Starting a table-top RPG group

[Eddi]

I am going to start a table-top role playing game group in my home town next year

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

I am entirely new to this but plan to play with my sister and brother-in-law when they come for Christmas, to get a feel for it

I am also going to watch lots of games played on YouTube

I am planning on playing games that use the Savage Worlds mechanics and have ordered a rule book that should be with me soon

I have a friend who has a studio, I'm going to ask him if I could host it there

Does anybody have any advice?

Indeed does anyone have any experience?

 

[Secret Chief]

Does anybody have any advice?

Certainly not from me mate, cos I haven't got the faintest idea what you're on about.

 

[Quintessence]

My advice is not to watch lots of games played on SchmuckTube.

For a lot of reasons, but first and foremost for this one - you're not going to get representative gameplay by watching "influencers" online and the styles they use may or may not be appropriate for you and your group.

I've been doing tabletop gaming for something like two decades - both running and as a player. A lot of it boils down to two things: social/interpersonal skills and storytelling/acting skills. Neither of which are learned particularly well by reading books or watching videos. Savage Worlds in particular is rules light, so there is even more focus put on social skills and storytelling skills. This can be good or bad depending on style preferences of the group. Savage Worlds can be adapted to any genre which is a strength of the system and the really simple rules mean the storytelling doesn't get bogged down. If you are running you definitely DO want to know the ruleset fairly well, but the players should take some responsibility for that too.

To help with that, run a session zero. It is basically a pre-game session where you explain the campaign to the players and assist them in character creation as well as understanding some basics of the rules. Then you can do something akin to a video game tutorial area, which may or may not be part of the campaign proper depending on how you want to structure the story. Basically, you want to introduce the campaign, gameplay concepts, and the like over time so it isn't overwhelming. That will be easy in Savage Worlds because again, it's rules light. Maybe run through a brief combat so folks can understand the unusual initiative system Savage World has (it's amazing but it takes some getting used to if you're coming at it from more conventional RPGs).

 

[Viker]

I am going to start a table-top role playing game group in my home town next year

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

I am entirely new to this but plan to play with my sister and brother-in-law when they come for Christmas, to get a feel for it

I am also going to watch lots of games played on YouTube

I am planning on playing games that use the Savage Worlds mechanics and have ordered a rule book that should be with me soon

I have a friend who has a studio, I'm going to ask him if I could host it there

Does anybody have any advice?

Indeed does anyone have any experience?

Need tips and don't already know about this?

D&D 5e Dungeon Master's Guide : Wizards of the Coast : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

[Eddi]

My advice is not to watch lots of games played on SchmuckTube.

For a lot of reasons, but first and foremost for this one - you're not going to get representative gameplay by watching "influencers" online and the styles they use may or may not be appropriate for you and your group.

I've been doing tabletop gaming for something like two decades - both running and as a player. A lot of it boils down to two things: social/interpersonal skills and storytelling/acting skills. Neither of which are learned particularly well by reading books or watching videos. Savage Worlds in particular is rules light, so there is even more focus put on social skills and storytelling skills. This can be good or bad depending on style preferences of the group. Savage Worlds can be adapted to any genre which is a strength of the system and the really simple rules mean the storytelling doesn't get bogged down. If you are running you definitely DO want to know the ruleset fairly well, but the players should take some responsibility for that too.

To help with that, run a session zero. It is basically a pre-game session where you explain the campaign to the players and assist them in character creation as well as understanding some basics of the rules. Then you can do something akin to a video game tutorial area, which may or may not be part of the campaign proper depending on how you want to structure the story. Basically, you want to introduce the campaign, gameplay concepts, and the like over time so it isn't overwhelming. That will be easy in Savage Worlds because again, it's rules light. Maybe run through a brief combat so folks can understand the unusual initiative system Savage World has (it's amazing but it takes some getting used to if you're coming at it from more conventional RPGs).

Thank you for your reply!

A session zero sounds like a good idea

Are there any specific games you think might be good to start with?

 

[Quintessence]

Are there any specific games you think might be good to start with?

I dunno, Savage Worlds is so flexible. Maybe get a sense of the genre the players are interested in? Temper that with what you know and can weave a good story around? The dumb thing about Savage Worlds is you can mash together different genres. Want to do a historical campaign in Ancient Egypt but toss in some elements of psychological horror? Want to do a Hogwarts magic school but in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Go for it! It's dumb flexible.

The classic Savage Worlds is probably Deadlands though. That setting is... well, it's a genre fusion that Savage Worlds is great at. A sort of supernatural western with post-apocalyptic elements. The lore for it gets kinda deep though so if you want something you can make up on the fly you can just homebrew something. Maybe you've got a favorite TV show, movie, or video game you want to run a story for. Savage Worlds can do it.

 

[Eddi]

I dunno, Savage Worlds is so flexible. Maybe get a sense of the genre the players are interested in? Temper that with what you know and can weave a good story around? The dumb thing about Savage Worlds is you can mash together different genres. Want to do a historical campaign in Ancient Egypt but toss in some elements of psychological horror? Want to do a Hogwarts magic school but in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? Go for it! It's dumb flexible.

