This is it: The final session of the New Gamemaster Month program! We’ve come a long way over the past few weeks, and we’re closing in on your first game session.
In New Gamemaster Month we’ve been helping players who feel the urge to run an RPG—to become a GM for the first time—take the plunge. If you’re just joining us, start with the first installment. This is the final post, but you can catch up—and be a GM too!
In this, our last part of the 2025 New Gamemaster Month program, let’s talk not about GMing, but about characters. Why? Because your first act as GM will be to shepherd your players through the process of creating their characters—a process that’s likely to take up a portion of your first session.
If your players are seasoned veterans of your game of choice, they’ll be familiar with both the process of making characters and the types of PCs that adventure in that setting. If some or all of your players are new to the game, though, they’ll have questions. And they’ll look to you for guidance. You don’t have to be an expert on the game’s characters, but you need to be sufficiently conversant to be helpful to your players and keep the process moving along.
Choosing Characters
What kind of characters should your players make? That’s up to them. But it’s a good idea to have a variety of character concepts in your group. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, having a variety of strengths helps players successfully face a variety of challenges (or gives them options on how to approach challenges). This is practically codified in some RPGs—the classic dungeon-delving group includes a fighter, wizard, rogue, and cleric because you really need all those abilities to survive the dungeon. Many games are a bit looser, though, so it may be no crisis if your party is heavy on fighting types (for example) and light on talkers or magicians.
The other reason is you want to let each player have moments to shine. Imagine you’re playing a spy game, and the adventure involves stealthing into a high-security facility, a high-speed chase in a getaway car, and then a showdown with the thugs the opponents send after you. The character who’s great at defeating electronics gets a moment in the sun as you infiltrate the facility; the character who’s great with vehicles shines during the chase; and tough special-ops soldier type shines in the fight scene. Everyone has a moment in which his or her character feels crucial. If they were all sneaky types, nobody really gets the spotlight in that first scene (or any of them, frankly) and you might struggle just to make it through those other scenes.
Introducing Characters
One particular issue you’ll have in your first session is bringing the characters together. Sometimes this process can seem contrived or stilted (the stereotype in fantasy games is that the players all happen to be at a tavern when someone with an adventure wanders in). If you have a better idea, or if your adventure sets up a good introduction, great. If not, don’t sweat it. Your game will ultimately be about what the characters do once things get rolling, not about how they met.
Allowing Adjustments
One last thing on the subject of characters: Often, players don’t know exactly what they want when they sit down at the gaming table. Sometimes once the game starts, a player finds that they don’t really like the way their character works, or that it’s not really what they had in mind. And sometimes a group dynamic emerges for which the characters, as generated, aren’t a perfect fit.
You know what? That’s natural. It’s usually all right to let your players make adjustments to their characters after the first session. Just like a TV show that changes up a bunch of stuff after the pilot (ever watch the early episodes of the original Star Trek?), you’ll find that even if it seems odd at first, it makes little difference in the long run. And your game will be more successful if the players really love their characters.
Running Your First Game Virtually
At this point, you’re just about set!
Make sure you know how to invite players, so you can do so when game time rolls around—nobody likes spending the first 20 minutes of a session trying to get everyone into the game. If you’re going to play on a VTT, you’ll probably need their user names, or the email addresses associated with their accounts, to issue invitations. You’ll need their user names for a platform like Skype, or an email address to send a Zoom link.
Make sure you have these items, and you’re good to go. Have a great game!
There’s a lot of material in the character creation section of Numenera Discovery. Don’t panic: You don’t have to read too much of it. For the most part, it’s detailed information on the various abilities players might choose as they create or advance their characters, the bulk of which isn’t relevant now. What you do want do to, though, is familiarize yourself with the character types, the function of descriptors and foci, and the general character generation process.
Read these sections:
- Chapter 3: Pages 22-27 (That’s the whole chapter—but it’s short.)
- Chapter 4: Pages 28-29 (Stop when you get to the Glaive Background header.)
- Chapter 4: Pages 36-37 (Start at the Nano header and stop when you get to the Nano Background header.)
- Chapter 4: Pages 44-45 (Start at the Jack header and stop when you get to the Jack Background header.)
- Chapter 5: Page 53 (Just read down to the Charming header, but then scan a few descriptors throughout the chapter to get a sense of what they’re like.)
