I've been playing this game for a little while with a group and I've decided I want to try my hand at GMing. I've never GMed a game before of anything and don't even have that much RPG experience.

I have the game master's kit, core book, and beginnner's game coming in the mail.
I've found some players, none of which have played EOTE before.

I figured we'd do at least one session with the beginner's game to get everyone comfortable with things.

Any tips?

EDIT: Sorry. I reposted this in the Game Masters subforum. carry on.

Believe in what you're doing. If you're not having fun you won't have the energy to sell the scenes.

How the PCs make it to the next scene* doesn't matter at all. If the adventure requires they impress an NPC to gain access to something and they plot a heist instead, run with it - they'll think you're amazing.

The beginner's games are fun but are a little like the "tutorial" level in a video game. They do a good job of introducing new players to the system and people new to roleplaying to the idea of what you can have your character do in different situations.

* EDIT: my most shameful spelling mistake today.

Before you start, have a chat with your players about Rule 0: "I may not remember the specific details of every rule and I may get things wrong, but if I make a ruling, just go with it. We're all here to have fun."

There are loads of specific detailed advice you could get, but on your first few sessions I think the main thing is to just go with it and have fun. Don't take it too seriously.

If you mess up a ruling, or forget a detail, just make a judgment call during the game and look it up later. Personally I recommend against having rulebooks out at the table.

The main thing is to have fun!

I posted my long winded response on the reddit forums. For those of you that want to read it, got to www.reddit.com/r/swrpg/

That is all I have to add.

Beginner's game is a good idea, especially for new players for whom the dice will be strange. There is a free PDF continuation and extra pre-generated PCs as well available from the Support page for the beginner box, so you'll have plenty to work with, easily 3-5 sessions, which takes some of the creative pressure off while you get your bearings. I'd have the players run with the provided PCs, then if they want to create their own after the first session they'll have a much better idea what to invest their XP in. You can always have the new characters replace the old ones ...say, just before they steal the ship, the new characters come running into the docking bay while the old ones stay behind to "guard the door".

As for tips...that's a long topic, and everyone will have different advice. There are probably quite a few threads on it already if you dig back through these forums. It might be easier if you asked a specific question, like "what do you do when..."

Before you start, have a chat with your players about Rule 0: "I may not remember the specific details of every rule and I may get things wrong, but if I make a ruling, just go with it. We're all here to have fun."

Rule 0 is one the GM has to know but the players don't, which is:

Rule 0: No Rule should ever get in the way of having fun. If a Rule does, break it.

Stupid double post.

Remember it is a narrative based game. That being said, the story is everything. Have a goal, have an idea of what you want the characters to experience, and turn them lose. It's not about how they get to said goal, just that they get there. Sand box it, let them run.

Encourage the characters to be involved in the story portion of the game. You can do this by letting them interpret their own dice rolls, and you, as GM, just kinda help guide them along. Like you make sure they are not being too hard or easy on themselves for what they rolled. You'd be amazed at what some of them will come up with for advantage and disadvantage, triumph and despair results. The only time I interfere with their dice reading is when I have some information, or a clue, to give them if they rolled high enough, etc...

That said, after a bit, you'll find a flow, and you just kinda ride it out. I set personal goals for myself with each game just to make it fun and interesting for me. , Things like try to keep them out of combat today, or work the empire into the story, logically, or put them in a moral conundrum to help build characters/team.

Most importantly, have fun. If you're not having fun you'll hate it.

I wish I had one of you: a player willing to GM for a bit. Two groups with 13 players, fixing to start a 3rd group with another 4, and I've never actually been able to play the game once.

My grand rule, formed after 20+ years of GMing in various systems, is this: no story arc survives first contact with the players. My worst case of this was a game of Deadlands about 16 years ago. I spent two weeks lovingly crafting a new town to be the center stage of the next story arc. I had maps of the town, critical buildings, stated up major NPCs, underlying tensions and potential story threads, everything to turn the town into a character unto itself, the perfect sandbox setting. I loved it, and I was set for the story arc to be one of my best ever.

Twenty minutes into the first session, the town was on fire, three buildings had been dynamited, several of the major NPCs were dead without ever having even given their names, and my players were walking down main street thumbing fresh shells into their brand new lever action shotguns.

Have backup plans. Backups to your backups. Be prepared to wing it completely. If you need an NPC to do or say something specific to advance your story, have at least two other characters that can in a pinch play that role, And worse comes to worst, just look your players in the eye, say "****, didn't see that one coming,' give them some extra XP for completely derailing you, call a ten minute refreshment break to regroup, and steal a scene from a movie everyone likes as a bridge to get from your current trainwreck back to your story arc. Works for me.

