How was the first time you DM a game /tg/? was it good?
Tell me your stories
I was young and foolish.
It was Eclipse Phase.
I didn't quite grasp the setting so basically gave the PCs a copy of the Normandy from the ME vidya game series.
Highlights include my "badass" helper NPC getting shot to almost death in one round and having to puss out, an MG called "The Masticator" (which could only fire full-auto), and their ship being sabotaged by invisible ninjas (the ninjas shot their cyber-hound to death).
I think it was good, it was enough to make me fall in love with EP forever and a friend of mine still cites the moment on the ship where they realized something was amiss as one of his RPG highlights.
My first time was pretty fucking rad
>Party breaks out of jail, and in the process
>Shardmind shoves his hand up a flaming dire rat
> +1 flaming rat mace
>Proceeds to flail it at the rouge who was being all edge-dark in the corner
>Escort exclaims "THESE ARE THE ONES WHO MUST SAVE OUR LAND!"
>Dies soon after
>Exit sewer gate
>Basically fight mudcrabs
>Basically rip off Oblivions beginning
>Set up camp for the night on the sands of a lake
>Suddenly bandits
>Set whole field on fire
>Forest blocking the path
>Set that on fire too
>Bust through bar door
>Ruin barkeep's day
>Sleep
>Go to pet store
>Shardmind accidentally crushes a kitten
>Gets his ass beat
>Ass kicking prevented by public nudity
>Have to collect fireflies
>Get attacked by swamp trolls
>Run up a hill
>Throw a miniturized cow at them
>Bowling is now a sport
>Drugs for everyone
That's about all i can remember. If explanation is needed, please ask.
>>45745462
>Campaign made by forever DM with the idea of making it mission based so that anyone in the party can DM and we can have a rotation
>I'm the only one who volunteered
>Didn't want it to be disappointing so prepared the ever loving fuck out of it. Several pages of notes detailing the village they were going, it's history, the names of the characters, what they can buy there, alternate paths and plot hooks they can take, what to do if they don't take plot hooks, setting descriptions, lines of dialogue
>Spend hours upon hours prepping this elaborate story with enough backup in case things don't go as planned
>Day comes, everything goes well, battles are smooth, story elicited some great roleplay, players got really invested in the conflict
>"Hey great work on the session Anon. You want to do the next one too?"
>Agree without thinking
>Sudden feeling of horror upon realising all the work I would have to put in again to do another session
Luckily I've since learned how to improvise and now I'm DMing my own campaign.
>>45745462
I was young and silly.
Did it go well? Yeah, players loved it and I had a blast. Was it good? No. No it was not.
First time I GMed I invited all the people I thought would be interested, which resulted in 7 players.
They mostly dicked around this village before several hours were up and little was accomplished.
Second time was great, though. Invited just 3 people and I've since decided 3 is the optimal player size. Everyone gets a spot in the limelight, it's easy to remember shit for them and it's diverse enough they can cover anything they want if I cooperate.
>>45745462
First game I ever DM'ed was back in high school. Inquisitor had just come out and in a fit of genius/retardation I cobbled together a skill system for it and called it a roleplaying game. First session had the party as an inquisitorial team sent to investigate a space hulk. I then proceeded to rip off Event Horizon and The Thing has hard as I could. At the time I thought it was the greatest entry into science fiction suspense and horror since HP Lovecraft. Looking back it was awful.
Still, I suppose it wasn't all bad. I recently recycled the general plot and plot points in a Dark Heresy game.
People said they were having fun, but I got overwhelmed with life stuff and ended up having to stop after a few sessions.
>>45745462
I was like thirteen and got invited by a buddy to co-GM a forum RP.
It was ostensibly AD&D 2e, buut the rules were thrown to the wind almost immediately and it consisted of a chain of inane random encounters and powergaming.
>>45745745
>>Drugs for everyone
The story sounds sounds like this part is OOC.
>>45745462
My first campaign was on the Black Crusade system.It was quite a while ago and I don't remember a whole lot about it, except for the fact that my first campaign was ruined by a That Guy. I had a lot of fun with it though and my players were really sad to see it end even though they understood why.
I do remember the first session the group pilot failed five consecutive fly checks and crashed the ship the party was in into an acid lake.
>>45745462
It went pretty well, me and my wife made a custom ruleset for a comedy/superhero game. Basically we would have our players go on the random powers wiki and hit refresh 3 times to choose their powers. Our team was
>A talking sink with water shooting sink hands who was augmented by friendship
>A dimensionally aware super girl with the ability to pull things from other worlds and make people's hair fall out
>A scientist with the face of a baby who could copy organic matter, clone himself, and biologically fuse to things
>An invincible guy with a voice so sexy that nobody could resist him
and
>A complete edgelord with dark shadow crystal sword powers
I've got some pretty fun stories if anyone wants to hear them.
was absolute shit.
I didn't fully understand 3.5 but knew enough to attempt to run a game. I ended up just fudging everything I didn't know how to do. Players bought it and everyone had fun (we were all friends anyways so it was no biggie)
I've learned since then (mainly that 3.5 is shit) and the experience was helpful. I was stressed out the whole time and realized the importance of preparation.
Funny thing is I still rarely prepare a full session, I just got a lot better at improv
My party said they liked it, but I thought it was shit and they're just being nice.
>Let them know ahead of time it'll be railroady as fuck because first time
>They're ok with it.
>Party going to a tower because they heard any who reached the top was granted a wish.
>Enter tower, have to wait at a reception because the tower's "already occupied"
>After a few seconds, horrible screaming and machinery can be heard
>Occupied light goes off and party allowed in.
>"Puzzle" room
>Portrait of a king holding a rod and a key.
