Charles Ryan

If everything went to plan, you are now an accomplished GM—congratulations! (If you couldn’t schedule your game this past weekend, don’t fret. There’s no hard deadline, or bad grade for “late work.” Feel free to read on, or come back to this post after you run your game.) Hopefully it went well, and hopefully you agree with what we said in the very first session, back in early January: The secret sauce is nothing more than a little bit of prep and a nice helping of confidence. You did the prep, you gained the confidence, and you did it! So, […]

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.

It’s the final week of New Gamemaster Month. Just a few more things to cover before you’re ready to run your game! You’re almost a full-fledged GM. Basic training is about over, so this time we’re going to focus on honing the skills we’ve already discussed. Before we do, though: What Do You Need? Let’s talk about what you’ll need on the fateful evening (or afternoon, or even, perhaps, morning) of your game. So far we’ve been talking mostly about skills and confidence, but this is about the actual physical stuff. The short answer is: You don’t need much. You’ll

This is the sixth installment of New Gamemaster Month! We talked on Tuesday about encounters and their importance to the unfolding narrative of your game and the pace of play. Today we’re going to dress things up just a bit, by talking about the details that bring an encounter to life. Details, Details Details really amount to two things: informational details, tangible details, and descriptive details. OK, that’s three things. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Informational details include stats for creatures, maps of locations, details about the difficulty of a challenge, and names, descriptions, and personalities of NPCs. How much

Welcome to week three of New Gamemaster Month! If you’re just jumping in, don’t fret—it’s not too late. You have a bit of catching up to do, but nothing you can’t handle. More on how to catch up at the bottom of this post. This week we continue to explore the rules and setting, and develop our thinking about the adventure. Encounters! First, let’s talk about encounters. Encounters, sometimes referred to as scenes, are the meat of your adventure. As mentioned last week, an encounter is a point in your adventure where something happens, and usually where the characters (and

This is the fourth installment of New Gamemaster Month! On Tuesday, we started digging into the rules and setting of our games. Developing a basic fluency in these topics—without sweating the details too much—gives you a foundation for keeping your game sessions flowing at a brisk and enjoyable pace, and allows you to form and run with your creative ideas and those of your players without the distraction of wrestling with unfamiliar rules. So if that’s the foundation, what do we build upon it? The adventure, of course! What Is an Adventure, Really? An RPG adventure is a planned series

Welcome to the third installment of New Gamemaster Month! This week we’re going to spend a little bit of time learning the rules and setting of your chosen game, and a little time digging into the adventure you’re going to run. Let’s do the rules and setting first, then look at the adventure in Thursday’s activity. But first, a note about how all this relates to other roleplaying games. Just This Game? When we go into the rules and setting in this program, we’re going to be talking about the game you’ve chosen: Numenera, Unknown Armies, Trail of Cthulhu, RuneQuest,

Welcome to the second installment of New Gamemaster Month! In our last post, we introduced the idea behind New Gamemaster Month and asked you to get your hands on the corebook for your game of choice. If you’re just joining the program, go back and read that post. Then click your way back here and read on! Today we’re going to delve into some of the specifics of preparing for your first session. Before we do, though, I want to touch on one topic: Is It Always This Much Work? We’re going to spend a month getting you ready for

Hi, and welcome to the New Gamemaster Month program! New Gamemaster Month is January, and we’ll have our first session on January 7th. Why not right at the start of the month? Well, some people are still recovering from the holidays, or are super-busy returning to work or school. Others need a few days to settle into their New Year’s resolutions—becoming a GM might be one of them. And the 7th gives us plenty of time in January to run through the program, with the final session on the 30th—leading straight into the weekend of January 31st, which is when you’ll