My grand rule, formed after 20+ years of GMing in various systems, is this: no story arc survives first contact with the players. My worst case of this was a game of Deadlands about 16 years ago. I spent two weeks lovingly crafting a new town to be the center stage of the next story arc. I had maps of the town, critical buildings, stated up major NPCs, underlying tensions and potential story threads, everything to turn the town into a character unto itself, the perfect sandbox setting. I loved it, and I was set for the story arc to be one of my best ever.

Twenty minutes into the first session, the town was on fire, three buildings had been dynamited, several of the major NPCs were dead without ever having even given their names, and my players were walking down main street thumbing fresh shells into their brand new lever action shotguns.

I've been through this too. I'm sorry brother! This is why I tell people have a goal for the characters to reach, but hardly a plan for how they are to reach it. That way you're not doing work you don't have to. I certainly hope you were able to rename said town in a different location and make use of it.

What I did was have my story all laid out but I let the players decide where they wanted to go and take it from their and have fun with it. But always expect the unexpected for EX: I had this small but fun firefight all planned out one of my players decided he was going to hack his way through to the main computers and shut down the power to the "boot" and grav field on the ship they were to steal to avoid the encounter,so needless to say the dice were in his favor and aced it and I was left there going uhhh well that sucks great roll but that sucks the players were having fun so it worked out great but as a GM I was not expecting that.

Oh and use OggDude's SW Char Gen

My grand rule, formed after 20+ years of GMing in various systems, is this: no story arc survives first contact with the players. My worst case of this was a game of Deadlands about 16 years ago. I spent two weeks lovingly crafting a new town to be the center stage of the next story arc. I had maps of the town, critical buildings, stated up major NPCs, underlying tensions and potential story threads, everything to turn the town into a character unto itself, the perfect sandbox setting. I loved it, and I was set for the story arc to be one of my best ever.

Twenty minutes into the first session, the town was on fire, three buildings had been dynamited, several of the major NPCs were dead without ever having even given their names, and my players were walking down main street thumbing fresh shells into their brand new lever action shotguns.

Have backup plans. Backups to your backups. Be prepared to wing it completely. If you need an NPC to do or say something specific to advance your story, have at least two other characters that can in a pinch play that role, And worse comes to worst, just look your players in the eye, say "****, didn't see that one coming,' give them some extra XP for completely derailing you, call a ten minute refreshment break to regroup, and steal a scene from a movie everyone likes as a bridge to get from your current trainwreck back to your story arc. Works for me.

This is why you never over prepare. Follow the holocron idea, make skeletons of encounters. flesh them out a little before game and go. Over preparing leads to 2 outcomes. The PCs will destroy it. Or the pcs will bypass it. Either way leads to wasted effort.

I don't really believe in being 'overprepared.' Of course, my degree is in creative writing, and I do builds and story design to relax. The trick to writing heavily and not end up beating your head into a wall is to leave yourself flexibility. Sandbox style is to me the best. Well written and defined villains with plans. And an outline of how events proceed, but just as an outline. Events take a life of their own and players are avatars of chaos at the best of times. That's why I like sandboxing. If your setting is fleshed out enough, your players can just run amok and you're still prepared. Recurring epic villains are your friends. And cheating on them is essential. Forget my lost town. The worst is having your epic villain you wanted to last three story arcs drop in the first encounter. Think Vader walking through the Tantive IVs blown hatch and promptly getting shot in the face. This system is one of the best I've seen to help the GM. The narrative style and interpretive dice are a GMs best friend. No matter how good their rolls are, you can keep them from oneshotting your villain before his time

Before you start, have a chat with your players about Rule 0: "I may not remember the specific details of every rule and I may get things wrong, but if I make a ruling, just go with it. We're all here to have fun."

That's not Rule 0, that's Rule #1.Rule 0 is one the GM has to know but the players don't, which is:Rule 0: No Rule should ever get in the way of having fun. If a Rule does, break it.

I agree that what they said was rule 1, but rule zero is DBAD! Don't Be A D***! Where D*** is a portion of the male anatomy used for reproduction. I heard about DBAD as a "formal rule" on the order 66 podcast and it just makes so much sense

While a few people here say the cliché no story survives first contact with the players, that is not always the case.

The trick to crafting a story that WILL survive is to design your story right. I have already crafted short missions and decent story arcs going exactly as I planned. The one mission so far that didn't go as planned wasn't totally off course and it was a spur of the moment idea to give direction to a group that was lost.

