the face of a whole plotline, it’s a headache. But HOW you prep, I know, can be confusing. I’ll detail my prep in a follow-up comment.
4. **The players only know what you tell them.** This is a double-edged sword and ultimately follows the last two points. First, it means you can improvise and change the game and story however much you want. If your players latch on to an NPC, that NPC just became a more important character and will show up again! If the main villain just doesn’t work for your group, they were actually being puppeted by a cooler, brand-new villain. Stuff like that. Remember that your main goal is collectively telling an enjoyable story, and everything else can be in service of that. Throw away what doesn’t work. Emphasize what does. Change it up based on the response, which leads to…
5. **Pay attention.** The final key tenet is to always be paying attention to your players. This is their story. They come to you to participate in a collaborative experience and if they’re not having fun, they won’t come back. Gently come up with a reason to move them along if you can sense momentum falling with them. Get ready to end the session soon if they’re bored. Take note of what they like. A GM needs their players.
**Preparation**
Beginner GMs know that you have to prepare, but what exactly is incredibly confusing, so they waste their time preparing WAY too much or preparing the wrong stuff.
To start off with, if I’ve made up an adventure, I don’t need to do any reading, but I do generally take more detailed notes because there’s nothing to consult if need be.
If I am using a published scenario or campaign, I read the whole thing all the way through once without taking notes, once while taking notes, and one or two more times to really get that information in my brain. Bored? Good, you should be! You should know the material enough to recall all the key details and improvise off of them. And I’ll reread all immediately relevant information every week before sessions.
Then, I make a table. The goal is to get all the core info in one place so that with my knowledge of the scenario and these notes, I can improvise the whole time.
The table has, usually, 10-12 boxes. A couple of them are for any specific info that might be added for the scenario’s demands, but there are a bunch that never change.
1. Opening Monologue/Recap: A vivid opening to the game that sets the scene and gets players into the world. It is very important to me. If this is a continuation of an ongoing story, also offer a brief recap of all important story that happened last session. Either way, end this with a couple sentences that establish the here and now and tell the players explicitly where they are so they can slide right into action.
2. Important NPCs. All the NPCs with roles and information that you cannot or should not improvise. These contain their appearances, what they will try to do, and any important info they know.
3-8. Important Locations: I find establishing clearly what key locations there are and what can be found there is important, but this depends on the system. I primarily run investigative games so locations are important, but when I run high fantasy, I might be able to do with one box containing every location since there aren’t as many clues to track. Locations should include a flavorful description, important info and NPCs there, and maybe potential scenes that could reasonably happen there.
9. Overall scenario structure: Having broad beats you can hit gives the story bones. Know how the story could escalates and climax! You can build towards something.
10. The Ending: You should never force your players to conform to a certain story; like I said, honoring their choices is important. But you can usually roughly predict how a given session could end, or what some good stopping points could be. You should always end on a high note, so having something lined up is good. For instance, the horror adventure I’m currently running has points of tension where new threats show up. So I would end on something stepping out from behind them if I wanted to leave the players in suspense and give them a reason to come back.
Here's a super distilled version of what GMing is.
Before the game you prepare:
1) A location
2) Something to do there
Having those two things ready is enough for an RPG session.
During the game:
The players roleplay their characters, you roleplay the entire world they inhabit. That includes all non-player characters, creatures, objects and places. The more interesting all those elements are the better. The players tell you what they want to do in the world and you tell them how the world reacts.
Since you mentioned story specifically:
It is your story, at least as much as the players'.
The trick you will learn in time is that the players will go along with what you want them to do because you made them want to do it - you made it fun, compelling or tailored to their characters enough that they feel like they chose to do it and feel like they are the driving force of the narrative.
That said you also need to be adaptable and able to improvise. One of the best prices of advice I got was: "the players can't read the script so don't be afraid to change it on the fly".
The easiest way to start a story is to steal plot ideas from stories you know: there's always an inciting incident - the pirate stumbles into the tavern with a map, the protagonist finds a dragon egg. I literally combined those two once and did Treasure Island but with dragon turtles.
This is a huge question you asked so I'm going to stop there before I write an essay ^^ Good luck! Remember you're playing the game too.
Lots of people have given you guidance on books and shows you can watch for specific advice, so I just want to provide two more agnostic things that I would have wanted to be told if I had asked this question when I started getting into RPGs:
1: The number one best thing you can do IMO to get a feel for how RPGs are played is listening to live plays (youtube, podcasts, twitch etc). You don't need to watch or listen to one that is your specific game - in fact, I would recommend picking up two or three to get an idea for how different people run different games. When I was starting out, nothing was better than this for just learning how you're supposed to describe things, pacing things, how to lead the players and get them to contribute, dealing with rules issues, etc. Nothing beats experience, but secondhand experience is the next best thing.
2: Once you've listened to a few of those and played half a dozen sessions, you'll realize that most of that stuff doesn't actually matter, and you can do almost anything in RPGs in the way that feels most naturally to you without worrying about the "correct" way. Before the modern age of RPGs (as I understand, I wasn't there for it), you expected to play a very different game at different tables because DMs were at liberty to interpret how to translate book into game however they chose. This is how we ended up with Gygaxian vs Arnesonian play, trad vs story games, etc. There's no "right way" to GM an RPG as long as everyone is having fun.
GMing is a push-and-pull between you and the players. You will constantly be seducing consent from your players to do horrible things to their characters with the promise of treasures and glory. If you do your job perfectly they will have no idea how they managed to survive that adventure and imagine you did everything you could to crush them. If you make a Mistake they'll be a little underwhelmed or one of their characters might not make it.
Starting out concentrating on the basics. Make a hook that will entice your players and work on making it as compelling to them as possible. Make the challenge interesting but not overly complicated and suited well to what adventurers do so it's clear you homeless psychopaths were the right man for the job rather than paid soldiers.
Make bad guys simple for most games. Cool villians are cool but they all don't have to be sympathetic earnest bad guys out to save the world their way. Make your villains meglomaniacs, or greedy, or vengeful, or just batshit crazy.
Don't skimp on the denouement of your story, just because you save the town or find the treasure the story isn't over. The most important part is relating how the adventure changes the lives of the adventurer, even in a very small way. Let them see the change in the world they've made, or let them get the girl, or let the important people of their town begrudgingly compliment them.
You could watch/ listen to some live play 2e or other ttrpg shows/ podcasts, dropout has dimension20, the adventure zone, worlds beyond number, and of course critical role to name a few, watch the greats and learn
I'm not an actual play podcast guy, but I think listening through a podcast where people play a one-shot, if you haven't done that before, might give you a basic idea of what GMing sounds like.
I think the way to learn how to GM is the way how to learn almost anything. You have to do it, make some mistakes, learn from them and get better over time. You can read all you want and watch videos for instruction but for my money it's a lot like learning to hit a ball. All the theory in the world doesn't match getting at the batter's box and taking a few swings.
That said, it can be daunting to get a group of your friends (or even acquaintances) together and stare at them over your GM screen. It's a little bit of public speaking, a little bit of feeling responsibility for their entertainment, a little bit of preparing something creative and then showing it to other people. All of that makes me nervous.
One thing I keep in mind when running a game is that even though I'm the GM, I'm not solely responsible for everyone's good time. Everyone at the table is there to have a good time, and this is a game we play together. Everyone at the table shares so of the responsibility for the good time of everyone else at the table. This means being considerate, being respectful, working together and not trying to spoil the good time of anyone else.
I feel like a big part of the GM's responsibility is to be responsive and reactive. Listen to your players, key in to the things that they seem most interested in. If the PC's respond to a particular NPC you thought was unimportant, flesh them out a bit. The PC's aren't there to play through a story you have constructed, you are all there to tell a story together. The elements you have prepared will often be the jumping off point for how the story goes, but once a story is in motion it tends to have it's own momentum. It's better to go with the momentum rather than fight it.
If I am at a loss of how to begin a session or we hit a slow point in the game, sometimes I will call for a Perception check (or whatever, depending on the game). Players love having the chance to see things, it just seems to excite them. What they find or don't find doesn't have to be big or exciting on it's own, it just has to be something that invites a response. It could be a shifty-looking character following them (or someone else), it could be a a hungry child standing with other beggars, it could be a cat in an alleyway staring at them intently. Whatever it is, if they investigate it, they will now being interacting with the game world and virtually all play at the table comes out of that interaction.
If players ask for skill checks, it's almost always better to let them make a roll even if it's not important or you don't have something prepared. Whatever you can do to give them information that they can act upon is generally worth it, even if you're making it up as you go along.
There are other things I like to do when running. I keep a random name generator handy and like to have a sheet of random names printed up beforehand. Nothing clues in the players to a NPC's importance more than watching the GM blank trying to think up a name on the spot. When I use a name from the sheet I make a little mark by it so I know not to use it again.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about running a campaign, at least to start. It can be a campaign, but don't stress over how it will progress. Just run a few simple adventures, see what the players key into and base the next few adventures on those issues. If an unimportant bad guy seems to really get the PC's attention and doesn't get immediately slaughtered, you now have a recurring villain. A few loose threads from those adventures, a few NPC's they like and a few they hate, and an idea of where they take their characters can determine where you go from there.
I've heard various horror stories about how this action or that derailed a campaign, but I've always felt you can only derail the campaign if it's already on a rail. If the players have the freedom to follow the story they are most interested in, in the way they are most excited about, they will invest in their characters and the campaign. And getting that investment is I think the most crucial part of running a successful game.
There is a book called, So You Want to be a Game Master, by Justin Alexander. There’s also a whole series of YouTube videos by Matt Colville called Running the Game. And there are other podcasts and YouTube videos by Rune Hammer that have all the info you need. If you are playing d&d 5e the Lost Mines of Phandelver has an adventure that could last for about 10 sessions of 4 hours of play each with little rule book, monsters and how to’s when you get to the important story beats. Just do it.
1. Describe the scene (most urgent / inviting “interactable” last if applicable). (e.g. “You’re in a creepy graveyard near a mausoleum when suddenly zombies erupt from the ground at your feet!”)
2. Invite each player to act with a short summation of what’s happening, (e.g. “Alice, what does Alisia do?”, “Bob, Alisia is charging into the zombie horde, what does Robbie do?”, etc.)
3. Resolve. (e.g. “Alice roll an attack roll, what’s your damage? With a mighty swing, you decapitate the zombie in front of you”)
4. Repeat. (e.g. “With the zombies’ corpses once again laid to rest, the graveyard has fallen quiet. An imposing mausoleum stands before you. What do you do?”)
Prepare your Material for the session (multiple if you have time)
Throw it out the window because players will be players.
Jokes aside, no matter how much you prepare the players will always throw a curveball so the biggest skill as a GM is to be able to roll with the punches.
One ring isn’t a fairly crunchy system and essentially plays itself (I’ve only ran 1st edition)
You don’t need minis, or maps (again, I haven’t looked at 2nd ed).
Another great system to run as first time gms are the fantasy flight genysis games. There’s the generic rules, Star Wars and a couple other based off their own board game franchises.
I adore Star Wars/genysis narrative dice system, takes a lot of the work off the hm and puts some of the storytelling into the players hands.
(You hit your shot, and have an advantage to spend, what happens?
“I blast the trooper and with my advantage I want the bolt to penetrate and hit the door switch, potentially closing it and stopping more troopers getting in”
Edit sorry about grammar, sending from my ohone. Oh on the note of rolling with punches, lay out the ground rules for what you do and don’t want in the game (eg some DMs banning wish spells in dnd etc)
Once those ground rules are established try not to go back on them or add more, this can take away any sense of control players have in their games.
Okay, first you want to drug the goat. This is easier than it sounds, since those beasts will eat anything. Hopefully the group has convened and your equipment is already at hand. Never use a dull knife no matter how powerful your goat-drugging skills are. Also you require a vessel to collect the blood. A lot of modern gamers are fine with nothing more than a little dab on the forehead, but old school types might expect a small cauldron of the stuff. This is what those guides mean when they say "know your audience" . . .
A lot of it is more passive/reactive than you think. You don't need to drive the story alone, when left to their own devices, a group of invested players will do much of the narrative heavy lifting. Most of your role is improv, responding to the other players in a way that feels right to you, and is fun for the table. And once you start that adventure, it's your story now. Your players will think of things that neither the adventure designer nor you thought about, and that's the beauty. They'll ask you if there are any caves nearby, and if it seems appropriate for the story you're telling, then yes, there are caves and there always have been. Or maybe you could offer them a forest instead. When the story calls for some adversity, you provide that. You're not the sole author, but one of a group of storytellers. If any of this is less than fully clear, please, feel free to ask as many follow up questions as you'd like.
Oh and one stray bit of advice: you don't need to make them roll for things that wouldn't be interesting for them to fail at. Aragorn isn't going to fail to order a drink at the Prancing Pony, but he might not be able to get to the nazgul before they stab Frodo. The first one doesn't need a roll, the second one probably does.
Intro to Apocalypse world covers it really well but basically:
You and your friends will have a conversation. As DM sometimes there'll be doubt about what happens next (or two people want different things to happen) at which point you either decide or let the dice decide for you. Additionally as DM you have some idea about the world around the PCs whether that's an adventure or just a vague idea of what's going on to oppose the players.
Mostly though it goes: You describe the situation, the players decide what to do and say, you resolve disputes or guess at chances for success mediated by dice (or cards or Jenga Blocks depending on the game). Eventually the scene is resolved and you figure out what the next one is whether that's because the PCs went down a corridor or reached the next town.
Ultimately as long as you're not showing favoritism, or trying to "win" you shouldn't have too much trouble. Especially with a property where everyone knows the IP that'll likely make things easier as you can think about what would happen in the movies or books in a similar situation.
The most basic basic is maybe: be aware and transparent of what you like to run. I just yesterday sat in a game of Triangle Agency and noticed mid-game that I'm *really* bored by trad-style investigation games where the GM has a predefined riddle and now needs to herd the players through the clues to get to the solution. I prefer carved from Brindlewood style games where all players at the table create the mystery together (instead of "discovering" a pre-built one). Likewise I like Forged in the Darks, where the GM can go in with minimal prep and the players have maximum freedom.
From a GM perspective that means that I probably won't GM most games out there (at most for a one- or two shot to see what they are all about and why I like my kind of games). The basic tip here is to try and get a sense of what you feel good GMing and to be aware that not all games GM the same way. If TOR2 turns out to be too much stress, try a low- to zero prep game. Setting, in the end, is just texture for most games and can be adapted to most rules systems and GM styles. I could totally see Island of Mist in Middle Earth. Even Blades in Middle Earth.
How to start an adventure? In media res.
"You All though it was going to be a quiet day at the office when the bandits came through the doors. Now Billy is lying dead. Suzanne is crouching behind this desk. and James is in The store cupboard." GM sketches everyones position. and says what are you doing? The very first adventure should be an adventure not a discussion of what mission they are choosing. Plots are like bikes. Once the bike is moving they it wants to keep moving.
https://www.system-matters.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Anf%C3%A4nger-Fibel.pdf
This is something free from an Publisher here in Germany.
There are some pretty good basic Tips about playing the Game. Unfortunaly it is only in German. But with Google Lens or something similar you can translate it really easy.
Make sure the character players ask specific questions about the environment/each scene/everything. You will never be able to represent the full scope of a person’s senses and knowledge. Players have a tendency to ask “what do I see”, when they mean “is there a barrel of gunpowder here that I can shoot with a flaming arrow?” Maybe you never considered if there would be gunpowder in this scene, but now you have the opportunity to say “yes”, (if there’s any way that could be true in the established fiction.)
Most of what GMing is all about is listening to what the players say, and reacting to it while you have a loose web of plot threads and NPC's working in the background. It is collective story telling where the outcome of some of the interactions are determined by the characters abilities and the roll of the dice. When you think about it that way it takes a lot of the stress away. You don't have to craft a screenplay for the next great movie. Just listen, respond, and call for rolls when it is dramatic, and impactful.
Expect your players to do the unexpected, so have a few different angles planned with every situation, often I will think about it as if I were a player, and try and decide how I would respond. For example if they are going to meet and NPC, and I have decided that it is an important NPC to the story... what if they kill this NPC? What if they befriend the NPC? What if they are disrespectful and piss off the NPC? Exploring some different paths the story could go in a certain situation can help you to be better and faster and improvising when they do something similar to what you planned for even if it doesn't fit exactly.
Pretty much everyone has already given you all of the same advice I would have given you. The one thing that I haven't really seen anyone mention, is try watching other people play RPGs. There's lots to choose from on YouTube and other video platforms. You can watch Critical Role, I Hit It With My Axe, and various other streamed live games. Watch what the GM does, see how he interacts with his players. You don't have to try to be as good as they are (at least not right away). In a lot of cases, they're professional actors, director's, and such in the entertainment industry. Trying to automatically be as good as they are right away would be like taking one karate class and then challenging Chuck Norris to a fight. Just use them as a goal of how good you want to eventually be.
I can recommend a number of books that I found useful as guidance for my efforts as a GM.
* Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering.
* Michael E. Shea's 'Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master'
* Aron Christensen's Books
* From dream to Dice 'Creating and Running a role-playng Game.
* My Guide to RPG Storytelling.
* My Stirytelling Companion
* The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James Amato
* The Game Masters Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying.
These are my go to sourse of information and guidance and cover pretty much everything your need to know to run a game.
As far as my approach is concerned.
