What would you like to know if you were going to start GMing?
I’ve been at this for so long that I have no clue how to answer that question, sooooo, I asked a bunch of folks I know who have low or no GM experience. These are the answers I got.
A QuickStart rulebook with the basics that includes an adventure that’s also basic and bite-sized. Something that’s in one simple package.
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How best to balance prep around where the players might take the story in a session. A big fear is prepping what I thought would be a whole nights worth of encounters and dialogs for it to be blown through in an hour or so.
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I always struggled with the idea of “I have a story I want to tell but I can’t railroad players”, so what’s a way to establish balance between the two?
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How can I increase player engagement?
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How do I pick the right game (playstyles, settings etc)?
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Everyone talks about having very little prep these days. What are the downsides to preparation?
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What are key points to decide and write first to build the storyline around? Do I decide on a main antagonist? A town or area the story takes place in? What the main story line is? Where do you start putting together my campaign?
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I think if it were my first time GMing I’d want to know how to handle totally unexpected turns taken by players, how to improvise, how to keep the pace moving, how to keep the vibe fun, respectful, and orderly without stepping on players’ toes. I think for me a lot of it comes down to “am I confident (or brave) enough in myself to do this?”
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I think there would be game-specific questions, but in general, the one I struggled with starting out was really “am I ready?” Or “do I know the game well enough or did I prepare enough?” And I assume a lot of people share those particular nerves. So how do I know when I’m ready to GM my game?
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How to prep, and number one worry about starting as a GM is how to run a new game if you don’t completely get the rules? How do I approach getting a good understanding of the system?
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How much time each week should a GM put aside for game prep?
What makes a good communication method for helping organize the group, re: schedule changes or cancellations?
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How far in advance do you plan out the story?
How high level of story do you put together?
Do you make decision trees for the story or use some other kind of methodology?
Over the next bunch of months I’ll answer these questions starting with my first response in two weeks. I’ll do my best to keep them short and filled with tools so you have things you can try in your games. Now all these answers were from people I know personally. I didn’t go to the internet because I couldn’t verify that they weren’t folks who didn’t GM much, which was part of the point. But I’ll ask you now. What would you want to know as someone who’s never GMed or GMed very little if you were about to start running more games?