- Chapter 6: Page 58 (Just read down to the Bears a Halo of Fire header, but then scan a few foci throughout the chapter to get a sense of what they’re like.)
- Character Creation Walkthrough: Page 406-407 (This summarizes the process you’re going to lead the players through as they create their characters.)
In addition to this reading, you’ll also want to lay in some drinks and snacks if you didn’t do so as part of Monday’s activity.
Regarding getting the characters together, Numenera has a nifty mechanism to help you out with this: Each character comes with a built-in hook that connects him or her to another character, and several options for a connection to the first adventure. The link to the adventure is part of the character’s descriptor, and the connection to another character comes from their focus. In both cases, the players have some leeway in how to interpret these connections. In your first session, after you make characters, spend five minutes or so discussing these connections and how they relate to the PCs’ shin obligations, and you’ll find they really help players get into their characters quickly.
You’re Ready to Go!
Relax. It’s going to be a lot of fun. You’ve done a lot to get yourself up to speed, and you’re ready. Check it out:
- You have the rules and an adventure.
- You’ve read through the adventure, much of it more than once. You’ve given some thought to the encounters—enough to bring them to life, but not too much, because that tends to presuppose too much.
- You set up the time and place, and your players are ready to go. You have a sense of what they expect or will enjoy.
- You’re familiar with the general rules. It sometimes feels like you’re not familiar enough, but trust me, that’s natural. You and your players will do fine, and you’ll gain confidence as you go.
- You watched the How to Play Numenera video, so you’ve seen the game in action.
- You’ve read up on character generation.
- You’ve gathered up all the stuff you need.
- And most of all, you know that you don’t have to be the ultimate expert on the game’s rules or setting. You’re ready to be creative, to work your way through any pitfalls that arise in play, and to be spontaneous. You have what you need, and you have what it takes.
That’s it: That’s all the secret ingredients. You are ready. Go run your game!
Aaaand Step Nine. And Ten.
What? More steps? Didn’t we just get to “Go run your game?”
Yep, but your first session isn’t the entirety of your GMing career. You’re going to have a great time, and chances are you’re going to run a lot more than Taker of Sorrow over the weeks, months, and years to come. (In fact, it contains a great hook into another adventure: Vault of Reflections) And even if you don’t, Taker of Sorrow alone may well run through more than one session.
So, here are some things to do after your first session:
- Talk to your players about the time and place for your second session. (You might want to do that before you part ways after the first session.)
- Spend a few minutes thinking about how things played out, and how this session’s events affect the rest of the adventure.
- Review upcoming encounters, just like you reviewed the adventure’s early encounters in Step Six.
- Think about what might happen after this adventure concludes. Will you keep playing? If so, what will the next adventure be? There are several more in Numenera Discovery, along with Numenera Destiny, The Devil’s Spine, Weird Discoveries, and several of our short, PDF-only products. And, of course, you can always make your own!
And, finally:
- If you’ve run your first game session, tell us about it! You’ve “won” New Gamemaster Month, and we really, really want to hear how it went. Hit us on the New Gamemaster Month Facebook group.
- And check back here next week. We’ll do a followup post that sums up how things went for many of you, and talks about how you can apply what you’ve learned to future games you run—not just Numenera, but other game systems as well.
To start your first game session off, before you begin the adventure, you’ll ask your players to make characters. Depending on your players, it can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. Here’s how to prepare for that …
Read Up on Creating a Magical Kitty
Read the Rulebook pages 8-15 on “Making Your Kitty,” including the summary tables of all the Talents, Flaws, and Magical Powers.
Kitty Tips:
- If you see any Magical Powers that you’d rather not deal with, make note in your notebook to tell your players those aren’t available.
- You’ll probably also want to tell them they each need a different Talent, Flaw, and Magical Power from the other players, since overlapping is less fun for everyone.
- Remember to tell your players to draw their kitty picture LAST, since artistic players may want to spend some time on this, and they can do that at the same time you’re describing the adventure!
- The Kitty Cards deck is made for indecisive players. If you have these handy but totally optional cards, pull out three Talent cards, three Flaw cards, and three Magical Power cards to limit a player’s options to something more manageable.
Once you’re done with the basic character creation section, you can optionally read the details of the Magical Powers now, on pages 16-23. Or you can wait to read just the ones that your players actually choose, when they pick them.
Now You’re Ready to GM!
