Post by cal585 on May 20, 2011 14:55:12 GMT
Hello, new member posting for the first time. Apologies for the rambling!
I recently bought the game and have coerced a few friends into giving it a shot with me. All 3 have some sort of Drama background (except me) and are rather unfamiliar with RPGs (except one who’s played D&D once or twice) which makes it rather exciting (and all are relaxed Who fans!). Unfortunately however, me owning the books makes me GM. Rather daunted by that prospect. Anyone have some general advice for a newb?
I started off attempting to run Judoom!, however that didn’t work so well. We were pretty pressed for time and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing. It ended up with me railroading a fair bit and still running out of time. Despite that however, everyone’s still willing to keep going, so I suppose it was a success. I also learnt a fair bit about GMing.
A couple of questions about the concept:
1 – How much time should you allow for a game? Looking in the book, and it’s mentioning people healing 1 attribute an hour or day. That would seem like a long session.
2 – How much roleplaying is needed from the GM? With so many characters, and conversations, there seems to be a lot of stuff needed and I don’t have the quickest tongue for thinking up adequate responses. I found that in Judoom! I went into narrator mode a fair bit. Explaining/summarising what characters were saying rather than acting it out.
3 – The other thing that I wasn’t sure about was Observation tests. I’m assuming this is something that is picked up pretty quickly by people who’ve played RPs before. The way I thought to run it was to get people to make an observation test every time they asked me about something in the room. But a lot of things were getting missed. A bit of enlightenment would be good here
4 – Finally, how much work is required by the GM? Allowing players to do their own thing, I guess you split the story into 2 phases? Discovery and action. And within those phases you note down locations, NPCs, possible events and clue location and then just go with the story they create?
Sorry if I seem like a helpless newb .
The other issue is that my friends don’t have much time to meet at the moment, so I was thinking I might try a short introductory scenario via Email to see how it goes more than anything. How do mixes of PbEM and real time go? If I was able to organise short times to play through conflicts quickly. It just seems that would be the easiest thing to do.
Currently got a plan to have each start of individual for the first half and then meet for the second half. I'm working with the 10th Doctor, River Song and Captain Jack. Should be interesting. Also have come up with what I think is an interesting adversary. A Time Agent (hadn’t planned for them to be rogue but that could also work). Not evil as such, but maybe uncaringly planning something harmful. Do these sort of characters work well as adversaries? They don’t have the love to hate quality of villains, but might get the players sympathising with them a little more...
Anyway, I’d love some input from more experienced (or even inexperienced – though not sure that’s possible) players. Sorry for the length
I recently bought the game and have coerced a few friends into giving it a shot with me. All 3 have some sort of Drama background (except me) and are rather unfamiliar with RPGs (except one who’s played D&D once or twice) which makes it rather exciting (and all are relaxed Who fans!). Unfortunately however, me owning the books makes me GM. Rather daunted by that prospect. Anyone have some general advice for a newb?
I started off attempting to run Judoom!, however that didn’t work so well. We were pretty pressed for time and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing. It ended up with me railroading a fair bit and still running out of time. Despite that however, everyone’s still willing to keep going, so I suppose it was a success. I also learnt a fair bit about GMing.
A couple of questions about the concept:
1 – How much time should you allow for a game? Looking in the book, and it’s mentioning people healing 1 attribute an hour or day. That would seem like a long session.
2 – How much roleplaying is needed from the GM? With so many characters, and conversations, there seems to be a lot of stuff needed and I don’t have the quickest tongue for thinking up adequate responses. I found that in Judoom! I went into narrator mode a fair bit. Explaining/summarising what characters were saying rather than acting it out.
3 – The other thing that I wasn’t sure about was Observation tests. I’m assuming this is something that is picked up pretty quickly by people who’ve played RPs before. The way I thought to run it was to get people to make an observation test every time they asked me about something in the room. But a lot of things were getting missed. A bit of enlightenment would be good here
4 – Finally, how much work is required by the GM? Allowing players to do their own thing, I guess you split the story into 2 phases? Discovery and action. And within those phases you note down locations, NPCs, possible events and clue location and then just go with the story they create?
Sorry if I seem like a helpless newb .
The other issue is that my friends don’t have much time to meet at the moment, so I was thinking I might try a short introductory scenario via Email to see how it goes more than anything. How do mixes of PbEM and real time go? If I was able to organise short times to play through conflicts quickly. It just seems that would be the easiest thing to do.
Currently got a plan to have each start of individual for the first half and then meet for the second half. I'm working with the 10th Doctor, River Song and Captain Jack. Should be interesting. Also have come up with what I think is an interesting adversary. A Time Agent (hadn’t planned for them to be rogue but that could also work). Not evil as such, but maybe uncaringly planning something harmful. Do these sort of characters work well as adversaries? They don’t have the love to hate quality of villains, but might get the players sympathising with them a little more...
Anyway, I’d love some input from more experienced (or even inexperienced – though not sure that’s possible) players. Sorry for the length