New GM: Some Questions

Hello Since i have trouble finding a Group i tough about GM'ing myself. I have 2 matches experience (Vampire) as a player and watched some videos. I was planning anyway to GM once but wanted some first hand experience from the player POV. Systems im looking into: Shadowrun , Dark Heresy. I know a good bunch of Lore for Wharhammer 40k, and a bit for Shadowrun. Most probably my decision will be Shadowrun. Ive watched some wh40k videos and fear, that i just copy the GM's Style in those videos - and i dont want that. My main question im going to ask is, regarding Story length . I prefer a evenly spread Combat/Story based game, with a tendency on Investigation/story. But how do you pace out the main story line with side quests in a way that the players can explore your "world" but dont get sidetracked so much that the main story does not progress. I guess im quiet good at figuring stuff out ad hoc (record was a 30 min presentation i had to hold for my group but i was told 5 min before i had to go on stage :D), but i want to keep it a bit in my borders. I dont want a long story for my first game, should be possible to finish in 2-3 Sets à 4-5h depending on how the players progress. but i want to tell it in a way that (if the players enjoy my GM'ing) i could put it in a larger context, so like prologue that is not clearly linked to my later on "main plot". So TLDR: Can you share some ideas / tips / hints on how to pace a story aka Do's and Dont's regarding those 2 Systems or GM'ing in general? Specificly how i should deal with it if a player starts fucking up the story, aka killing people that i had the intention to do something interesting later on. (Happend to me in my Vampire games :( ) Also: How did you start building your own Story?

Disclaimer: I don't play Shadowrun or Dark Heresy. But I can help you with core concepts that you can take to any RPGs. Combat is "story." Story is a byproduct of play - it is created simply by playing. While you're playing, it's a happening , a tale to be told. Afterward, when you recount the things which occurred during play, that's a story. If you had a lot of combat during play, then your story is a action-packed and violent, but it's still a story. Similarly, if you had a lot of investigation during play, then your story is more like a detective novel. If the players made decisions during those combats or investigations that their characters would also make given the in-game context, then they were roleplaying . A "storyline" is another word for a plot. A plot is a sequence of events of events in a story. In an RPG, this is created by the GM and the players move along the plot during play (or don't, leaving the GM with some decisions to make). If you move them along the plot in a way that negates or subverts their choices, this is called railroading . If they have agreed that the scenario has a plot and will follow it rather than purposefully (or accidentally) go off of it, then they are offering their willing suspension of disbelief on the existence of a predetermined plot. You are no longer railroading because the players are choosing to follow your plot. There are those (including myself) that suggest a GM should never prepare plots ; however, that's a stylistic choice. If you can get your players' buy-in that there's a plot and they agree to follow it because that's where the action is, then plots can work just fine. Plots are inherently more prep for the GM and contingencies on those plots (often called "side quests") represent potentially wasted prep work and time. If you enjoy creation for the sake of it, then do it. Otherwise, consider simply talking to your players and asking them to agree on your premise and plot so you don't have to railroad them or waste your prep work. This will also help with the issue of the players attacking plot-relevant NPCs. It's good that you're focusing on pacing. A lot of GMs, even veteran GMs, don't do this and they frequently produce some pretty boring games. Here's a great series of articles on pacing in an RPG. Read it several times over. Bottom line is you need to know when a scene is finished so you can cut and move on to the next scene. A scene is finished when the dramatic question has been answered. The dramatic question of a scene is the conflict of the scene boiled down to a single yes/no question: "Will the cyberpunk PCs hack into the mainframe before the rival gang arrives on the scene and start shooting?" Let the mechanics and context determine when the dramatic question is answered, then resolve it and move on. Games that drag in my experience (leading to player disengagement and frequent disruption of the game such as killing your NPCs because they're bored) are those that don't focus on tight pacing. On that note and to answer your question about disruptive players, give the characters (and by extension, the players) something to react to, all the time. The worst thing you can do as GM is say, "Okay, what do you guys do?" when there's not enough context to make meaningful decisions. "You're in a town. What do you do?" Terrible. This often leads to the burning down of the proverbial tavern and fights with ubiquitous town guard when the players get bored and decide to create their own action. "You've just entered town and a group of toughs wearing red sashes are knocking over your good buddy Zeke's liquor store up ahead. Shots ring out and one of them wings a bystander near you. There's not a siren to be heard. What do you do?" Better - something to react to and a reason to give a shit. Until you've built up enough context to permit the players to easily make decisions and be proactive, you need to put compelling situations right in front them. This is especially true if you have a plot you want them to follow. So seriously, "You're in town - what do you do?" Don't do it. Finally, before you decide to get a game started, conduct Session Zero in which you and your chosen players all get on the same page with regard to expectations before the game. This is the time to tell them about your plot and that this is where the adventure is. Ask them to agree to follow the plot during Session Zero. Consider sharing these resources with your group as well: " 11 Ways to Be a Better Roleplayer " and " You Are Not Your Character ." This one is also good since you're presumably playing online. And this one is geared toward fantasy games a bit, but the advice can be applied generally. Good luck, and I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have about GMing.