Relax. It’s going to be a lot of fun. You’ve done a lot to get yourself up to speed, and you’re ready. Check it out:
- You have the rules and an adventure.
- You’ve read through the adventure, much of it more than once. You’ve given some thought to the encounters to bring them to life for your players.
- You set up the time and place, and your players are ready to go. You have a sense of what they expect or will enjoy.
- You’re familiar with the general rules. It sometimes feels like you’re not familiar enough, but trust me, that’s natural. You and your players will do fine, and you’ll gain confidence as you go.
- You’ve gathered all the stuff you need.
- You’ve read up on character creation.
- And most of all, you know that you don’t have to be the ultimate expert on the game’s rules or setting. You’re ready to be creative, to work your way through any pitfalls that arise in play, and to be spontaneous. You have what you need, and you have what it takes!
That’s it: That’s all the secret ingredients. You’re ready. Go run your game!
What To Do Afterward?
So, here are some things to do after your first session:
- Award XP according to the list of questions on the back of the character sheets.
- Talk to your players about the time and place for your second session.
- Spend a few minutes thinking about how things played out, and how this session’s events affect the rest of the adventure. Are there any changes needed that you should put in your notebook to remember for next time?
- Review the upcoming encounters in the adventure again, so they’re fresh in your mind.
- Tell us about your game! We really, really want to hear how it went. Find us on the New Gamemaster Month Facebook group, and post your experiences and thoughts to inspire other people to become a GM for the first time!
- Then check back here next week. We’ll do a followup post that sums up how things went for many of you, and talks about how you can apply what you’ve learned to future games you run — not just Magical Kitties Save the Day, but other game systems as well.
Prepare for Your NEXT Adventure!
What happens after this adventure ends? What and where will your next adventure be? Here are some resources for continuing your Magical Kitties Save the Day campaign:
- Read the rest of the Rulebook. Pages 33-40 are about running full campaigns with hometown Problems. Pages 40-43 help you design your own adventures. Pages 44-59 have sample stats for Foes, and pages 60-63 have sample Disasters.
- Read the first part of the River City hometown sourcebook, and especially the adventure ingredients. There’s a whole city out there to explore!
- Think about which things from this adventure you can reintroduce in your next one. The kitties might very well return to the library to look up info for their next mystery, and visit their friends the talking books again!
- Need more adventure ideas? The free Ingredients Compendium PDF has adventure ingredients from the other hometown sourcebooks, all in one place!
- There’s also a free 20 Minute Demo PDF you can download to play next time, if you’re not quite ready to take the plunge on an extended campaign, or if you just need more time to write your OWN adventure!
Have fun saving the day! 😺🎉
All the character creation rules are in the Trail of Cthulhu rulebook, on pages 9 to 48.
The players don’t need to read these rules in detail – just be on hand to explain anything that isn’t obvious. Common questions include:
- How many points do I put into an Investigative Ability? One point means you’re trained or talented in that field; 2 means you’re both; 3 or more means you’re an expert. You don’t really need to have a rating of more than 3 in anything (Credit Rating is an exception; it’s determined by your Occupation).
- What Investigative Abilities do I need? Between you and the other players, try to cover every ability. Co-ordinate with the other players – ask “Who’s going to take Evidence Collection? Who’s covering History?”
- If I spend all the points from an Investigative Ability, how do I get clues? You still get core clues, even if you’ve spent all the points from a particular ability. As long as you have a rating in an ability, you can use it for finding core clues.
- How many points do I put into a General Ability? As a rule of thumb, 8 or more indicates an area you’ve specialized in. Remember, most tests have a Difficulty of 4, so think of it as 3 points = 1 success. If you want to be able to almost certainly succeed at hiding twice, put 6 points into Stealth, and so on.
- What’s this Cthulhu Mythos ability? You can’t put points into this ability during character creation.
- What about equipment and weapons? You’re assumed to have basic equipment with you, based on your Occupation and abilities. If you’re a doctor, you’ve got medical supplies. If you’ve got a high Firearms score, you’ve got a handgun. For everything else, use Preparedness.
In addition to this reading, you’ll also want to lay in some drinks and snacks if you didn’t do so as part of Monday’s activity.
Since we’re using premade characters for “The Cursed Farm”, we don’t need to go through the process of creating characters. Instead let’s personalize the adventure a bit and think about what might happen next.