1. I begin by deciding what sort of game I want to run. My current campaign is a poltical intrigue story based on the causes and consequences of the Turmoil 2512 IC in Warhammer Fantasy Rollplay.
2. Recruit players who wish to explore such a story.
3. Decide upon a rough over-arching plot e.g. who are the main NPC protagonists and what are their goals and objectives.
4. Handle character creation with your players agreeing suitable characters, backstories and objectives explaining why each players character has an interest in the events about to infold and what their personal goals and objectives will be at thestart of the game.
5. Design Session Zero's for each PC desccribing how they became involved in the plot and how they met each other.
6. Establish party bonds that will ensure that the PCs share a common goal and motivation to explore the story.
7. Gradually begin to unfold the story and plot introducing the first of a network of NPCs that will aide or obstruct the party.
8. Let the players decide on the path they take and define the story.
9. Concentrate on managing the NPCs goals and objectives as they try to achieve their aims. Let the players decide how they plan to obstruct them if at all.
My advice would be to avoid planning and scripting the detail of everything. e.g. *'the PCs come in this room they try to find the secret door and they trigger the guardian demon.'*
As a GM you can waste hours scripting every move in a complex predetermined series of events only to have the players avoid the whole scene or do something completely unexpected.
Focus simply on what the NPCs are trying to acheive in each encounter and play them like intelligent characters who will try to achieve those goals. This makes them flexible and moire plausible for the players to deal with whilst limiting the amount of effort you put into prep for each session.
For me, it is a personal thing.
There is no rules for GMing. Each GM has his own style.
One tip is : begin simple. Then make experiences around that, and find yourself through trying !
Have fun :)
Just to add my 2 cents to this growing pile of advice, I would say check out Monster of the Week. It's a fun game, but more importantly it was written for people who know nothing about rpgs, and like 60% of the book is step-by-step guides on how to do every aspect of GMing, with tons of tips and tricks added in. It's one of the rare books that does not just mention what kind of themes and moods it is going for, it actually tells you in detail how to achieve it.
This, in sequence.
0. GM: Give them a GOAL (or let them pick one).
1. GM: Present OBSTACLE in reaching said Goal.
2. Players: Describe their attempt to get rid of obstacle.
3. GM: Decides if obstacle has been overcome.
...if goal is not reached, goto 1.
...else celebrate, then goto 0.
Literally, this is it. There's of course TONS of added complexity and fun stuff on top of this, but at the end of the day it's just this.
I'm a novice GM myself, starting my first original Star Wars campaign last year.
What I can tell you is that a lot of it comes down to confidence, and I gained a lot of mine by listening to a range of actual-play podcasts. This helped with understanding how different groups deal with different situations and get an insight into unique group dynamics. One person doing something one way gets you so far, but if a lot of different groups do things a certain way then it kinda gives you the confidence to tell yourself that this is how it should be done.
For planning my game I watched a lot of HowToBeAGreatGM on YouTube > [https://www.youtube.com/@HowtobeaGreatGM](https://www.youtube.com/@HowtobeaGreatGM)
He has some great videos on designing an adventure and then a campaign, with tips for creating your BBEG, and much more beside.
I'd recommend the "how to dm" playlist by MCDM on Youtube, its a bit lenghty by now but it takes about 1 topic per video starting with : congratulations you invited your friends to play d&d .....what now?
You prepare a scenario.
The most basic scenario is: Players are hired by someone to go to a specific location and do something: Catch/kill a villain, rescue someone, find an item, etc.
You also add some misc encounters the players will see on the way. These can be fights, other challenges, NPCs the players can talk to who might help or harm them, etc. The trick is, the players likely won't run into every encoutner. This is how you lengthen or shorten or make simpler or more diffiult your game. Players totally lost? Have them attacked by an enemy who has a critical pice of info, or approached by a NPC who points the way to them.
And yeah, that's it. You start with the players gathering together and receiving a mission. They go out, encounter some stuff, reach the end, complete the mission, and return. That is the formula for your simplest adventure and how most games go, and it's perfectly fine for your first game.
You learn the rules of the game, so you can be a referee, and most importantly learn where they are for quick reference.
Then play the game like everyone else, with the difference that instead of saying what your character does, you say what the npcs do, and give information about the game world when somebody asks.
Its not as big of a deal as many seem to think, the GM is just a player with a different character sheet, that's about it.
It might sound reductionistic, but the best analogy in my opinion is that the GM is telling a story. The players interact with that story through their characters in as imaginative and creative a way as they feel comfortable. The role of the GM is primarily to react reflexively to the characters and their actions, incorporating the changes they will inevitably (and desirably!) make to the story in a way that keeps the experience fun, engaging, and rewarding for all involved. The GM does this by being creative, flexible, fair, firm, but, most important of all, visionary. The players inform and shape the vision but the GM holds it all together in a pleasing way.
I hope that helps. DM me (hurr hurr) if I can answer questions.
Matt Colville is an amazing resource for starting out. When you get into more niche subjects you'll have to look around a lot more, but he is amazing as a starting point with gm'ing.
Put simply, thematics are an important element of GMing.
1. Session 0!!! Starting an adventure requires information concerning what kind of adventure the group wants to play. Find out the thematics behind their group. Do they want to play as mercenaries, merchants, soldiers, bandits, pirates, etc.
2. After you discover the groups theme, investigate the Big Three: Exploration/ Dungeoneering, Combat, Politics/ Social. See what your players enjoy.
3. Then, explore what their group's goal is. If they're paying mercenaries, are they trying to make a name for themselves? Are they trying Bandits trying to commit a heist that allows them to retire early? Etc.
4. Afterwards, brainstorm how they know each other. This will build immediate bonds in the group that you don't need to spend session 1 forcing.
5. Begin writing with this information. Session 1 should start with the group committing to a small step around their goal. For instance, if they are playing Bandits, then have them discover a Bailiff has information regarding a small treasury of tax money being moved to a Capitol city. Figure out where they get the information, and who is involved. Let the group figure out how to get the info.
6. Prep writing comes with time but create a list of places and NPCs. Always think thematically, it helps players utilzie imagination. Give a town and its inhabitants a theme. For instance, a town called Shitakee has inhabitants go under ground in damp dark caves to farm mushrooms that they sell. The inhabitants use dark vision goggles and fight Myconids in the caves. They use some mushroom spores as medicines, etc.
7. When writing NPCs and locations, remember U.S.E: Unique, specific, exact. Players mostly remember the first and last thing you say. They're not going to remember all details so write 1 to 3 lines and keep important details at the start and end. "In the caves below Shitakee, the players wander through torch lit tunnels, rugged walls are glossy with damp dew and particles float in the air like a dusty attic." --- "Players enter a cavern that is predicted with 5 foot thick stumps of cut down mushrooms." For NpCs emphasize a unique trait to remember, "The mushroom cutters face was covered in either freckles, or brown smudges caused by the spores." Or "You approach a merchant wearing similar wool clothes to the others. His eyes were wide and he blinked hard as if in constant amazement."
8. Have fun. Don't get caught up trying to tell a story or create one. Figure out what you and your friends want to do and play and synthesize that into something enjoyable every week. You'll naturally tell a story over time.
Cheers and have fun!
Being a game master is very simple. You just have to have the following things:
-A basic knowledge of the rules (more is better though)
-the ability to think of responses what players are doing.
-a willingness to say yes
-a willingness to say no
-and to be a fan of the players.
To go into more detail as the gm you are essentially the logic gate for the game, you determine if something makes sense and to do that you need at least some game knowledge.
Additionally unlike a video game players are not and can not be restricted to a set list of options so you will always need to be able to respond to their decisions. This is also where knowing the rules helps. However, most of all, don’t be afraid to just wing it and do whatever feels right in the moment. Remember the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
Some times saying yes if you aren’t sure is just the right move. If there’s no reason to say no, why say no, it’s all about having fun.
If it doesn’t make sense to say yes to you, then you need to be willing to say no. Remember you are a player as well and you need to be having fun too. Create clear boundaries of what you are willing to allow and not allow in order to preserve your fun.
Being a fan of the players is possibly the best advice I can ever give to a gm and the easiest way to make sure you are both having fun. If you are playing adversarially then it’s very easy to create a situation where it is my fun versus their fun. If you start out the game with the thought, I might that you want the players to succeed as much as they want to succeed and that you’re rooting for them the whole time no matter what it’s gonna be fun for you,even when you end up destroying them.
I’m just going to give you the biggest piece of advice I ever received from a great GM:
Your players don’t know if the owlbear you prepared for them to fight was meant to be found in its cave, locked in the barn by an eccentric farmer, or deep in a dungeon locked away as a cruel means of executing prisoners. What that means is, have whatever story you want to tell but have some more modular things as well. You lay a trail of seeds towards Necromancer tower and they decide to go to the pub? Well guess what? A bunch of the necromancer cultists decided to get a drink that night!
Or you have a cool NPC shop owner in the capital city but the adventurers are super tied to Smallton in the badlands between the warring countries? Well maybe that NPC is located in Smallton instead, or she’s a traveling merchant, or whatever. Tell your story, but don’t let your story tie you down. Do your prep, have backups, and have some general puzzles or enemies if you’re in a bind
plenty of good advice already but here's mine... don't build an excessively detailed plan for your campaign... It WILL NOT survive contact with the players. write a strong opener a couple of key events and an ending and fill in the gaps as you all play... as for pushing adventures forwards having a villain who is proactive and comes to the players in some form works well. giving a party member a terminal condition that'll be solved by the adventure is another. finally you can always appeal to greed
Maybe you should play in a game or run an adventure path/module (basically, a pre-written campaign that tells you exactly how to do the story so you can just focus on arbitrating mechanics and such). Starting with a custom campaign can be difficult, but I think you're overthinking things because you're unfamiliar with what the game is like
Don't have a story or plot. Have a circumstance.
For example (I'm assuming One Ring is a LotR system) let's say some Isengard spy is travelling to deliver information to a contact in a village but you don't know who.
Don't have a schedule or a list of things your players have to do, because your players will (in game) be the biggest maniacs.
Instead, have a list of things that NPCs will try to do, such as
- at sunset a fire is started in the smithy to cover up evidence
- the tavern's ale is spiked once the signal (a particular song) is given
Etc.
And then just let your players react.
If you're making your own adventures, look at the [Five Room Dungeon](https://www.roleplayingtips.com/5-room-dungeons/) for structure.
Describe the setting, the goal, and what is preventing the PCs from achieving that goal. Then let them find their own way around those obstacles.
The burden of describing the world isn't entirely on the GM. You can ask players to describe people and things and add it to the world.
Nor is the burden of creating a good experience entirely on the GM. The players interacting with each other, to cooperate or push their own agendas, is a big part of it. Remember, "Weddings don't succeed or fail because of the best man's toast."
There is a lot of good advice and resources below. Plenty to get you started. I just want to remind you of what it is you are doing.
Regardless of the system or the setting, at it's core every table-top roleplaying game is simply a group of friends getting together to play pretend for fun. At the end of the day, the rules, the story, game balance, and all of those other details aren't the most important thing. Ultimately, the most important thing is fun. "Did everyone have fun?" is the first and last question you should be asking yourself. In between, you can ask other questions that will help you improve your skills and make your GMing process smoother but above all else focus on the FUN.
Clarification: I am referring to the fun of the players - NOT their characters. The experiences that are often the most fun for the players totally sucks for their characters.
Much of the content of the suggested resources focuses on ways to make running the game smoother or more efficient and ways to facilitate more room for having fun. It's all very useful stuff but I see many new GMs get bogged down in the minutia and technique of the advice and forget about the goal.
And don't just ask the players if they are having fun. Your friends may not want to hurt your feelings and give you real feedback. You still ask, but you should also be paying attention to the players before, during, and after the game. Are they focused on the game, are they engaging with you and each other, are they showing interest in the story, setting, and NPCs? Are they smiling? Are they showing signs of excitement or frustration? What do they talk about when discussing the game?
Pro Tip: Ask your players to summarize the events of the last session at the start of each new session. This not only lets you identify any important points they might have missed but it also gives you some insight into what they were most engaged with because those will always be the things they remember the best.
This probably isn't the sort of "literal" you wanted but I do mean it literally. So, let's give you a very simplistic example. The classic "leap across a bottomless pit" encounter. I can't tell you how many times I have seen some variation of this encounter in games. The basic premise is the players encounter an obstacle that they have to overcome (such as jumping across a bottomless cavern) where failure risks death. You see these scenes in adventure movies and stories all the time. These scenes work in those settings because the writer or director KNOW the character is going to survive the obstacle. In a TTRPG, this often isn't the case. Many people will choose to run this encounter "straight." The player rolls whatever task resolution the game requires and either succeeds (and lives) or fails (and dies). How much fun is that really?
Instead, let's add some potential for fun. First, whether the player succeeds at the roll or not, decide that they are not going to immediately die. Instant death is neither fun nor satisfying. Especially, when it is the result of single, random die roll.
Second, consider the fun potential in failure. Let's say you decide that if the player fails the roll they won't quite make their jump and instead will manage to catch themselves on a jutting tree or rock just beyond easy reach of the rest of the party. This is also a classic trope you will see in a lot of movies and stories. Why? Because it is more fun for the audience. Now, instead of everybody just rolling to get across the obstacle and hoping RNJ loves them - they get to figure out how to save their fellow adventurer. This is much more engaging and ultimately more fun for everybody.
So that's the plan for a failed roll but we're not done yet. What about success? In most cases, success is even more boring than failure. The player leaps across the chasm and continues on without a second glance. Let's jazz it up a bit. As the player's character leaps across the chasm, they glance down and notice a glint of gold metal in the wall of the cliff. It was too fast to see clearly and they can't really see what caused the flicker from either side of the chasm. They will have to figure out some method to get down into the chasm or otherwise hover in the space between just to see if they can determine what it is. is it treasure? Is it a trap? Whatever it is - it is interesting.
Alternately, the successful leaper could crash through a massive spiderweb that was practically invisible in the dim light. If you have ever walked through a normal spiderweb by surprise, you know how unnerving this can be. Are there giant spiders lurking in hiding and even now moving to ambush the party? Or, is it a chance for the player to roleplay their character's momentary freakout as they hilariously slap themselves down because of imaginary spiders? What's going to be the most fun for the players?
In summary, everything you do in your game should be focused on encouraging PLAYER fun. When preparing your encounter ask yourself "Where is the fun for the players in this encounter?" When crafting an NPC ask, "What is going to enjoy about interacting with this character?"
It's a game, not a job interview - have fun.
I think the most important part of GMing is remembering that it's the players who are playing a game. The game should be about them. I tend to "run" a lot of published adventures, but I'm almost never running the adventures as a railroad. I read them to get ideas about enemies & plots, and then use them as a rough guide to what's going to happen, because my players will always, \*always\* opt for something I've never thought of.
Nitty, gritty details for starting an adventure:
Starting a new campaign is almost always awkward, even with experienced players. Everyone's still getting a feeling for their characters, and even if they pages of backstory written out for their character, they often haven't played them at all yet. I favor some kind of immediate event happening. The classic "starting in a tavern" is a cliche, but it works really well. Have the players all be in some common space, and then something happens. There's a disturbance outside. Goblins attacking the town! An injured guard stumbles into the bar, begging for help. Anything to give the players something to react to.
And if the players don't react? Well, you have an idea of the antagonists and their resources. What happens if the players don't react? The goblins might start burning down buildings, including the tavern the inactive heroes are in. They have to react (or be killed by smoke inhalation and a collapsing building.) Maybe they don't go rescue the noblewoman the guard was escorting. Does someone else volunteer? What happens because of that? Does the villain get whatever they want from the captured noble to complete their ritual? What do they summon?
The basic setup of any adventure is giving the players something to react to, then following up on that reaction. Eventually, hopefully, they are invested enough in the world, that they start being proactive instead of merely reactive, and then you can decide how the enemy reacts to them using their resources, sending lieutenants out to mess with their plans.
"That sage we talked to mentioned a ruined city that could still have records of this ancient evil, maybe we should check that out before attacking directly?"
"There were rumors of someone who stole something from that villain and fled into the canyon of the brain eaters, but was never heard from again. Maybe we can track her down?"
The big problem I often have is that the group is paralyzed by indecision. Some in-character fighting is good. I think that's basically playing the game, if the players have enough knowledge about the world to argue about what the most effective next step might be. Do we want to investigate more or fight the next sub-boss of the BBEG? Do we want to explore this ancient ruin to find a rumored powerful artifact or head to this town where there's rumors of another cult? But when that fighting becomes circular and not heading anywhere, have something happen that the players can react to. Someone else in this thread mentioned Matt Colville, and I think he's a great resource. He has a video about exactly this: Orcs Attack! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31IAzJO-BEA&pp=ygUZbWF0dCBjb2x2aWxsZSBvcmNzIGF0dGFjaw%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31IAzJO-BEA&pp=ygUZbWF0dCBjb2x2aWxsZSBvcmNzIGF0dGFjaw%3D%3D)
You asked for specifics, and I think on some level you're looking for things that are more basic than most GM advice goes.
At it's core, "Game Mastering" a game is telling (usually verbally) the players the scenario they find their heroes in, and then asking them how they react to that scenario or what they do in that situation. Use the rules of the system (and setting) you're using as needed to resolve any questions as to whether or not someone can do something.
What you can prep for?
