Advice for a rookie GM with rookie players

[dialNforNinja]

Yeah, so, I'm thinking about doing a very stupid thing: Trying to GM when I've played about two sessions of Champions myself, in different games that never went anywhere, with a group who range from "was in a D&D campaign years ago" to "has heard about this tabletop game thing, how does that work?"

Needless to say, this is an intimidating prospect, but how else do you get a group started if your friends aren't already gamers? I really don't want to give them a poor impression of the hobby/system. I've only run a single session of D&D once back when 3.5 came out and the FLGS had an open table during the all-day promotional event, but that's basically it from that end, and only been a player in a dozen or so sessions of another campaign. Swords & sorcery doesn't really grab me and I've developed a real loathing for classes and levels, so with the things locally popular being D&D/PF or endless Crack: The Cash-Gathering tournaments options have been limited, but I finally got a few folks interested in giving supers a try. So, can anyone give me some pro tips for the noob, or point me to some existing material? I'm sure it's been asked before many times, of course.

Oh, and since it does matter a bit, Champions Complete + Champions Powers (and the Hero in 2 Pages handout from MHI as a quick reference for how to do basic mechanics in play) are what it'll be based on, though I do actually have a BBB as well. I don't think it would even be a possibility without Powers to give everyone ideas and examples, TBH. "You can do anything!" is great but makes it hard for a newcomer to home in on a concept to roll with, especially for Complications related to a power theme/beyond Hunted and Code Against Killing.


Fake edit as I read things before posting this:
Brian Stanfield had a really great point in the "Sell me on Hero system" thread, part of a longer post:
"Please, PLEASE do not teach them this: 11 + OCV - dice roll= DCV you can hit. NOBODY understood what the hell this means! Seriously. I watched it happen in real time. They were able to calculate stuff and make the dice roll, but they didn’t intuitively understand why they were doing it. Teach them the pre-6th way: 11 + OCV - DCV = the roll you need to make. People get it when you are subtracting the opponent’s DCV from your OCV. It makes intuitive sense. Who cares if they know the opponent’s DCV while they are learning the game. That sort of meta-game knowledge may actually help them understand the interaction of the parts better." This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I'm looking for! It made the logic clearer for ME, let alone trying to explain to a total RPG newcomer.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Please, PLEASE do not teach them this: 11 + OCV - dice roll= DCV you can hit. NOBODY understood what the hell this means!

 

I've had exactly the opposite experience for what its worth.  Nobody could figure out the original thing, but the way he decries above made perfect sense to them.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I'd recommend starting slow and putting the mechanics on a drip-feed. 

Session 1 is the origin story.  Nobody has super powers.  Get people used to skills, basic combat, the Speed Chart, etc.  End with a nice radiation accident, mystic mishap, super-serum, or what have you. 

Then between sessions 1 and 2, have people tell you their ideas.  If they're interested in character creation have them help you make their characters, otherwise do it yourself.  Don't give them the full powerset yet, just movement powers and basic combat powers. 

From there, keep introducing mechanics and powers as you go. 

 

If you dump the entire HERO System on somebody, they're generally going to get crushed under the weight of expletive-that's-a-lotta-paper.  So don't.  Break the game into bite-sized chunks and let people learn one thing before going to the next. 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

6 minutes ago, dialNforNinja said:

Brian Stanfield had a really great point in the "Sell me on Hero system" thread, part of a longer post:
"Please, PLEASE do not teach them this: 11 + OCV - dice roll= DCV you can hit. NOBODY understood what the hell this means! Seriously. I watched it happen in real time. They were able to calculate stuff and make the dice roll, but they didn’t intuitively understand why they were doing it. Teach them the pre-6th way: 11 + OCV - DCV = the roll you need to make. People get it when you are subtracting the opponent’s DCV from your OCV. It makes intuitive sense. Who cares if they know the opponent’s DCV while they are learning the game. That sort of meta-game knowledge may actually help them understand the interaction of the parts better." This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I'm looking for! It made the logic clearer for ME, let alone trying to explain to a total RPG newcomer.

 

Just now, Christopher R Taylor said:

I've had exactly the opposite experience for what its worth.  Nobody could figure out the original thing, but the way he decries above made perfect sense to them.

In my group, there's one guy who we tried to teach with the former method and he was asking how to roll to hit with every attack.  We switched him to the latter about three sessions in and he never had to ask again.  A couple sessions later another guy showed up and we tried teaching him the latter.  It never made any sense to him, but I tried explaining the former and it clicked instantly. 

About all I can say on the topic is "try both, because at least one will work". 

