One Canuck built the #ttrpg tag and the #mecha tag. And that was me.
Cohost Cultural Institution: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots
Priv: @Scampriv
i wanna run a game for my beloved partners @lazer @lucille @cerpin (currently looking at the neopets ttrpg that's kickstarting rn, estimated to drop july of next year), but i've never gmed before!
what would be a good game/s, ideally either one page/a small amount of pages or with a module i can run, to start gming?
i get taken off guard easily so thinking on the fly is hard for me, advice on gming for the first time also appreciated 🥺🥺
I've heard a lot of good stuff about Cairn and it's rules seem pretty slim.
i'm gonna look into this one, swore i already had it but i apparently don't!!
Lazers and Feelings is a really easy system to guide, honey heist is a one page comedy game, PROLE is a really simple game that uses flipping coins to resolve things, wanderhome is a bit more involved but lends itself well to group storytelling if you don't want to carry the whole pressure of GMing
oh shit i DO have lasers and feelings but i've never so much as read it, this one looks FUN esp since two of my partners/players are star trek heads. thanks so much!! i'm gonna look into the others as well!!
I’m here to second lasers and feelings not just as a pretty good one page first time, but also as a teaching tool: playing it is simple but you have to get into the mindset of “how do I do the thing with the tools the game has given me” and that’s extremely valuable for all kinds of players. DMs included!
If you’re looking for something with few moving parts but important ones, the Year Zero engine games from Free League (Mutant Year Zero, Alien, Coriolis, Tales from the Loop, and most importantly to me Vaesen) are all straightforward to dive into (assemble your dice pool from a skill + stat, roll them, each 6 rolled is a hit, usually you only need one hit to succeed and extras are bonus; an explicit approach of “hey, talk about what you want out of a roll before rolling it” approach) and I can confidently recommend them.
oooooh, that makes a lot of sense :O i'm gonna put lasers and feelings on the docket to see if anynyan wants to play it too :eyes:
oh worm i've heard of tftl but again never played, i'm gonna look into all of those!!! that sounds NEAT ;v;
I recommend against the entire one-page category for first time GMs! If you’re learning to GM for the first time, fewer rules may seem appealing but that also means far, far fewer handholds. Especially if you’re not a confident improviser. (Looking at you, Quest)
I recommend something more like Agon 2nd edition, where you have more moving parts but you’re never going to stray far from the mechanics and the built-in modules, and in addition a good portion of the narrative control when it comes to descriptions is shared between the players. It also basically comes with a script for teaching your players at the table, and is one of my favorites.
As someone who made learning to GM a full project in like 2018, failed a bunch, and is now on year 3 of a Blades in the Dark campaign that people keep telling me is going well (no I have not figured out how to run games not designed by John Harper yet, I’m working on it), I probably have some more tailored advice if you let me know what you’ve played in the past and what the vibe you’re going for is.
oh shit that's a REALLY good point that i hadn't considered at all!! i am Not a confident improviser (yet!) but yeah i DO tend to work better with more Lore and Mechanics to go off of.
ooooh i hadn't heard of that one, definitely looking into it rn!! i Do like that aspect of it...
also HELL YEAH congrats on the banger ass campaign!! ;v; but as for things i've played in the past: apocalypse world, shadowrun, worldwide wrestling, monsterhearts... not a WHOLE lot but i do enjoy me a good ttrpg. the vibe i'm going for is.. that i'm not sure of quite yet, esp for the neopets game since it's not out yet and is currently kickstarting haha
Yeah I can’t even imagine what a Neopets rpg would look like, but I hope you have a great time! I took a look at the Kickstarter and it doesn’t say anything about the mechanics so I can’t really recommend a GM stepping-stone to the Neopets RPG (which is sure a phrase)
Shadowrun and some PBtA is a good foundation for pretty much anything!
I think my biggest piece of advice is that you don’t HAVE to be the person who remembers all the rules and the person turning the plot gears and the person who does NPCs with silly voices— you can (and imo should) split them up in a way that works for your table. I am always asking my favorite rules lawyer(affectionate) to look up rules for me in the middle of doing something else, I have a friend who regularly calls on folks to play NPCs, and I know a couple GMs who ask their table to describe pretty much every setting and character for them.