If you’re feeling very ambitious (and if you’re a new gamemaster, don’t feel pressured to do this) you can alter the adventure to suit your player group even better.
There’s a group of outlaws that are here hunting one of the NPCs at the farmstead, but maybe one of the heroes has a relationship with the outlaws too. A long-lost brother, perhaps? These sorts of touches and flourishes can make an adventure feel much more personal, even if it was pre-written.
If one of your players puts a lot of focus on their hero’s family, you could make them a semi-distant relative of Eiríkur and Leifur, adding another layer to the conflict.
If another player likes animals, focus on the conflict with the ox and play up the bull’s distress rather than its aggression. Give them a creature to save rather than one to kill. Perhaps emphasize how much of an economic loss the bull’s death would be to the family.
None of this is required, but these small flourishes can make the adventure feel more personal to your players and make them care more.
Now What?
If you want to continue with the same group of players and the same group of heroes, there are plenty of directions that you could move after “The Cursed Farm”.
- Eiríkur asks the heroes to return the blade to his cairn, unable to do so himself, warning them that so long as the blade is not put to rest a curse will forever follow it.
- Leifur starts to look up to one of the heroes and asks to accompany them.
- One of the heroes recognizes the influence of the goddess Hel in the scorn pole, and it reminds them of a similar, longer-standing curse that had befallen an old friend.
- Björg is thankful for the aid the heroes have given and asks them to escort her to a meeting of their goði, promising to reward them for their service.
- Ulfur says that the outlaws who attacked here are only a small part of a much larger group, and pledges to finally redeem his troubled past by making sure they can’t hurt anyone else. He can’t do it alone.
You can use any or all of these options as a next step for your heroes, or invent your own.
A single night of play becomes a long-running campaign one session at a time. Just ask “what happens next?” toward the end of the night.
Being a gamemaster is just like any other skill: you’ll get better at it the more you do it, and the first steps tend to be the hardest. Now that you’ve taken those difficult first few steps, run your first game.
Then run your second. And your third.
Don’t stress about writing some grand, arcing narrative on your first outing. Concentrate instead of smaller, personal stories that will drive your heroes. Eventually, your campaign will start to write itself as villains organically escape and reappear, allies need help or show up to save the day, and a small problem turns into a bigger one that demands heroic attention.
And just like that, you’ve done it. You’re a gamemaster. That wasn’t so scary, was it?
Open your first session with a discussion of safety and consent (see post No. 2 in this series). Take a moment to nail down the team concept—the reason the Hunters work together. A quick way to do this is to draw inspiration from pop culture:
- Slayer and Entourage (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dresden Files books, Grimm)
- The Unexplained Cases Team (X Files, Primeval, Warehouse 13, Fringe, BPRD, Angel)
- The Order (The Librarians, Twenty Palaces books)
- Road-Tripping Hunter Family (Supernatural, Scooby Doo)
Have players look at the playbooks and make their picks. (Keep in mind, only one hunter of each type is allowed in a game at the same time.) Follow the instructions in each playbook to create the Hunters. If people seem to be getting bogged down in the choices, have them choose whatever seems coolest for now. They can always revise things after you play out the first session.
Once everyone’s ready, let each player introduce their Hunter: their name, playbook, looks, what they can do, etc.
Then it’s time for one of the most fun bits of the first session: go around the group and have each player establish their hunter’s history with the other hunters by picking one of the shared events or relationships from the list in their playbook. Help with suggestions if anyone has trouble coming up with something, and make sure everyone’s cool with the implications of these answers as suggestions get floated. This is the point at which the world of the game really leaves the Keeper’s hands and the players start to get involved.
The team’s story will likely arise from these relationships, so everyone has a basic idea of how the hunters got to know each other and started hunting monsters together. Given that the events of their backstory and relationships are fresh information, it sometimes helps to put together a rough chronology of what happened when.
If you want to cover the basics of playing the game, explain the player agenda (page 96), basic moves (page 101), what to roll and add (page 99), using Luck (page 113), when to mark experience (page 118), and how to level up (page 118). But don’t worry about drilling into the details of every single rule. The Powered by the Apocalypse system is lightweight and easy to understand. You can always cover the specifics as they pop up.
One final thing: check if anyone has a start-of-mystery move: the Chosen always does (“Destiny’s Plaything”), and an Expert, Flake, Initiate, or Spooky might have one. These moves often give players enigmatic hints or extra bits of information before the investigation begins in earnest. Ask them how they do the move, then have them roll and see what the effect is.