[Duke Bushido]

26 minutes ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

 

[Duke Bushido]

Sorry, GB(i); 

 

Still having some phone weirds after my last update..

 

 

Moving along:

 

Quote

Who cares if they know the opponent’s DCV while they are learning the game.

 

 

I'm going to get booed for this, I suspect, but I have _never_ been able to view that as a valid reason to endorse the backwards to-hit roll.  Unless your entire group is some kind of thick, it isn't going to take too many hits and misses for them to have a pretty clear notion as to just what their opponent's DCV actually _is_-- at least, as clear as they would have the other way (no solid way to account for Levels, after all).  I mean, if they are only math savvy enough to do "eleven plus one other number," then they have more than enough knowledge to figure out the rest....

 

 

 

[dialNforNinja]

Well, talking about character concepts was part of selling the game, so I have a start on that already - cooking-themed martial artist, goo-person shape changer, generic speedster (who at least claims to understand that they're not going to be living in bullet time like The Flash due to needing to let everyone else actually do stuff,) and a bug controller who also has some martial arts. GMPC is a previous-gen power armor user who's mostly retired but supplies the super-base/pilots the team vehicle and can be called in for support if I over do it with the opposition and things are in danger of too much of an upset. Actually, I should probably have mentioned the bug controller explicitly, because the most obvious way to handle most of the uses of a big swarm of insects is Change Environment, and both from my own reading of it and from comments here it sounds like dealing with that is.... you know, NOT a basic thing to do, so advice there is also welcome. Among the many things Wildbow has to answer for with his Worm web serial is making people want to do these fiddly potentially troublesome things like Skitter ;)

[Duke Bushido]

If you're doing a swarm, the advantages "Indirect" and Area of Effect (even a small one)" are going to be your best friends ever.  The Limitaiton: Reduced Penetration can help simulate a lot of "swarm of things"-type attacks as well.

 

Easiest thing I've found (and if you're not shopping for advice , well just skip all this.  ) is to _not_ focus on "what does the book say about swarms?!"  Hell, remember the book is written by the guy who wrote entire other books on a single simplistic archetypes (the Ultimate Brick, the Ultimate Metamorph, etc, etc,).  The book has a _lot_ to say, and on _everything_.

 

Focus first specifically on what you want the power to do:  what is the absolute end-purpose of this power?  Then go backwards-- you're still not thinking about swarms of things, okay?  Go backwards.  What Advantages or Limitations do you want the power to have?  Not because it's a swarm of things!  Ignore that!  What Advantages and Limitaitons do you want the power to have because _that_ is the power you envision?  Does it have reduced Penetration?  No?  Fine.  But keep in mind that a large attack with a couple of Reduced Penetrations is faster and easier to handle than a small attack with an Autofire, particularly if you're just starting out with the system.  Just sayin'....

 

Sweet!  I want him to have an 20d6 Energy Blast: PD with double reduced penetration.  It's pretty close to having 4d6 on auto fire, but with only one attack roll and less fiddly adjustments for each roll.  No; it's not the same, but the tradeoff is it's a lot faster to manage during play.

 

I want him to have 30" of Flight as well.

 

I want him to have an entangle.

 

 

 

By now you should have-- or very nearly have-- the powers you want this character to command. _NOW_ you can figure out how you want to do it with bugs.

 

The Reduced Pen Blast is a swarm of hornets.  Hey, you know what?  Maybe I can squeeze an AOE: one Hex in there to simulate how easy it is for someone else to get tangled up in it by coming too close!  Yes indeedy!    Okay, he flies by commanding an even larger swarm of winged thingies to carry him aloft, and his entangle is --well more hornets.  They surround an opponent, but they don't actually attack him unless he moves.  Hmm...  I should find a way to make Breakout dependent on a CON roll instead of an STR roll.  And they're hornets-- little short stingers.  Maybe add in something about how it doesn't work against rigid defenses?

 

 

See?  The special effect came _last_.  This is what the book calls "reasoning from effect:"  You can not clearly build it until you know what it does, because until you know exactly _what_ it does, you have no idea how to start building it.  Once you get to the point where you're tailoring your SFX, you can tweak the power modifiers for flavor then, but not before.

 

 

With a little practice, you'll be pulling characters out of the air in no time.

 

 

[Spence]

For me I'd run them through a prequel to set up the "real" adventure. 

 

I've found that initial expectations of their "superhero" will be crushed by what they actually build the first time.  This issue is magnified if everybody is new to the game.  You cannot manage expectations if you are learning yourself.

 

Come up with a prequel using pre-generated Hero's.  Maybe your new Heroes are stepping in when the cities premier Heroes disappear or die.  Or something, I don't know your campaign plans.

