I’ve been playing role-playing games for a long time (I gamed for the first time with my brother when I was seven) and I’ve been running games for almost as long (I ran my first game when I was 11). I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, mistakes I’d like to prevent newbie GMs from making. Most of the advice is just general “know-how” and are systemless, but a good chunk of them have to do with GURPS (my preferred system engine) specifically. They appear alphabetically:
- A Matter of Price
- A Novel Approach to GMing, Part 1: The Plot Thickens (Guest Post by Scott Rochat)
- A Novel Approach to GMing, Part II: Do I Feel A Draft? (Guest Post by Scott Rochat)
- A Novel Approach to GMing, Part II: Here’s the Plan (Guest Post by Scott Rochat)
- A Novel Approach to GMing, Part IV: A Matter of Character (Guest Post by Scott Rochat)
- Apocalypse Features
- Avoiding Game Frustration (Patreon Special!)
- Avoiding the Avatar of GM Fiat
- Back to the Drawing Board
- Being a Worthy GM
- Being a Worthy Player
- Benchmarking Modifiers (Patreon Special!)
- Beyond the Hack n’ Slash (Guest Post by Alex Raymond)
- Bringing Newbies to GURPS
- Building History (Patreon Special!)
- Building a Mystery
- Building Player Characters to the Concept
- Campaign Creation Best Practices (Patreon Special!)
- Campaign Growth Best Practices
- Character Death, Part I
- Character Death, Part II
- Character Points, Embodied
- Character Point Debt
- Compromised Player Characters
- Contemporary Encounter – The Black Sun Road (Patreon Special!)
- Coping With Campaign Fails (Patreon Special!)
- Cutting Down Skill Rolls
- Dealing With Player Turnover
- Deomplicating Combat
- Delver, Get a Job!
- Designing Realistic Characters
- Different Disadvantages
- Dirty Laundry
- Dungeon Fantasising I (Guest Post by Hal Batty)
- Dungeon Fantasising II (Guest Post by Kyle Norton)
- Dungeon Fantasising III (Guest Post by Euan Hastie)
- Dungeon Fantasising IV (Guest Post by Kyle Norton)
- Dungeon Fantasy Apprenticeships
- Dungeon Fantasy CER-based Treasure
- Dungeon Fantasy Encounter – Battle at Bloodfire Falls (Patreon Special!)
- Dungeon Fantasy Loot Rolls (Patreon Special!)
- Dungeon Fantasy Musings
- Fairy Rings (Guest Post by Anders Starmark)
- Fixing Campaign Mismatch (Patreon Special!)
- Fixing GM Immersion (Patreon Special!)
- Fixing Player Immersion (Patreon Special!)
- FLASH…ahhhhh…backs?
- Flying Solo (Guest Post by Scott Rochat)
- For the Sake of the Game/Roleplaying
- Frakking Unusual Backgrounds, how do they work?!
- Framing Your Preferences, Part I
- Framing Your Preferences, Part II
- Framing Your Preferences, Part III
- Fun, World-Building, and Sandtrap Players
- Gamemastering High Point Totals (Patreon Special!)
- Gamemastering Urban Fantasy Campaigns (Patreon Special!)
- Gamemastering Wuxia Campaigns (Patreon Special!)
- GMing Danger Sense
- GM and Player Intercommunication
- Heroes With Many Hats
- Highway to the Danger Zone
- How I Designed An Adventure (Guest Post!)
- How I Prepare Adventures
- How Many Skills is Too Much?
- How Much Lore Is Hidden?
- How Tough Is It?
- I Know a Guy Who Knows a Guy
- I’m On The Hunt and After You…
- Learning From Your Mistakes
- Mad as Bones, Part I (Patreon Special!)
- Mad as Bones, Part II (Patreon Special!)
- Making Every Action Count
- Master of None
- Metagame Traits or Impulse Buys
- Mini-Location – Fantasy Smithy (Patreon Special!)
- Monster Hunters Encounter – Seal and Stone (Patreon Special!)
- Monster Hunters Campaign – The Broken Night (Patreon Special!)
- My Character Creation Process, Part I
- My Rules For Spending Points
- Narrative Focusing
- No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
- NPC Frequency of Appearance in Game Time
- On Rule-Breaking, Magic Systems, and Consistency
- On The Care And Feeding of Players
- One Size Fits All (Patreon Special!)
- Optional Rules for Terminally Ill
- Organizing Your Gaming Notes
- Overcoming GM’s Block
- Pacing Your Game Sessions
- Paid Gamemastering
- Player Immersion in Horror Campaigns
- Player Psychology
- Playing Child Characters
- Playing With High Point Totals
- Plot Points, Expanded
- Randomly Generated Traps (Patreon Special!)
- Recurring Villains and Their Care
- Reducing GM Overhead
- Safer than Houses
- Save vs. Spectate
- Short Sharp Shocks (Guest Post by J. Edward Tremlett)
- Shut Up and Roll!
- Simulatin and Shoutin (Patreon Special!)
- Slow Lane Sessions
- Someone Always Has to be the Nazis
- Split Power Levels
- Starting Point Totals
- Starting Point Totals, Part Deux
- Super-ST Options
- The 10 Commandments of Gaming
- Tainted Blood (Patreon Special!) (FREE SPECIAL!)
- Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Out as a Gamemaster
- Ten Tips for Starting Campaigns With Ritual Path Magic (Patreon Special!)
- The Adversary
- The Art of Creating Critters
- The Art of Making NPCs
- The Campaign Wheel
- The Ecology of Giant Spiders in Dungeon Fantasy, Part I (Guest Post by Anders Starmark)
- The Ecology of Giant Spiders in Dungeon Fantasy, Part II (Guest Post by Anders Starmark)
- The Heroic Index (Patreon Special!)
- The Plague City (Guest Post by S. A. Fisher)
- The Soul and Your Game (Guest Post by Emily “Bruno” Smirle)
- The Soundtrack of Your Game
- The Three Ring Circus – The Malefactors
- The Worthiness or Unworthiness of Complex Mechanics
- Tactical Maps, Anywhere, Anytime
- Using Psionic Powers in Action
- Unusual Background, Revisited
- Wealth as an Attribute (Patreon Special!)
- What I Think a Good Gamemaster Is
- What I Think a Good Player Is
- What’s Love Got To Do With It?
- What Makes a Worthy Campaign
- What Makes a Worthy Character
- What Makes Dungeon Fantasy Special, Part I (Guest Post by Antoni Ten Monrós)
- What Makes Dungeon Fantasy Special, Part II (Guest Post by Antoni Ten Monrós)
- When to Follow, Make, Ignore, Bend, or Break Rules
- You Need a +2 or Better Weapon