Hello, and thank you for your interest in GMing!
Generally, we ask that new players have attended at least three sessions so they can get the vibe of the group, but after that you're welcome to GM as much or as little as you'd like. We typically have one to two tables open each session depending on attendance, which as our regulars know, is very unpredictable.
If you are interested in GMing, please reach out to one or both of the organizers on Discord. We will work with you as much as you'd like throughout the week before the session to ensure you're ready to run when the day comes. Also, if attendance allows, we can always co-GM with you or just be a part of your session, providing advice or rules clarifications whenever you need it.
Ultimately however, we ask that you keep in mind one key thing when GMing:
As a GM, you are not the enemy of the players and you are not competing with the players. You are working with them to tell a story.
Running a Session
Before the Session
Before starting your session, its best to ask for everyone's real name, their pronouns, their character's name, their character's pronouns, and to give a one or two sentence description of their character. Make sure to write names and pronouns down so you as a GM know how to refer to people when calling on them. If you have a new player in your group who hasn't settled on some or all of these things yet, that's totally cool, just roll with it.
Safety Tools
After everyone introduces their character, its important for the GM to go over our safety tools. Before you begin your session, please ensure you explain these to the group so that everyone is on the same page. Even if you're group is all veterans, another reminder can't hurt. You don't have to read this verbatum, but try to make sure you get all the important details in there. We use the following safety tools:
- The X Card/X: While we rarely use a physical X card these days, the principle remains the same. If at any point a player feels uncomfortable with what is happening in the session, they can cross their arms over their chest in an X. The GM will then pause the session so we can adjust to peoples' comfort levels. For example, if the GM describes spiders crawling all over a player and that isn't something you're okay with, you may put up your X. Seeing that, we will adjust the situation, perhaps changing the spiders into moths. If that's still too much, we can always skip past scenes and move on to something else. If you don't feel comfortable making the X personally, don't hesitate to ask the person sitting next to you, we're always willing to help out.
- Movie Controls: Movie Controls are pretty much exactly what they sound like. At any time, players may use verbal movie controls to control or discuss what is happening in a session. For example, we can pause to discuss something that just happened, rewind to expand on something that we may have glossed over, and fast forward or skip if you are okay with something happening but don't want to roleplay it.
- Open Table Policy: Because this is a drop in/drop out group, players are always welcome to leave at any time if they want or need to. They are welcome to offer an explanation for their departure if they so choose, but we just ask that the explanation be civil. Rather than saying, "This sucks." say something like "This just isn't for me."
Finally, the most important thing to remember is that we are here to have fun. Our stories and settings aren't sacred, so if you need to adjust them to ensure everyone has a good time, please do.
Calculating Hit Points (HP)
Next, ensure everyone has the appropriate amount of HP. We as the organizers will try to make sure everyone is up to date before the sessions begin, but things happen, so its best to have the formula somewhere.
Because the PCs have varying levels, we try to make sure each player has HP equivilent to the highest level character's HP. Basically, if the highest level player in the campaign (not just the group) is level 8, all players should have the equivilent of level 8 HP. To calculate this, use the following formula:
(Hit Die Max + Con Mod) + ((Hit Die Average + Con Mod) * (Session Number - 1)) = Total HP
So, if a character is a druid and has a hit die of 1d8, a Constitution modifier of +2, and we are on session 4, they should have (8+2)+((5+2) * (4-1)) = 31 HP (10 HP at first level, plus 7 for each of the three other levels). If you're not a math person, work with the table to calculate this together or send them to one of the organizers so we can help calculate it.
Others
Make sure you have a small stack of Coins from the organizers that you can hand out to players when they earn them. While we will distrubute coins earned before the start of the session, ones earned during the session should be given out at your discretion. We will try to make sure you have some on hand before you start, but if it's particularly chaotic it may slip our minds. Don't hesitate to remind us!
During the Session
During the session, what you do and how you GM is up to you. In general, we tend to abide by the rule of cool over strict rules definitions. As Griffin McElroy once said, "We don't take the rules too seriously because there are a lot of them and we did not take the time to learn them." We also usually use theater of the mind combat over grid based combat, but if you want to do a grid based dungeon crawl or battle of some kind, go for it. If you are going to be GMing something that is more rules heavy however, we ask that you be as familiar as possible with the rules you'll be using so you can walk your players through system.
