What do you find hardest when running RPGs?

[Lwaxy]

It really depends on the group. Sometimes it is stopping the players from metagaming. Other times it is getting them to take initiative and go off the rails - I really don't like it if they just plot along. But the most difficult recently (because we are moving soon) is to find my notes again.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have two that are the most challenging for me.

The first is trying to anticipate what my players will do. Sometimes they do what’s very obvious...but other times they come up with something totally unexpected. Managing things when that happens can be difficult. I enjoy it, and I like when it happens, but that’s when it’s the most difficult to GM.

The second is simply keeping the players focused and the game moving. My group is made up of long time friends, and we get together once a week, so there’s a lot of personal talk and so on. We try to get that all out of our system before we start play, but there’s always some side talk each session. Add smart phones and other distractions, and sometimes it can be tough to keep the game focused.

 

[DragonLancer]

The hardest thing for me is balancing encounters so that they aren't a walk over but at the same time aren't so tough that they smash the characters. I often find that encounters in general seem to favour the players much more as the GM has to remember and use lots of different abilities and/or creatures but the each player only has to remember their own character.

 

[Imaculata]

The hardest thing for me is balancing encounters so that they aren't a walk over but at the same time aren't so tough that they smash the characters. I often find that encounters in general seem to favour the players much more as the GM has to remember and use lots of different abilities and/or creatures but the each player only has to remember their own character.

No matter how well I balance an encounter, I never seem to find one that kills the players.

 

[pemerton]

Random friendly conversations are fine. I can always ramble like Abe Simpson

<snip>

I probably should just start doing that during waste-of-time interrogations. Eventually, they'll catch on that it's a sign the NPC doesn't know anything or is completely insane (or perhaps their mind exists in a different reality).

If it seems unlikely that a particular npc knows anything about the plot, I will simply tell the players so.

On this I'm with Imaculata - if there is no action to be had, then I will just tell the players as much.

sometimes it can be like herding cats when I'm hoping they'll run into each other and they (without knowing I want them to meet) each go everywhere except where the other is.

And this makes me think the same thing - why not just tell the players what you would like them to do?

IIIRC, at the end of each period (typically a day), you'd have each member of the group declare a role: navigator, forager, etc. Each would then make an appropriate skill check, and if half the group or more pass then the group gains 1 Fortune (if not, they lose 1 Fortune). Then, depending on the current level there were various effects.

Sounds like a skill challenge!