 

This lets you and your players "test drive" the game. 

 

Then when they go to build their own PC's they have some idea of the difference between 3d6 Energy Blast and 8d6 Energy Blast in actual play.  Is 20PD a high or low defense?

[dialNforNinja]

Direct attacks is actually one thing Dragonfly's swarms are NOT especially good at, hence including some martial arts - though also because "Dance of 1000 Jewels" as a technique name referencing a dragonfly's big irridescent eyes to be matched with danger sense and lightning reflexes is just awesome, as is "Embrace of the Sky" for having Ch'i construct wings to fly with. Still working on a good one for Multiform to add another pair of arms, +2 Speed, and some Strength. Yes yes, those are powers in martial arts clothes, not combat maneuvers - it's the IC origin of those powers as learned and trained rather than the product of a personal quirk or a radiation accident, though. Designing things from the mechanics first to SFX last is completely alien to me - how can you build anything without a concept to aim toward?

edit: A prequel with pregens sounds like a great idea, actually. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edited June 29, 2019 by dialNforNinja

[Christopher R Taylor]

Other useful hero advice: take it easy, stage in rules a bit at a time.  First session, don't sweat speed, everyone just moves each phase at the same time, by dex rank and you don't count body.  Second session, add in speed.  that kind of thing.

[ghost-angel]

2 hours ago, dialNforNinja said:

"Please, PLEASE do not teach them this: 11 + OCV - dice roll= DCV you can hit. NOBODY understood what the hell this means! Seriously. I watched it happen in real time. They were able to calculate stuff and make the dice roll, but they didn’t intuitively understand why they were doing it. Teach them the pre-6th way: 11 + OCV - DCV = the roll you need to make.

 

This is horrible advice. Also, both formulas have explicitly existed since 5th (5E p244, 5RT p371), and even when I learned under 4th Edition 25 years ago it was taught to me as 11+OCV-Die Roll because that's all on Your Sheet. It's not some magical "new fangled 6th edition" thing.

 

I recommend doing it this way: Attack Skill, this is calculated by adding your OCV to 11. Write it down. Do not do the math Every. Single. Attack. (whch, BTW, the old standard has you doing, it slows down play considerably. it's just bad.)

Just, have an Attack Roll. How much they make the roll by is the Target Number, which is the DCV. Know the target number, don't know it, doesn't matter. Add your modifiers to the result. Simple.

 

This makes Attack Rolls just another type of Skill Roll. So you've taught them how to do two things at the same time. Present Skill Rolls not as "succeed or fail" but as Target Numbers: to do an Acrobatic Check to use the flag pole to spin off of you just need to success by 1 or more, it's an easy task for you. But to slide between the bank robbers legs and come up standing behind him, you need to succeed by 3 or more... (because you, as the GM, gave them a -2 penalty for the task, meaning Rolling a 10 on an 11- means they actually failed by 2, so if they roll an 8 on a 11- Acrobatics Roll they actually succeed.)

 

As noted by others, come with some prebuilt characters, get them into how things fit together before you get into character creation. Even if they're very simple characters for a first session. If each character has a little bit of each primary aspect; Movement, Attack, Defense, Non-Combat; they see the pieces working together. This will help them understand what elements to use when building a character on their own.

 

Another little bit you can do is change how Movement is presented. I would split Movement into 3 representations instead of just Combat/Non-Combat.

1. Half Phase Movement (half the Combat Movement Speed)

2. Full Phase Movement (Combat Speed)

3. Non-Combat Movement (Non-Combat Speed)

It might help quicken up what you can do with a Phase that's split into Half and Full Phase actions; reduces Math At The Time, which helps with the learning process.

 

When you present pre-gens, simplify the builds, instead of presenting it as 8D6 Blast, AoE (12m), Focus (OAF), 6 Charges do it was "Flame Pistol: 8D6 in a 12m Radius, 6 shots, can be taken away."

[Vanguard]

1 hour ago, Spence said:

I've found that initial expectations of their "superhero" will be crushed by what they actually build the first time. 

 

Exactly. 

 

And I think I've figured out why.  

 

When someone thinks about "superheroes",  I think they're thinking of the well established ones.  Like Superman, Batman, The X-Men, etc.  They then try to cram all those "years of experience" into the very finite amount of starting points that they're given and wind up extremely disappointed.

 

Something I also found occuring in our group, was when thinking about stats, they weren't think about "Okay how much stronger than a normal human is my brick".  They were thinking "Okay, how much stronger than the normal superhero is my brick".  Which lead to incredibly inflated states.  At least in my mind.

[Spence]

9 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

 

Exactly. 

 

And I think I've figured out why.  

