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element that either A) brings players out of their immersion and/or B) could be something potentially “game breaking” when abused by PCs. Both of these are part of the “know your players” mode of thinking, and I’d include what you’re comfortable with as a GM into that equation as well. And I get what some of you are saying (although with great hyperbole) about these concepts. How far do you go until it stops being Star Wars (or worse, until it just becomes unrecognizable chaos)? Well, you have to know your players for that, and to any new GM reading this I will strongly suggest running a few mini-campaigns with your players to figure them out. My own playgroup has a balance. There’s two players who like to do amazing things within the rules and two who look for loopholes and breaking points within any system -
TheFlatline said:Tell me about it!!In the last 5+ years I've gone through well over 20 GMs, and have thus far only found 4 who were up to the task.It CAN be done, but the GM has to have the grit and determination to see it through, and the patience to plan for a long-term endeavor and pace themselves. It's all about pacing. If you hold yourself to posting once or twice a week, for the whole group, and giving them a couple of days to respond, then when you become busy in real life, you can manage.However, if you, in your understandable enthusiasm as a new GM, start posting several times a day, and begin to respond to each post individually and within 24 hours, then you are setting yourself up for failure. I have seen it dozens of times.In terms of PBEM, 7 players -
with each other when their opposite doesn't want to play the game they way they want to play the game. You can't go wrong by reading these forums. It's a bit overwhelming, all the material here, but skip through the threads about new starship and equipment. You don't need that until you've mastered what's already in the books. Don't even bother with the campaign monologues. They're great for ideas but you probably aren't, or shouldn't be at that level yet. At first, focus on the discussion just like this one, where a new GM is asking for advice. People here are pretty free with that -
perspective. Likewise ToR era stuff will mostly convert with either reskinning or only minor tweaks. Some stuff will need some work though. The ARC-170 isn't statted anywhere to my knowledge. Nor the LAAT or Hailfire droid, ect. I mean none of these are that hard to stat as you can generally take an existing statblock and adjust it to match, but that's still some work to do, and were I a new GM I'd like to see coming -
Personally I love awarding xp for between game story write ups, before I took over GMing for my group the old GM would award points to anyone who wrote up the character synopsis, and when I took over I had the players do a free write about their characters and how they related to their cultures and other players and how they felt about the last story arc in character so that I could get a better feel for them as players and characters as the new GM, and I gave them some rewards based on that. since you are doing a significant time gap it only makes sense that your player’s characters should be advancing during this time, but they should also be changing as people, I would have them do a free write about the experiences they had over that time period and describe the person they -
make 2, they master the basics of the weapon type. 2.) Go to the company library. My group's regiment comes from a world that actively prizes technical knowledge to make better tech-priests. The players could go to the library and make rolls to learn a free Common Lore (never Forbidden Lore or Scholastic Lore, though). 3.) Letters from home. This is my favorite and potentially the most valuable for you as a GM. Have a small list of trinket items drawn up, don't have to be from the books either. Prayer beads, a local newspaper, a family good luck charm, etc. The players can carry these around and trade them for boosts to Commerce tests. But they must also narrate the letters that come with the item. This will get them more in the mood for roleplay and give you potential plot hooks in the future.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------With ... brush on the other side of the truck begins shaking in two places. Later, the truck runs out of gas. Their map says there's a civilian fuel station nearby. But they have to sweep the building for enemies and manually pump the fuel. Even basic enemies could make this a difficult encounter if a stray lasround could ignite the whole place.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Probably the BEST piece of advice I can give you as a new GM is to make an "Evil Overlord List." I assume that you have a big bad guy in mind while running this campaign? If so, cool. If not, no biggie. But the Evil Overlord List has saved my skin in other games before. Basically, establish your Evil Overlord's goals, and write out exactly what he's going to do in a list IF THE SQUAD DOESN'T INTERFERE. If the players do nothing -
