I think I'm going to put up a guide how to keep your game fun, entertaining, balanced and coherent. Especially aimed towards newer players and GMs in general.
1. Knowing the Rules
Stick to Core material if you can. Know the rules by heart for as far as you can. Play out some skill challenges and combats on your own with a wizard, a fighter, a cleric, and a rogue. Explore situations that might happen and which rules apply.
Only after you know pretty well how everything works, you might perhaps add in the Advanced Player Guide, Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic. Make sure you ban the Summoner, Samurai and Ninja from your game for flavour and balancing reasons. From the Advanced Race Guide, allow your players to take alternate racial traits, but allow only the standard races.
2. Creating an Immersive Experience
Roughly think up a world together with your players. What kind of world is it and what's going on? What kind of role do the players take?
Then, YOU play that world, and your players will play inside that world.
For the first few sessions, try to stimulate the players into doing stuff. Just more or less lead them by the nose, until they get the swing of it and know how to roll. From that point on, give your players more freedom to follow their own clues. At this point, improvise as much as you can, and give the players the power to choose their own destiny. However, tell them that they should stick together at all times, unless forced to separate.
Know your players, base the adventures around motives that the players have or might have. If gold and XP is all your players want, then have them delve dungeons. If roleplaying is what your players want, then put some extra effort in the world and its inhabitants to get a more immersive experience.
3. Building Characters
Encourage your players to play the character they want to play, that if they try their best they will be fine even if they aren't the strongest guy in the party and that flavour matters too. Sure a PC might die in an unlucky situation. In the end it's about excitement and having fun, it's not about being able to get through the dungeon without a scratch. It is best to start out with either 15-point buy or 20-point buy. Rolling stats will create large differences in power between players, 10 point buy is too harsh and 25 point buy makes it difficult to set up challenging encounters because the players are too strong.
4. During Play
As a GM, you are always the final arbiter of what really happens and what doesn't. That doesn't mean you shouldn't let your players make suggestions on what would be fun to happen next.
A)Have plenty of information on your world available. But provide that information only when it becomes relevant. Your players will appreciate your attention to detail at that moment, but until then, you will merely be lecturing somebody who didn't ask.
B)Your players (thanks to minis, maps and counters) already have some kind of visual concept of the situation. So when you describe a scene, concentrate instead on sounds, smells, textures, and temperatures.
C)Keep disagreements brief. One statement per side; then make your ruling. Game time is precious! Afterward, you can consult your sources, debate via e-mail, and have the "official, permanent" ruling ready by the next game.
D) When running the game starts to feel like a chore, let everybody know you need a break. Have somebody else run. Play a board game. Go out for pizza. GMing is an obligation of sorts, but it's still meant to be fun, and if you're not enjoying yourself the odds are nobody will.
E) If you have issues with a player using his character to disrupt the game or interfere with other players' characters, discuss it with the player. Messing with the character either makes you look like a cheap tyrant if it works, or a total chump if you're outsmarted.
5. Achieve the Goal
Have fun.
Don't be afraid to imprison or even kill your players. If their characters went into an obviously dangerous area or picked the wrong fight, have them feel it.
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You should never imprison or kill your players. This is illegal and will result in serious jail time. On occasion, you might kill or imprison a player's character however without facing legal consequences.
Main rule is have fun and don't worry about not knowing all the rules, having a fully detailed world, or any of that. Those things will come in time. Get enough of the basics, don't be afraid to say yes, and remember that while your are the opposition for the players, you are not competing with them, your job is to help them have fun.
Main rule is have fun and don't worry about not knowing all the rules, having a fully detailed world, or any of that. Those things will come in time. Get enough of the basics, don't be afraid to say yes, and remember that while your are the opposition for the players, you are not competing with them, your job is to help them have fun.
This. SO MUCH THIS!
*Gifts Dave Justus with one internets*
I'm gonna have to disagree with "Make sure you ban the Summoner, Samurai and Ninja from your game for flavour and balancing reasons."
Banning Summoner since you are inexperienced is probably fine. If you know the person and can trust that they won't powergame and break the heck out of your campaign then you should allow it. A buddy of mine uses his Eidolon in combat and chooses not to summon any other monsters unless he has to send his Eidolon away. It's honestly not the worst strategy especially since there's only one other frontline fighter in the group. Not to mention a wizard will also break the campaign too.
