GMing My First Game

[Don Blake]

So I'm going to run a Pathfinder game for a few of my friends, one of whom has played quite a bit in the past, including GMing, but most of whom are completely new to me. I've played a couple of games in the past, but never GMed before. So I guess two things-

First- any general advice for a new GM? I've read the GMing session in the Core Rulebook, of course, and have lots of books to draw resources from, but anything that I should specifically be careful of/watch out for? I've decided to starst at a low level (1 or 2, I think) in order to keep things simple both for me and the new players.

Second- The basic idea is to have the party hired to retrieve a group of surveyors who have been captured by gillmen living in the marshy area they were planning to build a silver mine in. Cue a couple of conflicts with guerilla gillmen, as well as the lizardfolk monk that's working them, with it eventually being revealed that there is no silver, the whole thing was just a ploy by a third party to stir up hostilities and displace the Gillmen to recover the Aboleth artifacts that they were left to guard. Any glaring problems with this that I should address?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Knaight]

So I'm going to run a Pathfinder game for a few of my friends, one of whom has played quite a bit in the past, including GMing, but most of whom are completely new to me. I've played a couple of games in the past, but never GMed before. So I guess two things-

First- any general advice for a new GM? I've read the GMing session in the Core Rulebook, of course, and have lots of books to draw resources from, but anything that I should specifically be careful of/watch out for? I've decided to starst at a low level (1 or 2, I think) in order to keep things simple both for me and the new players.

Completely ignore this section. Its much better than 3.5 was, but it is not to be trusted.

[Zaq]

Don't panic.

No, really. Don't panic. The PCs are going to do something you don't expect. That's OK. Don't panic. You're going to make a few mistakes. That's OK. Don't panic. You're going to forget something major. That's OK. Don't panic.

Just do your best to stay calm. That way, you're unlikely to actively get yourself into trouble.

Oh, and don't let the players pressure you into moving too quickly. This is your first session. If they don't cut you some slack, they're being jerks.

[LansXero]

Been trying to find the thread with beginner tips for DMs, but not much luck.

I like the concept of the plot, it feels very organic and interesting. However, it would help if you sit down first with your players and ask them what they expect the game to be about, or at least what they want to avoid. That way you dont run a intrigue / dialogue filled game for hack'n'slash types, or the other way around. And if there are any 'one trick ponies' (i.e. stealthy rogues fascinated with pick pocketing and lockpicking) make sure to know in advance so you can give them their share of the fun, or just tell them to branch out because there will be little of it in the game. Oh and try to get everyone to agree on alignment: everyone is either from neutral to good, or from neutral to evil. Less likely to have conflicts that way.

[RndmNumGen]

You will screw up.

Say it with me:

"I will screw up."

Now then, it's OKAY to screw up. Everyone does. The important thing is to not let mistakes get in the way of the game. People are playing to have fun, and if you get hung up on a misinterpreted rule, overlooked element or forgotten plot element, the game will be even worse of than it was from the mere mistake alone.

Aside from that, take advice from another newbie GM and don't spend a lot of time preparing how the session will go. I did my first time, and within an hour we were completely off the rails of what I had planned, and a lot of stuff I was written out never came up. It's much better just to lay a rough outline of plot, draw up an encounter table, and roll with it. That way you're more prepared to handle the unexpected events which WILL come up, and you have less to worry about.

[aboyd]

First- any general advice for a new GM?
Here are a few thoughts. First, over-prepare for your first game. The level of anticipation you have at this point is probably not going to happen again -- eventually you'll be an old hand at this and just sorta running games like the rest of us. However, at the moment, you're not an old hand, and this is (hopefully) new & exciting for you. Use that positive energy to cover your bases. You're already doing that a little bit by coming here and asking for input. Absorb it like a sponge.

Note that once you've got a game or three under your belt, you probably shouldn't over-prepare. It's a good way to burn out, especially as your enthusiasm goes down to a sane level. But for a very short period, consider it your secret advantage.

Next, don't forget that you are the world-creator. This is important, because it means that you are not doggedly enslaved to the rules. It is entirely possible for you to say that something happens simply because it happens. For example, if you suggest that the center of the city has turned to lava as an evil wizard demands a ransom, there is no need to justify how the wizard did it. If the players shriek, "There is no spell that can turn an entire town center into magma," you can just shrug and say, "It's old magic, unseen for thousands of years, from a more primal time." You get to do stuff like that. It's how it works.

Having said that, you should note that too much DM fiat will ruin the game for the players. It's one thing to do something outside of the rules, such as create a monster or spell or feat that has never been seen before. It's a completely different thing to contradict an existing rule right in the middle of play and say, "It's that way just because I say so." For example, consider if you have a wizard villain. The plan is for him to start casting lots of spells, but the PCs have a fighter who is really good at grappling and even put feats into it. Feats are rare and so the player expects that he damn well will get the benefit he paid dearly for. The fighter pins the wizard almost immediately, making it impossible for the wizard to cast. It's an impulse (not a good one) for new DMs to say, "Nope, didn't work." But the thing is, the grappling rules are known by all. The players will expect it to work because it's spelled out that it does work. And they'll feel cheated if it doesn't. More on that in a moment.