relatively new GM for FFG SW, and had some questions about the Flesh Camouflage Set (FCS). Hope you guys can help!My broad question is: what are the limitations of the FCS? I understand that a Gamorrean could not become a Twi'lek, but I think that there are a few things that could be clarified: 1) Obviously, wildly different species are a no-go; but what about very similar species? I'm talking mainly about the near-human species, such as Chiss (described as a genetic offshoot of humans), Zeltrons (from the Unofficial Species Menagerie), and Arkanians. It seems reasonable to me that the since the FCS manipulates the user at the genetic level, converting to a closely related species wouldn't be too far a stretch. 2) What about sex? Again, the description about how the FCS mainulates a users genetics is kind of broad. Theoretically, as long -
new GM and i'm planning on using the Sith in my first campaign, I love the three that you have here so far, but i was wondering if you had any different Sith troopers stats made up (for Ex. Sith Elite Gunners, Sith wranglers, Sith advanced Trooper, and Sith guardsmen). I would love to have more of a variety to use in my campaign, especially the wrangler because one of my PC's is a Wrangler for his character. I know its been a while since this page has been updated, that is why I ask. Thanks -
pretty new GM, but I've done a few sessions with my group and things seem to be going pretty well. The group consists of 4 people, and together they make a pretty good team and have all of their bases covered pretty well. I want to give a challenge to them (especially the ones that took droid and super-specialized in one or two things) and so I want to find a way to have them temporarily split up. Is this usually done by luring certain members away to deal with a different problem? Or is it done forcefully/narratively -
good long while. If I had to pick just one sourcebook though it would be Far Horizons. It's not because of the species or the equipment or the career specs, it's because it's only book that gives some depth to running social encounters, and explores many of the social talents that otherwise might take a lot of experience to run well. This is especially useful if you're a new GM, or coming from a combat-heavy/non-social RPG like D&D. The group I play with has never really run social encounters until now, and greeted the first session with some eye-rolling and the expectation of a boring time. By the end of the session they'd completely changed their opinion. So it's well worth the effort to mix things up, and Far Horizons, along with several of the adventure modules, are good resources -
new gm and the issue from my players was why we cannot use a firearm in melee when fighting with the other hand a melle weapon??In the rules it says no you can't is this ok or is there an errta for this -
new GM, this is exactly why I would most likely find this type of sourcebook useful as I intend to set my campaign in the 19-09 BBY timeline; the currently release product lines have very little hard information on this "transition" era between the fall of the Republic and rise of the Empire (at 20 year time frame -
character is overwhelming to the rest and what's challenging to them is easily squashed by that one tank who can laugh off the normal enemy minions. Generally it's why I don't have a problem with saying "I have designed a campaign for X style characters, you can choose anything within X style characters," this is the first campaign I've run outside of those rules (spoilers, I'm a fairly new GM) so I am sort of worried about how some player characters could raise the difficulties for others -
need to make the book I purchased worthless, as reading it gives different rules than what is being used. Sorry, dude, but this is a horrible idea. Read the book, learn the book, use the book. Then after a long while, learn what works best you and your group and then decide if any changes are warranted. If I was a player in a game using this rule, I would be looking for a new GM that is not looking to eff me over, because that is all this is doing, not making the game more fun, or enhancing anything, or making the fights more exciting. If you don't want characters going in guns blazing, then don't give them those types of encounters. Encounter design is where you can flex your creativity, not rule bastardization. Edited September 1, 2015 by R2builder -
players doing it? The answer to that leads to different conversations. For example, if they're doing it "in character" to prove how tough and horrible their characters are, that's one thing. If they're doing it because they're used to playing something more unsavory rather than Star Wars, that's a different conversation. If they genuinely LIKE this on a regular basis, the conversation should be "Um, get a new GM." As a few folks have pointed out, this is Star Wars. Star Wars comes with a certain feel to it, and brutal, graphic torture ain't it. Even Star Wars' more adult cousin, Firefly, doesn't depict graphic scenes of torture -- and most of what we do see is inflicted on the heroes. If these guys genuinely enjoy this stuff and this is really what they're looking for in a game, they maybe shouldn -