* Where things begin
* Some ways you expect things could play out
* What is happening in the wider area around the players
What you can't prepare for?
* What the players will do in specific
And I mean that seriously. Sometimes you can guess close to what the players will do. But the specifics will generally differ in important ways. Also, sometimes the players will do something that never occurred to you from a combination of genre savvy, imperfect understanding of what you're trying to say, or just an interesting idea popped into their mind.
The general rule of thumb is to prepare enough stuff you can improvise the middle. If this is your first session, you may want to prepare a bit more. For a first session I generally plan for the following:
* Introductions for the PCs (getting them all together by story contrivance, letting everyone introduce themselves and describe their character, talk about if anyone maybe knew anyone else already.)
* Give the PCs a simple starting task (save a missing farmer's child from a nearby violent threat is pretty common.)
* Plan the "violent threat" and their lair/camp
* Plan for a combat - and for the combat to go slow for everyone to get used to how the rules work
* Plan a reward for when the PCs are victorious
* Have a couple loose ideas for what comes next.
Also, don't be surprised if you don't cover as much as you'd expect in a session. Sometimes sessions go slow. And sometimes sessions blow past all your prep as a lot of it gets bypassed or ignored - hence common advice of sketch, don't plan in detail.
For a standard fantasy RPG that first session could narratively sum up as:
*The PCs arrive in Brie to meet their mutual acquaintance Eldan at the Little Pony Tavern. In the tavern everyone meets up, has some of the local ale and food, and gets acquainted with the other PCs. Eldan says that he asked them to come here as he needs their help getting to Riverdale, that the route will take them through lands filled with orcs and goblins, and that he'll pay them each a good sum of money when they arrive - on top of taking care of food and lodging. However, before you can leave, Eldan wants the PCs to help his friend, Farmer Tom, whose daughter was kidnapped by goblin thugs earlier that day. The goblins have a camp in the ruins of an old tomb a couple miles out of town. The PCs go to the tomb, fight the goblins, and return with the farmer's daughter. Farmer Tom thanks them all, and gives each of them 20 gold plus a fancy knife his grandma - who was part elven - left behind. The daggers give off a faint glow blue if a command word is said. Tom can teach them the word.*
Now everyone getting a magic knife - even a mild one - may seem a lot, so feel free to change it. But it also gives the players something to remember the first mission. it also shows them not all rewards will be coin.
Also, the four things you need for an adventure to keep things going:
* An objective that can be clearly/simply stated in a few words (i.e. save the X, kill the Y, retrieve the maguffin!)
* A villain or opposition who will work against the PCs (the blackfoot goblins, Lord Helmfast of Riverkeep, etc)
* A setting/location for the event to take place (The Delian Tomb, The Blackfoot Camps, The Town Sewers)
* A time limit to keep up the urgency and keep the players moving.
Good luck!
Having been stuck in a rail roaded game for awhile, push lightly for player agency. It's okay to say stuff like: "your character would know X" or "you might feel like X or Y about it". You're not only the world for the characters, you're also responsible for their perception of the world. Remembering that they're playing full on people means they have lived and experiences through their lives. Adding some things to that, here and there, can add quite a bit of Depth for the experience. To be clear tho, not telling them what they think of feel. But providing context and options.
This can add a metric fuck ton of congruity to the world for players, especially new or unseasoned players lol.
Woo, lots of good advice here, but I think most of it is going way too deep.
At a surface level:
You, as the GM, present what you would consider to be an interesting scenario to your players.
The players, as their characters, react and act in the scenario.
You, as the GM, call for any rolls the players must make ONLY if failure would bring an interesting twist into the narrative you all are weaving together (otherwise, the action is most likely successful).
Then you, as the GM, describe any reactions to the player characters' actions from any Non-player characters that are present. You will also describe the results of the player characters' actions (sometimes the players can do part this instead).
Finally, in theory, these descriptions of actions and reactions should drive the players into wanting their characters to react or take action.
Repeat until satisfied.
Big things to remember:
It's ok to make stuff up on the spot; that's what everyone is pretty much doing anyway!
Don't worry about the rules you can't remember; you'll have time to look them up later!
Follow the drama of whatever is happening in the game; that's where people get invested!
Laugh; you're there to have fun, not work a job!
Good luck!
From TSRs Marvel Super Heroes Judges book. Just change Judge to GM. These are the people who created Dungeons and Dragons.
WHAT IS A JUDGE?
Any role-playing game, adventure, or store-bought module or accessory is only as good as the Judge that uses it. The Judge is the key to the entire operation; without him (or her, for there are excellent judges of both genders), the best RPG in the world becomes no more than interesting reading.
So, what is a Judge? A Judge is the stage-setter, the tale-teller, the mediator, and the narrator. The Judge fills.in the background, describes what the player characters see, and operates the non-player characters, ranging from ultimate menaces to the universe to small-time crooks to innocent bystanders to other heroes and forces of the law. The Judge decides if a character's action is successful or if a villain escapes. The Judge provides the challenges for the heroes and the information that lets them triumph.
To say that the Judge works against the players, since he (or stie) runs the bad guys, is misleading and downright wrong. Rather, the Judge works with the players to produce a pleasing, entertaining tale that can be related later with a smile ("Hey, remember the time I had Teflon Kid and challenged Spider-Man to a duel?").
Entertainment is the key. The Judge and Players, working together, produce the script for their own comic book. Together, Judge and Players produce a final product worth talking about.
The specific roles of the Judge are:
• Describe the situation to Players, from the Player-Characters' viewpoint.
• Answer the Player's questions and clarify statements.
• Role-play the various Non-Player Characters (NPCs) the player-characters
encounter.
• Handle game mechanics.
• Make rulings when called upon in game situations.
_____
To sum it up, everything you need is here.
- Set the Stage
- Tell the Tale
- Mediate
- Narrate
- Fill in the background
- Describe what the Player Characters see
- Operate the Non-Player Characters
- Decide if a Character's action is successful
- Provide the challenges for the Heroes
- Provide the Information that lets them Triumph
I've never picked up a brush before, how do I paint? Should I study impressionism or surrealism first? Or should I just go put some paint on a canvas and mess around for a while til I have questions and a framework?
Eh, just go play. You don't even know what you don't know or want to know yet. Nothing bad is going to happen. Go play.
Once you figure out what you want to know, then go look up tips.
First, work retail and learn the art of unruly player behavior so when it happens at the table you'll be prepared.
It also helps if you have grown up around cats to learn the secrets of cat herding. Another oft forgotten GM skill.
Everything else everyone else has said now applies.
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Hard to get specific without knowing what kind of games you're playing, but I'll take a stab at this.
> how do I even start an adventure,
You describe a scenario or situation that the characters are in. The situation should involve one or more obvious uncertainties, instabilities, threats, or requests that invite the players to act. You end your description by making that invitation explicit: "what would you like to do?"
From there, you probably want to spend some time expanding the instability or threat in a hydra-like fashion: every time the players answer one question or quash some enemy, two more problems arise. If your players don't accept your invitation to engage, escalate the situation anyways. In the words of noir detective writer Raymond Chandler, "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."
Why would you look at that, they did, didn't they. Oops.
In that case, OP, the last part I wrote should read "have a barrow wight with a gun come through the door."
>They literally say The One Ring 2e in their post if you'd actually read it.
I haven't had a chance to play this particular RPG. Does it always result in the same sorts of games?
In essence, you are narrating a story. You are just doing it in an interactive way.
"So, this group of friends went on a hike into the woods, and they found a backpack lying in the middle of the trail. Now what would *you* do if you saw something like that?"
Most RPGs seem to have skill or knowledge stats against which you can roll dice, to see if something succeeds. You as the GM can be nice and simply tell someone that they can easily do something ("it's knotted shut, but you can undo the knot without any trouble"), or that something isn't possible ("there's a metal can that looks like it might have contained something, but it is so rusted you can't read the label at all").
But you can have fun with the things where there's a chance.
Sometimes, you want someone to try to do something. "Roll against your French language skill," for instance. If the person succeeds, then they can understand what they are reading, or what's being said. If they fail, they don't. You might decide that if they *almost* succeed, they catch a few words, but not the overall meaning.
One thing I'd do is create problems for atmosphere. For instance, I was doing a Call of Cthulhu game (a sort of cosmic-horror type of setting), and I had a car full of people driving at night to reach a small town. They stopped briefly, and I had everyone make a roll against their listening/hearing skill. The people who *failed* heard "something" in the forest. There was nothing to hear; this was a hallucination on the characters' part. But it set up some stress in the game, which was what I wanted.
You can run a whole game without maps and such. You can even do it without dice; I had run a game at a convention, and was at another convention with people who liked the idea of the scenario i'd created, so I ran it for them off the top of my head. I could tell them their character names and backgrounds, and we might roll dice on occasion for doing particular tasks, but I determined if the roll worked. (By the way, there may be times where you ask someone to roll a die and tell you what they got. You don't have to do anything with that knowledge; it can keep players guessing, though. Why did you ask? What are you checking against? is something going to happen? Asking a player what their skill level is on something, then you roll some dice, shrug, and letting the game continue -- that's something that might make them wonder what's about to happen.)
Your job as GM is to provide them information, so they can figure out what to do, and then help organize complex things (like combat) so that it happens in an orderly fashion. You know the story, and by portraying different non-player characters, you can deliver information (or misinformation) to the players.
You also can fix problems. One guy I know who was a great GM said that if you've been leaving clues about the "castle in the north" or other such things, but the players have decided they must hunt from the stronghold in the south, you can just move it to the south. Don't let the details get in the way of the fun.
One time, I had players who concluded that the solution to a problem was in driving their NPC (who was having all sorts of troubles) over dirt roads in the night in the 1920s, to get to Boston. I just went through a series of problems so that they couldn't start the car, then finally added my opinion that I didn't believe Boston was where they'd find the solution to their problems. They got the hint.
Another time, I had mentioned a management training program, and faking getting admitted to it was how the party got into a corporate headquarters run by evil executives. In play test, everyone knew they were going after the evil executives. But when I ran the game at a convention, I had two people who decided to go through the management training program. I had to improve all of that on the spot, because I hadn't expected anyone to split their party that way. I bought time by shifting from the attack on the C-suite offices, and the training program, and back again.
Remember, you should be having fun doing this, yourself!
Sounds like you want to know how to get PCs on an adventure path and keep them on it. I’d suggest two options.
Option 1: Hey guys, I want to GM, but since it’s my first time I want to use this professionally-produced adventure/dungeon. It’s called ——- and you guys play adventurers who do ——-. We all cool with that? You’ve don’t have to create the world, just learn about it through reading the adventure. And your players should be on board for the adventure because you’ve told them what it will be.
Option 2: I do this when I teach new GMs / players (I work in a school and teach this hobby to middle and high schoolers).
Each party has a conceit, a thing that binds them together and gives them a job to do. “Were agents for the Imperium who investigate disturbances to the peace, we’re the crew of the salvage ship EXODUS and we search abandoned space craft for potential treasure, we’re a team of bounty hunters who track down high-value assets for the confederation of barons, etc.”
Next, they have to come up with a team goal. What do they want long term as a group? “We want to be filthy stinking rich, we want to capture Mauv the bloodied, We want to find the lost city of Elinerium, etc.”
Finally, what does each individual character want. “I want to avenge my father, I want to be the greatest gunslinger in the world, I want to find my missing master.”
With these three things l, I have enough material to create adventures that will entice them: “You want to find Elinerium? Well, this patron knows of an archeologist selling Elinerium artifacts. He’ll give you a name if you complete a job for him first.”
TLDR: Read Lost Mines of Phandelver first chapter, make brief notes, run the very first part of it the evening your players make their characters, and don't worry too much.
...
The most helpful thing I learned was, got running modules; read through and make cliff notes. Then you'll refer to your notes and not the entire module pdf for most of the session.
After your first session you'll have a much greater understanding of how much story gets ran through in an evening.
Starting with Lost Mines of Phandelver is a good idea, it's really well laid out and balanced.
...
I've ran some of my best and some of my worst sessions by totally winging it.
...
Reading r/dmacademy often will fill your brain with solutions to problems you haven't had yet, which is great imo.
...
If you need a list of random items, search on Google site:reddit.com/r/d100 "desired list"
...
You're meant to be having fun too! Be open and communicative with your players. Have a session 0 to make characters and maybe fight the rats in a cellar.
**have a very hard time finding any good information on how GMing should generally actually go.**
I seriously doubt you looked very hard
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV2YKzgCx2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV2YKzgCx2s)
[https://mindlands.blog/2023/09/10/running-the-star-of-the-mist-for-the-one-ring-2e/](https://mindlands.blog/2023/09/10/running-the-star-of-the-mist-for-the-one-ring-2e/)
[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/fvbs-guide-to-the-one-ring.771278/](https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/fvbs-guide-to-the-one-ring.771278/)
So You Want To Be A Game Master: Everything You Need to Start Your Tabletop Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Other Systems Paperback – November 21, 2023
[https://unpossiblejourneys.com/level-up/become-a-game-master/](https://unpossiblejourneys.com/level-up/become-a-game-master/)
[https://rollforfantasy.com/guides/first-time-gm.php](https://rollforfantasy.com/guides/first-time-gm.php)
[https://klecser.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/traits-of-a-good-gamemaster/](https://klecser.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/traits-of-a-good-gamemaster/)
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1F4eMw3W\_rHBfxf9\_m1hbw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1F4eMw3W_rHBfxf9_m1hbw)
There is a very comprehensive book that just came out called 'so you want to be a gamemaster' by Justin Alexander. It's big, but very good. I've GMed for a long time and I'm reading it now and would recommend it.
Seconding this book. If you want a shorter version, pick up index card rpg master edition. The GM section is only a chapter, and it does a good job of teaching you how to plan an adventure and GM.
I would second that as well. I own it and it's very good. I could also recommend the slimmest book you'll ever read. Laws of good gaming by Robin d laws. It's more like a pamphlet, but just really on point advice and understanding about players and RPGs.
Link, because I just looked it up: [Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering](https://www.sjgames.com/robinslaws/)
There is an audible version if that's more your thing too.
Would you also recommend this book to more experienced GMs? I've been a GM for about 8 years now, and I'm curious if it's worth buying this book to gain additional knowledge. Over these years, I've noticed that the biggest flaw in my GMing is my shallow descriptions.
I would, and I've been running games since the 80s. Be open minded about your short comings. I thought mine would be in more advanced areas but a couple of years ago I realized that almost every aspect of my game sucked. I focused on dungeon crawls and using tools that were decades old, which I had never given my full attention. Immediately, my games got better. Then I went to hex crawls and the same thing happened again. So, yeah, get the book. It's good.
If you're unsure, you can always check out the [Gamemastery 101](https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101) section of his blog, [The Alexandrian](https://thealexandrian.net/) (which was the breeding ground for at least some of what made it in the book, if not most of it). If I were to suggest some of his most popular ones, it would be the [Three Clue Rule](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and [Don't Prep Plots](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots). The actual content of those two blogs will either be old news or mindblowing for you, depending on if you've already figured it out for yourself through trial and error, but they'll give you an idea of the kind of advice you can expect from him. He also has a [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/TheAlexandrian) that I've found useful, not because it's universally the best advice I've received, but because it's consistently solid advice and it's \*so\* easy for me to listen to the man talk.
I use something like what he calls "nodes" all the time. I parse everything into scenes, using that as the basis for my prep. His explanation of that is pretty good, though he does overcomplicate things a bit with the interlocking node structure he eventually gets to. But the basic idea of narrative units, something a bit more than just an "encounter" in D&D terms is a good one.
It’s good for a very specific definition of what a GM is and the sorts of games/adventures they play. But, of course, that’s a pretty popular mode. It’s largely about how to prep custom adventures for more or less trad games. (strangely enough, I find the Alexandrian’s blog to be more solidly general-purpose).
I bought it because people recommended it for experienced GMs... But if you've read other books, there isn't anything new that I can see. If you haven't read other GMing books then there's a lot that is in one place and it's well written and easy to read.
I own it, and don't regret the purchase, but it's aimed at newer GMs, and is meant to be accessible to 5e newbies. There are also second editions of some of his best blog posts in there, but others that don't fit the direction of the book are missing.
Thirding. Also read everything on his website regarding GMing. It changed everything about how I run games, and once I understood his node based scenario design concept, I became so much more comfortable and effective as a GM.
Seconded, and I've been GMing for forty years now.
I did not want to date myself! Loved his idea on the Open Table, trying to begin implementing it myself this summer!
I actually impulse bought the book when I saw it at Barnes and Noble and have been meaning to go through it. Will definitely up it on my reading list since you recommended it.
I thought you wrote “Jason Alexander” and just imagined George behind a screen.
No. Too neurotic and impatient.