If that feels super weird, playing a couple GMless games (Follow, I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic, and For The Queen are my standard recs there) with your table can help you shed the idea that the GM is like a big stage director and your players just bit parts in the drama, you know?
FAIR LOL the only thing i saw on the page was "The Neopets TTRPG offers a dice-driven system of classless, skill-based experience, leveling your characters and determining what they will do." so dice-driven and classless but skill-based experience...
ohhhh man oh man that's a REAL Good point also thank you SO much!!! one of my players loves doing voices so i wonder if i could have them do some silly npc voices for me..... and one of my Other players is good with rules n stuff.....
OH SHIT gmless ones a re a good shout too!! i'm sorry did you say street magic is one i've had my eye on for a LONG time to play, maybe i should delve into it! and the game i think we're going to play First is https://marns.itch.io/hotel-california which also seems to be gmless? but i'm def gonna tuck away street magic for later i think >:3 thank you so much!!!
as far as thinking on the fly, there is nothing wrong with saying "give me a second, i'd like to think about that" or "i'm not sure what would happen, can the rest of you guys give some suggestions?" if somebody says something unexpected and throws you for a loop. you'll be among friends and under no obligation to make a slickly edited AP podcast style experience, you can step back from the fiction now and then for a breather
my off the wall game sugggestion is Under Hollow Hills; it's a PBTA-derived system with a strong and whimsical setting and a lot of suggestions and structure for how a session goes built into it. if you like the idea of playing out a fae circus performance, can't recommend it enough. i can also enthusiastically second the recommendation for wanderhome in another comment. if you're asking for onepagers out of a desire for simplicity and the hyperspecific indie suggestions are not singing, you may be able to make risus work; one page, straightforward mechanics, explicit design goal "playable while drunk", but you will need to do more lifting on the story and scenario end, as per the many tradeoffs of fitting a game on one page
those are good points! and being as all my (current) players are my partners, they'll def understand omg ;v; and i really like the reminder that i'm not running a gd ap podcast LOL thank you for real
ooooh that sounds banger as hell i'm def going to look intothat one!!
i've not heard of risus so i'm going to look into that one too! really love the playable while drunk thing haha, but that Makes sense :O
I actually think that GMing rules-light RPGs can counter-intuitively be much harder, because they rely on your skill as a GM to make rulings for weird situations on the fly and finding the structure your particular campaign/sessions should have with a slim system requires you to have an intuition for running games that can take a long time to build up.
I'd suggest maybe a Powered By The Apocalypse (PBTA) or Forged In The Dark (FITD) game. Monster of the Week is a pretty good PBTA (esp. for the tone I'd expect out of something like a Neopets-based campaign), and Blades in the Dark (the original FITD game) is straight-up one of the best games out there.
The important thing is that both games give you a lot of structure inherent to the game and a good sense of what the pacing of an adventure is supposed to be like (which a one-pager will not give you). I'd actually warn against first-time gming most D&D-likes for similar reasons: it's not the rules that will trip you up, it's structure/planning/knowing what the game expects the GM to do on the fly.
(Also since it's relevant: there's a piece by Rascal News that gives reason to be skeptical of the Neopets RPG: https://www.rascal.news/neopets-rpg-doesnt-need-mechanics-just-your-money-nostalgia-crowdfunding/
but of course, even if it fails in its goals, with some gming experience in a couple systems you'll be ready to start hacking your game of choice to emulate your desired neopets experience.)
("This post is for paying subscribers only" 😔😔 but also i Understand that will it be like, Revolutionary or Groundbreaking? probably not, but it Might be fun haha <-coping)
another person in the thread said that as well!! re: smaller ttrpgs being harder to run for newer gms, which makes sense!! i've heard good things about monster of the week and i Think i have bitd, so i'm gonna put those on the pile as well!! thanks so much for the comment c:
wait it got paywalled? huh. I'm not a subscriber lmao
anyway the concern is that they hadn't shown literally any actual game content, which is a big red flag. For comparison, backing, say, Godbound granted you instant access to the game in its current state