Kristin C. said: Headhunter, I think he pretty much implied that he's looking to create a game that focuses more on social interaction rather than physically combative ones. "Implying" and "assuming" has created more disasters in games than being direct and asking for clarificatio n in my experience. As GM, I imply nothing nor assume nothing as best as I can. Your advice is otherwise spot on, especially as it relates to clearly communicating your creative agenda and getting the players' buy-in on that prior to play.

But how do you pace out the main story line with side quests in a way that the players can explore your "world" but dont get sidetracked so much that the main story does not progress. If players spend a long time 'off' the main quest, they either don't know there is one or what it is (a bad thing), or feel it isn't pressing enough. If the "main story does not progress" without them, they would be right. Or the players just don't care about your story, but that's a bigger player/GM issue and a whole other debate/discussion. Make your players the ONLY ones in your world who can defeat the big bad threat. Progress the plot without them, and let them know, directly and indirectly. They hear about attacks on cities, they hear about villages getting wiped out. If they spend 'too much time' in your starting town, have your bad guys burn it to the ground while the party was off questing. Nothing gets a party going more than the plot catching up to them and catching them, and hey! The guy who was going to pay us is dead, and look, the tracks of the big bad raiders went THAT WAY! (DUN DUN DUNNNN!) Even if you don't go that far, tie threads to the main story. The necromancer has a letter from the big bad courting him to their cause, and a half written reply is on the table telling the big bad to shove it. Don't have or think of things as 'side quests', even if it's a thread, always tie things to the main story.

Neill L said: If players spend a long time 'off' the main quest, they either don't know there is one or what it is (a bad thing), or feel it isn't pressing enough. If the "main story does not progress" without them, they would be right. Or the players just don't care about your story, but that's a bigger player/GM issue and a whole other debate/discussion. Right! As one of the articles I suggested above says, "Plot-based design, on the other hand, is like handing the players a map on which a specific route has been marked with invisible ink… and then requiring them to follow that invisible path." To avoid the problems that creates, you really need to have your players' buy-in on the plot. Tell them that there is one, what it's about basically, that the adventure is on that path, and everything else will have to be improvised. This will prevent you from needing to use railroading to get them back on the path. Make your players the ONLY ones in your world who can defeat the big bad threat. Great advice.

Correct me if I'm wrong but from my humble perspective I believe it breaks any realism when it falls into the "done so much it hurts" tropes of role-play like that only the heroes can solve one problem, even if that one problem is a huge monster or some kind of unbelievably powerful deity. I mean if the players are questing around, shouldn't there be thousands of others or hundreds or such doing the same and trying to fight off this plot force? If not, that's just a great idea for fleshing out the lore. The point I'm making falls in wonderful into the discussing here. A "punishment" for players sidetracking could be other heroes or bands of heroes getting the goodies that they so sorely missed for not doing the main plot.

Dodes said: Correct me if I'm wrong but from my humble perspective I believe it breaks any realism when it falls into the "done so much it hurts" tropes of role-play like that only the heroes can solve one problem, even if that one problem is a huge monster or some kind of unbelievably powerful deity. Only some players and GMs value "realism" in their games. I would expect anyone playing a game that is, in fact, not based in reality should not be too concerned about it. Whatever you establish is "real" for that game, conventions and assumptions of the actual "real world" be damned. I mean if the players are questing around, shouldn't there be thousands of others or hundreds or such doing the same and trying to fight off this plot force? Only if you say so. It's not inherently true. You can choose to believe something else.

Dodes said: A "punishment" for players sidetracking could be other heroes or bands of heroes getting the goodies that they so sorely missed for not doing the main plot. Yes, there can be other heroes, but they don't matter because they aren't playing. When you have a main plot, it's the whole point of the game. The GM wants the players involved, having NPC's swoop in and win punishes not just the PC's who failed their quest, but punishes the GM as well. And then nobody is having fun. In poker terms, you need to raise the stakes, not fold.