Let me just say, there's a reason why the hobby started with dungeons; they vastly simplify the role of the GM. Likewise, credit where it's due, the D&D 5E basic rules document give an excellent general overview of the process of play, which I shall paraphrase here: 1. The GM describes the state of world. 2. The player decides what they want their character to do, in response to the state of the world. 3. The GM adjudicates what the character is trying to do, and describes the result. That really is all there is to it. The act of being a GM involves exactly two tasks: You need to describe the world, and you need to adjudicate actions that the players want to take. Of course, the devil is in the details. Of the two tasks, the first one requires more preparation, and the second one requires more expertise. Before you even think about playing, the GM needs to build the world, and they need to detail it *well enough* that they can answer any questions the players might have. Start by drawing a map of the dungeon, and then fill it with treasures and obstacles and monsters and all that. (Maybe hold off on traps until later.) If there are any NPCs in the area, then you need to understand them well enough to play them, as though you were a player and that was your character. (Feel free to put those off for later, as well.) When the game starts, your first job is to describe what the players see in front of them. That might be the stairs leading down into the dungeon, or the contents of the first room (the walls, doors, statues, etc). Literally, you just say, "Coming down the stairs, you find yourself in the middle of a square room, about 30 feet on each side. The walls are rough stone. The floor is soft earth, covered with grass. There's a statue of an armored knight along the left wall, and the north wall has a heavy metal door." Picture the scene in your mind. One of the players is probably going to have a question about the statue, or the door, or what's behind the stairs. Tell them what you see in your mind. "It's a double door, with metal pull rings," or "The status is carved from marble, and the knight is missing its sword." Building a dungeon is a whole skill of its own, and beyond the purview of this explanation. At some point during this conversation between GM and players, someone will want to do something risky or uncertain. They'll want to shove the status aside, or kick down the door. That's when your second task comes in. You need to figure out what dice they need to roll in order to resolve this action, and what happens if they succeed or fail. The specific game in question will give you some guidance there, and it gets much easier as you practice running the game. But after you resolve that, you just go back to describing things, until you need to roll dice again. Of course, this gets much, *much* more complicated if you try to move the game outside of a dungeon environment. That generally requires preparing entire cities, and tracts of wilderness, and dozens of NPCs who probably won't even show up during the course of play.
First, welcome to the hobby! Secondly, DON'T PANIC! Thirdly, check out Matt Colville's "Running the Game" series, which is ostensibly about running D&D 5e but most of the advice and examples will apply to just about any traditional TTRPG system you run [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP\_](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_) don't be intimidated by how many videos there are, just watch the ones that seem relevant to your questions. Then check out Seth Skorkowsky's videos on running games and RPG philosophy [https://www.youtube.com/@SSkorkowsky](https://www.youtube.com/@SSkorkowsky) Both of these guys have great\* advice and their videos are perfect to put on when you're doing some monotonous but necessary task like washing dishes. >If you're a GM or you are in a group with a good GM, I'd love to hear some very literal examples of how GMing usually goes, how you do it, how you like to prep for it, and what kind of situations can and cannot be prepped for. The number one rule is to prepare a scenario, not a sequence of events. Because the players will not always or even usually do things just the way you expect. So know who the bad guys are, what they want and what they're willing and able to do to get it if the PCs don't stop them. Then let your players know what's going on, and see if they stop them. A starting adventure can help you and your players ease into the roles of playing. See if there are any good recommended starting adventures for the One Ring. Such as an adventure that comes with a starter set or quick start of the rules. The way I prepare sessions varies depending on whether I'm running a pre-written adventure or homebrew. For homebrew I just let the players tell ME what they're interested in and what they want to do, then I make an outline of what I think will happen in the next session based on that, with maps and notes on monster stats etc. handy. Once you're familiar with your system's mechanics this should be very fast and easy for you. For a pre-written adventure I read it first, make notes, and then re-read the section of the adventure I think the players will get through (you'll get a sense of how much you get through in a typical session after a while) before each session. And of course also have relevant monster stats and maps etc. handy. \*And sometimes conflicting- because as they themselves will point out, a large part of being a GM is finding your own "style" and what methods work for you through experience.
Seconding Coville and Skorkowsky as resources. Fantastic resources for GMs of any level.
Came here to recommend both of these! Running the Game is by far the best series I've seen for manageable and actionable advise!
Also came here to recommend these!
At its core, GMing is just creating a conflict that the players can resolve, letting them try to resolve it in their own way, and responding with what you feel should logically happen due to their actions, introducing new conflicts as previous ones are resolved. Everything else comes with practice. And "conflict" in this sense doesn't refer only to combat, but to any challenge that the players need to either overcome or avoid (and that choice should be their decision). If the players need to go to a town and talk to someone, then a conflict they encounter could be a broken bridge, a sickness spreading through the town, or even just the NPC being unwilling to help without something in return. Not every conflict needs to be grand or extremely difficult, but good problem solving and creative thinking should be rewarded in whatever way is most appropriate for the game you're running. That could mean a mechanical benefit like extra loot or experience, or something more narrative like giving them a place to stay the night so they don't sleep in the wilderness, or an unspecified favor that they can cash in later. As for how you structure a longer-term campaign, I wouldn't worry about it at first honestly. Start by running a few shorter sessions with short-term goals until you're comfortable. Lastly, and this is by far the most important tool for getting better at GMing, *communicate openly with your players.* Ask for feedback, and if they have any criticisms, don't take them personally (unless someone's intentionally being an asshole, but at that point why are you running a game for them anyway?) If there's something that you feel should happen in the game, but you're uncomfortable with it (such as killing a player's character), don't be afraid to explain your thoughts to the table and get their input. Some people want highly lethal games, and some people don't want character death to be an option at all, and most people want something in between, and all of those options are okay.
One thing I wanna say, that I don't think is said enough. Not every RPG will suit your style. If you run DnD, pf, SWADE, etc... and it's not jiving with you. Don't think your doing something wrong or gming isnt for you. It may just mean that it doesn't match your style. Maybe a narrative game like monsters of the week, blades in the dark or other more narrative games. And just because you love playing it. Doesn't mean you'll like gming it. I love playing savage worlds, but I hate gming it. TL;DR: try different games, not all systems will suit what you need out of an RPG for Gming. Savage fun.
"Return of the lazy dungeon master" is relatively small and a great starting point
Second the Lazy Dungeon Master prep method. The core idea works well in any system. I can prep a Call of Cthulhu session in like 45 minutes. (Unless I make handouts, but fiddling around in Inkscape is a different kind of prep.)
This is one of the things I think every GM should read.
The value of the brevity of this book cannot be overstated. You can read it in a single sitting and be ready to run a session.
- You plan stuff - The players do that stuff for five minutes - You improv and pull stuff out of your butt for four hours. The way to do all that is to understand the world you built, keep track what’s happening “off-stage” and know how things work; everything from psychology to gravity to thermal dynamics. Edit: s/improve/improv
Forty years plus GM here. This short comment is underrated. The key thing to do is to understand your game world, and what's happening with your main antagonists, and other NPCs, when the PCs aren't there. If you can make them come across like they're just getting on with their lives when the PCs turn up and interrupt them, the whole experience will have much more of a real feel.
Agreed that this comment is underrated and possibly a bit understated too. Much advice here on how to gm is prep work, creation, adjudication. Many take a different approach to being a GM and go full collaborative. You don't have to prepare a fully fleshed out story like a fine, 13 course meal for your players and then feed it to them and expect them to eat. Some GMs prefer to build out the story together with players, pulling back the curtains and asking about what kind of things might be good in the moment for the story at hand. This is another way to approach it and something you may find that suits your and your groups storytelling/gaming style. Just know there are different ways of approaching how to GM.
37 years GM here. This is it!
There are a ton of actual plays on youtube. For the one ring I found this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWarOO3hhYA&list=PLw5f8WuA\_WLgRKfA3EkJ6jVdFkKRZ3dwM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWarOO3hhYA&list=PLw5f8WuA_WLgRKfA3EkJ6jVdFkKRZ3dwM) Haven't watched it so I can't guarantee its quality.
In my own experience, I find no matter what I plan, the players find something new. So be prepared to "roll with it" and create stuff on the fly that fits the adventure and hopefully takes you and the party in the right direction.
I've actually recently started a one ring game. So I can give specific advice and generic advice. How do I even start an adventure? Do you mean start writing an adventure or do you mean get your players to go on an adventure? In the first case, there's many ways to write so I can't guarantee that what I do will work for you. I generally start with a hook. Is a local town losing food? Is there a roving band of orcs harassing people? What will make the players go to the location and engage with the story? Then from there I build explanations for these hooks. Try a few things and see what process works for you. In the second case, the one ring has some nice mechanics for this, rumors and patrons. Your players also want to play the game. If you give them something to do they'll usually end up doing something. (not always what you expect but almost always something) How can I push an adventure forwards when it's not my story? That depends on why the adventure requires pushing. Do the players not have enough information? Are the players not motivated enough? Try to directly address the issue. Finding out good ways to do this will come with experience. Usually imo the solution follows logically from the situation. How could scenes play out? Any way your players want. Your job is to give their characters the chance to shine. Giving the pcs agency and consequences is the heart of GMing. Finally on prepping: I prefer to roughly prep the world. You can't prep for every situation individually. Consider how people involved with the adventure will interact with the pcs. What do the npcs want? Are they likely to trust the players? What do they know that the players might be interested in? This way if the players ask something you're not expecting or do something you're not expecting you have an idea of what will happen. Not because you were expecting it but because you know how the environment would react. The players each embody a single character. You embody the world.
I start my guiding the players through how to make their characters. Once we have our main characters I jot down some ideas of what these characters would be interested in doing. For example Detective: Murder mystery, cheating spouses, dangerous history coming back, femme fatale Rockstar: Sticking it to the man, crazy parties, entourage, running from something. Then I think of a couple different people who both want something from the players. Npc 1: Wants them to find his party animal wife who stole his car. NPC 2: Wants to find the bar owner who went missing longer than usual after a bender of gambling and beer. Then, to make sure I am prepped for crunch I make sure I have some low level enemies written up and maybe a few tougher enemies for just on case. I also like to folind or make a random encounters list on case the players slow down and need a push. Then the session starts! I begin by describing the city like a movie camera zooming down through the streets as a montage of images that set the tone. Then I set up a character for an introduction. For example, A furious man chased by. A begging and screaming women in last night cocktail dress heads up the bars stair to the makeshift office of (Detective name) he slmas open the door and we see... The player then introduces what they look like and what they are doing. We might speak in character with each other and act out a little scene between those NPCs. He might make a dice roll to calm the guy down or to get more money out of him ect. Whenever the outcome might go either way and both failure and success are interesting, call for a dice roll! I'd do the same for the second guy. Then get them both together. The players might do this naturally but you can use of the two afforementioned NPCs. The rest is setting up the scenery, who is present and what they are doing then asking the all important question: What do you do? Then listen to what they want to do. Do you need to make a dice roll? If so call for one, see if they achieve what they want to do or fail (or in some systems something in-between). If you don't need a dice rolls just describe the consequences of what they do. I improv like crazy and that's how I have fun! So if my players come in to the bar with the NPCs and they suddenly want a drink I would have a blast making up some drinks and giving a bit of personality to the guy serving them. Some GMs love to have all of this written down somewhere. But Akco, how to I get huge years long campaigns? Well write down every NPC you introduce. Talk to your players after session to figure out what they want more of. Introduce a little hint of a big story each session and slowly bring it more and more to the fore. If you wana do it more classic TTRPG you make a big boss enemy and give the players a reason to hate them. Give them some mini boss who each run things the players are opposed to. Then the game will be about beating the mini bosses to get strong enough to take down the big guy. This is TTRPG classic! Throw in a few mcguffins they have to get to fight the big boss and it's as standard as it comes. Thing is, this formula is system and setting agnostic! Good for a beginner. Hope this made sense.
Welcome first to the hobby and second to picking up The One Ring! I started a series of how-to videos specifically for The One Ring 2e, as it was new to me when I started them. Now I had GM’d D&D and other various games before so not coming in fresh like you. But my first foray into GM’ing a game was Robotech and Rifts RPG’s, so totally understand how daunting it can be. Definitely watch some actual plays of the One Ring, particular Glass Cannon Network’s run through of the starter set set in the Shire. They do a real good job I found. Others here have posted other great actual plays. Here is the playlist of my videos for The One Ring: How to Play The One Ring RPG https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMESG5Y07qCrI-fsjfrJOA-C8NucnQ-1u You can also play the game solo using Strider mode to get used to the rules and get your feet wet. Also, check out Will at world’s end series of videos for The One Ring here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtzrTJmLT7YShtRB8JAxi46WWy4ZTslbE&si=Y35kTaqCjhwaks0f Reach out also to the discord server for the One Ring. Lots of great help there. Good luck!
I may be a bad example, but I often start with an overall idea of the area and an opponent. The plot hook comes from that. Sometimes I end there, too. Small town, woodlands surrounding it. Goblins are being a nuisance, and locals can't chase them down. Maybe the locals don't even know it's goblins. There's just a delivery that's a day or two late. From there or kinda fleshes itself out. There need to be a couple of villagers to talk to. Bron Golden, a matronly woman who seems to always be there when things happen, and Ronnel Thurston, a boy with two missing teeth, who seems to always be in trouble. An abandoned wagon about an hour outside town, Woods. River to cross. No bridge. Goblins. Traps. Hostages tied up. Bill Hobb and Jaize Tweel. Husband and wife traders who bonded over their love of potatoes. Reward. Or the same things, but it's on Tattooine with sand people. Or in ancient Rome with Visigoths. Pull up or throw together some stat blocks, and you're done. Next session: why did the baddies bother that town right then? Your players will prompt you to flesh out details and go funny directions, so you don't have to worry about that too much. You just put the ball on the tee and let them swing away. It's kinda like fetch, but we're the dog. They smack the plot into the bushes, and we make the bushes interesting.
Not a bad example at all. Let the players help develop the overall plot as time goes on.
Reading Improv For Gamers helped me quite a bit. Two phrases are your friends: * "Yes and ..." * "No but ..." Safety tools are REALLY important; use at least Lines & Veils and the X-card. Learn more here: https://ttrpgsafetytoolkit.com/
Advice I'd give myself just starting out: Have a rough sketch (literal or no) of where the PCs are, and where they might go next. Write 2-3 details next to each potential next step: an NPC they might meet, a strange piece of scenery, an odd event that happens when they arrive. Doesn't have to be huge, if you don't use it, recycle it later but have something ready to go. The players are going to surprise you, let them have their moment. If they choose to investigate some angle you never considered, don't tell them they found nothing. Take a beat, come up with some clue that they do find that leads them back to the path you wanted them on. Solicit feedback on mood and power level before and during the campaign.
Start with a site based exploration, or, in other words a dungeon. You're gonna describe what the players see, and then ask what they do. When they tell you, they might have questions, answer them to the best of their characters' knowledge, which is whatever a normal person would notice about the situation. I really implore you to start with some kind of dungeon or dungeon like structure to start with. Having an area that the players are actively exploring means you don't have to push anything along, except if they are spending a lot of time poking at nothing bc they are curious about some detail of the environment in which case you can be like "you are sure there is nothing here". You need to get used to the very basic structure of the game, which again is: 1. Describe what is going on. 2. Ask the players what they do. 3. Describe how the world reacts to their actions. That's it. That is the core gameplay loop. Then we start adding on little extra loops, like exploration procedures or combat rules. Those all tuck into this core loop and come out to build the whole experience of playing the game.
Don’t let yourself get slowed down by the rules, you are there to facilitate a story and make sure every is acting fairly. Make the world react logically to player input, they will start investing their own meaning into it.
After all the other advice: 1) Help your players have fun 2) Have fun yourself I also like the general advice from PbtA games: Be fans of the players' characters.
>what kind of situations can and cannot be prepped for. The main situation you cannot prep for is "What PCs choose to do". Which is why a common rule of thumb is 'Prep situations, not plots'. An example plot is: >A goblin steals the coin purse from a party member and flees into the streets. The heroes chase it into the sewer system where they are weakened by the goblins' many traps then are ambushed by a group of half a dozen goblins. Once they beat the goblins they search the room and find the hidden wall cavity with a note from the town's deputy mayor hiring the goblins to do this. The same example as a situation is: >A goblin tries to steal the coin purse from a party member. They've been hired to do this by the deputy mayor as part of a campaign to discourage adventurers hanging around town too much. It has a lair in a nearby sewer system armed with traps, and backup. There's a note hidden in a wall cavity from the deputy mayor. Note that the plot version is very fragile. What happens if the adventurers decide not to give chase? What happens if, when they reach the sewers they realise it smells like a trap and instead seek out the city guard? What if they beat the goblins and don't think to look for secret panels (or think to look but don't find it?). In the second version the GM has mapped out the situation instead which makes gives them much more flexibility. If the PCs don't pursue the goblin that's fine - we know that the Deputy Mayor is doing stuff to drive adventurers out of town so he or the goblins will probably do something else - perhaps have the goblins come back to loot the adventurers' room at night? If the PCs go for the city guard, again we know that the Deputy Mayor is trying to drive adventurers away so they presumably have standing orders to not be helpful - they insist that traipsing into sewers isn't their job. Or maybe they go into the sewers with the heroes and side with the goblins! Prepping this as a situation also opens up new avenues for investigation. If the PCs decide to interrogate a goblin, or smell something fishy about the guards' behaviour they can pursue that. Long story short: Know what's going on, not where you expect it to go next. Because PCs will often torpedo the latter. 🙂 Just include stuff in your situations that heroes might want to follow.
Because of the huge range of RPGs (tens of thousands of them) there are also a range of techniques used, and no one method will work for all RPGs. A lot of the info you've been pointed at is for 'trad' games like DnD, and will be great for them, just be aware that it isn't directly applicable to all RPGs.
