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So I covered for a friend at our super small PFS group a few times and now it seems I'll likely be doing it semi often. Also running two games gets me in free to Tsubasacon if I feel I'm up to it at that point. Anyway I'll be running for this week and the next and likely even more after that so I'd really like some quick tips as I'm very critical of myself and find myself a little agitated after running a scenario looking at every little screw up. I'd love to lend my friend a hand by running a game here and there for him, but I find myself so annoyed with how poorly I feel I run. So if I could get a bit better at this everybody wins! The players have a better time, my friend can take a break from DMing on occasion, and I might actually have some fun at it should I have less to nitpick myself for. So I'm all ears. :)
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Know the rules. Read the Combat chapter of the Core Rulebook. The Glossary is also useful. Take notes.
But don't worry if you don't know all of the rules. If something comes up that you don't know the rules for, ask the table of players if they know how it works. If no one does, ask someone to look it up for you while you keep the game moving. If you can't keep the game moving until that rule gets resolved, just use your best judgement and move on, you can look it up later.
Be prepared. Draw any maps that you need ahead of time. Read the scenario—repeatedly if necessary. Read the stat-blocks for the bad guys. Look up any special abilities they have that you aren't familiar with. Take notes.
Let your players help you. One thing I always do is ask the table if there is anyone at the table willing to run the initiative board for me. That little thing saves me tons of time while I'm grabbing minis or looking over my notes one last time before a combat starts.
I hope you find some of these useful.
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Grats! Thanks for stepping up.
Biggest hint for a dm: Repeat after me: Close enough for state work. Close enough for state work...
This may be an "official" game but its still a game. A real person isn't going to die, no ones going to get maimed or lose their house or die in a fiery ball of flame.
you will forget something, get a rule wrong, mess up a map, start people in the wrong space... it happens in almost every single game. People still have fun.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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As your local Venture Captain, I would encourage you to relax. Everybody has to start somewhere, and we all make mistakes. Your first session was also Prince of Augustana which doesn't really translate 100% to Pathfinder due to the Spiked Chain issue. Regardless, nobody's going to bite your head off for making a few mistakes, and you're doing us a huge favor by running games in an underserved area.
On the whole, I would encourage the following:
1) Prepare scenarios thoroughly. Time spent outside of a game can make the scenario ten times better. I usually read through everything to get the plot, then double-check on any feats or spells that I'm unfamiliar with. Having a narrative of the plot is the main goal, though. When I was starting out, I would do outlines of the major plot points of scenarios to make sure I hit everything.
2) Excite your players. The more animated and energetic you are, the better a GM you will be. Excitement is infectuous, and a lively table is always a good thing.
3) Don't let the rules be a burden. Rules perfection isn't the cornerstone of PFS play - the goal is to try to figure out an equitable way to handle the resolution of actions. To that end, do what makes sense - just don't change the scenario.
4) Don't beat yourself up. As I said above, we all make mistakes. I realized last week that I had made a huge mistake on one of my tables at GenCon. I felt bad about it, but I moved on, and I think I learned from it. (The lesson, BTW, was to not read complicated spells at the table while in a time crunch.)
On the whole, I'm sure you'll do a great job. If you want me to come by and play one of your tables, I'd be happy to give you more critique.
-Andrew
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List time!
- You will screw up and that's okay. If a player tells you a rule works different as you say it's up to you whether you look it up, believe him or take you ruling. I tend to go either "I'm sure it works this way, you're sure it doesn't, let's take my interpretation and we'll look it up afterwards" or "Do you mind looking it up while we do [other important thing]?
- Just roll with it. If you notice you did something wrong and it has little impact ("Whoops, the gnoll didn't speak common, it shouldn't have been able to talk to you at all!") just leave it be. It doesn't really matter. If you screwed up royally ("Ah. I now see that there should've been only half as many guards, so Valeros would've survived...") fix it or backpedal a bit (if reasonable), depending on how much time you have left.
- Print the scenario and use colored text markers. I read the scenario once and then once again, the second time with text markers. ORANGE for skill- and save-DCs, GREEN for environmental stuff (height of ceilings, width of doors, deep bog here, light there), VIOLET for treasure, YELLOW for faction missions (not as important anymore, so it's used for Secondary Success Conditions now) and BLUE for important other stuff (special abilites in statblocks I don't want to overlook). It really speeds up finding these things in text.