Fugitive from F&D pg 413. If I am reading it right, his/her vibroknife rolls 4 dice, 3 advantage and 1 ability die. So when I rolled this against a pc, I rolled 4 successes. This was how i totaled damage; vicious 2 gives x10 dam, for 20 damage, then the blade is set at 5 dage, plus 1 for each successs. Does this mean the vibroknife does 29 damage?Please explain for a new GM -
Alrightie - let me defend my thesis. . . . And for the most part, I agree with you. There have been loads of times (both as a player and a GM) where we've gone off the map. There was the one time, our group owned a bar at the beach on a resort world. A mobster rolled into town and started applying muscle for his "protection" - and I fully anticipated that they would react in our usual manner: march into his stronghold and start blowing everything up. Ah, but not this time. One of the players casually asked "So, are there elections coming up?" - an innocent enough question. I go "sure, what the hell." "Great! Lets run for public office and take this guy out legally!" Wait - what? Suddenly all my carefully crafted notes and maps of the compound and bad guy stat blocks go out the window. Fine, I asked ... through the window, grab your unconscious compatriot and um. . . .roll out the back door just as the grenades land behind you and blow up. *GM makes BOOOOOOM!" sound* Or There are 6 Stormtroopers coordinating fire *flip, flip, flip* which gives them a +6 modifier to hit you. You dive through the window giving you *flip, flip, flip* +2 for cover and you need to take a second action to grab your friend and get out the back for a *flip, flip, flip* minus 3 to your roll. Okay, roll it! Action in Star Wars needs to be fast and hectic, like a John Woo movie on crack, like Jackie Chan on fast forward. Now there's going to be some learning curve as new GM's get up to speed - but if you can get comfortable enough with the game engine where you can memorize, approximate and streamline the rules -
Personally, I find myself torn between running Only War versus Deathwatch. Looking through both books, I am leaning more towards Only War mainly for the more refined ruleset. I love me some Space Marines, but I find Deathwatch have more fiddly bits to contend with for a new GM standpoint. My two cents -
have to tell you this. As a new GM to Rogue Trader, reading your stuff has made my life so much easier and I plan on using the stuff you put out. Keep up the good work and keep -
back.Yes, I'm still working on this. Give me about 2 weeks and I'll put something up on an FTP site. I'm expanding to include a cheet-sheet based on Drydock, but with our stuff added in. I also need to look at whatever's in the new GM -
Agreeed, combine the forums for all the beginner box sets; makes searching for Q&As / new GM topics easier
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Good morning everyone I'm a relatively new gm as well has to the war hammer 40k universe. I've read battle fleet koronus and understand what they have there for large scale combat rules. Does anyone have a list of tanks, apcs,arty and attack craft with weapons, armor movement etc that I can incorporate into the game to add more spice for my players? Thanks everyone -
would like to reflect on Jay Littles Words in the first Order66 pod-cast for EoE: Paraphrasing: "The use of the dice should be intuitive" and "The resulting symbols on dice should reflect through the story why those dice were in the pool" and "while narrating I push the dice forward and try not to mention the word die or pool". Reflecting on these thoughts my help new Gm's to move away from the surface of EoE which plays like a tactical strategy rpg board game and into deeper waters of EoE which plays like a fun choose your own adventure book. So now you know my bias. There is nothing wrong with this system as a tactical rpg, that's fine, but this post is not for you. This post is for those who want to hide the puppet strings and not worry too much about charts -
everyone, I am a soon-to-be new GM to this game but I had a couple of issues with the players I am planning on playing with, and we haven't even started the game yet!Since all 4 of us really love Star Wars and wanted to get involved with a RP type game that we could play, but none of us have any tabletop RP experience. I volunteered as GM and bought the beginner game so we can get used to the rules and how everything is setup and played with the game mechanics. Here is the annoying part, 2 out of the 3 of our players who would be PC's in the game really want to have force powers or "be Sith" right out of the gate. I read up on these forums as well as other places and found out that the Force -
new GM for Dark Heresy and I wanted to run my players threw Purge the Unclean before starting to write my own games. So do you have any pointers on executing the game with grace