New GM advice

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>>52224352
Congrats OP, you've got yourself a wonderful group of misfits.

I'll give you the ol' run down.

>Don't prepare too much
Don't prepare every little detail. Work modularly, and allow yourself to drop things in and out. If it appears the player that you've got a plan for everything, you've succeeded
>Don't be afraid to ask the group for help
Being a newbie GM, nobody's going to fault you for asking someone to fill in a blank spot you can't figure out
>it's okay to have formulaic adventures
Especially starting out. Nobody will give a shit if you stick to the whole Scenario+3 Complications formula or something like that. It works, and it's fun. And on top of that it will help you get content to your players faster so you can focus on developing your toolbox and being a better GM.
>it's okay to have a dud session
If you have a session or two that sucks, who gives a shit, TTRPGs have ups and downs naturally as a result of not being able to playtest your adventures properly
>TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS
At the end of every session, ask them how it went, what they think could be better, where their characters are thinking of going, etc. This will help you immensely in crafting the game for them. The constructive criticism will be great if they're not a bunch of autists.
>Absorb everything fiction and breathe all kinds of worlds
Seriously, just take in shit tons of information about narrative design, worldbuilding, character design, and so on. It will help you form the blocks of GM-logic you can use to make the game better for players. And when people start spouting that this thing or that thing is better, explore both ends of the matter and decide for yourself.


I would finish this off with something about rules vs narrative, but that's mostly down to what the group wants. You can treat TTRPGs as skirmish wargames or freeform storytelling and everything in between.

>>52224352
Cont.'d
>Autist starts drinking the alcohol dripping off the table where the swindler smashed the bottle
>Swindler convinces the autist to work for him, promises passage out of here on his new boat
>The scavenger pushes out from the crowd and starts looting the body
>looks at swindler
>"BOTE RIDE?!"
>Swindler, after interpreting the autism, agrees in exchange for the last of the scav's cash
>Bouncer looks at Swindler
>"BOATRIDEBOATRIDEBOATRIDE"
>Takes the thug's jacket and boots.

That's where we left the session because the murderhobo's player had to leave.

I'm a new GM and these are all new players. We were in stitches playing through the tavern scene because it was all so incredibly autistic, and we definitely enjoyed it, but I kinda feel like this is a fairly bad party. I mean the single player without a negative CHA is the swindler and he's got horrific maluses to combat. Meanwhile the thug/monk type of the party is blind. In a no-magic setting. They honestly got super lucky in the tavern, it was only thanks to an incredibly high roll from the blind bouncer that they managed to OHKO the thug.

What was meant to happen though, was one of either the swindler swindling the boat, the thug refusing but offering them a quest to get the boat, or them deciding to say fuck it and go after the people that drove the scavenger off his scrap patch. I'm kinda stuck as to what to do with the campaign now, because as it is, the only one who wasn't complicit in murdering a lackey of the local crimelord/merchant in front of a huge crowd immediately started rifling through the corpse's pockets. And worse, this is in a town that actually has a militia.

So basically I'm calling on all the experienced GM's of /tg/ to share a little wisdom. How would you give the party a way out that isn't just plot armour? I want to avoid the players feeling like they're free to pull this shit all the time, but I don't want a TPK on the first real session.

>>52224460
Thanks man, that's really helpful stuff! I kinda had an idea of it before but it's nice to hear it reinforced. It's also really good to hear that the party sounds good, I was honestly a little bit insecure that they might be too over the top or something.

Do you have any advice with regards to the question at the end of >>52224509 ?
I'm kinda unsure where to take it from here.

Oh yeah and also general new GM advice thread I guess

>>52224509
If your setting is serious, kill the idiots. If it's more wacky or gonzo, don't offer as many consequences for their actions and take it easy on them.

