Good advices for a first time GM

[doomande 52]

This have properly been asked before, but are there any good advices from a first time GM?

 

I am going to run he Church of the Damned (from chapter 2 since our old GM had to resign because of reasons) so the plot as such are not what I need help with, but more pit traps that a first timer isn´t aware of.

 

I have been an acolyte for a pair of years now, so I do know a bit about the universe and how games runs, but would still love to get some advices from more experienced GMs

[Spacebatsy 9]

General advice from a, maybe not all that experienced, GM:

 

Firstly: Love the players and their characters.

Torment them, sure. Wound them, hurt them, kick them into the dust. But love them.

This is their story. You are the creator and weaver of it, but it should circle around them.  Get to know their characters and make sure each and every one of them holds a vital part of the overall plot. This will keep your players committed to the story and you will have a lot of fun manipulating and misleading them 

 

Secondly: Less is more. Daemons, gore, epicness and loot is not things to be sprinkled over a story for better flavor. Rather do one thing and do it well then add more for effect. This is also important to make your player feel like they are growing. There will come a day when daemonhosts won’t scare the players (although gun-servitors always will), try to keep that moment in the far future.

 

Thirdly, specific advice: Since you seems to be running the Apostasy Gambit, and I’m saying this as one currently trying to make the Black Sepulcher work, don’t be afraid to butcher the written material.

The adventures have a lot of good stuff and make a lot of things easier for a GM. But if something doesn’t make sense, or you simply don’t like it, then change it. I’ve had a lot of things that neither I nor my players enjoyed, but I kept it on the notion of “but it say so in the book!”.

Don’t do this, they are not Gods (you are  ) and the players won’t miss what they have never had anyway (and these forums are great with helping you adapt your story).

 

 

Hope this helped you out a bit, good luck!

Edited May 11, 2014 by Spacebatsy

[doomande 52]

Our whole first session are going to be used on talking and nothing else, me learning a bit about the others characters, their plans with them, back stories, and their expectations of the adventure. So I surely take your first advice to my heart and keep it there.

 

For the second advice... our first GM was rather happy to reward us all with amazing things when we did a good job, and having found a titan, and actually been smart enough to find a way to kill the big bad demon in the end do we have a good amount of loot :/ Luckily was it rather generic loot, so there is still room to grow and ways to outsmart the players and reward them as well. But I do hear you, if you are seeing giant and amazing things each session do they grow boring, better to spread them out and be something that you have to work after, something that there are a build up to.

 

Thanks for the third advice as well, luckily am I rather found of the adventure so far, at least for the next part that we are going into, so there is not much need to twek around with what there is in the book. Beside of adding a pain in the ass "noble" that there sure will piss my players of and give them a lot to work with, and taking a hologram of a dragon thingy and make it a bit more real than just that, are the book just perfect!

[Librarian Astelan 58]

I find that a succesful GM is:

 

1. Well prepared. Knows the ins and outs of the story, but can adapt if necessary.
2. Familiar with the rules that are going to come up in the game (especially combat rules), but again, when stuck with the rules (contradictions, ambiguity, no rule available - or not findable), dares to adapt to keep the game running.
3. A narrator that puts extra emphasis on the description of the world. Remember, you are the eyes, ears, tongue, fingers and nose of the players. Nothing bugs me more than bad descriptions: "You find yourself in a square room" compared to "You enter a dark square room. As far as you can see the dimensions of the room are 5 by 10 metres. The ceiling is concealed with a mass of tangled cables and pipes. You hear the dripping of water over your head and you notice that the temperature is considerably higher in this room. On the right wall, someone has written in red paint 'the end of the false Emperor is near' and if you enter the room, you smell something foul, but you can't identify it, yet." Even worse are GM's that describe a scene, only to add 5 minutes later "Oh, you guys. I forgot. There is another door in this room!"
4. Aware of the talents and flaws of the pc's. He tries to put every one of them in the spotlight during a session, but isn't afraid to put them up against something that isn't their cup of tea.

