Erik Evjen

As far as the scope of “GM Tips” goes, I want to make sure I cover things in a chronological fashion in the same way I go about starting my own campaigns. Obviously, you need to pick a game system to run (GM Tips #01 is a primer of some great d20 games to try out), but once that’s settled you’ll need to figure out how you want to run your campaign.

This is where the “Social Contract”, or the “Golden Rule” as I like to call it comes into play: I find it extremely important to sit down with my potential players and discuss what they’re looking for when they come to play in one of my games. Likewise, I also like to let them know what I’m looking forward to running or how I’m doing it.

What is the “Golden Rule”? Essentially, an agreement between the GM and the players as to what the expectations and house rules of the new campaign are going to be. It’s that simple.

However, that agreement goes a long way in making sure that not only my players are happy with the game I’m running for them, but also that I am as well.

As far as what goes into making this agreement with your players, here’s my basic guidelines of what I go over with them. While the following is by no means an extensive all-encompassing list, I find these points below to be extremely important to go over with my players:

1. The Style of the Campaign –
The very first thing that I’ll go over with my players is the style of campaign I’m running.

Am I running a exploration-styled sandbox game, where the players are free to roam around and make their mark on the setting in whatever way they see fit? Or am I running a very thematic story-driven game, one that may only last several sessions due to the pace and intensity of the story I’m attempting to tell at the game table? Or am I simply running a “beer and pretzels” game where anything goes and I’m just looking to goof off as much as the players are? Could it even be a mix of all of the above?

These are all wildly different styles of running an RPG game, and players have their definite preferences for how they would like to play – so letting the players know exactly how you intend to run the campaign is critical for their enjoyment.

This is important very for a specific reason – players who are expecting a narrative-heavy game being driven by the GM will not prefer a open-world sandbox campaign driven by exploration, nor will players who just want to explore dungeons and slay monsters playing in a game with very set story-driven goals. While most players don’t mind games drifting in either side of that spectrum, you want them to know ahead of time to plan for how they want to interact with the game setting.

With time, you’ll eventually get reoccurring players that you’ll know the specific tastes of, and with that knowledge you can tailor campaigns specifically for them. However, I always make sure to go over my intents of how I’m going to GM for the players, so they know what they’re getting into even before the first game session.

2. How much detail should be put into Player Characters –
This one is another major point that will directly affect how much effort your players need to do ahead of time to prepare for your game.

Are you just planning to have them roll up new characters at the game table at the first session, or do you want them to have fully fleshed out backstories and stats for their characters before they even get to the table?

While my personal long-standing preference is that I have new PCs rolled up in front of me (often without backstory, as I like to give the players breathing room to figure that those details over the course of the campaign), for others this will not be the case. For a narrative-driven RPG campaign, it may be critical to have an established backstory for PCs before it begins so the GM can properly prepare plothooks and storylines for those characters.

For players, this is one of the most important details to go over – nobody wants to write out a 4-5 page background story for a PC if the GM is going to ignore it, so make sure to let them know if you are needing them to do so.

3. High Magic, Low Magic, or Somewhere In-between?
This is more important for Fantasy RPGs, but may come up in other game systems depending on what you’re running.

However, for Fantasy roleplaying, this is a huge concern for players – and may sour them on your campaigns if you don’t let them know about the expected level of magic in the game.

Are you planning a traditional High Fantasy campaign, where spell-casting classes are common and magic items readily available to be found in dungeons or purchased in stores? Or are you going for Low Fantasy, where a single +1 Longsword could be the cause of a world war and where spellcasters are almost nonexistent? You can even go further – is there no magic at all in the setting you’re running, or is everything magical? Or is it all somewhere in the middle?

This is a real sticking point for players, so you’ll want to keep an eye out for their happiness by going over this – if your players are expecting to obtain magic items/spells/scrolls on a regular basis but are not aware that such things are extremely rare in your setting , they will feel like they are being punished by you withholding those items when really that is the norm for the game world. However, if you do inform them that’s the case ahead of time – such a find will be memorable in the way you want it to be.

Personally I ride the middle road in all of this in my campaigns – while spellcasters and magic items are common, truly powerful examples of such (the artifacts and other treasures of the setting) need to be found by exploring the world around the PCs.

However, making sure your intentions are known here will go a long way in ensuring your players feel like they are being rewarded for their efforts in your campaign.

