GM Tips and Tricks

For all the GMs out there who want to create the best experience for their players, here's a little advice to get you started.

Listen to Your Players

This is the most important thing. Before you even start your first session, you should be listening to what your players are interested in, and the kinds of things they want to do with their characters.

You can take notes during sessions and incorporate details that players express interest in for future adventures. On the other hand, if your players seem bored or uninterested in certain aspects of the game, that lets you know that you should emphasize those aspects less in the future. This is a collaborative game, so players will have as much input in building the world and the narrative as you do, if not even more.

And if your players express discomfort or let you know that they would rather not deal with a topic during gameplay, you have to respect that and drop anything sensitive that you might have planned. You can talk about this beforehand and make a list of things to avoid, or you can use a safety system so players can veto anything if they become uncomfortable.

Have a Session Zero

Rather than doing all the world-building up front and then presenting it to the players in the first session, it's better to have a loose set of ideas that you can try out before getting started in earnest.

In a session zero, you can help out with character creation, workshop backstories and world details as you go, and try out different abilities or character traits before committing to any ideas.

This will help you figure out the tone of the game, how your players and their characters will interact with the world, and give you some ideas for how to design the world in a way that suits your players. For example, if you try out combat in the session zero, and no one is into it, you can pivot your later sessions to be more focused on social interactions, or you can pare down the combat system to be less number-crunchy so your players stay engaged.

You Can Fudge the Rules

This isn't meant as a free pass to completely ignore the rules, but for cases where there aren't any clear resolutions in the rules, you can make judgment calls as long as they seem fair and your players agree. The rules are meant to help mediate any conflicts, but they aren't perfect or comprehensive, so you can fill the gaps as needed.

You can also change some rules or add your own if it works better for your game. If you want to keep it simple, you can decide that character upgrades are super rare or not even a part of the game. You can restrict healing if your world is meant to be highly lethal, or you can ignore HP entirely and resolve fights based on narrative combat.

Have Different Hooks for Different Players

It's unlikely that everyone you play with will have the same interests. Some might be more interested in the social aspects of the game, some might be really into combat, and some might just want to advance the plot. Whenever you're setting up an adventure, make sure there's a little something for everybody, based on the interests of the people at the table.

You can sort of break it down into hooks. Emotional hooks are character-specific and help players get invested in the story because something important to their character is happening. Plot hooks advance the story in some way, whether that be to complete a mission or further the overarching plot of the campaign. Treasure hooks offer some sort of reward for players who really like leveling up and getting loot.

Once you figure out which hooks work for your players, you can combine them to set up future adventures and keep your players invested as the game goes on.