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Dvil
2011-12-01, 08:53 AM
So sometime relatively soon (within the next year) I plan to GM a game for a few members of my RPG group. However, having never GMed before, I'm looking for advice.

I plan to trawl through So you wanna be a DM (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) from the Notable Threads sticky, but does anyone have anything to add? Perhaps some advice that never made it in there, maybe a comment about how best to store my notes, even just useful pages on the Alexandrian? Anything that could help would be most appreciated.

Yora
2011-12-01, 09:07 AM
Start simple. We all want to make it an epic campaign around the world and into hell, but it's really a good idea to first start with a simple self-contained dungeon crawl. The village is in danger, the PCs travel through the haunted forest to the ruined tower, and kill the creature or evil priests who lives there.
You can make the whole thing more interesting by adding NPCs the characters meet on their way who can give them useful advice, or by staging encounters in which the enemies make interesting use of the environment, like spilling flaming oil on the path behind the party, but it's really best that for the beginning, keep it to a simple and self-contained story with a clear beginning and and end. Once it's finished, you can start another one in which you can also use locations or NPCs that the players already know from earlier adventures to make it all feel more interesting and alive.

Also, I would recommend starting at 1st or 2nd level, when the characters don't have many options and the monsters they can encounter are relatively simple and easy to run as well.

NOhara24
2011-12-01, 09:16 AM
Yora largely nailed it. I'm gonna say do some research on the typical "problem" players that you may/may not encounter during your campaign, and have a solution ready for it. But also, know this:

If your campaign ever gets to the point where magical items become a big deal (when your players get wealthy enough to buy them) tell your players to do their shopping outside of the time where you all meet to play. Meeting times are for rolling dice and roleplay. Not shopping.

Dvil
2011-12-01, 09:29 AM
Ah, I feel I should clarify that this isn't D&D I'll be running. It's a system called Zombie Squad (http://paratime.ca/zombie/) that I randomly found on the internet while searching for rpg systems. It's nice and rules-lite, which I'm hoping will be something of an advantage.

Great advice so far though guys, thanks a load!

Dr.Epic
2011-12-01, 09:31 AM
As your first game, focus more on RP and less on combat. Making the combat challenging, but not tough and rely more on plot and story.

Rorrik
2011-12-01, 11:06 AM
I'd say make sure the campaign is tailored to your players in such a way that they drive a lot of the action and plot. It makes it a lot easier when you don't have to creatively railroad and the group can keep things rolling.