 

When someone thinks about "superheroes",  I think they're thinking of the well established ones.  Like Superman, Batman, The X-Men, etc.  They then try to cram all those "years of experience" into the very finite amount of starting points that they're given and wind up extremely disappointed.

 

Yes. 

 

The other part is that reading the rules does not actually give you an idea of how they are in play. So when they build powers they have no idea of how powerful the actual build is in game.  Usually they over estimate and what they thought was powerful is actually weak, though they can go the other way.

 

Add in your point about thinking they get a character like Bats or Supes right off the bat with starting points can turn off a beginning player.

 

That is why I think a starter adventure and starter pregen characters should be part of the rule book or a starter set.  It gets the players off the ground with a measuring stick for playing the game.

 

 

[dialNforNinja]

Well, C. Complete at least has the Champions team themselves and five villains all built to 400 -75, but no starter scenario unless I've missed/forgotten something... Actually, is there anything in those that is an example of doing something badly? (Like the character mentioned in the "hero 6th is best, dissenting opinions welcome" thread for a previous edition that could have spent the same CP on DEX instead of DEX and OCV/DCV and been equal or better all around, though that specific thing is no longer a factor with figured characteristics removed in 6th.) I mean, you'd hope not since they're literally the iconic characters for the game, but sometimes these things do happen...

...and I've seen most of the Justice League written up as 400 -75 6e characters, actually, though I don't seem to have saved them off. Maybe on my older computer? I know I looked pretty hard at that version of The Flash when I was making a speedster of my own a couple years back for another game that never got started.

edit: I found a thread here from 2013 where Hyperman had posted links to his builds, but the web site they were hosted on now just redirects to some page mostly in Japanese except for the title "Water Delivery Services" and some pictures of people drinking. o_O

[Duke Bushido]

Actually, GA (and others) could this problem not be simplified by teaching that the "base OCV" is 11?  Now you buy some more OCV, add it to 11.  Write that down where it says OCV. 

 

Just wondering. 

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, dialNforNinja said:

edit: I found a thread here from 2013 where Hyperman had posted links to his builds, but the web site they were hosted on now just redirects to some page mostly in Japanese except for the title "Water Delivery Services" and some pictures of people drinking. o_O

 

I tried the Wayback Machine to look for archived pages, and found the following:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20150824072215/http://www.herocentral.net/get/files/premium/Bruce+Wayne+6e+400.HTML

https://web.archive.org/web/20150825035124/http://www.herocentral.net/get/files/premium/Clark+Kent+6e+400.HTML

https://web.archive.org/web/20150706174645/http://www.herocentral.net/get/files/premium/Barry+Allen+6e+400.HTML

https://web.archive.org/web/20150828152840/http://www.herocentral.net/get/files/premium/Hal+Jordan+6e+400.HTML

 

Unfortunately, the Wayback Machine didn't have pages I could find for Princess Diana, Billy Batson, or Hal Jordan's Power Ring.

 

 

[BoloOfEarth]

2 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

Unfortunately, the Wayback Machine didn't have pages I could find for Princess Diana, Billy Batson, or Hal Jordan's Power Ring.

 

I did find that Hyperman had posted Hero Designer files of the Justice League available for download, if you have HD.  I also found some other characters he did.  They're on the following pages:

 

Billy Batson:  https://www.herogames.com/files/category/3-characters/page/3/

Peter Parker:  https://www.herogames.com/files/category/3-characters/page/4/

Rita Farr, Hal Jordan, Bruce Wayne, Princess Diana, Barry Allen:  https://www.herogames.com/files/category/3-characters/page/6/

Clark Kent:  https://www.herogames.com/files/category/3-characters/page/7/

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I've found that initial expectations of their "superhero" will be crushed by what they actually build the first time. 

 

Just make sure your players understand that they are making "First level" superheroes, beginners.  They will understand that concept.

[ghost-angel]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Actually, GA (and others) could this problem not be simplified by teaching that the "base OCV" is 11?  Now you buy some more OCV, add it to 11.  Write that down where it says OCV. 

 

Probably. Or "Base Attack Roll is 11, you get 3 free bonus points, and buy more at 5pts per +1"

 

One of the reasons I like the 11+OCV-Roll presentation is it requires no information that isn't on your character sheet, and you do the math once, not every attack.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Start off right from the very first adventure with the assumptions of the campaign in place.  If its meant to be a gritty street level dark campaign, make sure they get that so nobody goes in thinking its a goofy silver age one.

[BoloOfEarth]

12 hours ago, dialNforNinja said:

GMPC is a previous-gen power armor user who's mostly retired but supplies the super-base/pilots the team vehicle and can be called in for support if I over do it with the opposition and things are in danger of too much of an upset.

