GMing for the first time in 20+ years tomorrow!

[Matchstick]

Might be able to get the guy 'on board' with an up-front role during play and by giving a little ground if he looks for a couple of rules interpretations/ checks. Which possibly adds up to - make sure he's enjoying the game and he'll probably not give a thought to whether you've applied the rules precisely?

Your kids's games are much more interesting/ important than a possibly grumpy player. I'm doubtful that starting on the D&D model and module mentioned is helpful if you'd like girls to go on and play D&D as they get older. Particularly when you're used to improvising.

Basically, are you looking for them to follow the standard Western movie narrative model with a bit of roleplaying or to build shared narratives with you (learning golddust)and learn how to choose how they play a system like 4e to a style of their and your own preference once they're ready for a few more rules?

p.s. whatever you decide please give them useful pets, let them train up the pets and never, NEVER kill one of the pets. They'll love 'em and you place yourself inside the narrative where it's less obvious that you're reviewing, reframing and prompting in-game. 'Of course the old wolf can talk, it's a fantasy game.'

We've started with the old D&D boardgame and I think they're ready to maybe try something a little more complicated. For the most part I think we'll be more shared narrative with me providing the reactions. The system we use will be pretty loose and take a dang far backseat to them having fun.

It's interesting that you mention pets. I was going to go with some pokemon (something they both like a lot) type pets that could accompany them. Maybe actual pokemon, but more likely some sort of more petlike equivalent with much more limited powers in a battle.

It'll be interesting to see if my wife will play too.

 

[nedjer]

We've started with the old D&D boardgame and I think they're ready to maybe try something a little more complicated. For the most part I think we'll be more shared narrative with me providing the reactions. The system we use will be pretty loose and take a dang far backseat to them having fun.

It's interesting that you mention pets. I was going to go with some pokemon (something they both like a lot) type pets that could accompany them. Maybe actual pokemon, but more likely some sort of more petlike equivalent with much more limited powers in a battle.

It'll be interesting to see if my wife will play too.

Sounds like they're having and going to have a great time. Respect!

Think you're spot on limiting pets powers. If you're keen on getting all the 'girls' to play Witch might be a lot of fun / encouragement.

 

[Matchstick]

So far so good. Everyone that is supposed to be there tomorrow has already connected to my FG2 server and gotten the initial download, perused the pre-gens, and looked at the players guide.

 

[Mark]

GMing for the first time in 20+ years tomorrow!

Any thoughts on (. . .) GMing in general are appreciated.

I'd suggest a quick recap for the players. Most likely they will have forgotten the details of the cliffhanger.





Have fun!

 

[IronWolf]

So far so good. Everyone that is supposed to be there tomorrow has already connected to my FG2 server and gotten the initial download, perused the pre-gens, and looked at the players guide.

Good! Getting the initial connection to the server out of the way before the start of the game was wise too. Helps minimize any technical issues that could come up on effecting game time.

 

[Matchstick]

Update!

Ran the session from around 7:30 to around 11:30 this morning. I started slow, or at least I felt like I did, but after a bit I really felt like it was going really well. It's kind of like the "no plan survives contact with the enemy" thing, the players just never do what's expected of them! We started with a car chase and pretty simple battle that went well and then had some good times with stuff that the module just glosses over. I like when that happens.

Module: If the players investigate the reporter they find out X.
Players: If we pull the fire alarm the entire building will evacuate and we can go through her desk!

I have to say, they really unintentionally tested me. The last couple battles happened after a party split, which was hard enough, but they also took down one of the guys that's supposed to get away! Screw the module, they did it through ingenuity and deserved it.

Couple funny critical failures. They went to try and stabilize the big guy that was supposed to get away and the healer rolled twin ones for the crit failure. Needless to say the bad guy bled out. I'd rather have him dead anyway. The other one happened right after "I'm going to shoot at the thugs near the nerve gas canisters". Oops.

I'll send email today asking for feedback and maybe send one out with a summary of the session to tempt the people that weren't able to be there today. Verbal feedback after the game was good but very quick as everyone had places to be.

All of us were very impressed with Fantasy Grounds. Even for a first go round it was very easy to use and really gave a great tabletop feeling. For me as the GM it went very well on the tech side, FG2 was easy to work with and I even didn't have a lot of screen real estate issues. I used the graph maps three times spontaneously, that was really nice. There are some questions about how to do things that I have, but FG2 (and teamspeak) did an excellent job for us.

It's interesting, but I think being online helped us get into the game a little more. It's hard to explain, but I think had we been in the same room we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done.

Thanks for the support!

I'd suggest a quick recap for the players. Most likely they will have forgotten the details of the cliffhanger.





Have fun!

Hahahahahahahaha! To be honest I'm a little shocked at myself that I buckled down and did it. Happy that I did it now, but still shocked.

 

[nedjer]

Result!