Begin the game with a teaser, a scene to introduce the hook to the mystery. In “Dream Away the Time” our mystery begins with a series of recent strange weather events, attacks on townspeople, and other unusual occurrences. You can narrate this and open with the hunters arriving in town (or meeting up if their team concept means they are locals.)
The investigation begins!
There’s no single best recommendation on where your party should start investigating or how to do it. For some groups the strange weather will be the hook. For others, concerns about the townspeople may spark their curiosity. Monster of the Week is an improvisational game in which you create a story together. That story emerges from a conversation between you and your players. Typically it falls on you to start that conversation.
Describe an initial situation. Try to include a detail that might appeal to the players’ curiosity or plays on elements from the hunters’ backstories and relationships. You don’t have to have a complete ready-made solution in mind for how to “fix” the situation—it’s often better if you don’t! Just give the players something unusual to act on, even if it seems small or minor.. Don’t worry about having the best idea, you just need a thought-provoking detail. Give them that, and they in turn will describe how their hunters respond. Give them another bit of intriguing detail in response to their actions and they’ll act on that again. Now you’re all engaged in the conversation, going back-and-forth and discovering the twisting bits of the mystery together. Each decision the hunters make leads to a new situation, requiring new decisions about what happens next.
The key is that the conversation keeps flowing. Be careful about saying “You don’t know” or “Nothing happens” as the investigation unfolds. Those phrases tend to stop the cycle of play. It’s better to give up some minor detail or a “wrong” answer than to block the players’ investigation by saying “you don’t know anything about that” or “that doesn’t do anything.” It’s somewhat paradoxical but the fun of a mystery is discovering things, not failing to discover things.
When in doubt about what to do next, refer to your Keeper agenda and principles. Ask lots of questions, and give your hunters opportunities to do cool things. Don’t be too precious about your role—oftentimes players will have better ideas than you do! Incorporating their theories into the mystery or adapting parts of what they suggest and then giving it a slight twist is a great way to keep them engaged and curious.
Above all, have fun—let the hunters run with the mystery, find ways to make the cool things they do extra cool, prompt them with questions when they stall, and show them the consequences (both good and bad) of their intervention in the monster’s plans. Be a fan of the players and they will be a fan of your game.
You got this.
Sections to Read & Review: The Hunters (pages 17-27); The Playbooks (pages 29-91); Get Ready for Action (pages 93-125); The First Session (pages 163-171); One-Shot Games (pages 292-293).
If You’re Using Roll20
Players roll for each move by clicking the two-dice symbol (red 6 and white 1) at the end of the move description in their character sheet, either from the basic moves in the Hunter Moves Reference near the top or in the Moves section of the playbook. The roll result will appear in the chat window.
The share button next to the dice roll button in playbook moves sends the full text of the move to the chat window for easy reference. No more “What does your move do again?”
Our Roll20 Marketplace modules for Monster of the Week come with templates for creating history maps between 3, 4, or 5 hunters. Simply edit the sample text and replace it with your own.
This is the last time we’ll speak. Let’s go over the plan once more. After this, you’re on your own.
Earlier, we got the equipment in order.
- Primary Objective: Assemble the materials required to run your game
- Secondary Objective: Review previous weeks’ entries, the scenario, and your notes
Now let’s cover what to do when the Agents show up.
Remind everyone to maintain the mood.
Gaming is fun. Being with friends is fun. Telling a good story is fun. Playing the Delta Green game is huge fun. Why? Because being an Agent of the organization Delta Green is decidedly NOT. It’s terrifying and deadly. The Agents make decisions in a bleak, dangerous, doomed world, putting their souls and lives at hazard for an uncertain purpose. The story improves immensely if everyone agrees to preserve the mood. See “How to Be a Player” on page 7 of Need to Know for pointers. Most Delta Green games are filled with rueful laughs around the table. Don’t let that get in the way of a shared experience of the Agents’ fears.
Start playing.
“Last Things Last” is short enough that a group can easily get through it in a single session of two to four hours. You’ve done the prep. Now finish the job. Don’t explain more rules if you can possibly avoid it. Just tell players to describe what their characters try to do. If it requires a roll, walk them through how to do that. Dive right in and keep the pressure up. There’s no time to waste.