4. How much Gold is floating around?
Tying in with #3, another crucial detail is the economy of the setting – will players be able to expect getting significant amounts of treasure, or will you be running the game in a fashion that will keep the amount of wealth the PCs have relatively meager?

Outside of narrative rewards, gold is more or less the expected reward for the actions of PCs throughout their adventures in a campaign – if you do not communicate how much they are to expect, they may become unhappy when they have little money over extended periods of time if they are not expecting that to be the case.

5. Is this a Homebrew Setting, or an Officially Published Setting?
Players will definitely have preset notions and expectations if you are running a published setting for your campaign – while unless you have veteran players they will not know what to expect if you are running your own campaign setting.

Outside of a few sessions here and there, I’ve always ran the Iellos setting that I’ve written over the years – in that fashion all campaigns have made their mark on the setting as time has gone on, and of course allows me the freedom to chose what major events have occurred in that world over time.

This is not the case when you’re running a published setting – and there will be an extensive history of canon events in those settings to be aware of when running them. This in itself is a benefit, however – this allows the GM to focus more on the immediate game without needing to worry about filling in the minor and major details of the world, as that’s already been done before.

While published settings are a very good starter for beginning GMs to get a established world to run their campaigns in, it’s important for the GM to be aware of the history of the setting so that players will be readily able to jump in without catching the GM off guard if their view of the established setting is different from that of the players.

On the flip side, I’ve found nothing more rewarding then building a whole new setting based off of the events that my players have caused over the years – but again you’ll have to be the expert of the world you’ve written, as you’re the one establishing the lore for it.

6. What Classes/Races are available, if any?
For game systems that have classes and PC races, which ones are you allowing? Which ones are not?

Let players know these details immediately before they build characters that will not be usable in the game you’re running.

7. How important are Player Character deaths?
This one is critical to cover – in the event a player character dies, are they readily revived or will they have to start anew?

In my campaigns, I make Player Character death a permanent event – even in systems that have spells such as “Raise Dead”, I typically disallow them to be learned by PCs so in the event a PC dies it carries that much more weight and impact to the campaign’s storyline. (Of course, I have always allowed the highest level “Wish” or “Miracle” spells and divine intervention to bring back beloved PCs and NPCs who have died, as this gives something for the PCs to work towards and builds a quest on it’s own for them in the event they wish to bring back characters. In my way of doing things, I always leave the players an option if they wish to go for it.)

Of course this will matter more in some game systems more than others depending on the overall lethality of the game system you’re using. However, regardless of what game you are running, you will want to make sure your players know what will happen in the event their character dies during the course of a campaign – and how readily available that character will be for them to use again, if at all.

8. What House Rules have you made to the Game System?
A house rule is any change that the GM has made in the rules versus the rules as written (RAW) for the game system they are running a campaign in.

This actually has a tie-in to what was just discussed in the last point – an example of house rule in my campaigns is that I disallow the use of the “Raise Dead” spell by Player Characters.

Other typical ones I often use include ability score increases for Player Races in OSR game systems reflecting modern game design, or disallowing “scrying” spells reflecting how I envision magic working in the setting I wrote.

Of course there are many more things that a GM can change about the rules of the game system they are using – however, you want to clearly inform your players of what changes you have made to the game system you are running, as the expectation will be that the game will be ran using the rules as written otherwise.

9. Anything else worth discussing with your players
Again, this is by no means an end-all, be-all list of things to go over with your players before you start a RPG campaign – but these are many of the things I go over with mine before we start playing.

If there is anything else you can think of that would be important to go over with your players – go ahead and do it!

This is the most important part of planning a campaign in my experience – your players want a good idea of what they’re signing up to play in, and what they’ll be experiencing for potentially weeks/months/years on end. If you don’t effectively communicate what will be the norms of your campaign, you run the risk of disappointing your players who might be expecting otherwise – and with that mentioned dedication of their time to play in your campaign, you want to make sure they get the most out of it.

Of course, make sure to have fun! Sometimes you might only need to discuss these points for a few moments when your player group is comprised of your personal friends, or veteran players who have played with you in the past – other times you might need to make this a small session of it’s own. Make sure you do put the time in to do this, however, as it will increase the amount of enjoyment the players get out of your campaigns.

