Hey all. my girlfriend is going to run our first Age of Rebellion campaign in about a month. This will be her first time in the GM seat, though she has been role-playing for about a year. This will be everyone's first time with the system, Beginner Game notwithstanding. What tips, warning, and general advice do you have her/us? We will be using only the published adventures.

Check this thread out:

7 hours ago, HaphazardNinja said:

What tips, warning, and general advice do you have her/us?

That's a tall order, GMing is a never ending learning experience. Robus' link is a good start, but if there's one rule to rule them all: don't sweat the small stuff. If you're not sure how to handle something, make a ruling that makes sense in the moment, and move on. You can always check the rules later and handle the situation better next time. If you're a player, even if you don't agree, let the GM make the ruling and let it go.

If you're running the published modules, keep in mind the difficulty dice are usually presented without any upgrades or setback. The GM should feel free to add setback on occasion (to reflect conditions not spelled out in the module), flip a DP frequently to upgrade, or even upgrade without a DP if they feel the situation warrants the risk of a Despair.

Also for the published modules, they tend to expect the players to follow a certain path. If you're learning the game, it's fine to ask the players to stick a little more closely to the script while you learn the system. Eventually you'll learn how to handle it when the players go completely off the rails, and those will likely be the most fun.

Related to that, the best way to handle players doing the unexpected is to be as familiar as possible beforehand with the module. The key things are almost always going to be the NPCs and what they want. What's less important is getting information A at Cantina X, and information B at Club House Y. If you have a handle on the NPCs and the information the PCs require, you can usually move information to where you need it, and the players don't need to know you moved anything.

Last bit: if you realize you're about to kill the players off because some encounter went poorly, capture them instead. NPCs might be interested in what the PCs know (giving them time to stage a jailbreak), or might be interested in making a deal.

Those were kind of random tips, hope it helps.

My rules for new GMs:

1. Have fun.
2. Be chill.
3. When in doubt, let the PCs "win."
4. Only have players roll dice when it matters.
5. Know the scenario you want to run but let the players take the wheel.
6. If they aren't willing to take the wheel, feel free to hit them with very obvious clues to get them moving.
7. Stat cards for NPCs and ships are your friends.

A narrative game system like FFG Star Wars is very fungible with the rules. So long as she's being consistent with her rulings, the players shouldn't have a problem.