Teaching Someone the basics of being a Game Master

[SouloMischief]

Or whatever you'd like to call it for your system. I plan on teaching several people how to run 5e games. I've got years of experience running AD&D, 3.5, and Pathfinder. I just recently started learning the 5e ruleset. So as an added bonus of teaching GMing philosophy and methods using 5e, I'll learn the rules specifics a bit better by teaching them. At least, that's my theory.

I'll have my students for 2 hour sessions on a weekly basis. My top fundamental topics, no particular order, are going to be....

• What is a GM/DM? What are they supposed to do?
• Rules and rulings
• Combat
• Descriptions
• NPCs
• Encounters

And then move on to basic planning. I've definitely given it a bit more thought than I've written in here but I thought I'd get some perspective to see what others might include in the first couple sessions trying to teach others how to run a game. Thoughts?

[SouloMischief]

One of the teaching games I intend to use is called a word circle. It's any number of words long. There is a circular order to the words so that one word relates to the next and then the next until the last word relates to the first word.

Ex: sword, sheath, belt, pants, guard, shirt, shoulder, arm, hand....back to sword

This a really simple one. You can make the connections more obscure or more specific to a world or encounter. You randomize the order and the challenge is for the players to figure out the correct order.

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Another of my ideas is to put pictures of NPCs, villains, monsters, etc., into envelopes and then have participants randomly select a few envelopes. From there, they build a simple encounter. Or practice the skill of fleshing out some aspect of the image. For instance, a barkeep npc. What's his name and 3 things about him. So forth and so on.

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We'll be using pregen maps but we'll likely make our own maps as part of the workshop.

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I know a mini hobbyist and I'm hoping he'll give a mini painting tutorial.

SOOOoooo.....

Any other ideas?

[HeroFan]

Hmmm, introduce the philosophy of GMing as to being a referee vs an antagonist vs a narrator vs a facilitator. Just that there are different styles that can work, and it’s useful to know that.

[SouloMischief]

Following up. I've made packets with pictures of villains, monsters, NPCs, and maps that my participants had to roll a d100 to get their packet. Then we would discuss scenarios based on the random stuff I put in them. We've designed maps and we piddle about with riddles, puzzles, traps, and hazards. Last week, I made cards in categories like hazards, traps, puzzles, riddles, npcs, villains, monsters, and locations. On each card was a bare snippet of information and the prospective DMs had to describe and embellish what was on the card as if they were the DM. Next week, I have one GM running his first one shot created by himself. I'll still need to prepare something in case he tanks in some way. It's been fun and informative.