[nWoD] First-Time GM - What to Do?

[onemorelurker]

Hi guys,

Tomorrow night I'm supposed to GM an extremely short (~1 hr) VtR game for my school's RPG club. I'm familiarish with the system - in that I've read the main book and VtR book - but I've never actually played it before, and I dislike GMing in general. I was essentially pressganged into GMing this because I was vaguely aware of the nWoD.

Character creation is done, but I wasn't there for it, so I have no idea what kinds of characters people made, though I know that everyone's characters are newly-embraced. I also don't know how many people will show up, but probably everyone there will have only slightly more system experience than I do.

What can I do with an hour and a basic understanding of the rules? Are there any decent modules or anything out there? What sort of things should I try to hit on in my very limited game time?

Thanks very much for any help you can provide.

[Diskhotep]

At first glance this sounds like a recipe for disaster: novice and disinterested GM, unknown characters, unknown group size, and limited play time. I can't think of any modules that are suitable for such a thing, as almost any short scenario is still designed for a standard length session (about 3-4 hours).

But there are things you can do here. My first recommendation is to stick to a very social setting - perhaps a party at a neutral location. You aren't going to have time to run a combat, so you'll want to keep the characters somewhere where they are encouraged to avoid physical confrontations. If the characters are all neonates, perhaps run through their sires' presenting them to the prince of the city. Especially if you are not enthusiastic about the game, put the burden of moving the action along on the players.

Make a couple of NPC's they can interact with (another neonate or two would be a good choice, as they will be on equal footing), and let them scheme to their hearts' content. Ideally you will only have to adjucate social rolls, since they are bound by tradition to not use their abilities.

For a possible conflict, have one of the NPC neonates immediately called out for the breaking of one of the Prince's laws (possibly one without a sire present). For his amusement, the Prince decides to let him be prosecuted and defended by his peers (split the group in half, and let one half handle each side).

Once you get through this, I would highly recommend letting the group know that this was a one-time deal if you do not care to GM. If you aren't having fun, it will definitely bleed into the game and make it unenjoyable for everyone.

[onemorelurker]

At first glance this sounds like a recipe for disaster: novice and disinterested GM, unknown characters, unknown group size, and limited play time. I can't think of any modules that are suitable for such a thing, as almost any short scenario is still designed for a standard length session (about 3-4 hours).

But there are things you can do here. My first recommendation is to stick to a very social setting - perhaps a party at a neutral location. You aren't going to have time to run a combat, so you'll want to keep the characters somewhere where they are encouraged to avoid physical confrontations. If the characters are all neonates, perhaps run through their sires' presenting them to the prince of the city. Especially if you are not enthusiastic about the game, put the burden of moving the action along on the players.

Make a couple of NPC's they can interact with (another neonate or two would be a good choice, as they will be on equal footing), and let them scheme to their hearts' content. Ideally you will only have to adjucate social rolls, since they are bound by tradition to not use their abilities.

For a possible conflict, have one of the NPC neonates immediately called out for the breaking of one of the Prince's laws (possibly one without a sire present). For his amusement, the Prince decides to let him be prosecuted and defended by his peers (split the group in half, and let one half handle each side).

Once you get through this, I would highly recommend letting the group know that this was a one-time deal if you do not care to GM. If you aren't having fun, it will definitely bleed into the game and make it unenjoyable for everyone.

Thank you for the advice! Sticking them in a social encounter and letting them just talk is a really good idea, and one I hadn't thought of. As far as I know, none of the players are familiar with how vampire society works, so the trial might be a lot of fun, but it also might be too intimidating.

As for telling them that I don't want to GM, I already did that. It didn't help. So I'm paying my dues by GMing tonight (because I am a pushover), and then I'm getting the heck outta Dodge.

[Pigkappa]

A less intimidating possibility is to say that in whatever city the characters are, the characters' covenant (which is hopefully the same for all of them) is in distress and needs to discuss for some reason (e.g., a former member has just done something awful and the prince could use this opportunity to ban the whole covenant from the city). That covenant also happens to have very few members, so even the neonates (who are about 50% of the covenant members) get to discuss with the NPCs.