 

A word of advice - be very careful regarding GMPCs.  As a player, I got irritated with several "I wanna play too" GMs.  Also, I've found (and YMMV) that players get irritated when someone else swoops in to save the day.  It takes some of their thunder away.

 

One way to take the edge off it is to make it so the GMPC needs the PCs help along the way too - maybe he gets in a fight over his head occasionally and has to call them in for help, or while helping them against overwhelming opposition, one of the PCs notices him about to get smacked down and saves his hash. 

[dialNforNinja]

Yeah, I made sure to explain that they'd be a group of new heroes just starting out, sort of like (insert X-Men reboot here) or Batman Beyond, by a "Tony Stark at sixty" type mostly-retired mentor.

Another Brian Stansfield idea, this time from the "How Much HERO d we need?" thread, which sounds like it might work well is a card with things like OCV/DCV modifiers and consumbales (BODY/STUN/END/etc.) as tracks that can have a counter moved on them as they change, to take advantage of how video game HUDs are much more familiar these days than messing around with a pencil and eraser on a page. Even to me honestly, since I played a lot of Champions Online and Ryzom for a while. Might make something for the phase chart too, though probably just a page with twelve numbered boxes to write names in to keep everything straight. It's one of the really standout things in Hero, and with one of the PCs a speedster eliminating it would break the concept.

For the toe-dipping prequel, I'm thinking a pulp-style 1930s episode, with the players trying to keep bad guys (Bonus: facepunch actual Nazis in the first session! How does it get better than that?) from taking the McGuffin - if they succeed, having it stolen in the present is the first adventure hook, if they fail, well, it took the bad guys this long to figure it out but now they're ready to use its awesome power for EEE-VIL! Pretty much just take a Competent Normal off the chart at the back of C.Complete, give them each a schtick that's related to their hero's - a martial arts style for the chef, an extra point in Speed and some DEX for the speedster, not sure for Bug Guy and Goo Girl, maybe minor TK and visual-only illusions? Don't want to get too crazy with it, while still having some of the promised flavor - and not worry overmuch about point cost since they're one-offs, or at most grandparents/contacts to use later. Sound good?

edit: The GMPC is definitely a support character - he drives the team van and keeps it handy when they pile otu to fight in case they need to pile back in to pursue, or to evacutate civliains, etc., and doesn't have the reflexes or endurance to do more than, say, fire an Entangle gadget at the enemies to make an opening for the new gen to turn the tables in a losing fight, for example. As GM I'm quite sure I'll be busy enoguh keeping track of the normal NPCs without running an extra party member full time :D

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, ghost-angel said:

 

Probably. Or "Base Attack Roll is 11, you get 3 free bonus points, and buy more at 5pts per +1"

 

One of the reasons I like the 11+OCV-Roll presentation is it requires no information that isn't on your character sheet, and you do the math once, not every attack.

 

Agreed.  I was simply thinking that instead of making a separate "attack skill" entry, to simply pre-add the 11 to whatever the character's OCV is, and calling that total "OCV."  Then it's a matter of "Your OCV minus his DCV.  Now assign skill levels."  Or some order of that.

[dialNforNinja]

Since I have an "enemy wants to steal the thing" plot, I was thinking I'd reuse one of my old (never built in HERO) character concepts: The Pelican, who has a "pelican pouch" power that lets him store away large and heavy things invisibly/without getting weighed down (along with "Peli-kinetic" flight/strength/force field defense, all straightforward and not problematic in the least)

Extra-Dimensional Movement limited to only objects/characters other than the user and being touched kind of matches but seems overcomplicated and expensive. I don't really see a better alternative, though - Shrinking with the same limitations might work but probably ends up even more expensive if it's enough to reduce anything decently large to a small enough size to be trivial, and then it can still be physically taken. Transform at the Major level that can make objects from nothing could maybe work but means you're destroying and recreating the Precious MacGuffin™, which could mean Bad Things if taken literally... of course, the whole point is that the mechanics aren't taken literally as SFX, but it still feels even more awkward than XDM. Anyone have a better idea?

edit: Also, how much would you say those limitations are worth? -1 or -1/2 for not being able to enter the portal himself? -1/2 or -1/4 for having to touch the target object/character? Or is that actually a Useable On Others advantage instead? I would take adding UOO to this as giving them their own dimensional pocket to hold something, even if they still have to have Pelican take it out again later.

Shapechanger-girl's prospective player made some half-joking comments about Victoria's Secret Compartment too, but I doubt there'll be enough points for it along with the actual shapechanger tricks within a starting budget. Depends what it comes out to...