As Game MASTER the Rules are Beholden to YOU

I have a friend who is running a game. It is an awesome game too. The kind of game where I find myself getting hyped and into character for the game anywhere from 24-72 hours before hand. The kind of game I was looking forward to playing in so much last week that it almost being here got me through a couple of rough days at work. But this friend has a problem. The system he is using is an old homebrew hack built on top of a system that the group plays a lot...only the hack was built atop the previous edition and the new edition changes have since cemented enough that there is confusion. Talking to him about it reminded me of the topic of this post, and today I want to talk about that.

When Golden Rules Seem to Conflict

Generally speaking, at least in my experience, there is one of two "rules" that someone asking for 'basic advice for the new GM' will be told. The first is that they have to be able to say no to their players if they don't want their game spiraling out of control. The second is that they should never ever say no. At first glance the two seem to be exact opposites, and I've seen it confuse more than a few first time GMs, so today I figured it might be fun to go over it and break down how the two rules not only don't conflict, but actually can work very well together.

Most Games Just End

Short post for today, but it is something I've found myself explaining to several people of late and figured it deserved a blog post of it's own.

New GM Tips: Let The Role Play Happen

Going to be a short post for today, and this is mostly going to be for the new GMs out there. The lesson I want to convey is the title of the post. Let the RP happen in your game. By that I don't mean to make opportunities for it to happen, but to actually - literally - let it happen when it is happening. Far too often I've seen GMs try to speed up an instance when multiple PCs were chatting to try and get things "back on track." Today, I want to talk about that.