In the next article, we’ll go over some world design in the event you’re creating your own setting to run an RPG campaign in, and how to expand it during the course of a campaign.

Until next time!

– Erik

For the first installment of GM Tips, I’d like to take a good look at what possibly is one of the most important decisions you’ll have to make as a Game Master: What game are you planning on running?

What I have prepared here is a selection of D20 Fantasy RPGs that are my personal favorites, balanced to provide a glimpse of what’s widely available in the market and to provide options that are great choices for beginning Game Masters to run at the game table.
As a note, while there are a number of other game systems out there that are great and beginner friendly (games such as Dungeon World and FATE come to mind), I’ve chosen to focus on what is usually the first experience many beginning GMs have running – D20 games based off of traditional D&D, where the 20 sided die is the most commonly used dice mechanic. I will cover such other games at a later date in a different article.

That said, here is my list of go-to games when I am running RPG campaigns for first-time players.

Basic Fantasy RPG
BFRPG is my all-time favorite game of choice when playing with not only beginning players, but veteran role players as well – as the game is simplistic enough for beginners to understand quickly, but is versatile enough to handle just about any scenario or situation that could occur in roleplay with the GM’s imagination and creativity.

Basic Fantasy RPG is one of many OSR (short for “Old-School Renaissance”) games that are widely available, which all seek to emulate the rules of earlier editions of the world’s greatest fantasy role-playing game while “cleaning up” those rulesets in order to make them more easily utilized at the game table. In particular, BFRPG  is written in the vein of the 1981 Basic D&D boxset, but has a number of changes in the rules that I find make it very easy to run the game for all sorts of players.

In comparison to the before-mentioned earlier editions of D&D and similar games on the market (such as Labyrinth Lord, which also has a place on this list), the main change in BFRPG is that the game uses Ascending AC (Armor Class), instead of the Descending AC of those earlier games and retro-clones.

This change alone makes it much easier for beginning players to grasp, especially those who may have already played games such as Pathfinder or D&D 4e and 5e which all use the same mechanic for how Armor Class is handled. This allows for players to quickly convert over to playing BFRPG after having played other games without having to relearn how to handle combat. Another important change is that unlike the box set BFRPG is based on, races and classes are independent of one another – so a player could chose to play as an Elf Cleric for example, something that may not be possible under other OSR rulesets.

Outside of those changes, my main love for BFRPG is due to the fact of it’s simplicity – rules language is very concise and to the point, and is very open for Game Masters to house-rule and edit as they please in order to better serve the needs of their players. During play, the nature of these rules (to be fair, this is true of most OSR games) tends for them to fade into the background so that the GM is able to focus more on the narrative and plot of the game, only being really needed to be consulted when checking for specific mechanics such as Thief Skills or Saving Throws. This opens much time for the GM to really immerse players into the world of their setting and actual play, verses spending crucial game time consulting the rulebook for a multitude of situational rules that may hinder other systems.

While there are some things that beginning GMs and Players alike may find “wonky” at first (such as previously mentioned Thief Skills or Saving Throws), these concerns are quickly overcome and become second nature with even a few sessions of experience playing the game, or can be quickly house-ruled to your liking. (One such house rule of mine is to do away with “Prime Requisites” completely, so even if a player did not roll high enough ability scores to play a Paladin or another class they wish to play under the rules as written, they could choose to do so anyways in my campaigns.)

Another strong benefit that BFRPG has is it’s extremely strong community presence – there is a multitude of additional rules, classes, monsters, treasure, adventure modules, and other such supplemental material that can be downloaded or printed off from the main website, and a forum which many fans have provided even more additional material that can be used with the core game as the Game Master sees fit.

Maybe the best benefit of all is that the game is completely free – all of this material is available for download or print on the BFRPG website, though there are POD rulebooks if you desire.

I’d also like to give a shoutout to Chris Gonnerman for being such an excellent sport when it comes to the game he wrote – if you have a question, he’s usually more that likely going to give you his rulings and insight on how he wrote particular rules as he did, and frequently replies on the forum and elsewhere.

With that, please do check out Basic Fantasy RPG, as it’s one of the best games out there in my opinion.

http://www.basicfantasy.org

Labyrinth Lord
While Basic Fantasy RPG has mechanical changes that are very friendly to first time modern players checking out traditional gameplay, Labyrinth Lord is a similar game but sticks to it’s traditional influences.