Most importantly, have fun, and make sure your players have fun. If they are happy running around a bland hallwaycomplex, just blasting away with their favorite autogun, roll with it if it suits you. If they want to doublecross the inquisition and become Istvaniaans, let them, if it suits you too. You're on the right track if I hear what you're planning to do with the first session, but make sure to ask them what they look for in a game.

 

Best of luck!

[Lone Pilgrim 11]

Morning! I absolutely second what has been stated before, plus some elaboration. I hope you don't mind me cannibalizing other threads to sum up some good points on novice GMing ^^

 

First off, combat encounter design advice from covered in Weasels (http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/101369-wanted-advice-on-effective-combat/):

1. Provide cover for both players and enemies. Ideally there will be multiple different strengths of cover -- for example, a chapel might have many ARM 8 wooden pews and several ARM 16 stone pillars in the main floor area. Interior walls of buildings are usually ARM 8 unless they are reinforced in some way; modern rifles can pierce a typical wall and hit somebody on the other side with enough force to cause injury.
2. Provide routes for combatants to flank or charge each other. A straight corridor shoot-out generally makes for poor tactical gameplay. Have stairs and balconies that pass above or below the main combat floor. Perhaps some routes are faster or safer than others but require a skill check to cross -- instead of walking around the edge of a pit full of hazardous waste, a character could use Acrobatics to cross the narrow girders leading across the pit.
3. Let players interact with the environment in some way. Maybe tables can be flipped to provide cover, or an industrial lift can be raised to give someone a height advantage. Players can shoot pipes to produce a cloud of steam, duplicating the effects of a smoke grenade. Entering the proper code into a computer terminal (Tech-Use) could reprogram nearby repair servitors to attack your enemies.
4. Give the players an objective besides "kill everyone." Maybe an important target is fleeing while minions and traps cover his retreat. Do the players advance cautiously and risk losing their quarry, or do they rush the enemy and possibly expose themselves to serious harm? Maybe the party Adept has to decrypt some vital data and must be protected while a large force of mercenaries tries to stop him, and the Acolytes must hold out against a superior enemy while the non-combat party member makes an extended skill test. If the Acolytes want to take a cult leader alive so they can interrogate him, they will hesitate to use their boltguns and power swords against a potentially dangerous enemy.

Second, advice on creating atmosphere by humble me (http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/102066-new-homebrew-campaign/):

- Descriptions: Don't tell your players there's "kinda a building", but "there's a dilapidated habblock, grey ferrocrete, in places plastered over with flaking paint that has yellowed. A lone lumenglobe spills dim light over the cracked stairs."
As has been pointed out before, this can be overdone, so don't drown your players in details, but whenever you want to shine a spotlight on specific ppl, events, environments, or envoke a particular emotion, this is the tool of choice.
 

- In Character: Whenever possible, use direct speech when portraying NPCs. That is, don't tell your players "the guy tells you that he has seen the person in question yesterday", but spell it out, adopt the NPC's manner of speech, choice of words, facial expressions, body language, slang, act as good as you can. Is she a noble with windy speech or an underhive scum? It also serves as giving away clues - if you're talking in-character and the character hesitates before answering, players will know that something's amiss (if they paid attention) without the need of a dice-roll.

Also, encourage your players to do the same. It's weird in the beginning, but it definitely pays off, immersion-wise.

- No Jokes. There's nothing wrong with good humour at the gaming table! Especially in the beginning phase, we do have a lot of laughs. But if you're trying to build atmosphere, there's nothing more immersion breaking than a joke at the wrong time. Even though it might be brilliant, when you're delivering an emotional scene, a flat joke will destroy everything you've worked for for a few seconds of laughter. Same goes for off-topic discussions, smoke breaks etc., cut those as short as possible, ask your players to focus on the game. That's not being a draconian, humourless overlord, but simply politely getting things on track. Sacrificing a few bits of socializing and laughter every other weekend will gain you something far more valuable: a memorable, immersive story you made yourself

- Exterior factors: if you can manage, try to shut out the outer world. No persons barging into the room turning on the TV, if at all possible, no kids running around crying for attention from mom (we had that once ~shudder~), or mom peeking curiously into the room to see what her kids are up to. Try to play in a secluded spot and at a time with smallest possible amounts of distractions.

