I’ll be GMing for the first time (for any rpg) tomorrow.

8 thoughts on “I’ll be GMing for the first time (for any rpg) tomorrow.”

1. Character creation will consist of my asking some general questions like “Who of you is drawn to the unknown worlds beyond the edge of civilization?” and assigning them an origin (Galactic for this one, 

   Brutal is “Who of you is fleeing the Empire, for good reason?”).  

   I then let them pick their careers in turn (I printed out each from the book, and once a careers is taken it can’t by the other 3 players), and choose a total of 4 skills rather than 3.  XP will be earned when any of their triggers occur, during a Cramped Quarters move between the action, which will hopefully result in a couple of level ups over the two sessions.

   My in-media-res will be during them stealing an Imperial Exploratory Ship which I have already kitted out with workspaces and cargo.  I’ll address each player as bulkhead doors slam shut throughout the ship, trapping each of them alone, ask “What do you do?” and figure out what move they trigger and explain how moves work.

   After they Jump away from the station the ship is docked at, I’ll explain a bit more of the situation, that the Rebels have jumped on the opportunity for the players to steal this ship and to track down a powerful artifact in this sector to help protect the Rebellion.  Trigger a Cramped Quarters move, show them around the ship and what limited equipment and resources they have (no armory aboard the ship, and there wasn’t much time to prepare for the mission beforehand, so they’ll have to improvise)

   The rest of the game will consist of coming across Uncharted Worlds, each of which will be collaboratively built by the players in some fashion which I have yet to decide upon, but I am considering making a small deck of cards that have various adjectives, nouns, and abstract concepts on them, dealing them out to players, and asking the players to pick one in secret, and then put them together into the concept for that planet or encounter. (I should get on that if I’m going to do it…)

   The Empire catching up with them will be a constant Threat as they try to track down the artifact, and will certainly run into them while returning the artifact to the Rebellion.

   Questions remaining:

   I want to optimize for them exploring multiple strange new worlds, from their surfaces or interiors.  But I’m unsure how to force them to do that without it seeming repetitive.  I’m considering having the Jump Drive of this universe requiring a physical artifact be present in the system in order to Jump out of it, and each of the worlds they visit have their Beacon or whatever being not active, so they have to seek it out and reactivate it, or dig it up, or bring it back into space for it to be used, before they can move to the next world.

   I’m also not sure what to do about the end-game.  We may still be stuck on a planet at the end of the second session, and there may not be a good chance for closure.  In that case, I’m planning to make the artifact not what it was assumed to be, in some impressive or poignant way, such as taking the artifact from its current place killing a lush ecosystem present on that planet, or otherwise give a heavy moral choice for what to do next.

   With my inexperience, I’m afraid of acting as NPCs, which I’ve cleverly hidden behind these being deserted or very alien worlds with creatures that probably won’t be able to interact with the players, so I’m hoping that feels thematic instead of there being something missing from the game.

   I also have a penchant for turning things toward simulationist hard sci-fi, but after watching Force Awakens, I’ve been bitten by the pulpy space opera bug, so I’m hoping that will keep me from dragging things down with realism.

2. If what you’re looking for is getting a game up-and-rolling and showing off a lot of its systems, then think you’re pretty much on-point with how you want to hand out origins, dealing with XP, and your media res intro. If you’re trying to show off what’s cool about Uncharted Worlds — which, to me, includes letting players make up their own space opera — then I think having pre-created so much of your setting lore and telling them what their characters are doing is off-base. That’s really up to you and your objectives as GM though: showing off why the game is cool, or just giving it a two-session shakedown.

   As for your Jump Point, I worry you’ll find that the players may not behave like you expect — Jumping away with the ship — if you just put them on the ship but dont bother to tell them why they’re there. I’d probably move your explanation from after the Jump to immediately before throwing them into the action. Let them know what’s what for your one-shot, and that will probably reward you with what you’re hoping will happen.

   The artifact thing feels, again, really constricted and I wonder if there’s a reason you couldn’t ask the players what they’re after? Get the players invested in this search by making sure its something that they actually want to find?

   On world making: have you seen the free version of Stars Without Number on Drivethrurpg? It has great planet-making tags that flavor the sort of worlds you come across, and I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend Vast & Starlit — also on Drivethrurpg — and its collaborative guidelines for creating alien environments, cultures, and things.

