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View Full Version : DM Help Introducing family and friends to PnP as a noob GM



Simsimillia
2016-04-27, 02:48 PM
Ok, so last Christmas I suggested to my family that we should run a PnP game and we did and it was great fun.

Now, soonish (early August) I'll be going on a holiday with my mum and brothers and a friend of my mum and her daughters. My mum suggested to do something similar.

Now I'm facing a bit of a problem.

There is me, who has some experience as a player, but not as a GM (aforementioned Christmas game was the only one I GM'd)

There is my mum and my two brothers (10 and 18) who all only ever played one PnP (guess which one).
Then there is my mum's friend and her three daughters (ranging from 10 or so to 18 I think).

I pitched the idea of a PnP and everyone seems to have at least interest. Now the main problem I'm facing is that I don't know which kind of game to run.

So why don't I just continue what I started in my first session on Christmas? Well, I did set it up as the beginning of a longer plot that will continue on future family meetings. And I did make the mistake that the outset is a bit to rigid to throw in a side campaign with other players or something like that.

The obvious answer to the question on what kind of game to run would definetly be: The on I'm most familiar and comfortable with. That would be Dark Heresy however and apart from one of my brothers nobody can really relate anything to the 40k universe and it's not exactly "family friendly"

Many may suggest that I provide precreated characters for them, but I found that character creation is a really fun part and helps players loads with roleplaying their characters. Last time I used Mutants and Masterminds and the whole character creation process was kinda confusing even for me, so I gave my players a couple of Questions and let them describe their Mutant powers to me. I then did the allocating of stats and so on based on what they told me. However that was a lot of work for me and I would really like a game system that is less open and instead works with classes or something.

So yeah suggestions, advice, general experience sharing or GM tipps are welcome.

Simsimillia

Takewo
2016-04-27, 03:02 PM
Fate Accelerated. Pay what you want, easy and it takes literally five minutes to create your characters.

MrZJunior
2016-04-27, 03:18 PM
What is PnP?

SirBellias
2016-04-27, 04:13 PM
What is PnP?

Pen and paper, I think. Not quite sure, though.

kyoryu
2016-04-27, 04:15 PM
Fate Accelerated. Pay what you want, easy and it takes literally five minutes to create your characters.

It can easily take less than 5 minutes if you use on-the-fly creation!

Other alternatives might be one of the PbtA games.

I'd probably start by asking them to list their favorite TV shows, or movies, or books, and using that to figure out an appropriate genre.

Kid Jake
2016-04-27, 05:58 PM
Best GMing tip I can offer is not to bother with planning an elaborate plot for them to follow; just make a list of your NPCs goals and resources and a basic timeline of what they hope to accomplish if the heroes DON'T kick in their door to stop them. It doesn't have to be world shattering, end of days type of stuff either; in fact I've found that smaller and more personal missions draw the players in more.

Lord Armageddon collecting the five shards of the Apocalypse to bring about the end of the world definitely is an epic tale of heroism, but everyone has a pretty good idea of how things are going to turn out in the end. Baron von Jerkface beating up your mom and stealing your car doesn't have the same scale, but I can pretty much guarantee that of the two the players will hate the Baron way more because he specifically singled them out for his douchebaggery.

Thrawn4
2016-04-27, 06:35 PM
Don't want to spoil anything, but are you sure you can deal with 7 players? That's a completely different style than 3. I would not recommend it.

You should use a setting everyone is familiar with or that does not require much prior knowledge. Generic fantasy might work, as well as everthing set nowadays (e.g. WoD, Cthulhu).

Also, a rules-light system. It's kind of a family meeting, and your people probably don't want to spent hours struggling with the rules. Any of the D6-systems may work, and D6 Space is for free (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/20447/D6-Space?it=1).
The same is true for Fudge.


In general

Airk
2016-04-29, 09:26 AM
I agree with a general trend here, namely:

Don't run something WH40k related. Too much background is required and most people aren't going to be able to get hold of it quickly, if at all.
DO run something that is light on rules.

Fate Accelerated isn't bad, but with 7 people, I feel like overseeing chargen might be messy - keeping everyone on the same page with Aspects can be challenging.

My instinct is to try to find some sort of media that everyone has in common - does everyone have at least a cursory grasp of Star Trek? Play Lasers and Feelings (http://onesevendesign.com/lasers_and_feelings_rpg.pdf); Does everyone have a handle on Buffy/Dresden Files sort of stuff? Try Monster of the Week. Everyone watched all the Marvel movies? Uh, okay, NOW you probably DO want to try to run Fate Accelerated (http://station53.blogspot.com/2014/07/avengers-accelerated-invasion-begins.html). If, somehow, everyone understands D&D Fantasy (unlikely, to be honest, if they haven't played RPGs before) you want Dungeon World. People all kinda dig on Steampunk? You could do a lot worse than Lady Blackbird.

kyoryu
2016-04-29, 10:36 AM
Fate Accelerated isn't bad, but with 7 people, I feel like overseeing chargen might be messy - keeping everyone on the same page with Aspects can be challenging.

Thus, on-the-fly character generation!

Airk
2016-04-29, 11:49 AM
Thus, on-the-fly character generation!

Er, that's exactly the problem I'm worried about! If there's only one GM, and 7 people generating characters, someone's gonna end up with an aspect like "Strong" and someone is going to end up with either "The power of thousand suns at my command!" or something really narrow. I feel like for Fate it's really important to be able to coordinate so that people end up with Aspects that have similar levels of applicability. And that's hard when doing "Just make stuff up on the fly!" for 7 people.

Unless I am totally misunderstanding what you mean by "on-the-fly character generation"?

Takewo
2016-04-29, 11:52 AM
On-the-fly, if I recall correctly, means starting with just a couple of ideas (high concept, trouble, maybe one stunt) and define the rest as the game unfolds.

kyoryu
2016-04-29, 12:04 PM
On-the-fly, if I recall correctly, means starting with just a couple of ideas (high concept, trouble, maybe one stunt) and define the rest as the game unfolds.

Yeah, that.

Since it will happen during play, you can take a second with all of them first.

Though, to be honest, I don't know how I'd feel about Fate for 7 people.

Simsimillia
2016-04-30, 02:37 PM
Thanks for all the replies. I will look into the stuff you suggested.

The one game I've run was with 6 people. So I think I'll be able to handle one more.

Honest Tiefling
2016-04-30, 02:42 PM
Be lazy! Ask them what sort of game they want. Ask what sort of settings and themes they like from fantasy (or even Sci-Fi, if such is to your taste). Game of Thrones, Dragonlance, etc. Even suggest genres like swashbuckling adventure on the high seas or delving into ancient ruins of a lost civilization. Work with that information, so you have to prepare less and they feel like they have a choice.

If you feel brave, use your own dang setting to accommodate the varying tastes. This helps with improv, and you can change things to suit tastes and players more easily. In fact, see if anyone in the group feels like making up parts of the setting by having them describe their homelands.