Expanding on that, oftentimes the PCs will inform the challenges you create as a GM. If it's a bumbling bunch of misfits and retards, they're probably not going to be fighting like a bunch of elite agents....they're going to fight by the skin of their teeth and barely get out of situations by sheer luck, and that's hilarious. Personally, I'd just go easy on them if they fuck up and try to reinforce the nature of the party because it's fun.

As for where the game is going, I rely on asking players what their characters are going to get up to next and go from there. Otherwise, you have to rely on really juicy plot hooks/quest hooks that appeal to them to get them into the content you prepared.

After those shenanigans I'd say that they're going to go and get the boat, but it's being repo'd or something like that and they have to work around the difficulties that presents. See, you have an implicit hook already in that they're trying to obtain the boat, which is good, because you can work with that. But it's still best to confirm that they actually want to do that. Judging from their reactions it seems like they do.

>>52224588
Thanks, I'm definitely going to use the thing of asking them what they want to do in the next session. The setting was meant to be serious, but given the fact that we all had fun with the wackiness I think I'll go a bit easy on them for now and not have a bunch of thugs murder them immediately. I do think I'll keep it difficult though, make sure that if they get through retarded stuff it is by the skin of their teeth.

As to what actually happens net, I really like the idea that the boat is getting repo'd. Maybe the loanshark that the thug used to buy it auctions it off and they get the chance to buy it or steal it from him. Or maybe they can get a job from its new owner. Or something along that line. It's a nice way to get them into the world instead of just "you go down to the docks, you have a boat now, where do you go?"

Thanks so much kind experienced-anon!

>>52224580
I had my first session as a gm and also my first time doing tabletop in person a few days ago. The party started off in an orc run dungeon. We've got four players, in non-adjacent cells.
>Half-Orc Bard from the bonecrusher clan. Get's real angry when people criticise his bad poetry
>Elf Druid. Probably the most passive player, but they'll grow into it in time.
>Half-Elf rogue. Fairly stab-happy, but knows that this tendency gets them in trouble often.
>Human sorceror. Wild magic user, so !!fun!! crits and fails. Nice use of non-combat spells (mold earth, mold water, dancing lights) so far.

Long story short, they get out of their cells, stab the jailor, have the half-orc put on his uniform, sorceror casts a minor illusion on the half-orc to make him look like the jailor, half-orc proceeds to intimidate and bluff his way through the compound and into the office of the leader orc. Leader-Orc mistakes Elf for daughter of his employer. As he and the elf are conversing, half-orc bard smashes his face in with a mace on a crit. They loot his office and take the key to the front door, and just walk out.

All in all, everyone had fun. I'm just looking for a more narrative focused system, because they clearly had more fun with the bluffing than with the combat we had.

Any tips on a more rules-light system that encourages inventive solutions and roleplaying instead of straight up stats? Also, how to get the druid player to come out of their shell?

>>52224788
No HP, no damage stats. Rolls simply indicate how successful an attack was. "The shot hits him in the gut, he fails his will save and he passes out from the pain. He is bleeding profusely, and will probably die of bloodloss soon." So roleplay damage based on physical traits and logic. Also, treat stats as an indication of how well characters use their physical traits, not an indication of those traits themselves. So for example an incredibly strong man could have a very low strength skill, meaning he uses far too much strength most of the time, breaking down doors while knocking and crushing hands in handshakes and stuff. This encourages much less reliance on stats, or at least combat stats, and much more reliance on being smart. As for the druid player, I guess you could try encouraging him to flesh out his backstory a bit more.

>>52224867
Thing is, we've been using DnD5e for this, but I do feel like it's just too much busywork to get going.

What you've described seems better. Reminds me of roll to dodge. I'm just trying to figure how to do it without making every character feel kind of same-y.

>>52224915
To be honest it's stolen straight from roll to dodge games. Given how dramatically gear affects combat with a system like this, I reckon as long as you don't consistently have your party lose all their equipment you'll find the character's no same-y-er than in any other system. The tank is still the tank, provided he has the armour to match, the rogue is still the rogue, and so on.

