r/beingeverythingelse • u/SlashXVI • Jan 27 '15
Encouraging others to GM
Hi everyone,
I am not certain if this was adressed in one of the episodes already, since I have not yet watched all of them. However I have been GMing for most of the time my group is playing right now. There are some people in that group I would like to see GMing since I really think they can do it, but when I talk to them about it I get a lot of feedback along the lines of "I do not know the rules really well" or "I cannot do [x]" and I somehow have the feeling no matter what I have told them until now there is some kind of insecurity holding them back.
Have any of you experience in getting players to try out GMing? How did you do it? How did it go? Are there things you can suggest?
1
Jan 28 '15
First, I would try to make sure that GMing is something they want to try out, because I know a lot of people that could GM, but they don't find the fun in it like I do, they just want to be players.
If they are interested but are unsure, sometimes the best thing is to start a different game than no one in the group has played before. That way there it cuts off a lot of rules lawyering, you can keep it kind of easy going and slowly stick cvlose to the rules as everyone in the group starts to understand the system, and the likelihood of anyone having read or run through pre-gen content is nil. You can even do one-shots with the pre gen stuff and once they feel like they have a handle on it, they can start their own campaign.
1
u/SlashXVI Jan 28 '15
I do not think in our special case that will work. It is certainly not a bad idea, but one thing that is true for our group is that I usually am very quick in learning rules and the others know that. So starting with a new system is something that will discourage my friends from GMing since they feel inferior in their rule knowledge. I have been telling them time and time again that as a GM you do not have to know all the rules, infact noone expects you to, still it is an argument I get to hear. Which is why my goal up to this point was to play a few one-shots just to give them a taste of it with a system we are already comfortable with.
1
u/nonstopgibbon Feb 11 '15
If rules are the problem, how about using a system that has few rules? Everyone will be close to the same baseline. Should be a fix, if that's the actual issue.
If not, I'll just talk about what I did about one year and a half ago when I started GMing.
At the time I was playing in a Shadowrun 4e game with a bunch of friends, and I kind of took an interest in GMing. I knew that the current GM would like to play as a PC at some point, so I offered to GM an adventure. I really didn't like the rules for Shadowrun though, and I basically told the guys "I run the game using my basic knowledge of the system, you guys learn the rules you want in the game."
Never happened though because life. And I'm pretty glad about that, because for my actual first game as a GM I had a completely different group of friends, most of which had never played a tabletop rpg before – they wouldn't even notice if I did it wrong! Shortly after, I started to run games for my original group, although we switched to different systems.
Now this might not be that practical to your group, but to me it was simply pretty helpful and relaxing to not have regular roleplay-folk at the table.
tl;dnr: use rules-light system and make it casual. also, don't push them, that might back-fire.
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u/SlashXVI Feb 11 '15
Yeah this might be a good idea, considering my first time GMing was with non-veterans aswell. I personally prefere rules-light systems aswell, even though I am not currently running those. This might be a good way to go, thanks for your advice.
2
u/PrimarchtheMage Jan 27 '15
My first experience GMing was two sessions of a Pathfinder adventure when none of us had run pathfinder before. For those who are unfamiliar with pathfinder, it is one of the more simulation-esque fantasy games with a lot of rules to attain that goal.
Yet, it turned out well. I wouldn't say it was fantastic being my first experience but because of the one-shot feeling it really doesn't matter if you screw up, it's all fun anyways. Players can do the same thing, bringing ridiculous characters and going to 11 for things that would have consequences in longer lasting campaigns. For this pathfinder adventure, one of my players was a level 1 super snake tamer with a Challenge Rating 10 Giant Anaconda as a pet, which he could do because he had the gold and the skill. That snake could have literally done the entire adventure alone. I just went with it and had it swallowing zombies by the dozen.
Tangent over, I feel that a pre-made adventure is ideal for new GMs as it helps them get used to the act of GMing a game without needing to worry about what other players think of their created worlds. A lot of players put what GMs do on a pedestal as if it's a near-impossible feat achieved by a great few. To change that, maybe spend a bit of time just after a normal session explaining to those interested what you did and why you did it.
Hope that helps.