In comparison to BFRPG, Labyrinth Lord uses traditional Descending AC which may throw off modern players – but in reality it is easy to figure out and most character sheets will have a nice “To Hit Target AC” chart that will allow you to quickly determine how a character fares in the middle of a combat encounter.

Also, Labyrinth Lord’s core game (Classic Edition) sticks to the tradition of demihuman races (Elf, Dwarf, Halfing) as being their own separate class altogether in comparison to humans, which could choose to be Fighters, Thieves, Clerics, or Magic Users. As such, you wouldn’t see a Elf Cleric character – you would just see an Elf.

However, Labyrinth Lord has additional rulebooks such as the “Advanced Companion” which models after 1e D&D rules, or it’s “Original Edition Characters” which models after the very first original D&D ruleset – so you can mix and match to get the rules you want – you could have a  Elf character built with the Classic Edition rules fighting alongside an Elf Fighter built with the Advanced Companion rules, for example.

Lately I’ve been running a LL campaign using the Classic Edition and the Advanced Companion book, and it’s been my poison of choice – quite like BFRPG it is frankly a well done rendition of the various rulesets of the past, and pars down quite a bit of the rules language so it is easy to comprehend for most players and easy to run at the game table. Even while doing so, it keeps enough of these rules that it plays very much like it’s source material – and it’s great fun.

One thing I should note when it comes to OSR games such as BFRPG and LL, however, is that you will notice that mechanically most characters are pretty lean in comparison to modern RPGs. Outside of a few key abilities or achievements gained at certain levels, most classes will have “dead levels” where the only thing gained for the character is additional HP. While some players or GMs may not like this, I personally love the mechanical freedom of such games – as it allows you to focus on the story of what characters accomplish in the narrative of the campaign.

Another note is that OSR games tend to be rather deadly to characters as well – there is a higher focus on surviving encounters in any way possible other than fighting, with lesser XP awards granted after defeating monsters in combat, so there are many times when it is preferable to avoid combat than engage in a fight that could end up in the death of a character.

Of course, much could be said about the differences between those original game rulesets and their retro-clones in comparison to modern RPGs, but that’s another discussion for another time.

Regardless, Labyrinth Lord is fantastic for those looking for a game that faithfully emulates the play of older D20 Fantasy RPGs, and I highly recommend it as well.

You can find downloadable art-free copies of the Classic Edition and Advanced Edition Companion rules at the Goblinoid Games website, which is another major plus. Feel free to try it out – I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it.

http://www.goblinoidgames.com

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
As you can tell, I do very much love the original rulesets of this game in particular, and I tend to run OSR retroclones of those rulesets when I get the chance.

That said, far and away I think that of the published D&D editions since Wizards of the Coast took over from TSR (3e, 3.5e, 4e, 5e), 5th Edition D&D is the greatest rendition of the game currently available.

Overall, it feels like a continuation of 2eAD&D, having taken design decisions from the earlier 3e and 4e games and blending them together to make a really streamlined yet mechanically robust game that is an absolute pleasure to run at the game table.

For the beginning GM, 5e is a great choice to begin learning how to run RPGs with – as the mechanics are simple enough for people to grasp (with some incredible mechanics such as Ability Scores being tied to Saving Throws, or the Advantage/Disadvantage rules, which really clear up alot of the clutter in previous D&D editions), but versatile enough that a GM can houserule specific rules as needed without severely hindering other parts of the game ruleset.

Characters and their options are really robust as well – with multiple options for how a character could gain new abilities depending on their class, the optional background rules which really help new players figure out the kind of character they want to play, and all sorts of other additional content such as the feats. However, the great thing about all of these options is that they’re mechanically very simple – and very effective at changing the mechanics of the core characters, so it is easy for players to build characters they want to play in your campaigns.

It’s really easy to create dungeons and encounters with 5e, and there is a number of options in 5e to make combat either more dangerous or survivable for player characters – so it’s readily editable enough for the Game Master to really make a campaign run in the way he or she wants to.

Finally, 5e benefits from an already enormous wealth of additional content available, so it is very easy to add additional classes, races, spells, and all other sorts of content into your games. It seems that 5e will receive support for a good long time so I’m sure that this trend with continue – and in the event you find material from earlier games you want to play, it’s easy to convert that material over in order to play it with 5e rules.