Delta Green will have more assignments for anyone that makes it back. The survival of the species is on the line.There’s always more work to do.
Actionables
- Primary Objective A: Remind everyone to maintain the mood of Delta Green.
- Primary Objective B: Begin the operation.
You can do this.
He makes it sound easy, doesn’t he? Somebody’s got to put more meat in the grinder. You hear it yet? The gears turning, hungry for you?
I’ll train you up. I’ll do it right. Unlike that prick. Here’s the only thing you need to know to be a Handler. The Golden Rule. You ready for it?
The rules are gonna fail you. They always fail you. Learn ’em all you want. They’ll still let you down. They’ll leave questions in the air, thick enough you think you can see ’em. Pretty soon you’ll think you can see a lot of shit swirling in the air, irrupting through holes in reality with the mindless whims of Azathoth.
What do you do when the rules leave questions? How do you handle it? Where does the plot go in the quantum tumble? Left or right? Particle or wave? Is the cat dead or alive or something worse? The only rule is that rules are gonna fail, so what do you do?
You do what reality does. You make it worse. You make it more terrifying. You let it turn into something more awful.
That’s it. Entropy is the only answer. Don’t know what to do? Make it worse. If it’s good enough for God, who the hell are you to judge?
If the Agents don’t know what’s happening, it’s getting worse. That’s always the answer because that’s the world where we live and die.
There. You know the golden rule. I dub thee Handler. Go forth and serve.
The other guy was right about one thing. If you’re lucky, we’ll never meet again.
Today’s final installment of Tales of the Valiant New Gamemaster Month focuses on the final steps: character creation and running the adventure!
Character Creation
Character creation is a highlight of every player’s experience, but it can also be kind of a lot for the game master (GM).
Remember, the GM doesn’t need to know everything. Although there’s a lot of material in the character creation section of the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide, there’s no need to panic.
The character creation chapters provide detailed information on the various abilities players can choose when creating or advancing their characters. Most of this information is not immediately relevant. However, some players might want to look ahead at what their characters can become. To be ready for them, familiarize yourself with the character options, the function of magic, and the overall character generation process.
Read these sections from the Player’s Guide:
- Chapter 1, Character Creation & Leveling. Pages 11–19.
- Chapter 2, Character Classes. Pages 20–22.
- Chapter 3, Lineage and Heritage. Pages 104–105 (stop at Lineage Descriptions).
- Chapter 4, Backgrounds and Talents. Pages 117–118 (stop at Adherent).
- Chapter 5, Equipment & Magic Items. Pages 133–140 (Stop at Weapon Materials).
As players begin character creation, they have two options: choose a ready-to-play character or create their own personalized characters.
Ready-to-Play Heroes
Creating new characters can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. That might be too much for new players. If you aren’t familiar with tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) character creation, you might just want to use pregenerated characters.
For example, the free Valiant 6 characters are available for download. These iconic characters are ready to play at levels 1 to 4. For the adventure, Impregnable Fortress of Dib, use the Level 1 character bundle.
DOWNLOAD VALIANT 6 CHARACTER SHEETS
Creating Heroic Characters
If you expect more experienced players to participate or feel confident in guiding character creation, it can be beneficial to provide players with specific details, such as their character’s level, special story information, or other sources of inspiration that may influence their character design. Additionally, you can assist them with any questions related to the rules. Players should document their character details and decisions on a blank character sheet, as they will need this character for each game session.
DOWNLOAD BLANK CHARACTER SHEET
Time for Adventure!
You’ve done a lot to prepare, and you’re ready. It’s normal to be jittery before “showtime,” but it turns out to be a lot of fun.
Consider this:
- You are equipped with the rules and an adventure.
- You’ve read through the adventure multiple times and thought about the encounters. You’ve brought them to life in your mind, but left some room for surprises to happen.
- You’ve established the time and place, and your players are ready to play. You have a good understanding of what they expect and what they will enjoy.
Next Steps
Thank you for celebrating New Gamemaster Month with Kobold Press!
We hope you enjoyed your experience with the Tales of the Valiant RPG. As you progress on your journey as a game master, we want to provide you with some additional books and tools that can enhance your skills. These discounts are available until February 28, 2026.
We love hearing from our community, so make sure to share the outcome of your Dib adventure in the New Gamemaster Month Facebook group and with our community over on the Kobold Press Discord.
Happy Gaming!
