Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8597477" data-attributes="member: 6785785">That's great. Blades is an awesome game. The best thing I've found to do when GMing Pbta or FitD games is to think of my role as GM to be more like that of the player in a traditional RPG. What I mean is, when I sit down to GM D&D, I have to have some amount of prep ready to go. This can range from a detailed map with keyed locations and detailed monster stats and traps, to some bullet points jotted down based on what happened last session. Whatever amount there is will vary from GM to GM per preference, but there will always be some amount of prep. You go into the game with that prep available to lean on. With PbtA and FitD, that's less true. You aren't mean to lean on prep. The players are going to dictate a lot of things, so what you need to do is be ready to go off what they say. You can lean on the setting and you can lean on past events of play, but a lot of the time, you're going to be reacting to the players rather than them reacting to you. It'll take some getting used to and you can ease into it. Very likely for your first session you'll have to take the reins a bit more to get the ball rolling. This may even be necessary for the first couple of sessions. In my first Blades campaign (which was the first for everyone in the group) I came up with the first two scores for the group. Then for the third and fourth, I offered them two options to choose from. Then after that, they started suggesting ideas of their own based on their needs ("we need a job that will get us some cash" or "we need a job that will be relatively calm and won't raise our heat" and so on). Then they started looking at the claim map (this is like a list of properties/locations that you can take from rival gangs, like a gambling hall or a vice den and so on). Before long the game was pretty much running itself. The crew would come up with a score, and that would lead to new events and situations, and those would suggest new scores, and so on. It may take a while to get there, and that's fine! It's new, and you guys should acknowledge. If you think you messed up in some way, say so, and chat about it with the group. The thing is to just kind of rotate through everyone at the table and ask them what they do. You do this at each point of play... whether it's downtime or in the middle of a fight or whatever else may be going on. Don't prompt the group as often as you may in D&D, instead prompt each player. Feel free to make suggestions. It may take players a little while to realize that they need to be more proactive, and some will be more comfortable with that than others. Again, it's new so nothing wrong with people taking some time to get used to it. Don't be hard on them and don't be hard on yourself. I think that sometimes the perception for long time gamers is something like "I've been doing this so long, I should be great at it" and I get that. But when you play a game that functions differently than you're used to, it's going to take some time to adjust. Sometimes, it's harder for people who've already been playing RPGs for a long time. The player to take to Blades the quickest in my group was the one that was the newest to RPGs. I've heard many examples of this.So again, be easy on yourself and your group. Incorporate all the mechanics a bit at a time. If you mess up a bit, don't sweat it. If you have a player who locks up, talk them through some options. You'll all get there.</blockquote>

Verification