Granta's GM School (Inactive)

Game Master Granta

Welcome to everybody's first PbP GM school (even mine!). I've trained about a dozen GMs using this method in F2F games, but you'll be my first online guinea pigs.

To start, please ninja-dot the gameplay thread.

Edit: The boss just reminded me that this is not her first time.

Not gonna lie.... pretty pumped about this

Posted, then deleted, as instructed.
Granta's GM School appears under my campaigns tab.
I'll be playing Akash, Sky Druid of Gozreh.

Akash has reported for training.

Are we running an actual module or will any stand in character work? I only ask because I may need to throw something together

This is in all ways a normal game of the level 1 evergreen scenario, #6-10: The Wounded Wisp.

Hi everyone! c: I'll be using Liasna. ^o^

Welcome to everybody's first PbP GM school (even mine!).

* Ahem! *

Hmm flips Granta, then pins him to the ground with her shiny red boots.

Edit: The boss just reminded me that this is not her first time.

That's better.

Seriously, I'm looking forward to seeing what Granta comes up with here!

Hmm

Teflon is ready to go

Ah, should I createCynan the Ifrit Bard is ready and have dotted&deleted.

Everybody's here, so let's get started!

First question: what are your expectations for this class? What would be your definition of success?

I want to be better at engaging/involving my players. Driving the narrative on without taking away agency.

I'd like to find the line between being over prepared and under prepared. I'd consider this a success as long as at the end I feel like it was a positive learning experience.

Excellent first question, Granta.

My objective is to complete the training and be prepared to immediately GM a PbP scenario.

Success would be developing the tools, techniques, and procedures necessary to facilitate running a session; practical experience GMing a session; constructive criticism that corrects my mistakes and offers suggestions for improving my game.

I'm neither thin-skinned nor hyper-sensitive. Please be unsparing in your feedback. I will appreciate it.

Larry

I'm doing a pbp with a small module I picked up (on the advice of don't start with anything big) and thought it would be really exciting to do this with PFS. Mostly, I'm kind of struggling along as I try to sort out the rules and see what works and what doesn't (since I've never done this before) and I wanted to be better at it.

I'm hoping to gain focus, tips, tricks, and the glory that is the knowledge of the GM Granta. c:

My expectation is that we all become better GMs during this class (me too), and I would define success as: each of you continues to GM at least one scenario at all times, in a way that is fun for both you and your players.

Now to recap and make sure I understand what each of you is looking for:

• GE wants to keep the players moving forward on the tracks without them feeling confined by the rails and without having to kick them from behind.
  
• Skillet wants to avoid the mistakes and problems of not prepping enough, but without turning into me.
  
• Akash wants to learn practical methods of GMing in the PbP format.
  
• Hiyami wants to learn practical methods of GMing, both in the PbP format and in general.

Is that fairly accurate? Any corrections, additions, deletions, or bribes to offer?

Hiyami might be the only one who knows this already, but I recently offered to run ten tables through an arc of three evergreen scenarios. The first scenario is finishing up soon, and I am not happy with the experience. Even though the workload was manageable, it wasn't fun.

I need to cut back on my commitment, but don't want to leave all of those players hanging. Hmm offered an interesting solution, but it depends on the four of you, and therefore is your decision rather than mine.

Hmm's idea was that the players who don't get to play The Wounded Wisp with me, instead get a reserved spot to play the scenario when you GM it.

Thoughts?

I'm... not actually sure what that means. So if you don't play The Wounded Wisp with you, you play it again later when you GM it? /confused Sorry if it's super obvious to everyone else, orz

I will point out that a lot of people are pretty impressed you're managing it - a lot of people would've bowed out by now.

Instead of me GMing The Wounded Wisp for those players now, the four of you would GM for them in a couple of months.

And I am bowing out, I'm just doing it in between scenarios instead of in the middle of one :-Þ

Yeah, there's a lot of people who would've bailed in the middle of things... And that seems totally A-OK with me? I don't mind helping out once I'm actually sorted and know what I'm doing. c:

So, you train us up and then we try to put what we learnt into immediate practise?