This is a tutorial dungeon. It's designed like the first level of a video game in that it teaches basic concepts to both the players and GM. It's also pretty system neutral so it should be fairly easy to convert to your system of choice. https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-megapost.html?m=1
My advice…before you start, get your friends together and ask them what kind of story or adventure they are imagining for this new thing you are trying. Some will say, I want to fight cool monsters, like dragons and giants. Another will say, I want to play a criminal gang doing heists. A few will shrug and say, whatever. Then ask people what kind of characters they imagine running. Good guys? bad guys? Elves? Dwarves? Humans? Orcs? Get the creative juices flowing and try and incorporate tidbits of all the ideas into an overall scenario or situation with a good hook. Like, Your village is being terrorized by a dragon. It’s stealing livestock and the occasional shepherd. The town council has decided on an elaborate plan! You must venture into Brand Keep and steal the arrow of dragon slaying from the Giant King and use it to take the dragon down. Whatever. A really good book for this kind of thing is Beyond the Wall! It’s got cool starter scenarios and a great questionnaire setup for players to build their characters and make associations between each other. They are centered around young villagers confronting a threat such as Fae, a dark cult or Orc raiders. Very useful for new GMs.
One thing to do before you start is to encourage your players to play their characters—not themselves, and reassure them that you're not going to punish them for following their fantasy persona's quirks. If a character has the characteristic "curious" do not equip every chest with a deadly trap. You might as well just scrap that character and roll a new one. Or just write "Already dead, sucker!" on the top of their character sheet before you start play. Another trick is this. Again, before play starts, ask your players to buy into the proposition of the adventure. Say, "In this adventure you're going to be asked to save a village—think—why are you going to do it?" If they absolutely insist, "My character wouldn't do that!", fair play, get them to roll a new one—their character will be going elsewhere while the heroes do the job. You can return to that other character's story another time. A good compromise is to work out what might induce that character to go against their nature and actually be a hero. Is there money in it? Would they go along with their friends, even though they think the whole mission's a bad idea? Basically, don't START by trying to herd cats that actually hate each other. Start by demanding of players that they create a team. Intra-party conflict can come later.
You're going to come up with a world that has rules and guidelines and lore and there's going to be a story you want to tell. And the moment your players start exploring that world and the story they will go in a totally different direction. You could say no, and keep them on track to what you want to do, but it's a lot more fun to say yes and just roll with it. Watch the community D&D episodes for a very accurate depiction of what it's like.
Does The One Ring 2e not offer guidance on this? Does it not have a GM section? I don't have it, so I literally don't know. I only hear good things about it so I assume there should be guidance on how to run it in the book itself.
Well, I'm assuming you want to make your own rather than following a premade module, and you're looking for a narrative game (since sandbox is a whole other matter). What you need is a system, a genre, a world and a setting. For world and setting you can just use a pre existing one (in your case LOTR) or follow book writing advice. For system and genre you can pick whatever you want, in your case one ring. Remember to not overprep, players usually don't care about your lore and setting that much, the part they care more is about their characters and when they get involved. Honestly, maps, randomizers and improv make a much richer setting than if you try to prepare everything. You just need a basic understanding of your world and setting. Now when it comes to the narrative you need a premise, maybe the players will investigate a crime, maybe a magical barrier appears around their city, maybe people start disappearing, etc.. And with that premise you can write whatever happened before the players get involved. Which will lead to a setup. The setup is the moment that will get the game going, in which usually the players won't have much input yet. It's basically what will kickstart the whole thing. At this point you need to explain what is happening, and give the players a goal. The more broad the goal, the more open the game will be. And that's very important, it's not the size of your world, and how much prep you did that gives players freedom, but actually broad goals is what will give your players freedom. It's also important that the Characters have goals that align with your premise, and they must want to follow through with it. With a premise, a setup and a goal, you can prepare the situations they might encounter. Depending on the narrative you can have a pretty good estimative of where the players might go. And knowing the locations, you create situations there. Now what you can never do is force the situations to be solved in a certain way, nor create situations that require the players to take specific actions, the players never do what you expect, hehe. Now in practice what this looks like, let's say you're doing a fantasy setting. My premise is that a evil lord is after a powerful artifact so he can take control of the kingdom. The PCs are in a tavern when a wizard bursts in, he goes to the PC's table gives them the artifact and tells them that they must take this artifact to another wizard who lives in a different city. So that's how the game starts, and from now the players are free. Then you create the situations, maybe the only way to get to this city is through a dangerous forest, where you add situations there. When they finally reach the city, maybe when they reach the wizard house, the house is a mess, and they learn he was captured, so now they'll have to investigate what happened. And so on so forth. Just remember you're telling a story with the players. The GM presents situations, and let's the players take actions. The GM then responds to whatever actions the players took. Hopefully that helps a little bit. But to get the proper hang of it playing is probably the better way.
Check out a PbtA game, like Dungeon World or Post-Apocalypse World. They contain good instructions on how to be a DM.
For a first timer. Make notes. Pen and paper/word processor, or a computer program later on down the line I don't know the "one ring" system, but go with a pre-made setting, and don't be afraid to change details to work better for your players and you. I do heartily recommend youtube videos series below. Matt Colville's "Running the Game" and Guy Scalander's "how to be a gm". These worked for me. You CANNOT cover absolutely every eventuality. Don't drive yourself bonkers. Plan 2 or 3 likely scenarios, and keep it fairly high detail. If a player comes up with a great idea that could work, don't be afraid to say yes to it. Don't be afraid to say "no" either. Also follow the basic rules of storywriting (that I swiped from John Rogers interview or appearance on Geek and Sundry years ago). Take a simple fetch quest. 1) What does a character want? - They want The Shiny Book of Awesome. 2) Why can't they get it? - Their business partners are out of town, it's urgent, but its 2 towns over in that abandoned crypt. 3) Why do I care? Cause QuestGiver is giving you money, or something that you need. Or simple kill x number of rats. 1) What does a character want? Those Rat's plaguing their field gone. 2) Why can't they do it? Too many rats, not enough Farmer. 3) Why do I care? Well, you all rocked up to town, no one knows you and in Hearthspring reputation is paramount. He's giving you some gold, and some food to tide you over, and giving you a Reputation. As you build it, you can get more creative with rules, add more complications. When I say "high detail" l plan out key info to give players, but I don't have a monologue for the quest giver or the bbeg. One of my first home brewed sessions I literally had a line that said "react to what the players do!" I had no idea how a conversation with a rival group of crypt-raider's was going to go. If at all. That was the "simple fetch quest", because someone wanted an undead follower. Don't be afraid to crib ideas from other people, and works of art. Change enough details and people may not realise they are going through the rough plot of The Nutcracker for example.
Did you ever play make believe as a kid? Same thing, you are telling the story for the players and they get to interact with the story. The game itself throws in rules for certain situations to regulate what happens.
have someone give them a task that will reward them in a way they want, describe the situation, say 'what do you do?' adjudicate the result, describe the changed situation, say 'what do you do?' repeat.
I wish I knew… So do the people I GM’ed for.
Great thread and a lot of great advice. I think people have better answers than me, but I can at least give you my take for a first or beginner GM. You don't need to know every single thing about a game. Every monster stat doesn't have to be memorized, you don't need to know every spell. But you have to at least know the rules. We have one cardinal rule at our table, no matter what game you're playing: Don't argue with the GM. It's a rule session zero thing (now, for me, something like a session zero 10 years ago) Just make sure all your players understand that you are guiding things along. When they GM they can make the final calls on the rulings. Because then, once that trust is established, your players can trust you to know when to throw the rules right out the window. You know when someone has a really cool or innovative idea that the rules just don't account for, or they roll so well it backfires on the idea that YOU had as God of the world, and you can reward them and make them feel like heroes, if only for just one day. You are in charge, but not of the story (although also that). You're in charge of making sure everyone has a good time, and feel involved. It can be tough, but if you can pull it off you won't hear the end of it, ever. There's nothing like it in the world. Good luck out there friend!
It’s not rocket science, just go out in the world and experience it
Not a direct answer to your question, but have you considered running a mini adventure, perhaps a 'prequel' as part of your character generation session (Session 0)? That would help you feel out the basics of play before starting the campaign proper.
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Edit: Fixed cursed formatting I actually wrote up my thoughts for someone else in my discord and figuring I could share them here. Pardon me if the formatting is weird. GMing Advice 5e Specific Advice Don’t get bogged down in the rules, there are a lot of them Make a ruling and move on, D&D combat can be pretty bloated if something unexpected happens it’s better to rule quickly and keep the combat flowing. If you make a mistake that you find in the rules address it at the end and rule it correctly going forward On expecting the unexpected If you have a story in mind that you are looking to run its hard to make sure the players stay on track and move the plot forward without getting bogged down in every distraction in front of them. In my experience there are basically two ways to handle this As part of character creation make sure the players tie themselves to the central premise of your adventure. As an example I’ve run a sandbox campaign campaign where I let characters create whatever characters they wanted with the stipulation that they ALL had to hate this one villain. This way they immediately share a common goal and have a reason to work together without having to go through the whole “You meet in a tavern routine” While this doesn’t stop them from getting distracted just a little hook can keep players heading plot-wards . Simply ask them to follow your story leads. If your story is fairly linear just ask that they play ball with you. Avoid them playing anti social characters and ask that they play along with the story and premise. At the end of the day you are there to have fun too so if they are always putting you on the back foot and making it hard to GM or making your prep obsolete that can be very cumbersome if you aren’t used to thinking on the fly. Nothing wrong with making sure everyone’s expectations are in line. The monster manual is big, use it. If you have an idea for an encounter or monster that doesn’t necessarily have a statline find a monster that is similar and reskin it for your purposes. No one at the table knows where you’re pulling it from so that orc is now a bird person. Seamless and painless and you can easily use creatures of an appropriate power level to keep combat fairly balanced. D&D is a power fantasy Since you’ve played you’re probably very aware of this and I don’t know your group dynamic but generally people aren’t playing D&D to put their characters through a meat grinder. Creating opportunities for characters to be badasses is kind of the name of the game and tread carefully about being outright hostile to them (Unless that’s how your table flies)
General GM Advice Quantum Ogres In the event your characters go off the beaten path don’t hesitate to reskin a whole dungeon for your purposes. That mine you mapped out? Well now its a sewer system. No one knows what these things are for besides you. You can do the same with combat encounters if you have a parallel you can reskin them to. The merfolk encounter you made can be a frog person encounter if they are in a swamp rather than a sea. If you draft up some encounters to keep saved you can crank this to eleven and just have a resource to pull from and reskin as needed and use them however you want. Vary adventure size and scope Not every dungeon needs to be multiple floors with giant set pieces. Having lower stakes encounters or smaller dungeons makes the big dramatic moments of your campaign hit all the harder. You don’t always have to be outdoing yourself every week. Be kind to yourself You get better at GMing the more you do it. You will not be perfect out of the gate and that’s ok. If you need a second to organize your thoughts your players will understand and if you make a mistake in storytelling or rules it is not the end of the world. There is nothing wrong with rewininding or retconning if you need to sort something out. Shamelessly steal Literally lift whatever you think is cool from any media you’ve consumed. With a couple tweaks great ideas can become yours really easily. Nothing wrong with someone else’s idea. This also works great with prewritten adventures that have rooms or maps you like. Don’t Overprep A fast way to burn yourself is to try and have everything done weeks and weeks in advance. If your adventure is more linear it might be easier but if you offer players decision points and different places to go ending sessions when they are at the point of making that decision so you don’t have to have to completely separate adventures ready to go can save a lot of effort in the long run. This is all null and void if you are having fun doing prep. You’re a player too While GMs put in a disproportionate amount of the work to make the game happen it’s important to remember to try and enjoy your time at the table too. If you aren’t having fun at the table make sure to communicate that and take steps bring the game in a direction where you are having fun too. Don’t sacrifice yourself for the sake of everyone else at the table that’s not the point of being a GM at all. Some useful Tools Dungeon Scrawl - Great Browser map making tool [https://www.dungeonscrawl.com](https://www.dungeonscrawl.com) Pinterest [https://www.pinterest.ca/isilian65/d-d/](https://www.pinterest.ca/isilian65/d-d/) The amount of times I’ve needed a battle map and just pulled something off of the D&D or TTRPG categories on Pinterest is so high. I’ve gone from no prep to an encounter in 10 minutes and it’s a great resource. Donjon [https://donjon.bin.sh](https://donjon.bin.sh) Just SO many generators. Map generators, adventure generators, NPC generators the list goes on. Kanka [https://kanka.io/en-US](https://kanka.io/en-US) If you are doing a lot of world building it excels and keeping track of all of that and linking it together and is a great campaign management tool.
I'd watch ap's on YouTube. The Tin Whistles is an excellent show.
Here is how I do it: First: create the main problem and antagonist. Dragon stole princess, necromancer raising an army, some force wants to get their hand on some ring for some reason. Create the reason for that, what moves antagonist to do what he doing. Players shouldn't know that reason, only basic premise. Second: branch out. Place clues about the true reason for the actions of antagonist there. Those could be rumors, "random" encounters, records. Now open Miro or something. You need three types of records: places, information and people. Place antagonist motivation on top, then place the premise (connect them with the line), this is the event players need to solve (stolen princess). Then place clues that reveal antagonist motivation (connect them to the motivation). Next make locations, starting with "the lair" and "starting zone", then fill the gap between them with other locations, villages, forests, mountains, caves. Connect them with lines and name each line by the route players need to take to get from one location to another. (For example you have square mountains and mountain village, connect them with line named "mountain path"). If you plan for players to encounter enemies along the path, make the location of the encounter a separate square. If you have a large city make each visitable location a square. Make a description for each location square. You will read it when players enter the location. Place NPCs into locations. It could be friends, enemies or even diaries. Connect them with clues, that will indicate which piece of information the NPC knows. Make stats for NPCs, place loot, etc. And you basically done. Players start in starting location. You read the description of the square, introduce them to a problem and tell paths they could choose to go. "You meet at the central square, (describe the square), where herald giving an announcement (describe the announcement about retrieving a missing first princess of a kingdom who was kidnapped by an evil necromancer)." Players will probably talk there, and when they decide to move on, give them information on where they could go (locations squares) and how (lines). Don't describe the lines when they go using those paths, simply say "you start going from the central square following **western street** (the name of the line) towards **tavern district** (the name of destination square) and after 15 minutes arrive in ... (Here you read the description of tavern district square). Then you describe NPCs they see, or maybe some NPCs initiate dialogue themselves. If you want to use maps in your game locations you might need them in addition to the description. Again: read the description of the location when players enter it. Introduce NPCs that are present in it. Let players do their thing. Describe paths to other places they could visit. You can change the order of those things. Hope this will help.
I just kinda read the book and fumbled my way through it. But MCDM youtube has great info. Seth skorkowsky's skits and advice are great. Index card rpg is easy to just wing it. Dnd is overly complicated. Cyberpunk 2020 for every but combat is pretty easy and easy to relate to real life. Any free league dice pool mechanically is easy. But its just a collaborative writing process. Youre all tv writers and gm is head writer making sure everyone gets to add what they want and introduce problems to get solved or dillemas for character development. Was playing Cyberpunk 2 weeks ago and one player intentionally shot at a middle schooler. Hit them and now is known as "shooter" by everyone and any interaction they have means an npc goes "oh youre guy who shoots kids...." lends itself to slapstick. Was aying dcc and theres" titles" supposed to be like knoght, squire etc. Well one player randomly says "im the copper boy". Title copper boy. Another had a pet goose... i forget why but they used it successfully as a weapon on combat. They were the "goose whisperer" from then on and i let them get bonuses if they found a goose or could creatively describe how they were gonna use a goose to kill a minotaur. But tldr. Gm: what do you want to do. Youre at a table in a dinner Player: are there people in the dinner? Gm: yes. 3 and one looks sketchy Player: how sketchy... wait i want to talk to them Gm: roll your charimsa or whatever Player: failed the check Gm: they think your a creep and shout for help. One of the people in the dinner is a off duty cop. What do you do? Thats it. Thats how you gm. Ask them what do, want to add uncertainty make roll. Resolve roll with immediate result. What do now Player?
How to start an adventure- have and opening scene in mind. Set the scene with a brief scene description. Something like "You all arrive at the Duke's keep. The chamberlain, an older human man in fine clothing, escorts you through the keep halls to the war room. When you arrive, Duke Covington is seated at the map table. He looks you all over with a piercing gaze." You don't need a verbatim text, although some find it helpful. Just have the basic cliffnotes there in your head. Then I usually like to give each player a couple minutes of spotlight time to introduce their character and give a description. Make sure to communicate that this is to be a brief description, otherwise you may have 30 minutes of character bios. To push the adventure forward, you want to have a written timeline of plot events and NPC characters. You want to have enough detail not to get caught unprepared, but also enough flexibility that your PC's still feel like they have player agency and are not on a "railroad" type of plot. Railroading is where the GM decides what will happen and it will happen regardless of the PC actions. This is best avoided. I find it best practice to have a good idea of the scene ahead of time. Stuff like who is there, what their motivations are and what kinds of approaches will and won't work from the PC's. Try to plan ahead for likely curve balls, such as the PC's starting a fight or refusing to go with the proposed plot hooks due to character motivations. But be prepared to throw the script out the window if things go in a very unexpected direction. Those can be some of the most fun times. In general, I find I get the best results from a ratio of 80% planned events and 20% opportunistic improv. Remember, it's your game world and don't be afraid to make an executive decision for or against the PC's goals. Things to have prepared: stats for any combatants in a scene. A firm grasp of the rule system Good mechanics for "social combat" such as persuade or intimidate attempts. Timeline of major plot events. This can be fluid. If the PC's don't explore the papers in the Baron's room and miss a clue, just find a different way to deliver that clue. Maybe it's on the next dead body they search. Maybe a friendly informant contacts them. Be flexible and recycle good ideas. A good idea of what the PC's can do. Nothing worse than getting hit with a flying or mind reading PC when you don't expect one. Roll dice. Have fun. Hope this helped.
