Basically, I'm about to be a first time GM with my regular gaming group, and I'm not sure if I'm ready. Basically, is there any advice anyone can give me? Any way to speed things up so I'm not constantly referencing a rulebook? Advice for statting out encounters? Reference material for newbie GM's, maybe?
Any advice or anecdotes you could provide is appreciated, as I'm a little nervous going into this.
Literally this guys GM, reportin' in.
* Don't be too hardup on the specifics of the plot, the player's will fill in the blanks with their PC-NPC conversations and your improv.
Example: Your character's mother didn't exist before you mentioned her, and now she's integral to the plot. And the Lord-Commander of the Imperial Marines was a "Schrödinger's catharacter" before someone talked to him and tried to woo his daughter.
* Sometimes it's better to quickly make a call than consult a book.
* You can always make an encounter harder by introducing new enemies or having the already existing ones consume a tonic of "+X to Y", maybe even having environmental complications occur (falling tree -> player's direction). It's more difficult to tone down an encounter, but something like having the foe's armour/shell/weapon crack can work.
* You don't need stats for every little enemy. You can estimate the stats of the scrubs.
Example: "urrr ok they're meant to be warriors, not a huge threat to a player on their own, not great stats, so 2nd level and 14-16 primary stat sounds about right. +4/5 to hit vs a level 4 party? yeah that'll be good" -me with the gillmen
* Sometimes the players won't take the bait, it happens. Sometimes you don't get to use year old plot ideas. Bait needs to be malleable to circumstances and at the ready for when players wander away from your plans. Sometimes having a little mini adventure inside a major adventure can spice things up and make it seem less linear.
Example: Mermaids and Hotel California.
* Try explaining the story to someone who doesn't play videogames or tabletop rpgs, like it's a book. If it still makes sense, you've got a good story idea, it's just too bad the players will ruin it and make the characters more believable, all at the same time.
* Don't be afraid to improv or make last minute changes to the plot. Get good at improv.
Example: Every NPC in Mehrine was improv, especially Travis, and the gillmen being illusions was thought up ~5 minutes before game time.
The "notes" for the first session were literally:
Marine city, festival remembering the emperor, city attacked by gillmen -> gillmen are illusions -> officers missing -> [players do something]
* If you know the setting well enough, you don't need much, if any, prep. It's the easiest way to minimise your workload.
Improv is a great thing and something you will get better at.
But at the start it might be very intimidating when you're new. You can make it easier for yourself by preparing some cheatsheets:
* list of names that you can reference when your players ask that random person their name.
* some random encounter tables you can roll on when you want to throw a fight at the players (a good way to deal with players heading into areas you've not prepped).
Come up with a list of names. As you run into NPCs, you just grab the next one off the list. Baby name books and Internet name generators are my go-too.
Do NOT stop to look up rules mid game. If in doubt, 1-3 it works, 4-6 it fails. Look up rules BETWEEN games.
And start reading Gnome Stew.
Keep things simple at first. Don't use lots complicated enemies with lots of special powers and immunities. (It's OK to have one or two complicated guys...)
Have all your mooks be the same statblock (maybe different hit points). Nobody will care. If they have feats, make them static feats (a +1 to hit just gets woven into the statblock, a "get +2 under these circumstances" means you have to remember when it arises.) Pre-calculate everything possible (if they all drunk potions, include that in the stats...)
Prepare a few extra encounters. If the PCs go somewhere else and do something else, you can run them instead, or you can use them next session. The PCs will always do something different than you expected. There are ways to get them going back to where you want them (just re-use the encounters in different guise, maybe the goblins attack from the woods instead of waiting in their hillside cave...)
Roleplay as much as the players want -- and not more. The job is to have fun for everyone, not make them listen while you go on and on.
Remember to have fun yourself.
Always have a backup encounter in your back pocket ahem the players go completely off scrt. This allows you to stall until the end of the night, and give you more time to figure out what should happen.
If you don't know a rule, ask the players if they know the rule, if there's a consensus then go with that, if not make a quick decision but say that this may change for the next session. I did this on one of my first GM sessions when the players used grease and spark to immolate a herd of goblins, I let them this once but found out afterwards that grease isn't flammable.
Don't stop your players doing anything, but actions have consequences.
Try to have something that lets each of your players have a bit of limelight. Fighters and barbarians like to clobber things, some Roleplaying for the face character, something to figure out for the intellectuals. addendum to this, if someone has been particularly quiet, try to engage them personally.
I also find, if you have the creativity, handouts can really help bring people into the story.
Hope these help.