   Forcing them into exploration through more pre-built lore has me kind of shrugging going ‘eeeeh?’ It will work, but it doesn’t seem great, and I bet it will get repetitive real fast having to go plug in the magic space thing every time they reach a planet just so they can leave. Nah, my advice would be to elide some of the action at regular intervals like: “So, what with one thing and another, your ship is touching down on Astaros-B, second moon of the ice giant Astaros. PLAYER #1, what did you detect from orbit that convinced you the Macguffin is here?” Basically, what I’m saying is, run planet exploration like miniature Jump Points. Get the players to do the heavy lifting and tell you why they’re here, getting up to shenanigans. 

   If you’re worried about the endgame, aim for too-short rather than too-long. Players will eat up a lot of time, and I promise a ton of your game time is also going to be eaten up if you’re forcing them to explore a bunch of worlds before finding the macguffin. Restrict yourself to something like 3 worlds, but feel free to let the players go off-world to moons and nearby satellites and everything else as the adventure takes hold of them. What I’m saying is: Plan less, and trust your players and their good and bad rolls to pad out the time easily.

3. Alfred Rudzki Thanks, first point taken.  I think I made it sound like more of it was pre-written than I think it is; I intend to prompt a lot more about the players’ history and the universe than I indicated. 

   Second point – similar miscommunication; they will definitely get their initial instructions before the Jump (they’ll also have good reason to get going even without the instructions from the Rebels as the Imperials try to take back the ship and chase it down).

4. Cool! Clarification on those points received! I really do think you’ve got some solid stuff lined up for your two-shot.

5. Avoid invoking too many dimensions of RPG play at once, it’ll be hard to keep track of everything. Some questions and issues can be tossed back at the players, as UW outlines, but not everything.  A first adventure should be simple, show the characters as capable (no mere spear-carriers for other factional forces) and with a reason to get involved, and the problem can’t get better without their help.

   Basic GM advice has come piecemeal in each game and sometimes in dedicated how-to paperbacks every few years.

   1)  Keep the game moving, encourage things which involve each player and their specialties and is fun for them, summarize boring things like obtaining equipment or uneventful travel from place to place, just like movies “cut away” from boring stuff.  Of course don’t let any one player get the spotlight too long.  Good players will help each other be awesome.  If one player is more quiet than others (a QUIET RPGer?  Some tables do have ’em!), ask them at one point what they think, or check out your COPY of their character sheet if there might be something that can be applied to the situation.  If not, you may have to invent a pretext to involve them!

   2)  Describe ONLY what characters might see, hear, touch or smell “at a glance”.  Involve more than one sense.  I specialized in “powers of description”, from lots of science background, and even with a bad plot my players BELIEVED they were there, the air line out to the remote habitat jaggedly cut open and spewing air and forming ice crystals at the same time…

   They should ask questions to get the details.  If something is not obvious, you might have to have them use a Stat roll and that’s where you pick the right Move for the situation and follow the results key for how successful or partial or misleading the answer is.

   3) Don’t let them over-investigate; when a scene is milked tell them their characters have explored everything to their satisfaction.

6. The first session went well and was enjoyed by all (this was the first or second RPG experience for 3 of the 4 players). I felt like I kept things moving well enough, though we only got through character creation (1.5 hours) and the characters hijacking the ship (which almost involved cutting the docking umbilical with the ship’s laser turret) and jumping from the system (2.5 hours).  Asset creation seemed the most fiddly and time-consuming, so I might pre-create some assets to choose from for the second group.

   I did print out the system creation inspiration cards I mentioned and I’m excited to use them when players hit new worlds next session.  There are 40, each with two different evocative adjectives, and a linguistic syllable.  I’ll deal 10 to each player, and ask for one card from each player to generate a world.  I’ll check out the cards, select two to use as information that is immediately available from a brief scan or visual survey, asking players what about the world or station, etc. is that adjective.  The syllables will combine to create the name of the world. The other two cards I’ll keep hidden and use as inspiration for further discoveries.

7. Neat!

   As for asset creation: there is a list of example assets of each type in the sections <_ <

   
   

8. It’s true, but of course my players wanted to make some custom stuff – and there was some cool stuff made including a concealed penetrating stunner; some kind of combat syringe!

Comments are closed.