Make your story flexible and it will survive. Don't only think of one option, think of multiple. Think of the "end goal" and work backward. What would someone do in real life? What would someone do in that situation if it was a movie? If they were drunk? Think of crazy ideas and plan for them. It isn't as hard as you think, but it does require you not wanting to hold onto the story like it is a baby made of glass.

The First Rule of GM'ing is have fun. The second rule of GM'ing is it is not YOUR story, it is a group story that you are leading. Design a crazy mission and see how they react. Give them unconventional challenges see if that stops them. Test them early.

Want to know if they would react badly talking to NPCs? force them to talk to each other. Write out some prompts to get one player against another and watch it play out. I did this twice so far in my group. When the campaign originally started and when I introduced a new person. Both showed how they react to unconventional scenarios.

Sandbox an idea you think they will react in a way you are not sure of, and see what happens. If they behave predictably you can work with that. If they do not, you can work with that. No matter what you have ideas based on a scenario that the outcome doesn't matter.

The problem I have seen from some GMs on the forums is they write a extremely linear story and are annoyed/caught off guard when people go sideways.

The best thing I did before I started my campaign was to run the beginner games and 1 random published adventure beforehand. Then I watched how the group reacted. After that I created an arena of sorts to test some ideas and then I proceeded to write the story.

TL;DR, Some people can write an unbreakable story, some people can't and some people don't try to box someone in. Have fun, Plan, Test. Don't be worried that bad stuff will happen.

P.S. No rule for GMing is absolute, except this one. =)

Make your story flexible and it will survive. Don't only think of one option, think of multiple. Think of the "end goal" and work backward.

This is a key important point. Try to separate the story goals from how those goals are to be achieved, and try not to invest too much energy in predicting how the players will achieve them. For example, if the PCs need to set up a secret bank account to hold money temporarily while funds are transferred to another party, they can do this in numerous ways, such as:

1. impersonate a wealthy person who wants a secret account

2. hack into the bank to set it up with a subtle routine to delete the account once its use has expired

3. have part of their team go to the bank at the crucial moment disguised as bank robbers, but their actual job is to monitor the transfer (and if they get a few unmarked credits, so much the better)

If you invest too much energy setting up for option 1, say, outlining the bank staff (tellers, guards, droid defences), the manager's stats, etc., and they end up going with option 2, it's a lot of work for little gain...the little gain being that sometimes (...sometimes!...) you can use those details in another setting or for another story.

You can certainly guide them to a choice by using other story goals, e.g.: if they need to pretend to be a wealthy investor to start a job rolling, that will suggest option 1 above, but you can't really count on anything.

I agree that what they said was rule 1, but rule zero is DBAD! Don't Be A D***! Where D*** is a portion of the male anatomy used for reproduction. I heard about DBAD as a "formal rule" on the order 66 podcast and it just makes so much sense

By narrowing it only to Gaming many gamers stop applying beyond the table. Don't be one of them.

I agree that what they said was rule 1, but rule zero is DBAD! Don't Be A D***! Where D*** is a portion of the male anatomy used for reproduction. I heard about DBAD as a "formal rule" on the order 66 podcast and it just makes so much sense

Wheaton's Law is a good rule, but it's not a Rule for Gaming. It's a rule for Life.By narrowing it only to Gaming many gamers stop applying beyond the table. Don't be one of them.

Regarding the definite need to emphasize DBAD at the gaming table, A friend of mine thought role-playing "a tough-as-nails drill Sargeant of a Jedi master" (his description/excuse for breaking the unspoken DBAD rule) accurately was a good thing, he's also a bit obsessive compulsive about rule following (at least his own interpretation of the rules) so if DBAD was in the book that would have curbed his bad behavior. I had to stop gaming with him because I couldn't have stayed his friend if I stayed in that game.

Have a good log/savegame of your sessions. In a future will be pretty useful

My own is an above 10 pages savegame XD

Prepare your anus they will take your words and twist them in pretzels.

Prepare your anus they will take your words and twist them in pretzels.

Whaaaaaat???

I think Tassedar means they'll take advantage if you don't word things very specifically (I am confident he's being metaphorical...).

Either that or he was using a very aggressive auto-correction...

Either that or he was using a very aggressive auto-correction...

I figured it was a metaphor. At least I certainly HOPED so. I just couldn't figure out what it was a metaphor for!

Plus... even I can have disturbing visions. My GM is my dad and... well... I'm not even going to say more.