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>>52224509
>>So basically I'm calling on all the experienced GM's of /tg/ to share a little wisdom. How would you give the party a way out that isn't just plot armour? I want to avoid the players feeling like they're free to pull this shit all the time, but I don't want a TPK on the first real session.

One of the things that a session zero should cover is what sort of game you run, and player expectation. You should know what the players expect, and they should know what sort of theme and tone the setting involves. If it involves high lethality, or proper choice and consequences then either locking them all up for crimes, or executing them if they're serious enough is a real possibility.

That said, don't feel the need to go full tpk regardless. Explain the situation to them, in and out of character. Have an npc whisper to the bouncer that 'this guy worked for X, the local crime boss', and it will be up to them to either try to run away and avoid the wrath of this dude, or go all han solo and beg forgiveness/ owe a debt, getting a cool quest giver.

As for militia, who cares my dude, it's a Postapocalyptic setting where a thug drew a knife in a bar and the bouncer dealt with it.

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>>52224352
>session 0

You need to leave.

>>52228461
Thanks, I did make it clear to the players that this is a high-lethality game, and they could just as easily have been shanked by the thug if they'd rolled poorly or hadn't decided to go for the kill while he was still trying to intimidate. That said, thanks for reminding me how little the militia would care, that neatly takes care of any actual law that would be a problem. So it just becomes a fun game of convincing the local crimelord not to brutally murder them. Which should go interestingly considering the party is 3 autists being shepherded by the one dude who actually has charisma.

>>52228618
Excuse me, but you're the in my thread sport, and I'll call it session -2 if I want to :^)

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>>52228618
>He doesn't do a session zero

>>52228745
No, because I am capable of deciding what campaign to do and making characters that fit it, without devoting an entire session to the process. Session zero is a stupid fucking Reddit meme that serves no purpose other than being copy-pasted in every GM advice thread until it becomes standard procedure.

>>52228831
Session zero doesn't have to be three hours long mate. Spending half an hour with the players and discussing the characters can be pretty fun, then everyone can head off and make the character they talked about.

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>>52228740
>That said, thanks for reminding me how little the militia would care

I mean, someone should still show up, give a small fine, say don't do that again, write down a little report, and then leave with the corpse.

>So it just becomes a fun game of convincing the local crimelord not to brutally murder them.

Exactly. Play up the Jabba the Hutt example. Perhaps this guy did particular work for the dude, and by getting shanked in a bar, he's shown how unreliable he actually was. Now they need to do whatever work, and pay off his 'lifedebt' as in the old medieval weregild where if you kill a servant or slave of another, you owe them X in recompense.

Or alternatively, the guy actually does owe a debt to the crimeboss, and now the party is now responsible for coming up with the cash as well. The crime boss offers several very shady missions about ways to ameliorate the situation.

>>52228831
When GM expectation and player expectation are clear discussed and in the open, then everyone has a much easier time playing the game because they're all on the same page. Maybe you only play with the same group of people over and over so you don't need to session zeros because everyone already knows what's going on, but most people don't.

Besides running different games with different styles, actual brand new players sometimes have wildly disparate views of how a tabletop rpg is supposed to go, especially some dumbasses who think it's just like a mmo or skyrim or whatever.

Lastly, a session zero where all the players work together to create a party together, a symbiotic group of characters, instead of each making something completely on their own, makes a cohesive group that has a reason for being and doing shit together besides 'We're all just players at a table so let's pretend to work together even though these characters would never actually do it'

A small bit of preparation avoids a whole lot of stupidity and pain later on, shitting on this idea is retarded.

>>52224788
>rules-light system that encourages inventive solutions and roleplaying instead of straight up stats

I don't know much about zero stat narrative systems, but I do know that Barbarians of Lemuria is very rules light and might be up your alley.

>>52229028
>Barbarians of Lemuria
Can confirm is fun, easy to run and play.