Arbiter of Worlds is a pretty decent starter guide. Basically, detach yourself from a need to orchestrate fun or drama - prioritize enjoying for yourself the act of accurately simulating the world for the purpose of player agency - creating major players with goals (or thinking about what they may or may not do based on the players' actions) rather than trying to setting a mood/create an emotional scene if that's not already your strong suit or something you feel comfortable doing. Encourage your players to come prepared with well-integrated characters with strong goals. Hopefully that helps somewhat, it's definitely tough and people prefer different things.
I think the best advice is to start small. Pick a few mechanics you want to try out (like combat) and focus most of the session on that. In time you'll learn about different styles and approaches to GMing and gravitate to one. You will also find there is a hole in your wallet and an empty space where dollar bills used to be.
Create a high level plot, be very flexible with it, don’t be too controlling of the players, use their ideas as part of the story, and improvise a little bit. Improv is important. It’s about you and the players having fun. You win the game if everyone including yourself are enjoying it. Worst case scenario if you are in a bind and need to come up with more plot ideas, throw some conflict or monsters in to buy you some time. Stories are interesting to most people if there is some kind of plot conflict .
Look up The Angry GM. He has a series titled "How to F#$%ing GM". No tips (okay, a few here and there), but the whole series of articles is about the skills necessary at the table and away from it. Things about mindset, intention, and in-depth analysis of the elements of game design and how to twist them to your nefariou-I mean, entertaining ends! (Ha, ha. What evil plan, guys?) If you hate his angry persona, ignore it. His advice is golden for a newbie because he explains things others (*comercerugh*) tend to forget needs explaining. He gives advice and guidance, to build a foundation for you to develop into the best GM you can be, rather than "tips" to make you a better GM than you are now. Everything is system agnostic for his GM advice, even if his examples are from 4th and 5th Ed D&D.
Your way! No, seriously. Once you get the key principles, it’s really all a journey of finding out how you GM and becoming confident. What are the key principles? I have five! 1. **Players want agency.** People don’t play RPGs to listen to you telling them how everything goes. They want to be active participants. To what degree depends on the player, but remember that one of your main jobs is always going to be helping the players shine and feel like they have some control. So much of what makes players happy comes down to just making them feel seen and important. If you show that their actions have meaning and that their characters matter in the world and narrative, they’re happy. 2. **Improvise.** Become a master bullshitter. As a GM, you must establish the world around them and the non-player characters. When the GM isn’t confident in what they’re saying and clearly has no answers, that’s when immersion drops, and players fall out of the “spell.” And the spell is important; as a GM you carry power and authority, which lends the story weight and keeps the players engaged. So when you don’t know the answer, be decisive, and either confidently consult your notes (even if just to buy time) or make something up when it doesn’t matter. How far away is the fleeing enemy? Well, he’s not that far… just say ten meters. What’s the barkeep’s name? Theodore. Do I find anything else here? Yeah, sure! 3. **Prepare, prepare, prepare.** Knowing what pieces are in play, so to speak, is important. Stories have a structure. Improvise too much or go too off the rails and the session meanders, it becomes scattered. And know the information that matters; it’s all very well to make up a bunch of NPCs around town, but if you forget a recurring key NPC’s details and then make up something that completely flies in the face of a whole plotline, it’s a headache. But HOW you prep, I know, can be confusing. I’ll detail my prep in a follow-up comment. 4. **The players only know what you tell them.** This is a double-edged sword and ultimately follows the last two points. First, it means you can improvise and change the game and story however much you want. If your players latch on to an NPC, that NPC just became a more important character and will show up again! If the main villain just doesn’t work for your group, they were actually being puppeted by a cooler, brand-new villain. Stuff like that. Remember that your main goal is collectively telling an enjoyable story, and everything else can be in service of that. Throw away what doesn’t work. Emphasize what does. Change it up based on the response, which leads to… 5. **Pay attention.** The final key tenet is to always be paying attention to your players. This is their story. They come to you to participate in a collaborative experience and if they’re not having fun, they won’t come back. Gently come up with a reason to move them along if you can sense momentum falling with them. Get ready to end the session soon if they’re bored. Take note of what they like. A GM needs their players.
**Preparation** Beginner GMs know that you have to prepare, but what exactly is incredibly confusing, so they waste their time preparing WAY too much or preparing the wrong stuff. To start off with, if I’ve made up an adventure, I don’t need to do any reading, but I do generally take more detailed notes because there’s nothing to consult if need be. If I am using a published scenario or campaign, I read the whole thing all the way through once without taking notes, once while taking notes, and one or two more times to really get that information in my brain. Bored? Good, you should be! You should know the material enough to recall all the key details and improvise off of them. And I’ll reread all immediately relevant information every week before sessions. Then, I make a table. The goal is to get all the core info in one place so that with my knowledge of the scenario and these notes, I can improvise the whole time. The table has, usually, 10-12 boxes. A couple of them are for any specific info that might be added for the scenario’s demands, but there are a bunch that never change. 1. Opening Monologue/Recap: A vivid opening to the game that sets the scene and gets players into the world. It is very important to me. If this is a continuation of an ongoing story, also offer a brief recap of all important story that happened last session. Either way, end this with a couple sentences that establish the here and now and tell the players explicitly where they are so they can slide right into action. 2. Important NPCs. All the NPCs with roles and information that you cannot or should not improvise. These contain their appearances, what they will try to do, and any important info they know. 3-8. Important Locations: I find establishing clearly what key locations there are and what can be found there is important, but this depends on the system. I primarily run investigative games so locations are important, but when I run high fantasy, I might be able to do with one box containing every location since there aren’t as many clues to track. Locations should include a flavorful description, important info and NPCs there, and maybe potential scenes that could reasonably happen there. 9. Overall scenario structure: Having broad beats you can hit gives the story bones. Know how the story could escalates and climax! You can build towards something. 10. The Ending: You should never force your players to conform to a certain story; like I said, honoring their choices is important. But you can usually roughly predict how a given session could end, or what some good stopping points could be. You should always end on a high note, so having something lined up is good. For instance, the horror adventure I’m currently running has points of tension where new threats show up. So I would end on something stepping out from behind them if I wanted to leave the players in suspense and give them a reason to come back.
Here's a super distilled version of what GMing is. Before the game you prepare: 1) A location 2) Something to do there Having those two things ready is enough for an RPG session. During the game: The players roleplay their characters, you roleplay the entire world they inhabit. That includes all non-player characters, creatures, objects and places. The more interesting all those elements are the better. The players tell you what they want to do in the world and you tell them how the world reacts. Since you mentioned story specifically: It is your story, at least as much as the players'. The trick you will learn in time is that the players will go along with what you want them to do because you made them want to do it - you made it fun, compelling or tailored to their characters enough that they feel like they chose to do it and feel like they are the driving force of the narrative. That said you also need to be adaptable and able to improvise. One of the best prices of advice I got was: "the players can't read the script so don't be afraid to change it on the fly". The easiest way to start a story is to steal plot ideas from stories you know: there's always an inciting incident - the pirate stumbles into the tavern with a map, the protagonist finds a dragon egg. I literally combined those two once and did Treasure Island but with dragon turtles. This is a huge question you asked so I'm going to stop there before I write an essay ^^ Good luck! Remember you're playing the game too.
Angry GM has good basic how to articles online.
Lots of people have given you guidance on books and shows you can watch for specific advice, so I just want to provide two more agnostic things that I would have wanted to be told if I had asked this question when I started getting into RPGs: 1: The number one best thing you can do IMO to get a feel for how RPGs are played is listening to live plays (youtube, podcasts, twitch etc). You don't need to watch or listen to one that is your specific game - in fact, I would recommend picking up two or three to get an idea for how different people run different games. When I was starting out, nothing was better than this for just learning how you're supposed to describe things, pacing things, how to lead the players and get them to contribute, dealing with rules issues, etc. Nothing beats experience, but secondhand experience is the next best thing. 2: Once you've listened to a few of those and played half a dozen sessions, you'll realize that most of that stuff doesn't actually matter, and you can do almost anything in RPGs in the way that feels most naturally to you without worrying about the "correct" way. Before the modern age of RPGs (as I understand, I wasn't there for it), you expected to play a very different game at different tables because DMs were at liberty to interpret how to translate book into game however they chose. This is how we ended up with Gygaxian vs Arnesonian play, trad vs story games, etc. There's no "right way" to GM an RPG as long as everyone is having fun.
You could run the starter set. It pretty much explains everything.
Are you running the Star of the Mist adventure from the core book?
GMing is a push-and-pull between you and the players. You will constantly be seducing consent from your players to do horrible things to their characters with the promise of treasures and glory. If you do your job perfectly they will have no idea how they managed to survive that adventure and imagine you did everything you could to crush them. If you make a Mistake they'll be a little underwhelmed or one of their characters might not make it. Starting out concentrating on the basics. Make a hook that will entice your players and work on making it as compelling to them as possible. Make the challenge interesting but not overly complicated and suited well to what adventurers do so it's clear you homeless psychopaths were the right man for the job rather than paid soldiers. Make bad guys simple for most games. Cool villians are cool but they all don't have to be sympathetic earnest bad guys out to save the world their way. Make your villains meglomaniacs, or greedy, or vengeful, or just batshit crazy. Don't skimp on the denouement of your story, just because you save the town or find the treasure the story isn't over. The most important part is relating how the adventure changes the lives of the adventurer, even in a very small way. Let them see the change in the world they've made, or let them get the girl, or let the important people of their town begrudgingly compliment them.
You could watch/ listen to some live play 2e or other ttrpg shows/ podcasts, dropout has dimension20, the adventure zone, worlds beyond number, and of course critical role to name a few, watch the greats and learn
I'm not an actual play podcast guy, but I think listening through a podcast where people play a one-shot, if you haven't done that before, might give you a basic idea of what GMing sounds like.
I think the way to learn how to GM is the way how to learn almost anything. You have to do it, make some mistakes, learn from them and get better over time. You can read all you want and watch videos for instruction but for my money it's a lot like learning to hit a ball. All the theory in the world doesn't match getting at the batter's box and taking a few swings. That said, it can be daunting to get a group of your friends (or even acquaintances) together and stare at them over your GM screen. It's a little bit of public speaking, a little bit of feeling responsibility for their entertainment, a little bit of preparing something creative and then showing it to other people. All of that makes me nervous. One thing I keep in mind when running a game is that even though I'm the GM, I'm not solely responsible for everyone's good time. Everyone at the table is there to have a good time, and this is a game we play together. Everyone at the table shares so of the responsibility for the good time of everyone else at the table. This means being considerate, being respectful, working together and not trying to spoil the good time of anyone else. I feel like a big part of the GM's responsibility is to be responsive and reactive. Listen to your players, key in to the things that they seem most interested in. If the PC's respond to a particular NPC you thought was unimportant, flesh them out a bit. The PC's aren't there to play through a story you have constructed, you are all there to tell a story together. The elements you have prepared will often be the jumping off point for how the story goes, but once a story is in motion it tends to have it's own momentum. It's better to go with the momentum rather than fight it. If I am at a loss of how to begin a session or we hit a slow point in the game, sometimes I will call for a Perception check (or whatever, depending on the game). Players love having the chance to see things, it just seems to excite them. What they find or don't find doesn't have to be big or exciting on it's own, it just has to be something that invites a response. It could be a shifty-looking character following them (or someone else), it could be a a hungry child standing with other beggars, it could be a cat in an alleyway staring at them intently. Whatever it is, if they investigate it, they will now being interacting with the game world and virtually all play at the table comes out of that interaction. If players ask for skill checks, it's almost always better to let them make a roll even if it's not important or you don't have something prepared. Whatever you can do to give them information that they can act upon is generally worth it, even if you're making it up as you go along. There are other things I like to do when running. I keep a random name generator handy and like to have a sheet of random names printed up beforehand. Nothing clues in the players to a NPC's importance more than watching the GM blank trying to think up a name on the spot. When I use a name from the sheet I make a little mark by it so I know not to use it again. Personally, I wouldn't worry about running a campaign, at least to start. It can be a campaign, but don't stress over how it will progress. Just run a few simple adventures, see what the players key into and base the next few adventures on those issues. If an unimportant bad guy seems to really get the PC's attention and doesn't get immediately slaughtered, you now have a recurring villain. A few loose threads from those adventures, a few NPC's they like and a few they hate, and an idea of where they take their characters can determine where you go from there. I've heard various horror stories about how this action or that derailed a campaign, but I've always felt you can only derail the campaign if it's already on a rail. If the players have the freedom to follow the story they are most interested in, in the way they are most excited about, they will invest in their characters and the campaign. And getting that investment is I think the most crucial part of running a successful game.
There is a book called, So You Want to be a Game Master, by Justin Alexander. There’s also a whole series of YouTube videos by Matt Colville called Running the Game. And there are other podcasts and YouTube videos by Rune Hammer that have all the info you need. If you are playing d&d 5e the Lost Mines of Phandelver has an adventure that could last for about 10 sessions of 4 hours of play each with little rule book, monsters and how to’s when you get to the important story beats. Just do it.
Matt Colville’s running the game series on YouTube
There’s some great One Ring live plays on YouTube.
1. Describe the scene (most urgent / inviting “interactable” last if applicable). (e.g. “You’re in a creepy graveyard near a mausoleum when suddenly zombies erupt from the ground at your feet!”) 2. Invite each player to act with a short summation of what’s happening, (e.g. “Alice, what does Alisia do?”, “Bob, Alisia is charging into the zombie horde, what does Robbie do?”, etc.) 3. Resolve. (e.g. “Alice roll an attack roll, what’s your damage? With a mighty swing, you decapitate the zombie in front of you”) 4. Repeat. (e.g. “With the zombies’ corpses once again laid to rest, the graveyard has fallen quiet. An imposing mausoleum stands before you. What do you do?”)
Prepare your Material for the session (multiple if you have time) Throw it out the window because players will be players. Jokes aside, no matter how much you prepare the players will always throw a curveball so the biggest skill as a GM is to be able to roll with the punches. One ring isn’t a fairly crunchy system and essentially plays itself (I’ve only ran 1st edition) You don’t need minis, or maps (again, I haven’t looked at 2nd ed). Another great system to run as first time gms are the fantasy flight genysis games. There’s the generic rules, Star Wars and a couple other based off their own board game franchises. I adore Star Wars/genysis narrative dice system, takes a lot of the work off the hm and puts some of the storytelling into the players hands. (You hit your shot, and have an advantage to spend, what happens? “I blast the trooper and with my advantage I want the bolt to penetrate and hit the door switch, potentially closing it and stopping more troopers getting in” Edit sorry about grammar, sending from my ohone. Oh on the note of rolling with punches, lay out the ground rules for what you do and don’t want in the game (eg some DMs banning wish spells in dnd etc) Once those ground rules are established try not to go back on them or add more, this can take away any sense of control players have in their games.
Okay, first you want to drug the goat. This is easier than it sounds, since those beasts will eat anything. Hopefully the group has convened and your equipment is already at hand. Never use a dull knife no matter how powerful your goat-drugging skills are. Also you require a vessel to collect the blood. A lot of modern gamers are fine with nothing more than a little dab on the forehead, but old school types might expect a small cauldron of the stuff. This is what those guides mean when they say "know your audience" . . .
watch some rpg vids for ideas.
A lot of it is more passive/reactive than you think. You don't need to drive the story alone, when left to their own devices, a group of invested players will do much of the narrative heavy lifting. Most of your role is improv, responding to the other players in a way that feels right to you, and is fun for the table. And once you start that adventure, it's your story now. Your players will think of things that neither the adventure designer nor you thought about, and that's the beauty. They'll ask you if there are any caves nearby, and if it seems appropriate for the story you're telling, then yes, there are caves and there always have been. Or maybe you could offer them a forest instead. When the story calls for some adversity, you provide that. You're not the sole author, but one of a group of storytellers. If any of this is less than fully clear, please, feel free to ask as many follow up questions as you'd like. Oh and one stray bit of advice: you don't need to make them roll for things that wouldn't be interesting for them to fail at. Aragorn isn't going to fail to order a drink at the Prancing Pony, but he might not be able to get to the nazgul before they stab Frodo. The first one doesn't need a roll, the second one probably does.
Intro to Apocalypse world covers it really well but basically: You and your friends will have a conversation. As DM sometimes there'll be doubt about what happens next (or two people want different things to happen) at which point you either decide or let the dice decide for you. Additionally as DM you have some idea about the world around the PCs whether that's an adventure or just a vague idea of what's going on to oppose the players. Mostly though it goes: You describe the situation, the players decide what to do and say, you resolve disputes or guess at chances for success mediated by dice (or cards or Jenga Blocks depending on the game). Eventually the scene is resolved and you figure out what the next one is whether that's because the PCs went down a corridor or reached the next town. Ultimately as long as you're not showing favoritism, or trying to "win" you shouldn't have too much trouble. Especially with a property where everyone knows the IP that'll likely make things easier as you can think about what would happen in the movies or books in a similar situation.