Alex said: So TLDR: Can you share some ideas / tips / hints on how to pace a story aka Do's and Dont's regarding those 2 Systems or GM'ing in general? Specificly how i should deal with it if a player starts fucking up the story, aka killing people that i had the intention to do something interesting later on. (Happend to me in my Vampire games :( ) Also: How did you start building your own Story? With Shadowrun, you have a lot more control over the pacing than in most other games. The default arc of a group of sessions runs like this: PCs Get The Mission -> Complication #1 -> Complication #2 -> PCs go on extended planning/shopping spree -> PCs perform the run -> Denoument/fallout from the run -> Mr. Johnson screws them over -> PCs get revenge on Mr. Johnson -> Start over. By discussing things with your players and getting a feel for how a game progresses, you can then add or subtract complications as needed. Be aware that they might bite harder on a complication than the main thread of the game. I recommend you let them explore the side quests/complications at their leisure; if the game draws out or PCs dawdle, hit 'em with a complication that draws them back into the main thread. If you're good at running the game extemporaneously, let these side quests go on as long as its fun for everyone. If PCs are quibbling over exactly how many grenades they buy, throw in a complication (Lone Star burst in trying to stop the illegal weapons transfers for example). After the run concludes, figure out what the players enjoyed most about the session and use that to link your overall idea towards any future sessions. I try not to force in a story, instead I work on detailing specific locations and NPCs with distinct motivations and let those situations play themselves out. If the PCs decide the best course of action is to ventilate NPCs with extreme prejudice, then the fallout for their actions dictates where the game goes next. Potentially to prison, if necessary. You also need to be careful with the "Mr. Johnson screws them over -> PCs get revenge on Mr. Johnson" portion of the arc I described above. It's been done to death, but some players find that it's a necessary part of the Shadowrun experience and they miss out on showing how awesome their characters are by upstaging the Johnson and taking control of the game world. Talk to your players, find out what they want.

Wow, thank you guys for the helpfull replies. Some of the stuff was already known to me, some was new. As i said, i have yet to decide if i go with Shadowrun or Dark Heresy, i've have the CB for DH already, but just ordered the 5th edition from SR as it should be released this month, aka now :D ? Nevertheless regarding the preparation of a plot, i was planning to do it like i prepare myself for a presentation. I write down some Major Anchorpoints which i can hold on in case stuff goes awol. Thus i wold only flesh out the NPC's for the main Plott, either the Villain or the Quest giver. As for Shadowrun, i know its paced like a Mercenary game, and with those runs it gives me and the players the advantage of having "canned" expiriences. This can be a bank heist where they first can gather information and thus ease up the final encounter, or go in trough the front door guns blazing, bur get into the risk of getting chased by a spec force from Lone Star. On the first Session i want to introduce the players to the general plot aka "Why they (PC) are here and why they are together". In DH this could be that they are send here by a inquisitor as their "Trial by Fire" to solve something. In the case of Shadowrun i could do the normal mission at the beginning to see if they like the way i GM and if it fits together with their playstyle. And the conclusion of the first mission would then introduce the Party to the main Plott i have prepared for them. As for the first session i would only prepare it as described above and if they like what i do i can flesh out the part i think they will go in the next session, thus i can react to what has happend in the current set, and how i see the players want to play. I wont avoid combat compleately, but i like that the Players have to Think before act, aka if they decide to shoot they should think about the consequences. Like starting a shootout in a market - even for a good cause - could have some consequences. I wont "punish" them (hard) for doing that, but i want a Fight to be something special, and may be the high point of the set. Aka, i dont want to create a Michael Bay Movie. If one PC is more focused on "physical interaction", he should have options in acting so. And if a PC wants to act like a Badass Mofo, he is free to do so as long as it does not piss off the other players. And this i would like to avoid by talking to them in the beginning, what i would like to expect from them, and what they can expect form each other. There is nothing more annoying if 2 players want to investigate, and the other just throws presence arround like mad, even at the other PC's (Vampire ability - World of Darkness). @ Mr. Jonson screws the Party: i dont like that "plot twist" anyway since most people can see it coming from a mile away. But it could be, that Mr. Jonson suddenly gets Kill'd as a reaction to what the party did during their Mission. Something that involves the party's action into the main plot. But as i said, i will read first into both books a bit, then decide which one i take and prepare something for that Universe then. For the first set it does not need to be something fancy, i just write down some major anchor points to have a idea where the plot will go to, but see what happens later on. I like good pacing, i dont want to "hurry" the PC's while they are investigating, but there might be the need to cut them off. I guess the most tricky part will be to give them something interesting to do, and the tricky part there is that for me it might be obvious, since i have a idea what will happen, but they dont know that. As for Playstyle, i will probably play RL since i know some people that might be interested, but if that does not work out ill do something here on Roll20. In general: I see myself as the Narrator and the invisible Hand that puts the Carrot in front of the party to get them in the right direction. And your answers gave me some good hints on how to do that :) *goes to the grocery store and buys some carrots*

Kristin C. said: I would recommend jotting down a list of NPCs before play. Give them a name, an appearance, and something noteworthy about them or maybe give them some idiosyncrasies. Have that list on hand so when you need to present an NPC to the player characters, they're something more there than just a dialog tree with a name slapped atop it. The reason I suggest this is that if the character is noteworthy, the PCs might latch on to that NPC and actually gift you something else to work with for your campaign. Seconding this. It's always a surprise as to which NPCs the PCs latch on to and like and which ones they decide they want to eliminate. Let your players take their pick and then use that to flesh out later missions/plot threads.

Out of curiosity, does the Shadowrun game specifically recommend plot-based design? Do the mechanics of the game support such an approach?

That is a good question, and thus i said im waiting for my 5.ed Version of Shadowrun and then read into DH and SR and decide which one i will go with first.