Need little bit of help as GM.

[Mamoulian War]

Hello.

 

I would like to learn little bit GMing by observing and playing in some group. But because of my busy worklife, I have absolutely no idea where to look for online group, which would accept my noob status and would be playing at reasonable time in CET region. I found once awesome group of helpful players, but they were all Australian, so I ended up with having serious sleep issues... I tried to find some other groups and webpages on my own, but either my Google-Fu skill is low or some other mysterious reason, I was able to find American players only, which is as bad for me as the Australian group. The only Euro players which I found did not played online

 

So the question is: do you know about a place, where I could find some community of nice people playing classic Pathfinder (I do not like the restrictions of Pathfinder Society Rules and Scenarios) online over Skype or G+, mostly at weekends around noon-evening in Central European Time Zone (GMT +2), which would accept noob player which wants to learn to be better?

 

Thanks a lot

[JayDGee]

For on-line gaming with new groups I would suggest fan pages for the game itself.

 

Find groups dedicated to the game who are desperate to start a new one.

 

Another option is to make your game on a site like obsidian portal and advertise for new players their.

[Mamoulian War]

I have tried various fansites and various virtual tabletop gaming groups as well, but I found only one Euro group so far, but they were already in middle of Curse of Crimson Throne AP, so no new players accepting

 

Myself I am playing with my friends on roll20 virtual tabletop. I tried to search there for group too. There is only one group for west euro players, but only 23 people registered, I did not noticed that any of them playing PF though.

 

I feel, like I am being subpar GM, so I really would like to experience some good GMs and possibly to learn from them something. I started to play PnP in november 2012 and we played maybe 20-25 days only.

 

Would you be able to recommend me some fansites? Maybe I missed some good.

[nikolokolus]

I say this as someone who has only ever played in face-to-face games, so I have no idea how difficult it actually is to get into an online game, but I see people advertising for new players and games fairly frequently on google+ and some of the game specific fora that I follow.

 

If you're "rules-flexible" and aren't wedded to a particular system, then I'd strongly encourage you to check out the google+ community pages for any number of RPG games.  I'm partial to Old-School Renaissance systems myself (and frankly I think they're a great way to learn how to DM, because they usually encourage improvisation and are usually rules-lite) but I'm sure you'll find any number of D&D, Pathfinder, Runequest, Warhammer, and/or FATE gamers looking to do a google hangout game.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about your "noob" status. As long as you're there to have fun and not be a disruption, most people love it when new blood wants to get into the hobby.

[Walsingham]

I agree with nik. A good group that you'd want to learn from will also want to have you around.

 

What areas do you think you'll struggle with?

 

As a starter, jus tto get the ball rolling I'd say that a good GM has to be able to

 

1. Empathise, and sympathise. That's with the players and the fictional characters in their world

2. Plan. By which I mean both plotting story arcs, and understanding how key locations or institutions will work and react to what the players do.

3. Know what kind of world they want. Is it going to be deadly, funny, surprising, alien, power oriented, or all of the above?

4. Attract good players

 

I mainly get by on 2 and 4.

[Mamoulian War]

@Walsh Hmm I think my biggest problem is roleplaying NPCs. Especially when their alignments are far away from my actual personality. Then there are various rules implementations, because I am trying to be as flexible as possible, but my friends low to come up with various crazy ideas :D And because I am still green behind the ears, some situation really take lot of time to solve it in a way, that are fit for the situation, do not break rules and me and most of the PCs are satisfied with it's solution. I actually would like to watch the real and experienced GM how they handle various situations in combat and social interactions and try to learn something from them which I can implement to our gaming circle...

 

And about your 4 points hmm. Because I am noob I play at the moment only official Paizo Adventure Paths... Currently first book of Serpent's Skull. I think I am set good on point 2 and 3. But 2 could always need some better managing by me And 3 most of them want big challenges with the exception of one player. Number 4 Unfortunately impossible. In my city, there are only 5 people playing Pathfinder which I know, and all of them are in my group :D. One of the problems is English language of the rules. And number 1. I try my best to empathise and sympathise with PCs, unless they do some stupid selfish decisions. 