- Take a break. If your time slot is not too tight a five-minute-break can really bring back concentration.
- Ask them about it afterwards. Make it clear that you really want to learn and ask them what they didn't like.
- Delegate. If there is an experienced player at the table playing a "simple" class that's the perfect candidate for secondary tasks like keeping track of initiative with the combat pad - seriously, that thing is more awesome than I ever anticipated. If I'm a player I tend to take over initiative to make it easier for the GM, as long as I'm playing a rogue or fighter. If I play a wizard I have too much to think about already and don't want to prolong my turn with "Uh, it's my turn? Let me look something up really quick..."
- PFSprep.com - use it, love it. Woran's right, that site is a life-saver. If something seems fishy to you double-check, though. Some things might kill a group (I've seen a well-meaning GM adding rage bonuses to the barbarian's statblock...which was already considering the rage. So double-rage-time.)
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Another bit of advice -- Condition Cards are one of the best random supplements you can get. Some of your players may well have a deck. They're quite popular; most tables I'm at in Pittsburgh, there are at least one or two decks at the table. (I've got one myself.) Conditions are one of the fiddly things you're not likely to fully memorize, and having the card in front of the player who needs it can save a lot of paging through the CRB trying to figure out just what modifiers apply right now.
If you use a tablet or PC get combat manager, Saves tons of time and makes combat 10x easier.
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If you run from a laptop or tablet, combat manager is game changing. It has initiative and hp tracking, dice roller, monster stats, quick templates, and prd references. It's not perfect but it is awesome, and created and maintained by a pfs player. The windows version is free (please donate) but the tablet versions are paid apps from apple or Google stores.
That said, learn to run your game completely analog with real dice, books, and initiative trackers. Your home game cave/local store might be digital-friendly but cons rarely are.
Don't take things personally. Whether it's your screw up and players gripe or go over your head to a vo/organizer, or their overpowered munchkins roll over your carefully prepped encounter in the surprise round, remember it's just a game and many people enjoy it differently than you.
Your #1 job as a gm is to make sure everyone, including yourself, has a good time. If that means talking to a guard about his life choices or yelling out really big numbers really loud, your job is to make sure both of those guys are having a good time for a few hours.
Thx for all the pointers everybody! I'll be doing my prep today and hopefully I'll get a good handle on what's gonna be going on. Also I'm not real up to snuff on lore or who the venture captains are and that sort of stuff. I assume the wiki would be a good place to get an idea of who the venture captains are so I can try to play their part better?
Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane
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I'm new to the online aspect of P.F.S, and I'm not sure if this is even the place to post this question, nonetheless, I ran a game three weeks ago, and I can't find where to report it. Everyone at my gaming store tells me it's easy, I just don't know where to start.
First place to start on reporting a table is to log into your My Pathfinder Society Account and click the GM/Event Coordinator tab. If you do not have any events listed, you will need to create one before reporting. If you have events listed, locate your event and click the report link on the right hand side of the event listing. Enter the appropriate information in each box and then save the session.
Hope this helps and thank you for stepping behind the screen!
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Venture-Captain, Washington—Spokane
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Here are a couple more pointers to add to this thread.
Be ready to think quickly: I have come across so many instances where the party will completely break a scenario and have had to come up with a way to resolve it quickly. If an idea does not come right away, perfect time for a break (if possible).
Yes, but: I learned this one during a GM201 session (great workshop if you get the opportunity). This one also goes with the above tip. If a player wants to do something with their character or an NPC instead of you can't do that, come up with a way they can and then tell them yes you can, but..
Example:
Player: Are there lemons?
GM (odd look): Call high or low.
Player: Makes correct call
GM: Yes, there are lemons?
Player: I squirt lemon juice in the enemy's eyes.
GM (after stopping laughing): Call high or low (Did enemy blink fast enough?)
Player: Makes correct call and rolls ranged attack roll with -4 for improvised weapon and hits.
GM: Target blinded for one round.
Player had a blast with the antics as did the rest of the table.
Hope this helps and, as others have said, don't forget to have fun.