Here’s a quick guide to the Archetypes, ranked from simplest to most complex.
🧭 The Explorer and the Territorial Ranger
These are the easiest characters to play. They don’t have powers or complex mechanics:
- Explorer: Straightforward and action-ready.
- Territorial Ranger: Simple mechanics, and their Favors aren’t likely to come into play during the adventure.
🔫 The Gunslinger and the Warrior
Both can attack twice in a single Action, but there are some nuances:
- Gunslinger: Rolls twice with no penalties, thanks to the Ambidextrous Edge.
- For each attack, roll a Trait die (Shooting) and a Wild Die.
- Warrior: Uses Frenzy for multiple hits but with some penalties.
- Rolls two d8s (Fighting) and a d6 (Wild Die) for the Tomahawk and keeps the best two results for up to two hits.
- Rolls an additional d8 (Fighting) and d6 (Wild Die) with a -2 penalty for a potential third hit with the knife.
✝️ The Blessed and the Huckster
These are the most complex characters to play due to their powers:
- Blessed: Needs Power Cards and a way to track Power Points.
- Note: Blood Steers aren’t supernatural evil, so the Champion Edge doesn’t apply to them.
- Huckster: Also needs Power Cards and Power Points tracking.
- Dealing with the Devil can be tricky but invaluable in tight spots.
- This ability can even cast the Blessed’s powers—or more, if you have access to Deadlands’ full power list!
🐂 You’re Ready to Play!
Dive in and have fun, even if the posse gets trampled by rampaging beef on the hoof!
Looking for more adventures? Check out the free “1 Sheet” adventures on PEGINC.com for Deadlands and other settings. If you want to explore further:
- Savage Worlds Adventure Edition: The essential GM guide.
- Savage Worlds Players Book: Perfect for diving deeper and exploring more character options.
Remember, enter NewGamemasterMonth2025 at checkout through February 2024 for $10 off the above books in PDF or Print.
Enjoy the adventure!
You’re almost there. This is the final step to get your game going and experience what it’s like to be a gamemaster of a tabletop RPG.
We mentioned once before that Dungeon Crawl Classics doesn’t have your players start with first level characters, but rather something called the 0-level funnel. The Portal Under the Stars—the adventure we’ve been referencing throughout these articles—is exactly that: a level zero adventure funnel. On page 16 of the DCC RPG core rulebook you’ll find a short section entitled “The Character Creation Funnel.” We recommend reading that for more information on the concept of a zero-level character.
But your players are still going to need characters. With DCC RPG, your players will begin by playing 3-4 characters at the same time. On page 18 of the core rulebook, you’ll find information about Ability Scores, which are the foundation of what your character can do from a physical and mental perspective, but the character itself comes from your player’s imagination. That section also tells you how to determine your character’s Ability Scores, and that is the first step your players need to take to create a character.
Now turn to page 21 of the Dungeon Crawl Classics core rulebook. You’ll see a section called “0 Level” and that is where the fun really starts. Read through that section and the one that comes after it entitled “Occupation.”
Once you have the character stats, starting equipment, and occupation, you’re done. No, really, that’s it. The characters your players will be using are basic villagers who don’t know anything of adventuring beyond the stories told around the fire at night. And there’s a reason why they’ve got 3-4 PCs under their control: they aren’t all going to make it.
Dungeons are a dangerous place, and despite the stories, death is much more common than they might think.
They are about to find out, though. Through the events of the adventure, not only will the personality and moments that forge your character come to life, but the shared experience they have with the others around them create a bond that allows them to move forward with true camaraderie.
You’re Ready!
It might seem like a lot, but relax. The goal is to have fun, and by reading through all of these posts, you’re ready to take on the game head on!
- You’ve got the rules
- You’ve read the adventure
- You know the when, where, and who of the session
- You’ve looked through the rules and have them there for reference
- We’ve just helped you build characters
- You’ve prepped all the materials you need for the game
- And you’ve got the right mindset. That last part is the most important, because you want to be here. You want to do this and you’ve prepared for the session. You don’t have to be perfect—no one ever is—you just have to have fun.
Unlike what you find in the game, there is no magic. It’s all in the mindset, and you have that already. Don’t stress. You’ve got this.
What’s Next?
