Running the Game
How to Run the Game as a GM
This section of the book is for the Game Master (GM). If you’re not playing as the GM, you’re done! You can stop reading here.
Being the GM is awesome. You have the power to help your colleagues run an impactful scenario story and make them feel special. Helping the players have an impactful scenario about their characters is your primary responsibility. Everything we’ll teach you in this section helps you achieve that goal.
This is a rewarding and memorable role to play, and the skills you learn can even benefit you in the real world.
The Basics
Your Roles
You wear many hats:
- Explaining and interpreting the rules
- Breaking the ice for roleplay
- Controlling the spotlight of focus
- Portraying NPCs, organisations, and their agendas/motivations
- Expressing and painting the setting and scene
- Shaping and directing the tempo and narrative arc
- Refereeing outcomes and arbitrating where appropriate
That is a lot of hats to juggle and takes practice. Here are some basic things that help.
Create Situations, Not Plots
Let the players find their own story and solutions. Don’t railroad them to particular paths; give them space to approach challenges as they wish and learn from this. A good GM presents the players with situations that have interesting choices and ensures those choices have a meaningful impact on the game.
Listen and Respond
Scenarios are a conversation. Your role in it as the GM is to describe scenes, listen to how players react, and then interpret what happens next.
When the group succeeds, cheer for them! You’ll present the players with challenges because it makes the scenario interesting and fun, not because you want to defeat them. You are not the villain in the story, even if you play the villain’s character.
Make sure everyone has time to be heard, a chance to contribute to the scenario, and a chance to have an impact. You’ll speak often, but it’s just as important for you to listen carefully. Listen to understand the priorities and feelings of other players. The scenario is more fun for everyone when you collaborate with the players to make the world meaningful to their characters.
Focus on the Goals
As the GM, you can help the players immerse themselves in a scenario of invention. Cultivate that immersion by translating the rules of the game into colourful fiction.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs)
The GM will represent characters and organisations in the game that are not under control of the players. They may be allies or adversaries, known to you before play or made up by the players in session.
Have an overall idea of the other stakeholders in a scenario and consider their primary objectives and motivations. This will help you guide their decisions. If they attempt any actions, describe it to the players (or keep it secret!) but make sure you roll for it. Use an appropriate basic stat block for any modifiers or just keep the roll to a raw score for ease and time.
Encounters / Crunch Time
This is a tool to use whenever a situation needs to resolve simultaneously or when many stakeholders would like to take action all at once. It is like “rolling initiative” in an encounter or combat situation in other TTRPGs.