JP On Gaming

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Six pointers for a new GM

My buddy Mike (of Mario's Warhammer Campaign fame) recently decided to jump into the fire and try his hand at Game mastering. He asked me for some pointers on become an evil GM. Here are the pointers I sent to him.

0- GM as often as you can.

0A- Read adventures, campaign, encounters, from any source. That will fill your mind with alternate ways of handling players and moving encounters along.

1- Relax.

2- Know what you want to do. (Point A and Point B) The path between these two will vary, don't get married to a given solution.

2A - The players will most likely NOT follow the perfect plan you thought they would follow. Now you know.

2B - Work with them. Talk to them, get them involved. Take as many hooks from them as you can to drive the plot towards Point B.

3- Be fair, not nice, but fair.

4- As long as the rules work the same for everyone, it's all good. Don't over focus on them.

5- Its your game. If the campaign setting/ book/ published supplement says otherwise, the book is wrong.

Finally:

6- Relax.

Here is the ultimate evil DM! Love the "instant replay" idea, it will really take down the PCs by a few notches. I didn't think of that but I may start doing that! Thank you John Madden for the tip! Plus if you need help fighting your monsters, summon BRETT FAVRE! He'll sort everything right. Beat the players, beat the monsters and win!


JP

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