Starting from Scratch

Matthew McFarland

So, let’s say you want to run a role-playing game (that is, you will act as the GM). Obviously, your first step will be to choose what game you want to run. The choice should be influenced by what you and your players will enjoy. For example, if medieval/fantasy settings appeal to you, you might want to check out Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or Legend of the Five Rings. If science fiction is more your area, you may want to look into Star Wars or Trinity. There are hundreds of role-playing games out there, and simply running a search with “role-playing” as the keyword can turn up a lot of ideas.

If this is your first time running a game, get some feedback from other players (online, or at a gaming bookstore if there’s one near you) about games that are easy to run and understand. When you do choose a game, read the whole thing. Don’t memorize it, but understand how the rules work. Test out the character creation system (we’ll get to that momentarily). If there’s a pre-generated scenario or adventure, read it and decide if you’d like to run it for your first session. Pre-written games are nice not only because it takes a lot of work off of your hands, but also because it gives you some idea of what to expect from the game.

If you are creating your own stories, you’ll need to decide if the ongoing game is going to be driven more by the plot or the characters. Plot-driven games have the major events set out ahead of time, and the characters act within those events. A plot-driven story would happen whether or not the characters got involved, it just wouldn’t happen in the same way. A character-driven story happens at the instigation of the players’ characters. If the characters don’t act, there isn’t a story. For example, if the focus of your story is going to be solving a series of murders in the characters’ home city, that’s a plot-driven story (the murders have nothing to do with the characters personally, until they get involved, at least). If all of the characters are friends who have known each other since they were children and have each done something in the last few years to become indebted to some powerful figure (mobster, demon, wizard, IRS, etc.) that’s a character-driven story because the characters are personally involved with what’s happening. Neither is really better than the other. If you’re dealing with a group of new players and/or you’ve got a great idea for a plotline, let them know that the ongoing game will take precedence over the characters’ personal concerns. Stories can shift focus over the course of the game, however, so if the players get antsy somewhere down the line to do some things that are important to their characters, listen well.

When you’ve got a idea of how the first session is going to go, you need to have your players create characters. This can be done individually, which is a good idea if the game involves a lot of in-character secrecy with each character having her own agenda. If the players (and characters) are going to be working together, ideally at least, then you may as well get everyone together for what I call a “chargen orgy”. (Chargen, by the way, is short for CHARacter GENeration).

Chargen orgies are a good way to make sure that you have a good mix of characters. Also, if players want to make their characters connected in some way (brother and sister, husband and wife, old college buddies, ex-lovers, etc.) that makes the job of getting them together easier. (I ran a game once where all of the players were students at Ohio State University, and during the character creation session I made them make up stories detailing how they all met). Also, if the players don’t know each other well, this serves as some good OOC (Out-Of-Character) time that they can get acquainted. Once the game actually begins, it can sometimes be difficult to tell a character’s personality from a player’s, especially if you don’t know them well.

If you have limitations on what players can and cannot do with their characters, or if you plan on changing any of the rules of the game, tell them now. Few things are more annoying than for a player who knows the rules to come up with an interesting tactic, only to be told, “Oh, I changed that.” Likewise, if you want all of the characters to have some combat skill (for example), let them know that before they start making characters so they can plan accordingly.

(A side note here: some game systems have random character generation structures, which means that you roll dice to determine your characters capabilities. I’m not a big fan of random chargen, just because you might end up with a character that’s totally unsuited for the game or miles ahead (or below) of the others, simply by a throw of the dice. If you’re playing a system that uses random chargen, you may want to figure out a system of checks and balances that will make sure that the characters start more or less even. Then again, not all people have equally useful skills or abilities, so you might wish to say “Tough luck,” to a weak and/or stupid character. It’s your prerogative, just make sure the players are OK with it.)

Once the characters are made, set aside time to play. I recommend meeting on the same day of the week at the same time. If everyone knows where to be and when, it alleviates calls asking “Are we playing tonight?” 3 hours after the game was meant to start. If you can’t meet that frequently (I’ve played in once-a-month games), send out email to people recapping what happened last time and what everyone was doing when the last game ended.

When setting a time, understand that you’ll normally be starting an hour or more after that time. I’ve not found gamers to be most punctual people in the world, and until everyone arrives, settles down, chats about how their weeks are going, and orders pizza, a six o’clock game might not start until 7:30. By the same token, it’s a good idea to know when people have to leave. If someone in the group has a curfew, keep an eye on the clock. If you’re not ready to break when s/he has to leave, see if you can sideline the character for a while. It’s a good idea, in my opinion, to have some idea of when the game will end as well as when it will start. That way, you can start winding things down a few minutes beforehand, giving time to hand out experience points, remind people of when the next game will be, and get feedback from the players.

Getting feedback from the players is something I’ve seen few Storytellers do, yet it really is vital to the success of the game (a reminder: the game succeeds when everyone has fun). If the players say things like, “Wow, it’d be really cool if our group could meet a member of the Ugleforp Cult,” or “Hey, remember that blond guy who showed up in the first game? Whatever happened to him?” they are trying to tell you something. Remember, the game isn’t set in stone until it actually happens, so you can change plotlines around, insert or delete characters, have characters switch allegiances, and so forth. If it makes a better story, do it. If it makes the players happy, do it. Also, sometimes (often, in fact) the players will give you great ideas that are better than what you had planned. (My players, in fact, have learned to recognize the grin I get when they’ve just given me a really fiendish idea. They still do it, though…). Don’t be afraid to steal their ideas.

It’s a good idea to ask for suggestions periodically, too. The best way to do that, I’ve found, is to ask each player to write down three suggestions about what should happen next. If you’ve got five players and four of them wrote down the same thing, that should be a pretty good indicator about where the story needs to go.

Also, if you’re a player, tell the GM what’s working and what isn’t. If there’s too much combat for you, ask the GM if he could take a break from running fights for a while. If things are getting slow and you don’t feel like the game’s going anywhere, call that to the GM’s attention. I’ve found that some GMs like to run three or four sessions where the characters meet people, get handed or discover information, and get threatened but don’t really get a chance to DO much. Then, it all comes to a head in one session. Think of it this way: Do you like movies where all of the important plot points and all of the action takes place in the last 20 minutes of the film? Me neither.

During the actual game, keep enough copies of the core book on hand that you can look things up and have pages marked and still have a copy or two handy for the players. Nobody expects you or the players to know all the rules by heart (yet there’s usually somebody who does…) and it’s fine to pause for a moment to look up a rule or a system. Just don’t bog the game down searching. It is not, by the way, acceptable to force the players to buy books for the game. It is perfectly acceptable to ask them for a little bit of cash now and then so that you can buy new books. Again, don’t make them feel like it’s mandatory (or you’ll start losing players — this isn’t supposed to be an expensive hobby!). Also, make sure everybody has a pencil and whatever dice they need. You can get packs of dice at any gaming store, and they aren’t very expensive. (Dice bags, by the way, make superb gifts for players).

In general, keep communication lines open and listen to the players and you’ve made two great leaps towards telling a good story. Let the players know what you expect from them — and make sure they know what to expect from you — and you should have no problems getting them back every week, ready to play. Maybe even on time, if you’re really lucky!

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