Sounds good: what's the point of learning to swim if you're just going to sit on the beach?

You guys are already going to put what you learn into immediate practice, that is (the most important) part of the class. This just affects who your players will be when that time comes.

Me GMing for you is like the lecture. You still have to take the test though, in order to pass the class. And the "test" is you GMing The Wounded Wisp for other players.

So will they be doing their Wounded Wisp scenarios at the same time as the class, or afterwards?

I've been asked by Granta to sit in and be another source for information / perspectives / encouragement.

Oh, and in case you don't know who I am... Hello. I'm Hmm, the VL of Online Play. My dedicated region is the PFS Play-by-Post community. As a GM, I think that I'm pretty good at both pacing and story. But I lack organizational skills, which Granta has in abundance, so I am looking forward to learning what he has to say.

I'm also willing to share some of the lessons that I learned while teaching the previous GM 101. Note that I said: "Learned." Whenever you try to teach someone else, you can't help learning new things!

Hmm

I promised to run The Wounded Wisp for ~50 players, but am only going to GM for about half of them. Let's split the original 50 into Groups A & B.

This table will play the scenario at the same time as Group A. After that is finished, this table would GM the scenario for Group B.

I think GMing Wounded Wisp sounds perfect.

Your preparation is exactly what I'd like to build toward, Granta. I'd like to GM a game F2f sometime in the future; but figured I'd start here. My biggest fear both online and F2f is stumbling over what to do next to further the story without pushing players into what I think they should be doing.

It's great to meet you Hmm! I've seen you quite a bit on the threads and you and Granta are what I aspire to be as a GM. (I might have creeped your games a bit )

Ahahahaaaa, I haven't creeped GM Hmm's games yet, but I've participated in one of GM Granta's, and I'd just like to say it was a pleasure - clearly organized, no confusion, excellent pacing. <3 It was plainly spoken - awesome! :D
*sneaks into GM Hmm's profile* HOLY--

I think playing/teaching works out fine - we could theory-craft for organization, responding, etc. in the latter half of school! c:

Count me in.

I was hoping to use the training we get in this experience anyway. Committing now to GMing a table as soon as we complete this training is a great way to focus our efforts and produce a tangible contribution to the PbP community.

I hope you will be able to monitor our first effort to GM and provide feedback as early and as often as you can.

Larry
(aka Akash)

*sneaks into GM Hmm's profile* HOLY--

Heh. I'm assuming that you were looking at my poor Campaign page? All of the Cosmic Captive special is there, since I'm acting as Overseer. Granta, do you need me as a player here, or can I just observe? My plate is sort of overflowing with CC.

Hmm

So, when do we start?

I have the sneaking suspicion that the start date may be dependent on the Paizo site fixes and Cosmic Captive's current chaos. (Ha! Alliteration!) Still, I'd be happy to discuss more about the backside of PFS, if no one minds? o:

For one thing, I've been reminded of and informed of a lot of things in the last two weeks, so I imagine there's a lot more to learn. One thing I'd like to clarify - if one of my characters plays an adventure, does that mean that none of my other characters will get credit for it if they happen to play it? Aside from the repeatable/evergreen?s, I mean.

Plus, I just learned that the APs can be counted for PFS (Lemme tell you how hard I lost my crap right then, because I was so excited, omg, I can't even!), and I looked at the documentation for it, but it still looks a bit confusing. @_@

But! It looks like you can GM an adventure for PFS credit on a character (when they get to that level, if necessary), or you can play a character through said adventure... But you only get credit for it once. Which then makes me want to ask, if you GM an evergreen multiple times, can you then attribute that to different characters?

And if that's not the case, how did Paizo manage to get so many GMs to repeat stuff? o:

We were originally waiting for all of my Confirmation tables to finish, but the last of those ended today. And as hiyami guessed, our start date is now dependent on Paizo fixing the website. I had also wanted to discuss more before we start, but have held off because of the site outages.