I personally experienced something similar in an old game where the DM wanted every battle to be life-or-death. So he would adjust the HP of monsters on the fly, so that they always lasted long enough to almost kill us, but not quite. This was fun once or twice, but having it go on for months, it got old fast. It became apparent that it didn't matter if we all frontloaded our characters with cool opening attacks that might end battle early, because battle wouldn't end early, no matter how good we were. Likewise, it also didn't matter if we sucked, because monsters were scripted to never actually kill us; they merely brought us to the brink of death. When we realized that we couldn't actually affect anything, we also stopped caring, and the game fizzled out.

Back to the grappled wizard and DM fiat. One of the things that new DMs do not realize is that if the players don't know the plot, then the DM can change the plot. Your wizard villain was captured right at the start of battle, screwing up your whole plan of making him the long-running enemy? Do the players know that? Because if they don't, then why not decide on the fly that the captured/killed wizard was merely a henchman, and resolve to make your real wizard enemy a little more spectacular next game? That allows the players to have the victory that was put in front of them, but also allows your game world to not fall apart.

Finally, let's build on the idea that you can change the world. Let's talk about world building without burning yourself out by taking on too much. Suppose the PCs end the game at a crossroads. Each direction leads to a different town, and they might pick any of the 4 possible paths. Do you need to stat up four complete towns before the next game? Hell no. You need to stat up one. They're only going to get to one. Whatever town they get to, it's the one you made. Later, when they go to other towns, you can make those too. But for right now? They don't need to know that the game world isn't complete, or that you're pulling a smoke & mirrors trick to keep the game seemingly cohesive. What happens behind the scenes is for you to work out. You have the ability to revise anything they've yet to figure out.

Likewise, do you need to stat up every citizen of a town? Nope. Create a commoner character sheet, photocopy it a dozen times, and as the players encounter NPCs, grab a sheet, change a thing or two to make it slightly unique, and move on. Painstakingly doing everything will kill you, so learn to reuse and reinvent things as needed.


The basic idea is to have the party hired to retrieve a group of surveyors who have been captured by gillmen living in the marshy area they were planning to build a silver mine in. Cue a couple of conflicts with guerilla gillmen, as well as the lizardfolk monk that's working them, with it eventually being revealed that there is no silver, the whole thing was just a ploy by a third party to stir up hostilities and displace the Gillmen to recover the Aboleth artifacts that they were left to guard. Any glaring problems with this that I should address?
Got it. We expect some cool investigations to come from it, and maybe some politics and difficult choices about who to side with or how to negotiate things peacefully. Cool. Now consider two scenarios.


Game is going well, players have fought the monsters. You're savoring the moment when you can reveal that it was a plot to get the artifacts. Yet when you do, the PCs decide they like what the schemers are plotting, and offer to commit genocide on the lizardfolk & gillmen in exchange for a cut of the profits from the sale of the artifacts. Maybe that's not exactly the response you expected, but after hashing through that and finally thinking that you've got a plot sorted out (albeit a weird one), the players then throw you for another loop later when they betray their employers, keep the powerful artifacts for themselves, and wipe out any who oppose them. Are you ready to handle this, or something equally disorienting?
Game is going well, players have fought the lizardfolk. But when it's revealed that the true enemy was a scheming cabal of powerful people who wanted the artifacts, what do you do when the players overreact in the other direction? That is, instead of siding with the bad guys, they identify with the downtrodden gillmen far too much and decide to join them to wage war on the entire town that the cabal calls home? What do you do when the players come up with a plan of digging tunnels under the town, and uniting with the lizardfolk to rise up out of the sewers and destroy the entire community (using the artifacts) as punishment for their evil ways? What do you do if the PCs wipe out not only the cabal, but every man, woman, and child in the area?

My point is that things can get really out of hand, really fast. I want you to consider this: when you have a bunch of creative people gathered around a table, and they're all hell-bent on "beating" your bad guys, they can do spectacularly deadly & unexpected things. If you insist that they absolutely cannot do that, then you undermine their free choices and enjoyment of the game. That's not to say that they will do that, but it is to say that they are not going to always do what you expect, and you'd better have some open-ended strategies for dealing with that on the fly.

Every decent DM not only acknowledges that players can throw a monkey wrench into the best-laid plans ("no plan survives contact with the enemy"), but most DMs have a toolbox of plots/schemes/rules/devices to deal with having things go awry. Find ways to grant players their choices, and make the players live with their choices, but not feel miserable about it. They're there to have fun, and so are you! :)