New DM Advice

Focus on saying "Yes" more than "No." You'll get a lot more fun and craziness that way.

M&M is all about unfair encounters. iirc the adventure in the back of the book has two villains with an almost unbeatable wombo combo. The trick is that the players survive the encounter to then think about what can be done to beat their opponents the next time. Kinda like how super hero fights go.

>>55259178
I'm still reading through the whole GM book, are there some one-shot encounters I can have the players do so we can all learn the system more?

And I remember the golden rule of try to say 'yes, but...' instead of 'no'.

So even if the players lose the fight, they don't lose the game, right? The villains just fuck off somewhere while gloating, or a real big shot hero shows up to save them?

>>55259269

Yeah, the villains just leave and pop off about how great they are. In terms of learning the system just have them attacked by some thugs from the back of the book. You could also use animals that are mind-controlled for extra hilarity.

>>55259358
Right. Is there a pre-made story I should use? I am planning on making my own setting.

Play the game

>>55259458
I have played the game. Now I'm going to GM it.

>>55259649
If you've played the game and you know what you want you should then find out what your friends want

Then you read the rules, prepare stuff, make sure everybody shows up on time and you then gm the game

>>55259398
Make your own setting but don't put too much thought into it.

Have a city and there are villains in the city.

Plot: Villains are robbing the shit, stop them.

>>55259649
this guy again
>>55259458

How many sessions?

What do you and your players want out of the game?

Combat or social heavy?

Do you want to make your own adventure or play a premade?

>>55259755
Around 10 sessions for a shortish campaign. Finished it in a month or so.

We want a light-hearted game with some drama, nothing edgy or super serious. More combat than social, for sure.

I want to make my own adventure for it.

1. Drop mutants and masterminds like the hot crock of shut that it is.
2. Use tags for npcs and locations...keeps your notes condensed. Don't write prose for Nov descriptions. Keep it all on one of sheet of paper but make backups or scans somewhat often. Do not underestimate a master sheet for reference to npcs and lore. Call your blacksmith bearded, eye patch, missing son. Don't worry about writing it out.
3. Be vague on worldbuilding. Foreshadow future threats early on so you have an "excuse" for them later. Escalate slowly. Threat maps from apocalypse world are pretty good for this. Dont necessarily use them as is, but read about them and know the concept, you can start doing it naturally in your head.
4. Force PCs to make decisions. Ask what they do. Don't front load shit.
5. Never talk for more than thirty seconds at a time. Max. I do a lot of description so this was hard for me. But it's important, you're not giving a lecture you're running a game.

The most important lesson I probablu learned is that it is the GMs job to be entertaining, NOT original. Don't wholesale ripoff shit that is popular or that you know the players are familiar with, but if you're reading or watching something and think "man, this character would go great in that adventure I'm thinking of running in two weeks" STEAL THAT SHIT

>>55262103
Oh yeah that's exactly what I have been doing. That's what I've always done as a DM, the difference is that I have normally been a DM for fantasy games, superheroes is a totally new territory for me.

Good thing only one of the players is a weeb, I'm gonna steal so much shit from My Hero Academy and One Punch Man.

>>55258051
for note taking, just use Word, or Evernote if you're gonna be cool
Also have a note-taker at the table that is okay with leaving his notebook for you, so you can write his info in

fair encounter design is shit, just go with "somewhere within ballpark" and let the players win or fail on their own merit. be sure to include lots of hazards like spike pits or spiked walls or rebars or crumbly buildings the party may use in emergency

for plot, always go with having a great villain that's accidentally around the players. Done before, but say you have a necromancer that wants to raise armies of the dead from graveyards your players should check; in the middle of the quest, players find pirate ship and hijack it and fuck off to the seven seas.

The necromancer is now scouring shipwrecks for bodies and angry spirits, once again proving to be a huge pain in the parties ass. A "quantum villain" similar to the "quantum ogre".
Remember, if the smoke and mirrors (the GM's trade is illusion+choice+storycrafting+rules) are large enough, the players won't see the illusion because they'll be engulfed by it (just how you won't see the earth is flat or not until you board a plane).

good luck, don't stop reading, read dungeonmaster's/gamemaster's/storyteller's guides and other systems for good tips. read modules/systems/stories/movies and steal their ideas

>>55258051