The replay questions are answered in the Roleplaying Guild Guide, which changes every year at GenCon. The parts you want to check out are "Replaying Adventures" on p. 7 and "Additional Playable Content" on p. 11.

The current version of the Roleplaying Guild Guide is one of those 'must-have' resources everybody needs in their GM toolkit. Players should also have their own copy, but often 'forget to bring it.'

I keep a printed or digital copy on-hand, so I can quickly refer to it when questions come up like yours or other PFS basics for players and GMs.

The current version of the Roleplaying Guild Guide is one of those 'must-have' resources everybody needs in their GM toolkit. Players should also have their own copy, but often 'forget to bring it.'

I keep a printed or digital copy on-hand, so I can quickly refer to it when questions come up like yours or other PFS basics for players and GMs.

I've got it on my laptop but would love to have a phone-friendly version.

I have it downloaded! I was just looking for some clarification because I wasn't entirely sure if this part -

"You can receive credit - A Chronicle sheet with the adventure's rewards - once for playing an adventure and once for running the same adventure as a GM, regardless of how many times you play or run that specific adventure."

Is it correct to assume that's in reference to the player/GM and not just one of the player's characters/GM?

Re: AP's, I also had the question of whether there was a difference in terms of applying credit between campaign mode and module mode. My understanding as I read through that was they count as the same thing, so if you're going through the campaign, then playing the modules would count as though you'd already played it and vice versa. The only difference (to me, anyways), is that one is in a giant chunk and with GM-picked character creation and the other is by PFS in pieces...

And maybe these are really obvious - I'm 95% sure that I'm correct, but I wanted to be 100% sure. c:

Correct, that limit is per player, not per character.

And yes, receiving credit for playing an AP in one mode would prohibit you from receiving credit for playing it in the other mode.

Excellent! Glad to hear I was on the right track. I have a bad habit of second-guessing myself when I'm not 100% sure of what I'm looking at. I've been informed I should start second guessing at the 75-80% level, but meh. That said, is it just me or is the website a bit more stable?

As far as I know, I've been able to access it for the past 24 hours.

I had a couple issues last night it but hasn't been down for hours at a time so it seems they're making progress. I hate that it was in the middle of the special. Really Killin the momentum for me

GM Granta,

I've just volunteered to run a low-tier (1-4) table of #8-99 Solstice Scar for PbP GameDay VI.

I created a GM alias and followed Hmm's link to the Solstice Scar GM Recruiting Form and completed the submission.

Then I went to PbPGameDay.com page. I didn't see any tables listed yet for Solstice Scar. Did I miss something?

Need some guidance on how to handle things like setting up the recruitment thread, campaign page, and gameplay thread. (These are likely topics that will be covered at some point during our training, but maybe the PFS Multi-Table Special/GameDay event puts a few wrinkles in the usual setup.)

Appreciate your patience with a PbP GM newb.

FYI, I've run this once already in F2F play.

Thanks,
Larry

@Lawrence: Solstice Scar tables won't get added until I actually select the GMs, which will probably be in a week.

And yep, we'll go through all of that stuff in this class.

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@Everyone: Describe some of the best GMing moments that you have experienced as a player. They can be from PbP, F2F, VTT, whatever. But if they are from PbP, please try to include a link.

And if possible, analyze the moment and figure out why you enjoyed what the GM did.

I think the best moment I've ever had as a player with my GM was a F2F game, homebrewed. A friend and I were tasked with figuring out a way to take care of a large organization of thieves and prostitutes, etc. It was part of a bargain for a greater goal. We had few resources and even after a good thirty minutes of racking our brains, neither my friend nor I had any ideas. She'd finally given up, so it was just me struggling along and then a stroke of luck hit.

I didn't know what to do, so I started muttering, half jokingly, praying to God to help me - and then boom! "THE GODS!" I jumped out of my seat, and they did too. I'd startled them both. "Have you gone to the temples, to ask them for aid? Those of Calistria will undoubtedly grant you shelter while you seek better options."