After the Session
Once the session has ended, remember to return all coins that haven't been given out and any coins traded in for rerolls to the organizers. Once that's taken care of, you're good to go and can stick around for as long as you want. We would appreciate a rundown of how the session went if no one recorded a summary, but this isn't required.
Writing a Session
Generally speaking, the only thing a session in this campaign requires is that there be something wrong with the timeline of the world it takes place in. The exact thing that is wrong is entirely up to you, and it can be something incredibly minor or something utterly world-shaking. Maybe someone died who wasn't supposed to or vise versa, or maybe something was stolen and needs to be returned, or maybe a dangerous mission that was supposed to succeed failed. Its also possible that the timeline seems fine on the surface, forcing the PCs to figure out what went wrong and correct it.
These timelines can be of your own creation and can be any from any technological era, from the stone age to the far flung future, and they can be as detailed or as vague as you want them to be. If you have a homebrew world you've been working on for a while, why not try it out for a session? Have a weird, 1% formed idea for a universe? Write a session there! Or maybe the world is fairly by the book and you just want to run a session with a besieged castle or a haunted house, thats fine too! You can also borrow from existing D&D settings such as Faerun and Eberron, but anything designed for 5e could work as a setting for an adventure. Finally, we ask that you avoid using settings from existing non-D&D intellectual properties (things like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Cyberpunk, World of Warcraft, etc). Your players could have potentially very negative associations with certain IPs or end up having issues with the way you portray them, so if you do want to use an existing IP it's best to heavily base your setting on it rather than explicitly using it as is.
Alternatively, if you don't feel like or don't have time to write a session you can always adapt existing 5e modules into the campaign. These can be found on the official Wizard's website, DriveThruRPG.com, DMsguild.com, in official D&D books from your local library, and in may other corners of the internet. Using a prexisting adventure is also a great way to get your feet under you if you've never GMed before and it can help save time if life does that thing it does. As a general rule when using a premade adventure however, be sure to read the module fully beforehand to ensure that there's nothing in it that goes against the spirit of the group. If there is, try to adjust the adventure as appropriate and, as always, if you're unsure about whether or not something is appropriate feel free to message one of the organizers on Discord.
Incorperating Nowhere
If you'd like, you may start your session on
Nowhere to give the players a chance to prepare for the world they are going to be visiting. This is by no means required, but can be a good way to introduce a session as it gives the PCs an opportunity to do things in town before they head out into the unknown.
Lore wise, once
The Pathfinders have stabilized a
Tear, they typically send a small group into the new reality to try and get a sense of what's going wrong. If you'd like, you can have the PCs visit a member of The Pathfinders to get some basic information about the world, as well as a hint as to what the problem might be. They can also pick up the
Needle here, which is the item that allows them to exist in a foreign reality without causing distortions.
If there are specific, more niche supplies the PCs might need during their mission, consider having them stop by
The Merry Market to pick them up. The Merry Market stocks all kinds of strange items from other realities, a handful of which might actually be useful. They also stock most standard adventuring gear, so they'll have almost anything from the Player's Handbook available for free, within reason of course.
The Merry Folk also often send scouts of their own into newly stabilized Tears, so they may have some information about the new world that The Pathfinders don't. Additionally, consider having one of The Merry Folk request that the PCs bring them an item of some kind as a bonus objective. To that end, they can potentially provide the PCs with an amount of the world's native currency so if there are opportunities for your players to purchase items they'll actually have some money to spend. If them purchasing something is relevant to the adventure feel free to give the party the necessary fixed amount, or determine it randomly for the whole party or randomly for each player. Because all realities use different symbols in their numeric systems, no one on Nowhere is able to determine how much different pieces of currency are worth, so they may just hand the PCs a pile of coins of indeterminate value.
If there are other factions you would like to incorperate, like
The Protectors or
The Keepers of the Tower, feel free to do so. Perhaps like the Merry Folk these factions have their own goals in the destination reality that can be used as bonus objectives. Consider also if these goals are in conflict with one another, perhaps a member of the Protectors wants some kind of important item from the connected reality, but the Keepers insist that it stays where it belongs to mantain the stability of the timeline.
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