I prefer a rather dim lighting while playing, further drenching the outer world in shadow, but that's personal taste. Also, I use a laptop with ready-made playlists for background music, generic sountrack collections (games are excellent) with tracks sorted into categories such as "heroic", "sad", "combat", "neutral background", "sacral" and so on. It's a bit of a workload to get your initial playlists, but you can use and extend them for years, and in my experience, music makes one hell of a difference concerning atmosphere.

We even have been using intro tracks for years (atm Spirits Within by Audiomachine), that we play after having summed up the last session and before starting to actually play. It works well as defining the transition from out-game to in-game, gives players the opportunity to focus on their character for a few minutes and the GM to have a last quick look over notes or get rid of all the reallife-ballast clogging up imagination.

 

My two cents, pick what you like, discard the rest.

 

 

[doomande 52]

We are mostly a teen group, me being the age president with 22 years, so the jokes and some of the off-topic talking can´t really be avoided, but I will take my words to me and think a bit over when the jokes are told and what kind of jokes there are told. I have luckily played a lot of fallout, so my grimdark sense of humour are sure going to both give people a laugh and ad to the atmosphere as well.

 

Unless they find a character that talks for hours, they just want to skim over something or other special situations like that am I going to stay in character and use (hopefully) the rite type of speech and body language, I have been LARPing for 10 years now, so at least do I have some experience with that.

 

I must admit that I already have read the first link that you have shared with me, a good GM does after all always study before he asks a question, and I do think that I have a relative firm grip around the combats and have a good idea or two about what they find fun, hard and rewarding about it as well. What I really really need now are knowing some of the pitfalls there are in GMing that no novice can know about in advance, wanting to avoid as many as I can and have plans to work around the rest when they come.

 

Ohh and about cannibalizing others work, this is 40K, is that not the standard when we think on our setting

[Librarian Astelan 58]

- No Jokes. There's nothing wrong with good humour at the gaming table! Especially in the beginning phase, we do have a lot of laughs. But if you're trying to build atmosphere, there's nothing more immersion breaking than a joke at the wrong time. Even though it might be brilliant, when you're delivering an emotional scene, a flat joke will destroy everything you've worked for for a few seconds of laughter. Same goes for off-topic discussions, smoke breaks etc., cut those as short as possible, ask your players to focus on the game. That's not being a draconian, humourless overlord, but simply politely getting things on track. Sacrificing a few bits of socializing and laughter every other weekend will gain you something far more valuable: a memorable, immersive story you made yourself

 

The humor one is a bit of a pickle. It all depends on the taste of the group. I'm playing a Deathwatch campaign, but it's more slapstick than gritty, bloody combat. Which is fine for us. Us players are 80% of the reason that game goes belly-up all the time. Mostly because we are the stupidest batch of spacemarines ever enlisted in the Deathwatch, and partly because the dice seem to hate us 

 

On the other hand, I'm planning a Dark Heresy campaign (homebrew) and as I recruit the players I strongly stress that this story needs a gritty and dark atmosphere. So when before they start character creation, I explicitly state that it is a "no joke" game. Jokes will be welcome during breaks. If a player can't live with that (and I thought one of the Deathwatch group might have a problem with this), he shouldn't play (but it turned out after a frank conversation that the player loved to try this take on the game).

 

So the humour thing really depends on the preferences of the GM and the players. But this rambling aside, I see that you already have a good grip on the taste of your group 

 

I must admit that I already have read the first link that you have shared with me, a good GM does after all always study before he asks a question, and I do think that I have a relative firm grip around the combats and have a good idea or two about what they find fun, hard and rewarding about it as well. What I really really need now are knowing some of the pitfalls there are in GMing that no novice can know about in advance, wanting to avoid as many as I can and have plans to work around the rest when they come.