Okay, fine, you want to know more. We get it. You just took your FIRST STEPS, but it’s a big world, and you need to know where to go. Well, after that first adventure, the PCs aren’t level zero any longer. Now’s the time that they all those fancy things like character classes, spells, armor, weapons, names…er, well, maybe they already had a name, but you never know. The rules for character advancement begin on page 26 of the DCC RPG core rulebook, and you’ve already got a grasp on the rules. Follow through and take these new adventurers on a quest they will never forget!
But on a more granular sense, here are some pointers for what to do immediately at the end of the game session:
- Talk to your players and schedule the next one. It’s always best to do when everyone is there to talk about it directly.
- Take a few minutes to talk about the session with your players. Find out what they liked, disliked, or wanted to see that might have been missing. A campaign is a living thing. Let it grow.
- Consider where you want the game to go. Are you going to create your own campaign? Or do you want to follow up with one of the many other adventures that have been published for Dungeon Crawl Classics? You can find them at your friendly local gaming store or online!
Congratulations! You are now a real Judge! Your gamemastering life has begun!
And finally:
- If you’ve run your first game session, tell us about it! You’ve “won” New Gamemaster Month, and we really, really want to hear how it went. Hit us on the New Gamemaster Month Facebook group.
- And next week there will be a follow up post to sum up how things went! Come on back one more time!
You’ve done it! You’ve got everything you need to run your first session. Now you just need one last read-through to prep for what your players might bring to the table, plus a few reminders and ideas for continuing with your party.
Read
Today, read through the pre-generated character packets in the Quickstart Adventure, familiarizing yourself with their class features, experiences, equipment, and card loadout pages. Each loadout will include a Community, Ancestry, and Subclass card, as well as 2 Domain cards. Chapter 1 of the Daggerheart Core Rulebook can tell you even more about what each aspect of their character means, but by and large everything you and the players need to know is in their sheet, loadout, and character overview page.
On the character overview pages, take a close look at the character connections (which are questions players will pick to connect them to each other) and the question in the breakdown section, which players will answer to connect their character to the story. Be prepared to facilitate the players answering these at the start of your session. As a note, if your players want to adjust those questions or connections based on the story you all want to tell, feel free to change those! As long as your characters are building their backstories and making some kind of connection with the group or quest, you are doing great.
You’re Ready to Go! Final Notes
You’ve read all the necessary sections, gathered all the necessary items, and you’ve probably read the adventure a you-don’t-want-to-think-about-it number of times. All that’s left is to sit down, take a deep breath, run the adventure, and most importantly HAVE FUN!
Everyone is going to forget a rule, an ability, or to use Hope or Fear in a perfect moment, but don’t sweat it—you have the tools you need to check up on a rule or to just make a ruling and go where the story takes you. After all, the rules are more like guidelines than law.
While you’re having fun, remember to take breaks, especially if it’s a long session. Bring snacks and drinks to stay hydrated and eat (and if needed, to use for miniatures or tokens). For the Quickstart Adventure, we suggest you take at least 1 break right after you finish Act 2 and before you enter the town.
After the Game
Once you’ve finished running your first Daggerheart game, congratulations! Now what? Well, first decompress. This could be by going over your notes, having the table talk through highlights of the night, or any other way that helps you and the players wind down. From there, it all depends on what you want to do.
Want to make your own adventure with this group or even start expanding on this one? Ask if they want to meet for a session zero to do some additional worldbuilding with maps and lore. Create your own adventure, either finally fleshing out that world stuck in your head or pulling inspiration from our six campaign frames.
Want even more Daggerheart?
- Join Daggerheart communities on Reddit and Discord
- Pre-order the upcoming expansion Daggerheart: Hope & Fear
- Buy dice & accessories on the Critical Role shop
- Playtest and give us feedback on our beta material in The Void
- Read through our Homebrew Kit and publish your own creations using the Daggerheart System Reference Document and Community Gaming License.
- Want to run even more games? Come GM for us at conventions! We partner with Double Exposure Envoy and use their Herald program to run events for us across the country.
We hope this is the start of a long and exciting journey for you as a GM, and we’re so honored for you to have joined us with Daggerheart. Happy gaming!
Throughout this program, we have expert GMs on hand to answer questions and provide general support at the New Gamemaster Month Discord Server or the New Gamemaster Month Facebook group. Please drop in, join the group, introduce yourself, and ask any questions you might have. Other new GMs will also be there—it’s a great place to share your experiences and support one another. Hope to see you there!