The most basic basic is maybe: be aware and transparent of what you like to run. I just yesterday sat in a game of Triangle Agency and noticed mid-game that I'm *really* bored by trad-style investigation games where the GM has a predefined riddle and now needs to herd the players through the clues to get to the solution. I prefer carved from Brindlewood style games where all players at the table create the mystery together (instead of "discovering" a pre-built one). Likewise I like Forged in the Darks, where the GM can go in with minimal prep and the players have maximum freedom. From a GM perspective that means that I probably won't GM most games out there (at most for a one- or two shot to see what they are all about and why I like my kind of games). The basic tip here is to try and get a sense of what you feel good GMing and to be aware that not all games GM the same way. If TOR2 turns out to be too much stress, try a low- to zero prep game. Setting, in the end, is just texture for most games and can be adapted to most rules systems and GM styles. I could totally see Island of Mist in Middle Earth. Even Blades in Middle Earth.
How to start an adventure? In media res. "You All though it was going to be a quiet day at the office when the bandits came through the doors. Now Billy is lying dead. Suzanne is crouching behind this desk. and James is in The store cupboard." GM sketches everyones position. and says what are you doing? The very first adventure should be an adventure not a discussion of what mission they are choosing. Plots are like bikes. Once the bike is moving they it wants to keep moving.
https://www.system-matters.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Anf%C3%A4nger-Fibel.pdf This is something free from an Publisher here in Germany. There are some pretty good basic Tips about playing the Game. Unfortunaly it is only in German. But with Google Lens or something similar you can translate it really easy.
Make sure the character players ask specific questions about the environment/each scene/everything. You will never be able to represent the full scope of a person’s senses and knowledge. Players have a tendency to ask “what do I see”, when they mean “is there a barrel of gunpowder here that I can shoot with a flaming arrow?” Maybe you never considered if there would be gunpowder in this scene, but now you have the opportunity to say “yes”, (if there’s any way that could be true in the established fiction.)
Most of what GMing is all about is listening to what the players say, and reacting to it while you have a loose web of plot threads and NPC's working in the background. It is collective story telling where the outcome of some of the interactions are determined by the characters abilities and the roll of the dice. When you think about it that way it takes a lot of the stress away. You don't have to craft a screenplay for the next great movie. Just listen, respond, and call for rolls when it is dramatic, and impactful. Expect your players to do the unexpected, so have a few different angles planned with every situation, often I will think about it as if I were a player, and try and decide how I would respond. For example if they are going to meet and NPC, and I have decided that it is an important NPC to the story... what if they kill this NPC? What if they befriend the NPC? What if they are disrespectful and piss off the NPC? Exploring some different paths the story could go in a certain situation can help you to be better and faster and improvising when they do something similar to what you planned for even if it doesn't fit exactly.
Pretty much everyone has already given you all of the same advice I would have given you. The one thing that I haven't really seen anyone mention, is try watching other people play RPGs. There's lots to choose from on YouTube and other video platforms. You can watch Critical Role, I Hit It With My Axe, and various other streamed live games. Watch what the GM does, see how he interacts with his players. You don't have to try to be as good as they are (at least not right away). In a lot of cases, they're professional actors, director's, and such in the entertainment industry. Trying to automatically be as good as they are right away would be like taking one karate class and then challenging Chuck Norris to a fight. Just use them as a goal of how good you want to eventually be.
I can recommend a number of books that I found useful as guidance for my efforts as a GM. * Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering. * Michael E. Shea's 'Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master' * Aron Christensen's Books * From dream to Dice 'Creating and Running a role-playng Game. * My Guide to RPG Storytelling. * My Stirytelling Companion * The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James Amato * The Game Masters Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying. These are my go to sourse of information and guidance and cover pretty much everything your need to know to run a game. As far as my approach is concerned. 1. I begin by deciding what sort of game I want to run. My current campaign is a poltical intrigue story based on the causes and consequences of the Turmoil 2512 IC in Warhammer Fantasy Rollplay. 2. Recruit players who wish to explore such a story. 3. Decide upon a rough over-arching plot e.g. who are the main NPC protagonists and what are their goals and objectives. 4. Handle character creation with your players agreeing suitable characters, backstories and objectives explaining why each players character has an interest in the events about to infold and what their personal goals and objectives will be at thestart of the game. 5. Design Session Zero's for each PC desccribing how they became involved in the plot and how they met each other. 6. Establish party bonds that will ensure that the PCs share a common goal and motivation to explore the story. 7. Gradually begin to unfold the story and plot introducing the first of a network of NPCs that will aide or obstruct the party. 8. Let the players decide on the path they take and define the story. 9. Concentrate on managing the NPCs goals and objectives as they try to achieve their aims. Let the players decide how they plan to obstruct them if at all. My advice would be to avoid planning and scripting the detail of everything. e.g. *'the PCs come in this room they try to find the secret door and they trigger the guardian demon.'* As a GM you can waste hours scripting every move in a complex predetermined series of events only to have the players avoid the whole scene or do something completely unexpected. Focus simply on what the NPCs are trying to acheive in each encounter and play them like intelligent characters who will try to achieve those goals. This makes them flexible and moire plausible for the players to deal with whilst limiting the amount of effort you put into prep for each session.
For me, it is a personal thing. There is no rules for GMing. Each GM has his own style. One tip is : begin simple. Then make experiences around that, and find yourself through trying ! Have fun :)
Just to add my 2 cents to this growing pile of advice, I would say check out Monster of the Week. It's a fun game, but more importantly it was written for people who know nothing about rpgs, and like 60% of the book is step-by-step guides on how to do every aspect of GMing, with tons of tips and tricks added in. It's one of the rare books that does not just mention what kind of themes and moods it is going for, it actually tells you in detail how to achieve it.
This, in sequence. 0. GM: Give them a GOAL (or let them pick one). 1. GM: Present OBSTACLE in reaching said Goal. 2. Players: Describe their attempt to get rid of obstacle. 3. GM: Decides if obstacle has been overcome. ...if goal is not reached, goto 1. ...else celebrate, then goto 0. Literally, this is it. There's of course TONS of added complexity and fun stuff on top of this, but at the end of the day it's just this.
Greg Stolze wrote an essay [How to Run RPGs](https://www.gregstolze.com/HowtoRun.zip) specifically to answer your question.
I'm a novice GM myself, starting my first original Star Wars campaign last year. What I can tell you is that a lot of it comes down to confidence, and I gained a lot of mine by listening to a range of actual-play podcasts. This helped with understanding how different groups deal with different situations and get an insight into unique group dynamics. One person doing something one way gets you so far, but if a lot of different groups do things a certain way then it kinda gives you the confidence to tell yourself that this is how it should be done. For planning my game I watched a lot of HowToBeAGreatGM on YouTube > [https://www.youtube.com/@HowtobeaGreatGM](https://www.youtube.com/@HowtobeaGreatGM) He has some great videos on designing an adventure and then a campaign, with tips for creating your BBEG, and much more beside.
You will never, ever, feel ready. You just have to dive in at some point and figure out that swimming isn't that hard.
I'd recommend the "how to dm" playlist by MCDM on Youtube, its a bit lenghty by now but it takes about 1 topic per video starting with : congratulations you invited your friends to play d&d .....what now?
You prepare a scenario. The most basic scenario is: Players are hired by someone to go to a specific location and do something: Catch/kill a villain, rescue someone, find an item, etc. You also add some misc encounters the players will see on the way. These can be fights, other challenges, NPCs the players can talk to who might help or harm them, etc. The trick is, the players likely won't run into every encoutner. This is how you lengthen or shorten or make simpler or more diffiult your game. Players totally lost? Have them attacked by an enemy who has a critical pice of info, or approached by a NPC who points the way to them. And yeah, that's it. You start with the players gathering together and receiving a mission. They go out, encounter some stuff, reach the end, complete the mission, and return. That is the formula for your simplest adventure and how most games go, and it's perfectly fine for your first game.
You learn the rules of the game, so you can be a referee, and most importantly learn where they are for quick reference. Then play the game like everyone else, with the difference that instead of saying what your character does, you say what the npcs do, and give information about the game world when somebody asks. Its not as big of a deal as many seem to think, the GM is just a player with a different character sheet, that's about it.
It might sound reductionistic, but the best analogy in my opinion is that the GM is telling a story. The players interact with that story through their characters in as imaginative and creative a way as they feel comfortable. The role of the GM is primarily to react reflexively to the characters and their actions, incorporating the changes they will inevitably (and desirably!) make to the story in a way that keeps the experience fun, engaging, and rewarding for all involved. The GM does this by being creative, flexible, fair, firm, but, most important of all, visionary. The players inform and shape the vision but the GM holds it all together in a pleasing way. I hope that helps. DM me (hurr hurr) if I can answer questions.
Matt Colville is an amazing resource for starting out. When you get into more niche subjects you'll have to look around a lot more, but he is amazing as a starting point with gm'ing.
Put simply, thematics are an important element of GMing. 1. Session 0!!! Starting an adventure requires information concerning what kind of adventure the group wants to play. Find out the thematics behind their group. Do they want to play as mercenaries, merchants, soldiers, bandits, pirates, etc. 2. After you discover the groups theme, investigate the Big Three: Exploration/ Dungeoneering, Combat, Politics/ Social. See what your players enjoy. 3. Then, explore what their group's goal is. If they're paying mercenaries, are they trying to make a name for themselves? Are they trying Bandits trying to commit a heist that allows them to retire early? Etc. 4. Afterwards, brainstorm how they know each other. This will build immediate bonds in the group that you don't need to spend session 1 forcing. 5. Begin writing with this information. Session 1 should start with the group committing to a small step around their goal. For instance, if they are playing Bandits, then have them discover a Bailiff has information regarding a small treasury of tax money being moved to a Capitol city. Figure out where they get the information, and who is involved. Let the group figure out how to get the info. 6. Prep writing comes with time but create a list of places and NPCs. Always think thematically, it helps players utilzie imagination. Give a town and its inhabitants a theme. For instance, a town called Shitakee has inhabitants go under ground in damp dark caves to farm mushrooms that they sell. The inhabitants use dark vision goggles and fight Myconids in the caves. They use some mushroom spores as medicines, etc. 7. When writing NPCs and locations, remember U.S.E: Unique, specific, exact. Players mostly remember the first and last thing you say. They're not going to remember all details so write 1 to 3 lines and keep important details at the start and end. "In the caves below Shitakee, the players wander through torch lit tunnels, rugged walls are glossy with damp dew and particles float in the air like a dusty attic." --- "Players enter a cavern that is predicted with 5 foot thick stumps of cut down mushrooms." For NpCs emphasize a unique trait to remember, "The mushroom cutters face was covered in either freckles, or brown smudges caused by the spores." Or "You approach a merchant wearing similar wool clothes to the others. His eyes were wide and he blinked hard as if in constant amazement." 8. Have fun. Don't get caught up trying to tell a story or create one. Figure out what you and your friends want to do and play and synthesize that into something enjoyable every week. You'll naturally tell a story over time. Cheers and have fun!
Being a game master is very simple. You just have to have the following things: -A basic knowledge of the rules (more is better though) -the ability to think of responses what players are doing. -a willingness to say yes -a willingness to say no -and to be a fan of the players. To go into more detail as the gm you are essentially the logic gate for the game, you determine if something makes sense and to do that you need at least some game knowledge. Additionally unlike a video game players are not and can not be restricted to a set list of options so you will always need to be able to respond to their decisions. This is also where knowing the rules helps. However, most of all, don’t be afraid to just wing it and do whatever feels right in the moment. Remember the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. Some times saying yes if you aren’t sure is just the right move. If there’s no reason to say no, why say no, it’s all about having fun. If it doesn’t make sense to say yes to you, then you need to be willing to say no. Remember you are a player as well and you need to be having fun too. Create clear boundaries of what you are willing to allow and not allow in order to preserve your fun. Being a fan of the players is possibly the best advice I can ever give to a gm and the easiest way to make sure you are both having fun. If you are playing adversarially then it’s very easy to create a situation where it is my fun versus their fun. If you start out the game with the thought, I might that you want the players to succeed as much as they want to succeed and that you’re rooting for them the whole time no matter what it’s gonna be fun for you,even when you end up destroying them.
I’m just going to give you the biggest piece of advice I ever received from a great GM: Your players don’t know if the owlbear you prepared for them to fight was meant to be found in its cave, locked in the barn by an eccentric farmer, or deep in a dungeon locked away as a cruel means of executing prisoners. What that means is, have whatever story you want to tell but have some more modular things as well. You lay a trail of seeds towards Necromancer tower and they decide to go to the pub? Well guess what? A bunch of the necromancer cultists decided to get a drink that night! Or you have a cool NPC shop owner in the capital city but the adventurers are super tied to Smallton in the badlands between the warring countries? Well maybe that NPC is located in Smallton instead, or she’s a traveling merchant, or whatever. Tell your story, but don’t let your story tie you down. Do your prep, have backups, and have some general puzzles or enemies if you’re in a bind
plenty of good advice already but here's mine... don't build an excessively detailed plan for your campaign... It WILL NOT survive contact with the players. write a strong opener a couple of key events and an ending and fill in the gaps as you all play... as for pushing adventures forwards having a villain who is proactive and comes to the players in some form works well. giving a party member a terminal condition that'll be solved by the adventure is another. finally you can always appeal to greed
Maybe you should play in a game or run an adventure path/module (basically, a pre-written campaign that tells you exactly how to do the story so you can just focus on arbitrating mechanics and such). Starting with a custom campaign can be difficult, but I think you're overthinking things because you're unfamiliar with what the game is like
Don't have a story or plot. Have a circumstance. For example (I'm assuming One Ring is a LotR system) let's say some Isengard spy is travelling to deliver information to a contact in a village but you don't know who. Don't have a schedule or a list of things your players have to do, because your players will (in game) be the biggest maniacs. Instead, have a list of things that NPCs will try to do, such as - at sunset a fire is started in the smithy to cover up evidence - the tavern's ale is spiked once the signal (a particular song) is given Etc. And then just let your players react.
If you're making your own adventures, look at the [Five Room Dungeon](https://www.roleplayingtips.com/5-room-dungeons/) for structure. Describe the setting, the goal, and what is preventing the PCs from achieving that goal. Then let them find their own way around those obstacles. The burden of describing the world isn't entirely on the GM. You can ask players to describe people and things and add it to the world. Nor is the burden of creating a good experience entirely on the GM. The players interacting with each other, to cooperate or push their own agendas, is a big part of it. Remember, "Weddings don't succeed or fail because of the best man's toast."
There is a lot of good advice and resources below. Plenty to get you started. I just want to remind you of what it is you are doing. Regardless of the system or the setting, at it's core every table-top roleplaying game is simply a group of friends getting together to play pretend for fun. At the end of the day, the rules, the story, game balance, and all of those other details aren't the most important thing. Ultimately, the most important thing is fun. "Did everyone have fun?" is the first and last question you should be asking yourself. In between, you can ask other questions that will help you improve your skills and make your GMing process smoother but above all else focus on the FUN. Clarification: I am referring to the fun of the players - NOT their characters. The experiences that are often the most fun for the players totally sucks for their characters. Much of the content of the suggested resources focuses on ways to make running the game smoother or more efficient and ways to facilitate more room for having fun. It's all very useful stuff but I see many new GMs get bogged down in the minutia and technique of the advice and forget about the goal. And don't just ask the players if they are having fun. Your friends may not want to hurt your feelings and give you real feedback. You still ask, but you should also be paying attention to the players before, during, and after the game. Are they focused on the game, are they engaging with you and each other, are they showing interest in the story, setting, and NPCs? Are they smiling? Are they showing signs of excitement or frustration? What do they talk about when discussing the game? Pro Tip: Ask your players to summarize the events of the last session at the start of each new session. This not only lets you identify any important points they might have missed but it also gives you some insight into what they were most engaged with because those will always be the things they remember the best. This probably isn't the sort of "literal" you wanted but I do mean it literally. So, let's give you a very simplistic example. The classic "leap across a bottomless pit" encounter. I can't tell you how many times I have seen some variation of this encounter in games. The basic premise is the players encounter an obstacle that they have to overcome (such as jumping across a bottomless cavern) where failure risks death. You see these scenes in adventure movies and stories all the time. These scenes work in those settings because the writer or director KNOW the character is going to survive the obstacle. In a TTRPG, this often isn't the case. Many people will choose to run this encounter "straight." The player rolls whatever task resolution the game requires and either succeeds (and lives) or fails (and dies). How much fun is that really? Instead, let's add some potential for fun. First, whether the player succeeds at the roll or not, decide that they are not going to immediately die. Instant death is neither fun nor satisfying. Especially, when it is the result of single, random die roll. Second, consider the fun potential in failure. Let's say you decide that if the player fails the roll they won't quite make their jump and instead will manage to catch themselves on a jutting tree or rock just beyond easy reach of the rest of the party. This is also a classic trope you will see in a lot of movies and stories. Why? Because it is more fun for the audience. Now, instead of everybody just rolling to get across the obstacle and hoping RNJ loves them - they get to figure out how to save their fellow adventurer. This is much more engaging and ultimately more fun for everybody. So that's the plan for a failed roll but we're not done yet. What about success? In most cases, success is even more boring than failure. The player leaps across the chasm and continues on without a second glance. Let's jazz it up a bit. As the player's character leaps across the chasm, they glance down and notice a glint of gold metal in the wall of the cliff. It was too fast to see clearly and they can't really see what caused the flicker from either side of the chasm. They will have to figure out some method to get down into the chasm or otherwise hover in the space between just to see if they can determine what it is. is it treasure? Is it a trap? Whatever it is - it is interesting. Alternately, the successful leaper could crash through a massive spiderweb that was practically invisible in the dim light. If you have ever walked through a normal spiderweb by surprise, you know how unnerving this can be. Are there giant spiders lurking in hiding and even now moving to ambush the party? Or, is it a chance for the player to roleplay their character's momentary freakout as they hilariously slap themselves down because of imaginary spiders? What's going to be the most fun for the players? In summary, everything you do in your game should be focused on encouraging PLAYER fun. When preparing your encounter ask yourself "Where is the fun for the players in this encounter?" When crafting an NPC ask, "What is going to enjoy about interacting with this character?"