The Basic Rules for 5e are readily available here:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

Pathfinder
Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.0 and 3.5 D&D rules, but benefits from the fact that as Paizo continues to develop content for it’s game that it will be supported for a very long time to come. It’s an industry standard, and for very good reason.

One thing you will notice in Pathfinder (and the earlier D&D 3.0 and 3.5 by association) that there is an almost unlimited amount of character creation options available to players. A common saying is that “If there’s any kind of character you want to make, you can make it in Pathfinder”, and that’s definitely true. There’s so much additional content available for Pathfinder out already and planned in the future that you can build a campaign setting just the way you’d want to run it, which is a huge benefit to the game.

I would recommend that first time GMs try running something along the lines of 5e or an OSR retroclone for their first campaigns, however – as there is a large amount of rules in Pathfinder that may be confusing at a first glance without prior experience.

However, regardless of that, GMs and players who want a very comprehensive and expansive set of rules that assist in the running of their campaigns and characters will benefit greatly by choosing to run Pathfinder – as the content out there can readily assist them in running exactly the type of campaign they want to.

Paizo maintains the PRD (Pathfinder Reference Document), which gives you a good portion of the rules and content they’ve released thus far.

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

Dungeons & Dragons 4e (And Dungeons & Dragons 4e Essentials)
This is probably going to be a very contentious choice on this list for most veteran Game Masters and players I know, but for the sake of my personal tastes I will include 4e on this list.

To be frank, 4th Edition D&D is still the most divisive edition of the game that was ever released – and plays like it’s own game to be completely honest. Many changes were made in how 4e is played in comparison to 3e and prior editions of D&D, and the later 5th Edition (as mentioned above) used only portions of 4e in it’s blending of all prior rulesets in how it is ran.

However – I can say for a fact that 4e was a great system to learn the basics of roleplaying on, as 8 years ago 4e was the game that I first learned how to run RPGs with. While I much prefer OSR clones and the other two choices on this list these days, 4e is still a decent game for beginning players.

One of those reasons is due to what some consider an overwhelming focus on combat tactics – as a video gamer that absolutely loves tactics VRPGS such as Fire Emblem, Shining Force, or the original X-Com games, 4e helped me transition really quickly to running RPG sessions at the tabletop, as the combat is very familiar to those who enjoy such video games.

Along that thought, 4e did streamline a number of rules in comparison to 3e and the ruleset is presented pretty well – it’s easy enough to make a character or to build a campaign setting under the 4e rules, and quite like 3e there is a widely available amount of additional content for players and GMs alike in the system, covering all sorts of additional classes and other options.

I will say that personally I did have to do quite a bit of houseruling 4e in order to get it to run the way I wanted it to. One of the chief complaints of how 4e runs is how long combat can get under the rules as written – which after editing things like monster HP math and other such details of the system, I found that this was easily enough addressed and enjoyed the ruleset for what it was. In regards to building characters, it’s a very robust system in the vein of 3e so it’s easy to build the kind of character you’d like to play.

A good thing now that the game is no longer supported is that the various rulebooks are now available for rather cheap – so it’s a good starting point as well, and for enterprising Game Masters this is a good system to learn the basics of houseruling and learning when houserules are appropriate.

A quickstart PDF can be found here:

Click to access quickstartrules.pdf

Now, by no means was this an exhaustive and end-all list of D20 based Fantasy RPGs – this is just a list of games I tend to run to help others get into the hobby.

There’s a number of other games out there (and of course, there are the classics such as 1e and 2e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but I do find that retroclones are usually preferable to run for beginning players) – so if you find something you like, go ahead and run it!

There’s no such thing as a “bad” ruleset for running games, as for the most part you can readily houserule these games to run them the way you would like to. In future articles I plan to look at some of these games in further detail, showing you how to do just that.

For further reading, if you are seriously interested in becoming a Game Master I recommend you definitely read the PHB (Player’s Handbook) and DMG (Dungeon Master’s Guide) for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, as those two books are a treasure trove of information for the hobby in general, and many things that Gygax wrote in those two books is applicable across the whole spectrum of tabletop role-playing games.

In the meantime, if I missed a game you consider a great entry point into the hobby, let me know! I’d be glad to look it over and definitely recommend them as well.