 

Other pitfalls for a novice GM include:

 

1. Getting into arguments with your players during the game about a rule. To avoid this, if you can't resolve the issue in half a minute, make a ruling and tell the player that you'll be happy to discuss this further after the session. You might want to add that any harm that has come to the pc will be compensated afterwards.
2. Giving in to unreasonable demands at character creation. I'm sure you're aware of powerplayers and the subtype of the "übergoddlichemachinepowerplayer". Just say no to unreasonable demands. If you want to know what's unreasonable, just use the RAW (although in DH, this might come back like a boomerang). A better idea is to compare the demand with the possibilities of the other pc's. If it's too overpowering, just say no.
3. Demand from the players that their pc's form a "group"  from the start. There is nothing more irritating than having a pc soloing during the first (or even consecutive) session. This will slow down the game as you'll be constantly switching between the different characters or will annoy one player as his pc will get no playtime at all. Furthermore - unless your players dig the "cloak and dagger"-kind of game, put your veto on double agenda's of the pc's. So no backstabbing, no betrayals, ... until later in the game when there is a good, storybased reason for this thing (and only if your group is mature enough to handle these kind of things; in game betrayal, but out game friends).
4. Depending on the game you want to play, ask your players to elaborate their background. If you're going for a combatfocused game, this doesn't have to be a lot, but if you want deep immersion roleplaystuff going on around your table... make sure that your players created their background. The most important part is their motivation (what drives their characters? What is their personal purpose in the inquistion? ...).
5. Play at a table, not in divans.
6. Try to keep it simple at the start. Don't try to think up massive sectorspanning conspiracies for your first adventure. Flushing out a cult of heretics in a hive, catching smugglers of xenotech or looking for a missing missionary are all good starts. If you want to, you'll be able to patch this first adventure in a wider scope, but at least it got you started and it doesn't confuses the players or you that much.
7. Last but not least: Don't be afraid to discuss the quality of the game with your players afterwards. It can only give you feedback to make the game more interesting. Don't worry about adressing issues/disturbing behaviour of your players. The worst thing that can happen is that you have to call 911 because you got a butload of d10 shuved down your throat. Realisticly, chances are far more likely that you have a decent conversation with your players and augment the quality of your next sessions.

 

Hope this helps, but it seems to me that by coming here and looking for advice, you are already quite alert to create a good game. If you apply the same attention to the game itself, I'm sure you'll have a hell of a time burning, maiming, slashing and shooting the pc's in your next game and so baffling, supprising, amusing and horrifying the players in your next game.

 

Best of luck!

 

Ps: Don't get those last few things mixed up.

[doomande 52]

As mentioned are we going to run a scenario from a book, a bit free hand since I want to spice things up now and then and suit it better for the players, so advice 6 is check and double check

 

For all the other advices will I take them to my heart and think a fair amount over them. I do already plan to incorporate a 15 min debriefing and talking period in the end of my sessions, both so we can talk things out, questions can be asked, and planning can be done. I myself remember such debriefings fondly from when I began to roll my dices with D&D, so I am going to keep them now as well. The timing is rather good, so when our session stops should it be time for dinner, and we do all know that the best talking happens when you stuff your face with food, logical right?

 

And about the backstapping... I have personally never had any good experiences with it, and with how I see 40K and acolytes are there not really room for it, unless a person are planning a suicide that is. So I would properly strongly advice against it if someone whispers about it at the table, unless they are going to backstap NPCs that is, backstapping those that tries to use you are after all part of the game

[Lone Pilgrim 11]

Just wanted to add: I personally am not really a fan of forming a group from the start. To me and my players, just getting thrown into a more or less random constellation feels kinda unnatural, and it deprives players from acting out the getting to know your peers part, which can be very fun. So whenever we start something fresh, the GM in question makes an effort to get them together "organically", having (short!) introduction scenes for each PC that culminate in them pursuing the same goal. In the case of DH, this is ridiculously easy, as it only has to end in "and then you get recruited by the inquisition"

Also along those lines, we've found that not knowing the other player's characters and background stories in advance (out-game) greatly adds to the interest the PCs develop in getting to know each other.