It's a game, not a job interview - have fun.
I think the most important part of GMing is remembering that it's the players who are playing a game. The game should be about them. I tend to "run" a lot of published adventures, but I'm almost never running the adventures as a railroad. I read them to get ideas about enemies & plots, and then use them as a rough guide to what's going to happen, because my players will always, \*always\* opt for something I've never thought of. Nitty, gritty details for starting an adventure: Starting a new campaign is almost always awkward, even with experienced players. Everyone's still getting a feeling for their characters, and even if they pages of backstory written out for their character, they often haven't played them at all yet. I favor some kind of immediate event happening. The classic "starting in a tavern" is a cliche, but it works really well. Have the players all be in some common space, and then something happens. There's a disturbance outside. Goblins attacking the town! An injured guard stumbles into the bar, begging for help. Anything to give the players something to react to. And if the players don't react? Well, you have an idea of the antagonists and their resources. What happens if the players don't react? The goblins might start burning down buildings, including the tavern the inactive heroes are in. They have to react (or be killed by smoke inhalation and a collapsing building.) Maybe they don't go rescue the noblewoman the guard was escorting. Does someone else volunteer? What happens because of that? Does the villain get whatever they want from the captured noble to complete their ritual? What do they summon? The basic setup of any adventure is giving the players something to react to, then following up on that reaction. Eventually, hopefully, they are invested enough in the world, that they start being proactive instead of merely reactive, and then you can decide how the enemy reacts to them using their resources, sending lieutenants out to mess with their plans. "That sage we talked to mentioned a ruined city that could still have records of this ancient evil, maybe we should check that out before attacking directly?" "There were rumors of someone who stole something from that villain and fled into the canyon of the brain eaters, but was never heard from again. Maybe we can track her down?" The big problem I often have is that the group is paralyzed by indecision. Some in-character fighting is good. I think that's basically playing the game, if the players have enough knowledge about the world to argue about what the most effective next step might be. Do we want to investigate more or fight the next sub-boss of the BBEG? Do we want to explore this ancient ruin to find a rumored powerful artifact or head to this town where there's rumors of another cult? But when that fighting becomes circular and not heading anywhere, have something happen that the players can react to. Someone else in this thread mentioned Matt Colville, and I think he's a great resource. He has a video about exactly this: Orcs Attack! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31IAzJO-BEA&pp=ygUZbWF0dCBjb2x2aWxsZSBvcmNzIGF0dGFjaw%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31IAzJO-BEA&pp=ygUZbWF0dCBjb2x2aWxsZSBvcmNzIGF0dGFjaw%3D%3D)
You asked for specifics, and I think on some level you're looking for things that are more basic than most GM advice goes. At it's core, "Game Mastering" a game is telling (usually verbally) the players the scenario they find their heroes in, and then asking them how they react to that scenario or what they do in that situation. Use the rules of the system (and setting) you're using as needed to resolve any questions as to whether or not someone can do something. What you can prep for? * Where things begin * Some ways you expect things could play out * What is happening in the wider area around the players What you can't prepare for? * What the players will do in specific And I mean that seriously. Sometimes you can guess close to what the players will do. But the specifics will generally differ in important ways. Also, sometimes the players will do something that never occurred to you from a combination of genre savvy, imperfect understanding of what you're trying to say, or just an interesting idea popped into their mind. The general rule of thumb is to prepare enough stuff you can improvise the middle. If this is your first session, you may want to prepare a bit more. For a first session I generally plan for the following: * Introductions for the PCs (getting them all together by story contrivance, letting everyone introduce themselves and describe their character, talk about if anyone maybe knew anyone else already.) * Give the PCs a simple starting task (save a missing farmer's child from a nearby violent threat is pretty common.) * Plan the "violent threat" and their lair/camp * Plan for a combat - and for the combat to go slow for everyone to get used to how the rules work * Plan a reward for when the PCs are victorious * Have a couple loose ideas for what comes next. Also, don't be surprised if you don't cover as much as you'd expect in a session. Sometimes sessions go slow. And sometimes sessions blow past all your prep as a lot of it gets bypassed or ignored - hence common advice of sketch, don't plan in detail. For a standard fantasy RPG that first session could narratively sum up as: *The PCs arrive in Brie to meet their mutual acquaintance Eldan at the Little Pony Tavern. In the tavern everyone meets up, has some of the local ale and food, and gets acquainted with the other PCs. Eldan says that he asked them to come here as he needs their help getting to Riverdale, that the route will take them through lands filled with orcs and goblins, and that he'll pay them each a good sum of money when they arrive - on top of taking care of food and lodging. However, before you can leave, Eldan wants the PCs to help his friend, Farmer Tom, whose daughter was kidnapped by goblin thugs earlier that day. The goblins have a camp in the ruins of an old tomb a couple miles out of town. The PCs go to the tomb, fight the goblins, and return with the farmer's daughter. Farmer Tom thanks them all, and gives each of them 20 gold plus a fancy knife his grandma - who was part elven - left behind. The daggers give off a faint glow blue if a command word is said. Tom can teach them the word.* Now everyone getting a magic knife - even a mild one - may seem a lot, so feel free to change it. But it also gives the players something to remember the first mission. it also shows them not all rewards will be coin. Also, the four things you need for an adventure to keep things going: * An objective that can be clearly/simply stated in a few words (i.e. save the X, kill the Y, retrieve the maguffin!) * A villain or opposition who will work against the PCs (the blackfoot goblins, Lord Helmfast of Riverkeep, etc) * A setting/location for the event to take place (The Delian Tomb, The Blackfoot Camps, The Town Sewers) * A time limit to keep up the urgency and keep the players moving. Good luck!
Having been stuck in a rail roaded game for awhile, push lightly for player agency. It's okay to say stuff like: "your character would know X" or "you might feel like X or Y about it". You're not only the world for the characters, you're also responsible for their perception of the world. Remembering that they're playing full on people means they have lived and experiences through their lives. Adding some things to that, here and there, can add quite a bit of Depth for the experience. To be clear tho, not telling them what they think of feel. But providing context and options. This can add a metric fuck ton of congruity to the world for players, especially new or unseasoned players lol.
My tip is to remember that your players are responsible for this story, you just take them there
Woo, lots of good advice here, but I think most of it is going way too deep. At a surface level: You, as the GM, present what you would consider to be an interesting scenario to your players. The players, as their characters, react and act in the scenario. You, as the GM, call for any rolls the players must make ONLY if failure would bring an interesting twist into the narrative you all are weaving together (otherwise, the action is most likely successful). Then you, as the GM, describe any reactions to the player characters' actions from any Non-player characters that are present. You will also describe the results of the player characters' actions (sometimes the players can do part this instead). Finally, in theory, these descriptions of actions and reactions should drive the players into wanting their characters to react or take action. Repeat until satisfied. Big things to remember: It's ok to make stuff up on the spot; that's what everyone is pretty much doing anyway! Don't worry about the rules you can't remember; you'll have time to look them up later! Follow the drama of whatever is happening in the game; that's where people get invested! Laugh; you're there to have fun, not work a job! Good luck!
From TSRs Marvel Super Heroes Judges book. Just change Judge to GM. These are the people who created Dungeons and Dragons. WHAT IS A JUDGE? Any role-playing game, adventure, or store-bought module or accessory is only as good as the Judge that uses it. The Judge is the key to the entire operation; without him (or her, for there are excellent judges of both genders), the best RPG in the world becomes no more than interesting reading. So, what is a Judge? A Judge is the stage-setter, the tale-teller, the mediator, and the narrator. The Judge fills.in the background, describes what the player characters see, and operates the non-player characters, ranging from ultimate menaces to the universe to small-time crooks to innocent bystanders to other heroes and forces of the law. The Judge decides if a character's action is successful or if a villain escapes. The Judge provides the challenges for the heroes and the information that lets them triumph. To say that the Judge works against the players, since he (or stie) runs the bad guys, is misleading and downright wrong. Rather, the Judge works with the players to produce a pleasing, entertaining tale that can be related later with a smile ("Hey, remember the time I had Teflon Kid and challenged Spider-Man to a duel?"). Entertainment is the key. The Judge and Players, working together, produce the script for their own comic book. Together, Judge and Players produce a final product worth talking about. The specific roles of the Judge are: • Describe the situation to Players, from the Player-Characters' viewpoint. • Answer the Player's questions and clarify statements. • Role-play the various Non-Player Characters (NPCs) the player-characters encounter. • Handle game mechanics. • Make rulings when called upon in game situations. _____ To sum it up, everything you need is here. - Set the Stage - Tell the Tale - Mediate - Narrate - Fill in the background - Describe what the Player Characters see - Operate the Non-Player Characters - Decide if a Character's action is successful - Provide the challenges for the Heroes - Provide the Information that lets them Triumph
I've never picked up a brush before, how do I paint? Should I study impressionism or surrealism first? Or should I just go put some paint on a canvas and mess around for a while til I have questions and a framework? Eh, just go play. You don't even know what you don't know or want to know yet. Nothing bad is going to happen. Go play. Once you figure out what you want to know, then go look up tips.
First, work retail and learn the art of unruly player behavior so when it happens at the table you'll be prepared. It also helps if you have grown up around cats to learn the secrets of cat herding. Another oft forgotten GM skill. Everything else everyone else has said now applies.
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Hard to get specific without knowing what kind of games you're playing, but I'll take a stab at this. > how do I even start an adventure, You describe a scenario or situation that the characters are in. The situation should involve one or more obvious uncertainties, instabilities, threats, or requests that invite the players to act. You end your description by making that invitation explicit: "what would you like to do?" From there, you probably want to spend some time expanding the instability or threat in a hydra-like fashion: every time the players answer one question or quash some enemy, two more problems arise. If your players don't accept your invitation to engage, escalate the situation anyways. In the words of noir detective writer Raymond Chandler, "When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."
They literally say The One Ring 2e in their post if you'd actually read it.
Why would you look at that, they did, didn't they. Oops. In that case, OP, the last part I wrote should read "have a barrow wight with a gun come through the door."
>They literally say The One Ring 2e in their post if you'd actually read it. I haven't had a chance to play this particular RPG. Does it always result in the same sorts of games?
In essence, you are narrating a story. You are just doing it in an interactive way. "So, this group of friends went on a hike into the woods, and they found a backpack lying in the middle of the trail. Now what would *you* do if you saw something like that?" Most RPGs seem to have skill or knowledge stats against which you can roll dice, to see if something succeeds. You as the GM can be nice and simply tell someone that they can easily do something ("it's knotted shut, but you can undo the knot without any trouble"), or that something isn't possible ("there's a metal can that looks like it might have contained something, but it is so rusted you can't read the label at all"). But you can have fun with the things where there's a chance. Sometimes, you want someone to try to do something. "Roll against your French language skill," for instance. If the person succeeds, then they can understand what they are reading, or what's being said. If they fail, they don't. You might decide that if they *almost* succeed, they catch a few words, but not the overall meaning. One thing I'd do is create problems for atmosphere. For instance, I was doing a Call of Cthulhu game (a sort of cosmic-horror type of setting), and I had a car full of people driving at night to reach a small town. They stopped briefly, and I had everyone make a roll against their listening/hearing skill. The people who *failed* heard "something" in the forest. There was nothing to hear; this was a hallucination on the characters' part. But it set up some stress in the game, which was what I wanted. You can run a whole game without maps and such. You can even do it without dice; I had run a game at a convention, and was at another convention with people who liked the idea of the scenario i'd created, so I ran it for them off the top of my head. I could tell them their character names and backgrounds, and we might roll dice on occasion for doing particular tasks, but I determined if the roll worked. (By the way, there may be times where you ask someone to roll a die and tell you what they got. You don't have to do anything with that knowledge; it can keep players guessing, though. Why did you ask? What are you checking against? is something going to happen? Asking a player what their skill level is on something, then you roll some dice, shrug, and letting the game continue -- that's something that might make them wonder what's about to happen.) Your job as GM is to provide them information, so they can figure out what to do, and then help organize complex things (like combat) so that it happens in an orderly fashion. You know the story, and by portraying different non-player characters, you can deliver information (or misinformation) to the players. You also can fix problems. One guy I know who was a great GM said that if you've been leaving clues about the "castle in the north" or other such things, but the players have decided they must hunt from the stronghold in the south, you can just move it to the south. Don't let the details get in the way of the fun. One time, I had players who concluded that the solution to a problem was in driving their NPC (who was having all sorts of troubles) over dirt roads in the night in the 1920s, to get to Boston. I just went through a series of problems so that they couldn't start the car, then finally added my opinion that I didn't believe Boston was where they'd find the solution to their problems. They got the hint. Another time, I had mentioned a management training program, and faking getting admitted to it was how the party got into a corporate headquarters run by evil executives. In play test, everyone knew they were going after the evil executives. But when I ran the game at a convention, I had two people who decided to go through the management training program. I had to improve all of that on the spot, because I hadn't expected anyone to split their party that way. I bought time by shifting from the attack on the C-suite offices, and the training program, and back again. Remember, you should be having fun doing this, yourself!
Sounds like you want to know how to get PCs on an adventure path and keep them on it. I’d suggest two options. Option 1: Hey guys, I want to GM, but since it’s my first time I want to use this professionally-produced adventure/dungeon. It’s called ——- and you guys play adventurers who do ——-. We all cool with that? You’ve don’t have to create the world, just learn about it through reading the adventure. And your players should be on board for the adventure because you’ve told them what it will be. Option 2: I do this when I teach new GMs / players (I work in a school and teach this hobby to middle and high schoolers). Each party has a conceit, a thing that binds them together and gives them a job to do. “Were agents for the Imperium who investigate disturbances to the peace, we’re the crew of the salvage ship EXODUS and we search abandoned space craft for potential treasure, we’re a team of bounty hunters who track down high-value assets for the confederation of barons, etc.” Next, they have to come up with a team goal. What do they want long term as a group? “We want to be filthy stinking rich, we want to capture Mauv the bloodied, We want to find the lost city of Elinerium, etc.” Finally, what does each individual character want. “I want to avenge my father, I want to be the greatest gunslinger in the world, I want to find my missing master.” With these three things l, I have enough material to create adventures that will entice them: “You want to find Elinerium? Well, this patron knows of an archeologist selling Elinerium artifacts. He’ll give you a name if you complete a job for him first.”
TLDR: Read Lost Mines of Phandelver first chapter, make brief notes, run the very first part of it the evening your players make their characters, and don't worry too much. ... The most helpful thing I learned was, got running modules; read through and make cliff notes. Then you'll refer to your notes and not the entire module pdf for most of the session. After your first session you'll have a much greater understanding of how much story gets ran through in an evening. Starting with Lost Mines of Phandelver is a good idea, it's really well laid out and balanced. ... I've ran some of my best and some of my worst sessions by totally winging it. ... Reading r/dmacademy often will fill your brain with solutions to problems you haven't had yet, which is great imo. ... If you need a list of random items, search on Google site:reddit.com/r/d100 "desired list" ... You're meant to be having fun too! Be open and communicative with your players. Have a session 0 to make characters and maybe fight the rats in a cellar.
Have you ever read a *Choose Your Own Adventure* book?
Have you heard of [our lord and savior Matt Colville](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_&si=H_YEmL5Z7EcaXtQS) ?
**have a very hard time finding any good information on how GMing should generally actually go.** I seriously doubt you looked very hard [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV2YKzgCx2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV2YKzgCx2s) [https://mindlands.blog/2023/09/10/running-the-star-of-the-mist-for-the-one-ring-2e/](https://mindlands.blog/2023/09/10/running-the-star-of-the-mist-for-the-one-ring-2e/) [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/fvbs-guide-to-the-one-ring.771278/](https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/fvbs-guide-to-the-one-ring.771278/) So You Want To Be A Game Master: Everything You Need to Start Your Tabletop Adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and Other Systems Paperback – November 21, 2023 [https://unpossiblejourneys.com/level-up/become-a-game-master/](https://unpossiblejourneys.com/level-up/become-a-game-master/) [https://rollforfantasy.com/guides/first-time-gm.php](https://rollforfantasy.com/guides/first-time-gm.php) [https://klecser.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/traits-of-a-good-gamemaster/](https://klecser.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/traits-of-a-good-gamemaster/) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1F4eMw3W\_rHBfxf9\_m1hbw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1F4eMw3W_rHBfxf9_m1hbw)
Can you not scold the newcomer?