| From: | Gurth <gurth@******.NL> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Gamemastering help (was Re: Help Me) |
| Date: | Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:23:16 +0100 |
> I am a novice GM who is just about to start his first campaign with a
> group of novice players. I know a little about the background and have
> SRII and the Shadowrun Companion. Is there any advice you can offer me?
Sure. Most important is that you shouldn't worry too much about knowing
all the rules first time round. You can read the rulebook a hundred times,
but when a character actually tries to do something in the game you'll
find you'll flip through the book quite a lot to find out how it went,
exactly. So, make sure you know and understand the basics of combat
and spellcasting (it helps to write up a little flowchart or step-by-step
guide yourself before the game, both for quick reference and because that
helps you learn the rules) and have the book ready when you play.
After a situation pops up a few times, you'll be able to handle it easily
without looking in the book. Also let the players know this, else they
might get bored if they don't understand why something is taking a bit
long.
In the same light, don't allow deckers to beginning characters -- the
rules in SRII are pretty complicated already, and it makes for _another_
set of rules you need to remember. Only when everybody knows the basics of
combat and magic would I allow players to play deckers. This also applies
to the rules in the Companion: many of them can enhance your game, but I
suggest you don't use them until you are familiar with the basic rules in
the SRII book.
You should also have a good grasp of the game's background, so you can
make an educated guess about the game world's reaction to things the
players do. For many things, this means just using common sense: if
you walk around with an assault rifle in a park where lots of corpers go
for their picknicks, security forces _will_ shoot you dead first and then
fingerprint your corpse, for example. OTOH, walking around with an assault
rifle in the slums of Redmond will not get the same response, because
there's hardly any security around. However, the local gang may decide
you're a threat, or maybe they want an assault rifle as well, so the net
result is still a situation sane people tend to avoid.
Killing people follows the same sort of lines: some squatter getting
killed in the Barrens won't attract much interest from anyone, but wasting
corporate employees or gangers will.
(The reason I stress the weaponry aspect above is because many novice
players think they can do whatever they like with impunity. If you want to
keep the game under control, don't let them. There's no need to shoot
them dead (this is Shadowrun, not Paranoia ;) but they should be afraid
of being arrested -- as the Lone Star sourcebook puts it: Lone Star is
"simply the world's biggest street gang -- a bunch of bullyboys with
badges, armed with the most novahot hardware money can buy".)
Some general GM advice is almost never to say "never". If a player wants
to try something, let them have a go even if you think it's totally
impossible. Let them make a skill or attribute roll against some
ridiculous TN (say, 20 for something you think is just about impossible).
If they happen to succeed, thumbs up to them; if they fail, nothing's
lost.
Also try to stay consistent -- if the players run into five gangers armed
with assault rifles, and the PCs start to lose the fight (because the
gangers are tougher than you expected), don't suddenly change the gangers'
weapons to light pistols. There are better ways of handling this, for
example by letting some of the gangers miss even though they rolled
successes, or by reducing the gangers' skill ratings.
This is a good reason for having a GM screen (or something else you can
roll your dice behind). OTOH if neither you nor the players have much
experience with SR, it might be a good idea to roll all dice out in the
open for the first few game sessions, so that everyone can see what's
going on.
Announcing target numbers is similar: in the beginning, calculate TNs out
loud for the players, and tell them what they need to roll to succeed.
(You can do the same for NPCs if you want.) However when you gain
experience, it's better to keep the TNs to yourself and just let the
players roll. Then tell them whether they succeeded, without telling them
the number of successes they had.
There is more, but this should hopefully help.
--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html - UIN5044116
Do the Evolution.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-
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