 

But just as any other thing in RP, this totally boils down to personal taste and group style. It requires players that actually enjoy getting to know the other PCs in-game and that don't mind listening to others playing for half an hour. Just thought it worth considering.

[Diarmuid 2]

I have to say I really appreciate this thread.  I came to the forum looking for information on GMing a DH campaign.  My group has never played any of the 40K role playing games, and there was some good information here, both in general, and specific to DH.  I'm impressed by the depth and detail of the responses.  Good job to all the posters above for taking the time and having real consideration for the topic!

 

I'll add a couple of my own observations and a link or two to some more reading that I think is relevant.

 

I think it's important to understand your story and your setting well enough to be able to improvise a twist when your players do something that you did not anticipate, and they will - always.  There is a real balance to be struck here.  You want to have prepared a story (even a purchased module) to suit your players.  However, don't be so stuck to the planned story that you go into shock when your players don't search the pockets of the enemy assassin and find the carefully prepared note that you have spent hours on making an acutal copy of that you can triumphantly present to them at just the right moment.  Be able to adapt.  This means understanding your setting, and providing options.  Also be prepared to throw in a "random" encounter if you need to slow them down.  Have a few in your pocket tuned to test your party.  Keep in mind the combat issues discussed above.

 

I think you also have to be concerned about being too open-ended.  I don't think this will be a problem with a purchased campaign, but I have seen it in my own group with a certain GM who wants the players to be completely free to "do whatever they want."  In my opinion your job is to provide the outline of a story, and let your players fill in the details.  Give them the information they need to move the story forward, and they will provide the means.

 

If you are really interested in this subject, I highly recommend getting the book Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering.

 

http://www.sjgames.com/robinslaws/

 

It looks like this is now available in PDF from Steve Jackson Games.  It covers just about everything discussed so far, and some other topics.  Really a good read if you want to take GMing seriously.

 

There is also a lot on information on the website of S. John Ross, who used to write for SJ Games.

 

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/blueroom.htm

 

There is some great info there in world building, mainly for fantasy but useful in general.

 

Hope this help, and thanks to the forum.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Diarmuid

[doomande 52]

Normally would I do as you said and have some random encounters ready for them, but with how much combat there is in the scenario already compared to the investigation do I really not think that it is needed. Beside that would a mystery, a little odd hint or some lore actually slow them more down than yet another combat, my group is so lovely that way, I have two lore hoaders in it and a person who writes down every little name and item there is mentioned for them so they actually can remember the stuff that I say to them.

 

To those interested would I like to mention some of the changes that there already have happened in my group that we all think are for the better. First of all are both insanity and corruption secret now, meaning that they don´t know how many points they have and I keep score of them. After just mentioning it did they all see the potential in all the RPing that there could be had, and how it makes things much more interesting in general as well.

 

The second big thing is that looting is now icky, meaning that unless they end up fighting against others there is loyal to the throne and who donsn´t own ill gotten goods do they actually have to do something before they are able to sell, or even in some situations, just pick up weapons from the battlefield. Most of the people they fight against are tainted in one way or another, and even a ganger are something that you should kill at first sight, meaning that whatever they are running with are tainted as well. This have we chosen to play with both because of how they would loot every thing there isn´t nailed to the floor, they are old D&D players so I do not blame them, and to add some of the 40K atmosphere as well. I want to really show them how the machine spirit really are there, how chaos works and so on... And as I mentioned as well, it would open up some doors for me so I can place something dangerous in front of them and know that they don´t get 10 times stronger from that battle.