Hello all, I was looking for/possibly starting to write a step by step Game Master guide. Something as easy as reading institutions for a board game. I feel a lot of the wording in books is pretty vague for most new GMs.
Anyway if you of you have any suggestions and/or can point me in the right direction that would be awesome.
Thanks everyone!
Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk
Since you are posting in the Pathfinder forum, I'm assuming that you are asking about GMing a Pathfinder game. My advice might be different for a different game (for example, if you were playing Classic Traveller, I might change what I say a bit).
1. Keep the game simple. That means low level. But, also, the scenario needs to be simple. I would buy a low level pre-written adventure. I wouldn't buy a long campaign. You just need something easy to get started. Read that scenario cover to cover enough times until you know it like the back of your hand. This will help when you need to wing stuff and go outside of what is written. Look at all the spells in the scenario and make sure that you know what they do. Do the same with all the monsters, traps, and humanoids. Know this stuff before the game starts, and review what you think will probably happen in a game session before the game session starts. Know the rules. As GM, you're the Keep of the Rules.
2. Be very descriptive. Describe what the players see, feel, hear, touch, and smell. Use their senses. Try to put the player in the position of the character. Don't say, "OK, you've found a door in the side of the mountain. Are you going to open it." That's boring. Instead, think of how you can describe the scene in the mind's eye of the player in a way that will make the player see out of the eyes of his character. "You emerge from the foliage. Sweat runs down your cheek. It's a hot day, and it's been a long trek through the jungle, but the sun is starting to set. Wait...what is that? The rock is brown? No...you look closely. It's a door! A big, thick beamed door. There are wide bands of thick iron running across the door in two places. The iron is stained, and there are big rivets, the size of the palm of your hand, hammered at equi-distant points in the iron band. There is also a round loop of iron that must serve as the portal's handle, and right above it is a key hole.
"You're standing there not ten feet from the door. The light is starting to fade. What do you want to do?"
3. Be descriptive in every interaction with the players. This is key. If you are rolling dice, then be descriptive about it. I always try to hide results from my players. They can roll their own dice most of the time, if it is logical that the character would know the results of the dice. For example, if a character is sneaking around, and we are rolling stealth checks, then I will roll that in secret behind a screen. A player doesn't know if his character is being seen or not. But, if a character is evaluating the worth of a jewel hilted sword, then he can roll his own Appraise check.
4. There's lots of combat in Pathfinder games. Be descriptive here, too. Again, I try to hide the AC of the enemy. That way, the player must listen to my description to find out whether he hit or not. I try not to let the combat devolve into a situation where I'm saying, "OK, your turn. Roll your to-hit. You hit. OK, roll damage. The orcs turn. He rolls his to-hit...". That's bloody awful for the game. Make combat an experience! Put your players THERE. I roll the to-hits for the bad guys behind the screen. Players can't see the roll. And, my fights are exciting because of that. "The orc swings this blade. You duck, but the orc manages to catch the end of your long hair! You stand straight again, but the cut pieces of hair float down in front of your eyes." This is much more interesting for you and the player rather than saying, "The orc missed. Your turn." What I just described was a close call---the orc's attack roll was one point from making a hit.
5. As much as I push the description of a game, there's a time to just dice-n-go. A GM must pay attention to the ebb and flow of the game. The idea is to keep the game exciting. End the night's session on cliffhangers, making sure that your players will rush back to the next session to find out what happens (and don't spoil it in between games--always keep them wanting more!). You go into a town, and you roleplay it. From the first step into the town, you describe it. Then you roleplay the session with the merchant, haggling over the price of supplies. This can be quite fun. But, also, this can be boring. Sometimes, you will want to skip over the boring stuff as fast as possible. If, every time the players deal with merchants, you roleplay each and every one of them, that will get quite old and boring. Your job as GM is to keep the game interesting. So, if it makes the game most interesting to roleplay with a merchant, then do that. If, on the other hand, you just want to roll some quick dice and let the character buy a sword, then do that and get on with the interesting stuff. Think of a novel or a movie. We see the interesting parts. We don't see the uninteresting parts, but assume that stuff happens.
6. As I said above, start with a low level, very simple adventure. A pre-written adventure is what you need (making up a scenario is more advanced and time consuming). Try to pick a dungeon based adventure as opposed to a wilderness or city based adventure. Why? Because, once you get your PCs into that underground environment, there's less options and less choice about what the players can do. Always allow the players to direct their characters to go anywhere they want. But, if you corral them into a dungeon, it's a lot easier for a new GM to predict and govern dungeon encounters.
7. Engage the player. Look at the last sentence of point #2 above. I describe, then I ask the player, "What do you want to do?" This encourages the player to imagine himself in his character's shoes. The player might say, "I want to walk up to the and check it to see if it is open." You know that there is a pit trap set out five feet from the door. The player obviously didn't check that area for traps, so check to see if the trap is sprung and roleplay that out. "As you approach the door, you feel a slight tug on your right foot. There's the sound of a twig snapping. Then, it's like the earth gave way beneath you! Down you go! You're falling!" Then, roll some damage for the spikes at the bottom of the pit.
Or, maybe there isn't a trap. The player says, "I want to check for traps, and if I don't find anything, I want to check the door to see if it is open." As GM, it's your job to interpret how the rules are applied to the game. "That's too many actions to do all at once," you say. "Before you move, you want to check for traps. How are you going to do that?" I try to make my players describe what they are doing. I'll roll their skill check behind the screen because, if they fail, I don't want them thinking that there may still be a trap there. The skill check failed, so the character thinks that there is no trap. And, I may modify the check based on what the character does--I may even spring the trap if the character's actions makes that a logical choice. The player says, "I look behind me and try to find a long stick." He finds one. "OK, I use it to probe out in front of me, tapping on the ground." I roll the Find Traps skill check behind the screen with a +10 modifier because I think it is likely that the character will find the trap based on what he is doing. He'll either spring the trap with his probe, or he might detect it by noticing the soft depression he makes with the stick. I'll also let the dice tell me how to describe the situation. I roll a natural 20? Yeah, he springs the trap in front of him. I roll the target number exactly? I might say "You prove, and take a tiny step. Then you poke the ground again, and take another tiny step....WAIT!" I get dramatic here. "Look at the tip of your probe. A thin, almost invisible line of cat gut is stretched across the the area in front of you. What do you want to do?" See...this is dramatic. In the mind's eye of the player, he's sitting there with his stick and has found a trap. He doesn't know if he's standing on the trapped area or not. The trap isn't sprung. Let the player tell you what he does, then play off of that.
8. Once you've run a very simple scenario, then you'll gain some experience as a GM, and you'll be ready to go for something a little more complex. And, before you know it, you'll be making up your own adventures and maybe even the world in which the characters explore.