The GM and my friend and I were all dumbstruck. He hadn't thought of it, and neither had she. Neither had I, really, until God - muahahaha! - gave me the idea.

The character the GM was playing kind of stuttered, eyes wide, shocked, and admitted that they'd not thought of that. We were then able to organize a whole system between the temples and the organization by brokering a deal between the leader of the Red Thread (*coughcough*) and a leader of the church.

---

I've always thought of this moment as a great success for myself as a player and not necessarily as one for the GM, but I think the greatest part of what happened was how quickly my GM was able to just pick up the joker I'd accidentally laid down and roll with it. He made the experience seamless - we slipped from one setting and situation into the next and the matter was resolved by the end of the session with no issues.

He certainly hadn't planned for it or expected it in any way, but the fact that he still let me take the story in that direction - naturally - was really cool. I got to feel like I had a great impact on the overall story he was spinning for us and I got my first real glimpse of what it looks like when a GM gets taken by surprise, but still keeps composed (for the most part) and quickly finds another way of continuing the story that doesn't disrupt it... if that makes sense.

I don't have a lot of experience with tabletop so I don't have much to reference. But one homebrew F2f game I did play had a great puzzle we had to solve (I'm a sucker for puzzles) it was years and years ago, so I can't recall details very well to give it justice, but after that, the whole game had me looking forward to the next puzzle/riddle to solve. Having the whole team get involved and making everyone think is what made me love it. It wasn't that it was hard necessarily, but it was so creative. It required an action for every member's specialty, and all that made me want to create some of my own. Unfortunately, my gaming days dwindled off and I never got to create a game of my own to implicate one.

My best experiences as a player can be attributed to two GMs who demonstrated the mastery of the art rather than just the science of running an RPG.

Both GMs were very familiar with the scenarios they were running and therefore wasted little time with their heads down, pouring over the scenario hunting for details within the walls of text. They were able to engage the players and role-play, not just roll-play.

Both used voices to enhance the encounters, bringing thinly sketched NPCs to life with attitude and expression.

Both managed to reveal interesting backstory, not so much as exposition but as related to the PCs often by NPCs and sometimes by skill checks, an experience immersive rather than purely mechanical.

What was most impressive was their ability to accomplish all this while also very effectively managing game time. Nothing felt rushed, even though it felt to me like a day's worth of adventuring content delivered within the allotted time.

The take-away for me reinforced the importance of mechanical prep as the foundation all GMs need, but demonstrated the possibility of an amazing experience playing with a GM who understands the story and how to involve the players in telling the tale.

This one is from my first PbP game. Fek is a kleptomaniac, so I try to steal something from every NPC possible. During the briefing, he pickpockets the VCs. The GM didn't respond right away, but I could tell he thought about it--and maybe talked to other GMs, because several posts later he said what I stole.

I really appreciated that, and made sure to use both the pocket knife and handkerchief in later posts, to let the GM know I appreciated his effort. Not only did the GM add to my enjoyment, but he did something that spurred me to role-play more.

I think the factor that elevated this moment from good to great, was the fact that thievery is a defining part of Fek's identity. I probably wouldn't have been affected as strongly if the GM had responded to an Escape Artist check, even if it was just as personal and detailed.

Excellent improv! Love it.

It's not a single thing but a campaign.

James Martin (Our Mysterious Benefactor) ran a hilarious goblin-pirates homebrew on these boards.

Everything was in service to fun and wherever the characters went, James let the adventure follow.

Or, at least, that's how it felt.

We had a blast.

Please roll your Day Job here, then fill in this form with all of your other character info.

Job (Babysitter): 1d20 ⇒ 15

Form complete and no job roll, orz.

Slightly irrelevant question: How do you get the GM in front of your name? o: Are you just making an alias and adding GM or is there a thing that you do?

And! If you had to pick between the Field Guide and the Primer, which would you get? o:

Form completed for Akash. (Please ignore my mistake in completing a form for another of my PCs, Mishka Krieger.)

Akash will take 10 on Profession (sailor) + 7 for 17.

day job, perform (comedy): 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

Form filled.