>In the room is a large statue holding a staff, the other fist clenched
>wonderifwecansolvethismystery.jpg
>Pry statue's hand open and grab key
>Statue takes offense and attacks. Golem is indestructible
>Party knocks it over and flees up the tower.
>Throwaway fight ensues against statues. Fight on a timer because the Golem is in pursuit, and door's locked until statues defeated.
>End the fight as Golem arrives and fleeing continues.
>Dodge through a bunch of traps and shit. Golem chases, the traps breaking against it.
>Another fight happens against...something.
>Finally reach the top, tower seems much taller on the inside than the outside.
>Open balcony with a gated bridge leading to another room, party above the clouds at this point.
>Locked by the Golem's presence.
>They open a trapdoor that drops the Golem down the tower.
>Gate opens and they rush in for their prize.
>They open a chest inside the room.
>Inside is a chest full of rings, and a note.
>Note reads: "Gotcha. -signed Jester.
>PS: Hahahahaha"
>Jester is another DM's homebrewed God of chaos, trickery, and being a dick.
>While the Fighter is fuming(IC), Cleric checks the rings.
>Every single one is a Ring of Feather Fall.
>They grab a ring each and jump down the trap door to the bottom of the tower.
>Land on top of the golem, who left a small crater in the floor, currently stuck and can't harm the party at all.
>They leave and set the tower on fire.
Half-assed the entire thing desu.
>>45747888
I made similar mistakes in the beginning. My max count was 8, and not one fun was had. Now I run with 2 and everything is golden.
>>45745462
Back in elementary school, we found a silly roleplaying book in the library and tried it out. It was a 2d6 system, with three classes.
Fighter, mage, thief and a couple of adventures.
It was fun, but very simple. Nobody played cringe characters.
As the months went by we worked on modifying the system and setting to our liking, and after about a year we dropped the system.
DMing my first ever session this Friday. W-wish me luck.
>>45753885
I'm sure you'll do fine anon. Just remember, take time to plan out your session and prepare to improvise.
Tried running Shadowrun.
Players were not interested enough, even with Food Fight, to even pay attention.
That's what happens with Roll20, I guess.
>>45745462
>want to DM game
>current DM is terrible
>Time in game progresses about a day per session
>There are things our characters are due to get in several ingame months
>I've asked the DM if he really expects the game to go for over two real life years
>He said yes
Suffering.
It wasn't fun. I foolishly decided to run Pathfinder as a newbie.
>>45755203
And now... do you still run games?
>>45745462
Tomorrow is my first day DMing.
Send me your energy friends.
>>45755203
>pathfinder
is all about breaking balance isn't it?
>>45755295
Congratulations, bro!
What're you playing?
>>45755348
My Little Pony d20. We are not using the official setting though,
>>45755348
Using 5e. Brave new world setting.
An heir to the throne that was passed over just picked up and left that shit.
Going full american colonies.
>>45755380
Cool!
I wish you luck in your future adventures.
>>45755397
Since its my first time I may do a little slight rail roading.
Thinking of having a Copper Dragon and a Red Dragon going at it with their respective kobold underlings going total war with each other and my PCs and the heirs people just happening upon and being in the middle of it.
That is what I want the overall story to be about anyways
I know the best quality a GM needs is to be able to improvise and judging from my time as a PC all these years i doubt any of my former GMs plans went according to their wishes.
>>45755419
Well, if I started GMing I would tie my players to the tracks so they don't stray off no matter what, so it's understandable that you want them to follow the rails at least for your first experience.
I started with Call of Cthulhu and back then didn't really have a clue how that game is supposed to be run. We played The Haunting and the characters beelined to the house and killed the bad guy.
We were all newbies so it wasn't too bad as no one knew any better at that point. That game takes considerable skill and understanding of the system and the theme to run a smooth and engaging game because you can't rely on just throwing combat encounters at the characters.
It's still my game of choice and will probably be till the end of time. There's just something about running that game that intrigues me plus it offers endless possibilities for refining some core roleplaying skills like social interaction, description, mood etc.
>>45755249
Yeah, I now have my own homebrew that runs (in comparison to PF's snail-like crawl) very fast and that has 40 pages rules instead of 4000.
>>45755548
Good on ya!
What kind of setting is your favourite/do you like to run most of the time?
>>45745462
I've been a DM for some time, but most of my experience has been with DnD.
Going to be running Exalted soon, and I have absolutely no idea wtf I'm doing rofl
>>45755627
The setting is nice... too bad the system is not the same
>>45745462
My first time I ran 3.5 because it was the only game I knew. I only had two players, good friends I felt wouldn't judge me if I was bad at it, and I figured two people would be easier to handle. I told them they were going to start out in this small village.
One guy rolled a fighter.
One guy rolled a bard.
Village was attacked by bandits and a werewolf demon thing. Bard hid in the wheat. Fighter fought the bad guys, got captured. Bard stayed in the wheat. Bard's mother got killed, sister got kidnapped. Bard stayed in the wheat. Fighter and the village children were put in a cage and carried off. Bard stayed in the wheat.
So within twenty minutes they were separated. The fighter managed to get out of the cage and run back to the village. He met up with the Bard, lone survivor of the town, and they decide NOT to follow the Bard's sister and the bandits and all the kidnapped children they know. They head off in the other direction.
I try to be accommodating, flexible. I have them come to a tower. they skirt around it. I tell them they see a caravan at an oasis. They skirt around it. They finally stop at a temple because they're out of water. Hear about a monster inside a maze beneath the temple.
They spend over an hour arguing out of character, the fighter wanting to go through the maze, the bard wanting to leave. They finally go through and at the end, they find an artifact. It's a tremendously powerful intelligent item, basically a magic 3D printer with an artificial intelligence, willing to obey commands. They are suspicious of it, choose to leave it behind.
It was an odd game. Although they said they had fun.