Ninja and Samurai is just plain wrong. They are not overpowered. If you can't fit a mysterious foreign land into the campaign for them to be from, then reskin them. Call them something else. Hells, they're already alternate classes; it's not like it'd be that difficult. Also if you're players really want the class and its flavor then make them come up with a good reason for them being there.
My advice to add to the list: Work with your players as much as possible.
Lincoln Hills already mentioned this as a method of conflict resolution but it's a good practice for other things as well. For example, I make everyone come up with a backstory for their characters. To aid them, I give them as much detail on the world as I can without spoiling things. These backstories don't have to be wildly original but they should show effort. If they're good backstories then I like to reward them with little bonuses. Traits are a good framework for this but it could also be flavor things. If they give a good explanation for why the Thieves' Guild likes them then let the Thieves' Guild be allies in-game. I feel this gives the players more incentive to care about your world or even the world of Golarion if you don't do homebrew.
On a related note, player backstories should have some kind of quest hook for the GM. This makes the GM's job easier and makes the story more personal for the players. GMs should encourage it and use what he players have in mind.
I usually do it for filler sessions in-between big plot events. Like after the huge battle, a childhood bully of a hero who later became the head of a bandit group kidnaps the character's mom to lure him out. The party has a smaller, more personal conflict with lots of opportunities for roleplay. Just make sure you do something like this for everyone to avoid favoritism.
Ninja and Samurai is just plain wrong. They are not overpowered. If you can't fit a mysterious foreign land into the campaign for them to be from, then reskin them.
Sure, you can rename them Cavalier and Rogue.
Also, I never said the Samurai and Ninja were overpowered, but that they are advised to be discarded for flavour reasons.
Maybe I should have used a different wording.
Ninja and Samurai is just plain wrong. They are not overpowered. If you can't fit a mysterious foreign land into the campaign for them to be from, then reskin them.Sure, you can rename them Cavalier and Rogue.
Also, I never said the Samurai and Ninja were overpowered, but that they are advised to be discarded for flavour reasons.
Maybe I should have used a different wording.
See that is something different. I would only allow them to use the words "Samurai" and "Ninja" if they have a damn good reason for it. "Mysterious stranger from the East" is cliche but it can have its own fun I suppose. I would only allow it of a player I really trusted
Otherwise, yeah go ahead and let them use the class abilities and just call them rogues or cavaliers.
Main rule is have fun and don't worry about not knowing all the rules, having a fully detailed world, or any of that. Those things will come in time. Get enough of the basics, don't be afraid to say yes, and remember that while your are the opposition for the players, you are not competing with them, your job is to help them have fun.
I get where you´re coming from but I tend to disagree with this. You need to be prepared as a GM. If you let yourself learn the rules over time than you´ll be stuck during valuable gametime looking up specific rules and such.
This brings me to another good idea, that rookie players should always have detailed documentation of their abilties to refer to when necessary.
This brings me to another good idea, that rookie players should always have detailed documentation of their abilities to refer to when necessary.
^this!
Especially if they want to be a spellcaster or have an animal companion. For similar reasons, counsel rookies away from summoner, wizard, witch, and druid. It just gets tedious otherwise.
Not to mention, if they use a computer or if anyone else has a computer, it increases the temptation to surf the web instead of paying attention. I have come dangerously close as a player and a gm to banning computers at the game table. Can't do that now because my group is playing over skype and it is a problem.
If you notice a player is building his character to be exceptionally good at a certain task or against a specific enemy that doesn't come up often, make sure to include it every once in a while.
If you notice a player is building his character to be exceptionally good at a certain task or against a specific enemy that doesn't come up often, make sure to include it every once in a while.
Yes! I completely agree with this.
Conversely, if you notice a player building their character to be particularly good at something you would prefer they not be particularly good at talk to them about it now before it becomes a problem later. Some characters do things like specialize in a particular maneuver or skill like trip or sleight of hand and if you as a GM don't want to have every fight be a trip fest or trip immune/ don't want to deal with thieves stop it from happening at character creation or just roll with it. Players would rather be told no at character creation than after a few game sessions.