Help! Newbie GM gonna kill it for others!

[GoodKingJayIII]

Try to be supportive and helpful, not a naysayer.

I definitely agree, give him a chance. Perhaps he has a nice creative story, if perhaps he's being overly ambitious. Try and convince him he'll need a secondary DM (sounds like you'd be a good candidate for that job), and run the game with him. I've never heard of any large group with multiple parties not have two DMs. It may be a necessity. Combine that with his overall inexperience, and I think having a second DM could be a really good thing. It also gives him someone to observe in order to become a better DM.

 

[Janx]

Bear in mind, it's not your job to "grow your group" If you sit down every week with the same 5 players, that's your group. What other groups exist (whether the same people or not) is not your direct problem.

It's not your job to make sure he runs a good game.

Nor is it your job to tell everyone he's invited that he sux.

If he doesn't ask for your help, you can't give it. You can try, but if he really wanted it, he'd be following it (and not running a game yet). So he's not listening

Obviously, you care about increasing the number of D&D players as a whole. You also care about giving new people a good impression. So what can you really do, that will have an impact?

If he lets you play in his game (if you tick him off with pesterings, he might not want you), you can:

be a good player and follow his plot hooks
don't quote rules unless he asks you for them
don't argue the rules with him during the game (you'll give the new people a bad taste)

After the game:
if he asks for an opinion, suggest what might make it better (avoid saying "this was bad")
if the game still totally bombed, talk to the new people privately and suggest that they try different GMs until they find one they are comfortable with.

Basically its damage control. You don't make his flaws obvious during the game. You don't talk about his flaws directly, you indicate how it can be made better.

I have taken over a new group when the designated DM sucked and I saw the players who knew it sucked. I talked to them afterwards and started up a campaign with them and they dropped out of the other guy. We did it under the guise of splitting the workload up, so more people can play. In your case, just steer them to another DM, if this one doesn't work out.

One last thing to remember, the first DMs had no experienced players or experienced DMs to emulate. The first DMs had first players and none of them knew what it was about. The smart ones figured out their mistakes and improved for the second game. The dumb ones eventually run out of players.

Janx

 

[evileeyore]

One of the rookie players in my group up at school (the rookiest, actually, if rookiest is a word) has decided to start a game.

YES! Another lingua-creationist!

Errr, back to the main thread...

Avoid the games. They will bomb, then talk with him, and help him to see the flaws of 'his' way. Then point him gently in the 'righter' direction.

--Making up new words since 1980--EvilE

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

Normally I ignore the elitism and nosbleed nostril elevation on ENWorld, but this time I have to speak up. This could be bad. Very bad. It could also be an AMAZING game. Some very good D&D games are run without cracking a book, some very sucessful long term D&D campaigns are run without ever buying a miniature.

And what you're likely to do by jumping down the throat of someone who just wants to try their hand GMIng out of raw enthusiasm and love of the game is most likely going to cost the hobby a player, who will go find somewhere he won't be sabotaged by one of his players.

How would any of you react if you were going to run a 3.5 game that allows Drow, and a player was going around to others showing them the FRCS and telling them, "He's allowing Drow. This is what he doesn't know."

Don't cost the hobby a wiling player through sheer snobbery. Give him a chance, and help him grow from there.

 

[monkeygrrl]

Normally I ignore the elitism and nosbleed nostril elevation on ENWorld, but this time I have to speak up. This could be bad. Very bad. It could also be an AMAZING game. Some very good D&D games are run without cracking a book, some very sucessful long term D&D campaigns are run without ever buying a miniature.

And what you're likely to do by jumping down the throat of someone who just wants to try their hand GMIng out of raw enthusiasm and love of the game is most likely going to cost the hobby a player, who will go find somewhere he won't be sabotaged by one of his players.

How would any of you react if you were going to run a 3.5 game that allows Drow, and a player was going around to others showing them the FRCS and telling them, "He's allowing Drow. This is what he doesn't know."

Don't cost the hobby a wiling player through sheer snobbery. Give him a chance, and help him grow from there.

well said!

as I was reading the initial post, I couldn't help thinking why this was anyone's problem other than that GM's and his players. If his game sucks, the players will leave, and you can invite them to another game if you so choose. If his game doesn't suck, they will all be happy. Either way, it isn't anyone else's job to be the fun police IMO. Personally I would stay out of it unless he specifically asks for your opinion, or he's likely to react defensively and that won't get anyone anywhere.

 

[Gumby]

Agreed with the last few posters. This is how everybody starts - with a rather crappy game filled with more house rules than real rules, and house rules that don't even make any sense. Either he'll eventually realize that following the 3.x rules works fine for consistency's sake, or he'll someday make up his own set of rules that are internally consistent.

If it "drives people away," then those people probably wouldn't have really wanted to play an RPG anyway.

 

[Salad Shooter]

Hmm...lemme just take a minute to defend myself here. I came off as a flaming elitist jackhole when I first posted, but that wasn't my intentions. I'm really trhing to help this kid every way I can, but from what I've seen, he's going to bury himself under more than he can handle, and the game could very well fall apart. I was looking for suggestions to help him run the game better. Guess I should review my wording before I post things...

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I have to disagree with the last few posters because ime Salad Shooter has just described a dog needing to be put down.

A rookie gm, a big freeform world adventure with minimal rules knowledge. I have seen this sort of thing and it sucks big time.

What you'll get is a large aimless meandering world, inconsistant rulings with a whole swathe of skills and abilities being unused/overused. The gm will either be dominated by the first rules savvy player or will impose a fog of misunderstandings.

Otoh, it is probably for the best to let this wreck crash and be on hand to invite the best players to your d&d adventure.

 

[Salad Shooter]

as I was reading the initial post, I couldn't help thinking why this was anyone's problem other than that GM's and his players.

The reason I'm meddling in his affairs is that the GM is my friend, and so are his players...several of them are genuinely interested and may stick around if the game goes kaput, several of them really aren't interested and may not stick around even if the game goes amazing. I remember the first time I tried DMing, I massively flamed out because I made the scenario too rigid and my players squeeked past into something that I really hadn't expected, or planned for, in the first 15 minutes of the first session. It went so badly that I didn't attempt to DM again for quite a while. I want him to not have a massively horrible experience, or his players, so they'll both keep it up. I sound like a mother now ("NO! He can't do this, I did this and got hurt, so it's guaranteed he'll get hurt")...I think he ran his first session tonight, I don't know how it went (at least, I assume he ran it, my PHB is missing, and that means it was borrowed by one of his players or him, at least he was intelligent enough to secure a copy before starting, though I wish he'd asked...) We can only wait and see...

 

[Mystery Man]

I got what you said the first time SS. NOT a problem. I would have to wonder if this friend of yours is certifiable for going into running a game without any books or if he's just plain stupid.

Or he's a freaking genius with a photographic memory. Either way that's just scary.