Three Key Skills
There are three basic skills (fundamentals if you will) that every beginning GM must have…
1. Narration – the ability to set the scene, roleplay the world, report the results and consequences of actions, and transition to new scenes.
2. Querying – the ability to draw out of players their goals and the means by which they are attempting to achieve them when they set out to declare actions.
3. Adjudication – the ability to determine the difficulty, skill to be employed, and the result of an attempted action and the consequences that follow from success or failure.
These skills must be mastered to run a game and, thankfully, they are pretty easy to learn. They basically require you to explain the current situation to the players, ask the players for their actions (and roll dice if necessary), and explain the results of those actions to the players – that basic exchange again. Not hard at all (especially if you have a pre-published module with all this information readily at hand). The more you practice this basic exchange the better you will become at it. The remaining skills (discussed in the remainder of this section of the guide) explain and build on these foundational skills to help you become a better GM.
Game Fundamentals
The fundamentals of running a game are fairly straightforward. The key skills are narration (including roleplaying), adjudication, and pacing (and a bunch of special cases such as introducing scenes, transitioning scenes, concluding scenes, and communicating the results of actions). A further skill is that of improvisation – an essential though advanced skill for managing those moments where the players depart radically from the game you had planned. Each of these skills is considered in detail in future sections of this volume. For now, it is enough to master the basic game interaction…
Tell the players why and where they are. Start at the first scene of the game and describe what happens (Introduce, Narrate, and Role-play).
Ask the players what they wish to do (Query). Make sure you understand what they are intending to accomplish and how.
Figure out the results (Adjudicate) and communicate what happens to the players (Resolve).
Describe the new scene that results (Transition) and keep doing this over and over (Maintain the pace and tone).
When the game reaches its conclusion (the players have achieved what they set out to – or failed) sum up what has happened, thank everyone for coming, and bring the game to a close (Conclude).
Your very First Session
If you are a brand new GM, then this section is specifically for you.
Without meaning to discourage you inordinately, you need to understand from the outset that you will run a bad game to start with. This is perfectly normal and should take most of the pressure you are feeling off you. The first time you ride a bike it is wobbly and you have a high chance of crashing. The first time you run a roleplaying game, it is likely to be bad (at least by comparison to the games run by people with experience). The good news is that your players will probably have a good time anyway. Most players are highly forgiving of someone sitting down in the GM’s chair for the first time.
To make your first game manageable, give it a limited duration – a single session (of three to four hours) with an endpoint that you are not going to go beyond – and tell your players.
Provide the players with pre-generated characters. For your first game, you don’t want to be looking up rules relating to character abilities on the fly. By using pre-generated characters you avoid this frustration and can concentrate on running the game for characters whose abilities you understand and have had time to prepare. The process of creating a handful of characters can also be a good way to introduce yourself to the rules and how they work. It also helps the players keep from getting attached to the characters (making it easier to limit the game to a single session).
Lastly, use a pre-published module or scenario (like “The Temple of the Vetalla” included in this volume) for your first game. If you’re a new GM you want to make it easy to concentrate on learning the fundamentals of running a gaming session. The design of a game from the ground up is an advanced skill that you don’t want to be distracted with, the first time you sit down to run a game. And a pre-published module lets you do this. Players are also more likely to blame the module for the quality of the game than they are to hold you accountable. And it will be easier to say “no” when players deviate too far from what you can manage during the game.
Make sure you communicate all of this to your players (limited time, pre-generated characters, and pre-published module) so that they are committed to playing the same game you are going to run.
The next point is obvious. Get to know the rules of the game and get to know the module you are planning to run. Understand the rules in their basic form, but also revise a few areas in detail. Specifically, revise the section on getting things done, combat, and magic.
Be sure to read the module through in detail. Read it all the way through at least once and be sure to skim it as near to the game’s start as you can. You’ll know you’ve read it enough if you can explain to yourself, out loud, the basic run-down of what happens in the module during play.
This volume relies heavily on the work of Scott Rehm, Justin Alexander, Brian Christopher Misiaszek, Mike Bourke, Blair Ramage, Saxon Brenton, Robin Laws, John Wick, Wolfgang Baur, Ken Hite, Monte Cooke, Kevin Crawford, Phil Vecchione, and Walt Ciechanowski.
This chapter of the Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama RPG and all associated content (except where noted above) is © copyright weirdworldstudios.com and Philip Craig Robotham 2016 and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written permission of the author.
HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 1 – Running a Game
- Chapter 1: The Job of the GM (gathering a table, player types, and ensuring fun)
- Chapter 2: Preliminaries (the three fundamental skills, and your first session)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 1 (the opening scene and narration)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 2 (querying and adjudication)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 3 (resolving actions, managing tropes, transitioning, concluding, and preparing future sessions)
- Chapter 4: Managing the Mini-Games (combat, chases, and social actions)
- Chapter 5: Maintaining Pace and Tone (managing time and policing the tone)
- Chapter 6: Improvising (improvising the story and the rules – for all the times the players do something unexpected)
- Chapter 7 & 8: Getting Feedback and Conclusion (improving your game)
HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 2 – Designing Games
- Chapter 9: Scene Design
- Chapter 10: NPC, Monster, Faction, and Villain Design
- Chapter 11: Dilemmas, Obstacles, Exits, and Clues
- Chapter 12: Plot (scenario, sandbox, critical path, and the interaction between story and choice)
- Chapter 13: Structures: The five-room dungeon (and variations)
- Chapter 14: Structures: The sandbox (the town or city)
- Chapter 15: Structures: The sandbox (the wilderness)
- Chapter 16: Structures: The Scenario
- Chapter 17: Structures: The Campaign
