Hey I'm actually quite new to the entire RPG scene.

I've been an avid boardgamer for about 4 years now, and a closet RPG fan for ages. Although I've never been able to find people interested enough to play with me if I do get the game.

But fortunately, only recently have I managed to entice a few of my fellow board gamers to Anima, thus I Have finnaly obtained the tome of my greatest desires. And by obtaining the boo, I've so far managed to snag a handful more who are intrested, so imagine my great surprise to find out the number of willing players grew from a mere 5 members to about 14 or so!

Unfortunately I've run into several speed bumps. Character Creation was of course a horrid mess, Even one as eager as I found it terrible and highly confusing. But several searches online and the usage of the FF forum board here, I managed to overcome that hurdle.

I'm still raw into this RPG scenario, but I'm glad to say purchasing this book has had a profound boost on my imagination. My characters come out so much more well-developed and I've gained back some of the writer's juice back in my noggin' not to mention my drawings/sketches have been much more active as of late.

I'm mainly making this topic to introduce my Group, I am angryhobo, GameMaster and I shall be posting up my character Pre-sets, My fellow gamer's characters, and plausible plots for my future games. As I want to run this game with as minimal troubleshooting as plausible. I do hope the community would help by chipping in advice.

Of course I'll be posting constant updates to any plots and new characters so, if any others would like to use them, feel free. I hope to be able to chat with the more active few of you o exchange more ideas soon. I'm also now currently looking for advice on running games. I'm still a virgin GM here.

Yours Sincerely,

angryhobo

Welcome to the RPG game. As a GM you'll soon discover the work is pretty hard. Since you want a few advices, I'll start with basics:

First: DON'T get more than 5 players (no more than 4 would be better). RPG is much more complex than board game. Although expert gamers can manage larger groups, for unexperienced players and GMs being more then 4-5 means having night-long organizations for single turns and stuff like that. The Anima combat System is already very time consuming...the more players you have the worse it gets.

Second: Athough the Anima Core Rulebook is very self-sufficient (much more so than for other games), when you have enough money consider buying the other books of the line. Gaia Vol 1 (Vol 2 is still unedited) is a very nice supplement, giving you tons of details on the setting and ideas to set adventures. The GM toolkit adds new advantages-disadvantages, new combat modules (very nice, especially for the Weapon Master), and optional combat and madness rules and a very nice adventure for your characters. Dominus Exxet, a book which will be released in english this spring, gives great depth to martial arts, ki abilities and techniques, new fighting styles named Magnus and new advantages called Blood Pacts. There are a couple more books released in spanish, but if you can't read spanish, you'll have to wait for them. They are both really good too, if you want some insight about their content, ask.

Third: If you feel like modifying something in the rules just do it, since it's not a shame, BUT before you do it, consider it carefully. Everything in those manual was the product of the work of professionals, so be cautious when you apply any modification, since you might end-up doing something that somehow unbalances or "breaks" the game. So be careful.

Fourth: Character creation will get easier with time. Don't get scared.

Fifth: Just to give you an idea on power levels of guys in Gaia. Most people are Level0. Level 4-5 guys are already really big and Level 7-9 are considered exceptionally skilled guys. Level10+ are only really exceptional individuals.

Sixth: Unlike in most board games, in RPGs the GM's role is not killing the players (although many crappy GMs play that way and go around bragging about how good they are at killing their parties). The GM's role is administrating the game and making the story go on. Of course the GM mustn't SAVE the characters' lives either. You have to set challenges (not just fightings of course) that are somehow achievable by the players. Still, if they play bad or are simply horrendously unlucky and end up biting the dust...so be it. Still if your players' characters die so easily, start asking yourself if something might be wrong in your storytelling. Both you and your players will improve, with time.

Seventh: Don't ask rolling dice for everithing. Make checks only when really required by the situation. The continuous dice-rolling is detrimental for the developing of the story and pretty much boring.

Eighth: If any of my previous suggestions doesn't fit your playing style and your fun concept, just ignore it. Playing is for having fun. Roleplaying, since there's no winners and losers, even more so. Play it your way. Just keep in mind that you and your players are doing it for having fun and rest assured you'll manage have a great time despite everything.

Should something else important come to my mind, I'll post it!

My reccomendation to new GMs - know the rules, but don't break your back doing so.

Remember: No plan survives the players. Not even the players' plans survive the players.

Be ready to improvise.

Plan your scenarios, but do so loosely. Try to signpost - if you want them to go from point A to point B, signpost the journey so that the characters will naturally go from point A to point B. Don't try to cut off alternatives - that's called "railroading". However, if the PCs walk in, and a bunch of angry yeth hounds attack the town trying to destroy a big tree, then the PCs might be motivated to investigate. If the town elder decides to lay down a modest reward (nothing big - see below), then so much the better. In this case, the tree and the hounds are all signposts - they tell the PCs what's in front of them.

Don't overreward. XP should be given out in a vaguely miserly way, as should other rewards (money, favors, etc.). Remember that the PCs, when acting as adventurers, are basically hireling vagabonds. Pay them accordingly. This isn't to say that you should starve them, but don't Monty Haul them either.

Classic dungeon crawls don't work well in Anima. They can be done, but they are really hard. LP don't come back easily, nor does Zeon. A single fight can take away a number of resources. The challenges have to include a lot of stuff that isn't fighting - fights, in Anima, aren't the filler.

My best advice is to be patient. Role playing is hugely different from any type of game you might have played before. And the shear amount of stuff written and discussed about how to do it "right" could fill libraries. But the truth is their isn't really any right or wrong, their is just what is fun for you and your group. It is going to take time for you to learn the rules, learn what role playing is, and most importantly of all learn your style.

I personally dislike pre-made characters and pre-made adventures, they might be helpful in getting started. One thing that makes building characters so difficult when you first make character is that you are asked to make all sorts of decisions about how to make your character and how to spend your points, but you don't know how those decisions will effect your character in actual play. So I would recommend getting the GM's kit, have the players pick a pregenerated character and then play through the intro adventure. Think of it as a practice, something to do before you build your own characters and run your own adventure.

If you don't want to do this, then at least run a practice fight with pre-generaated characters.

Ah, thanks for the tips folks.

I've been reading the core book quite intensely right now. Haven't even touched the GM's section yet.

Yes i do have Gaia Vol1 (Almost finished reading) and the Gamemaster's Kit. So I do have quite a headstart on plotting my own story. I'm planning on running my first game sometime around next week. With of course, the handful I onvinced along with me first, to get a feel of the game. And plus since I've shared many overnight sessions with them playing boardgames. I think It'll be definitely easier to run one.

I'll be posting up some of my player's character's sheet soon, I need to key them down into my computer first.

Once again, thanks, I've noted down the ones I agree on and I'll work hard on being a good GM.

-Angrieous Vagranteous