The classic Savage Worlds is probably Deadlands though. That setting is... well, it's a genre fusion that Savage Worlds is great at. A sort of supernatural western with post-apocalyptic elements. The lore for it gets kinda deep though so if you want something you can make up on the fly you can just homebrew something. Maybe you've got a favorite TV show, movie, or video game you want to run a story for. Savage Worlds can do it.

They do a Flah Gordon game that I've decided to get

That should be fun

"Dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body!"

 

[libre]

The new Spelljammer DND book 'Light of Xaryxis' is inspired by Flash Gordon, might be worth checking out if you are interested in 5th edition dnd.

In my view if you're running a new group, system doesn't matter as long as it's simple enough you can teach them or they can teach themselves if they are interested in such.

 

[Heyo]

I am going to start a table-top role playing game group in my home town next year

Great.

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

Yep, band of five is the optimal size.

I am entirely new to this but plan to play with my sister and brother-in-law when they come for Christmas, to get a feel for it

I am also going to watch lots of games played on YouTube

I am planning on playing games that use the Savage Worlds mechanics and have ordered a rule book that should be with me soon

I'm not familiar with Savage Worlds.

I have a friend who has a studio, I'm going to ask him if I could host it there

Does anybody have any advice?

Indeed does anyone have any experience?

Some. Been playing and mastering for 40+ years. And wrote my own system.

I guess that your players are also new to roleplaying? (If not, get an experienced player to master a few sessions before you take over.)

RPGs are complicated games with a rich environment and a lot of rules. I've found it useful to ease the players (and yourself) into the world. Find (or write) a campaign that has a limited environment, usually some dungeon crawler. Introduce only the most basic rules, ignore most of the character sheet, only the basics.
Expand the character sheet and the rules with subsequent sessions.

Remember that the goal of the game is to have fun - and most people don't think of nerding about the rules as funny.

 

[an anarchist]

I am going to start a table-top role playing game group in my home town next year

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

I am entirely new to this but plan to play with my sister and brother-in-law when they come for Christmas, to get a feel for it

I am also going to watch lots of games played on YouTube

I am planning on playing games that use the Savage Worlds mechanics and have ordered a rule book that should be with me soon

I have a friend who has a studio, I'm going to ask him if I could host it there

Does anybody have any advice?

Indeed does anyone have any experience?

Exciting! I am planning on game mastering next year for the first time! I am in the same boat as you. I am currently writing an original campaign set in dinosaur times. I’m not the first fella to come up with the idea, there are plenty of dinosaur miniatures that are available that I will use.

Idk what you’re doing story wise, but I have a 3 act campaign planned, but I am going to focus on writing act 1 and then run the game when act 1 is ready. A lot of something I’ve seen on YouTube is dungeon masters saying you don’t want to “railroad” the players I.e. force them along a certain path, so I’m gonna write act 1 and then wait to write act 2 when the players play the game so I can write a direct sequel based off of their actions.

 

[an anarchist]

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

I’m also gonna run the game the first time with just one player I think. My brother has agreed to play and I think using just one player can be a good trial run before game mastering for a whole group.

 

[Heyo]

A lot of something I’ve seen on YouTube is dungeon masters saying you don’t want to “railroad” the players I.e. force them along a certain path

That's generally a good rule, but for your first campaign you want to take your players by the hand, so they don't get confused or overwhelmed by the choices. And you don't want to get confused yourself, or thrown totally off script because your players take an unexpected path.

 

[Martin]

I thought RPG meant rocket propelled grenade, but I guess that wouldn't work well as a table-top game.

 

[Quintessence]

That's generally a good rule, but for your first campaign you want to take your players by the hand, so they don't get confused or overwhelmed by the choices. And you don't want to get confused yourself, or thrown totally off script because your players take an unexpected path.

I'll second this. While a strength of tabletop RPGs is theoretically infinite flexibility, the reality is to tell a coherent story you can (and should) set up guardrails for your campaign. Especially for new groups and new systems.

Some campaigns are deliberately structured to be sandbox/exploration versus more linear. Depends on the story you want to tell, the scope of the campaign. It's okay if there are a few contrivances here and there for the sake of the story. Such contrivances are especially used to gather the party together to have a coherent starting point that includes everyone.

 

[Nimos]

I am going to start a table-top role playing game group in my home town next year

I'll want to get four or five people to join, with me being the Game Master

I am entirely new to this but plan to play with my sister and brother-in-law when they come for Christmas, to get a feel for it

I am also going to watch lots of games played on YouTube

I am planning on playing games that use the Savage Worlds mechanics and have ordered a rule book that should be with me soon

I have a friend who has a studio, I'm going to ask him if I could host it there

Does anybody have any advice?

Indeed does anyone have any experience?

I used to play lots of RPGs when I was younger, was a lot of fun.

For me at least I would say that the most important thing for the GM is just to be able to tell a good story, you don't need to fully flesh it out, but just have a good idea of what you want the players to go through and always be ready to change certain rules if you and those you play with don't like them or think they could work better for your group.

I think if I should play RPGs now, I would make use of ChatGPT to help me with the story, just throw in some keywords/ideas you have and then have it write it for you and just adjust it to your liking.