But I have problems with that with NPCs and the world. I think that's part of the problem with my lack of roleplay skill

 

@nik I would prefer at the moment only Pathfinder games with core rules only. Because I am afraid that any homebrew stuff would made me even more confused from some of the rules I still have problem to remember or use properly in the situations where they are required. That is the biggest problem at finding groups. 90% of them are already with very experienced GMs with their own worlds and homebrew variations which can be very different from group to group I should try G+ again. It's pretty long time ago when I was looking it last time... Thanks for reminding me of that option again...

[nikolokolus]

I didn't mean to imply homebrew, I was talking about rules-lite TSR edition clones like Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry and similar games (Lamentations of the Flame Princess, DCC RPG, etc.) They all have relatively simple rule systems and combat resolution mechanics that can be played without all of the complex stuff you see in D&D 3.x, 4th ed. and the like.

 

Point being, that sometimes it's easier to learn how to run a game when you spend more time worrying about creating great adventure hooks and some memorable locations and characters vs. trying memorize the encyclopedic core rules that you get with Pathfinder and newer editions of D&D.

 

To each their own of course, but the job of game master is tough enough without having to learn whilst also internalizing a crunchy ruleset.

[nikolokolus]

One more note: I don't know if those games I listed have translations into other languages (Slovak or Czech?) but S&W, LL, and LotFP all have free pdfs, so you can take a look without making a financial commitment.

[Mamoulian War]

Thank you for recommendations

[Walsingham]

@Walsh Hmm I think my biggest problem is roleplaying NPCs. Especially when their alignments are far away from my actual personality. Then there are various rules implementations, because I am trying to be as flexible as possible, but my friends low to come up with various crazy ideas :D And because I am still green behind the ears, some situation really take lot of time to solve it in a way, that are fit for the situation, do not break rules and me and most of the PCs are satisfied with it's solution. I actually would like to watch the real and experienced GM how they handle various situations in combat and social interactions and try to learn something from them which I can implement to our gaming circle...

 

Your cardinal mistake is assuming this is you being 'weak' - a trait concept - rather than a problem with your mental model of the NPCs.

 

99% of the time I sue the following to govern NPCs. Remember you need to work out a lot of this in advance. Either specific to one individual, or a group of people.

 

1. What is the long term goal of the NPC?

      - Wealth? Power? Love? Pies?

2. How are they currently trying to get to their long term goal?

      - Setting fires around the city? Working at the carwash? Wooing a prince?

3. If something goes wrong they will basically do one of three things: carry on as before (even though its not working), attack the source of the problem, give up and flee, or come up with some new plan.

     - I generally select which of the above by having them make and intelligence check of some kind, followed by a willpower/charisma check.

 

If you've understood what I'm driving at, and you seem like a bright chap, then you'll work out how that last dice roll works by yourself!

[Mamoulian War]

Thank you, I try to use your advices to the best

 

Having various NPCs at some story locations or at some smaller dungeons are not as big problem for me as NPCs with which the Party is in interaction every day. My current biggest struggle is Bard Gelik in Serpent's Skull AP for Pathfinder, I just simply am unable to act him as he is described in his Statblock entry. My party already made him hostile, but because they are all shipwrecked on small island, he has to stick with the player party, if he wants to stay alive...

 

His described personality is so far away from my own, that I am simply not ale to act him properly, which is shame

[darthdraken]

If you play a charactee thats not following your personality in real life then thats the point of rollplaying...

Otherwise you just play yourself.

Its a form of escapism.

Creating a back story for why he is the way he is always helps when i play a negative or clashing character.

Trick is to be a bad person or disruptive but also to become useful. So you become a nessesary evil. A lot of tv programs have similar type characters no body likes them but they nees them.

What is infact harder to play is a paladin. Trying todo everything for the right reasons is a lot harder than you think.

 

Remember if you play a character nobody likes in the party to not take it personally from the fellow players as its rollplaying..

 

Trick is a balance look at who you are character wise, what skills you have, how you want to develope the character and what skills the group lack. Then using your character fill in the gaps if you can. Become valuable, even something as saving one characters life is enough. Or even being able to find food where other people cant. Or that all important being able to see danger coming.

 

But remember never play your rl self in a rpg othewise whats the point.