Welcome GameMaster

Welcome GameMaster (bit of a presumptuous name :)).

What do you want to get from this 'game'?
Do you have any specific questions?
What is your history?

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Take a look at the To Start post in the general Welcome thread and answer any of those questions, if relevant.

Feel free to chat here, or in the general Welcome thread. And take a look at what we currently have in the other threads when you have time.

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This 'game' has bee dormant for a while, so I expect I might reorganize things as I take a look at it again.

Hi! Thank you for the quick response! I picked the name because I really not a good player, but I'd say I'm a semi-decent DM. I was also surprised that no one had taken it yet, and I feel like someone should have the name. Since I was hoping to start running a game here, I figured that the shoe fit, so I should wear it.

To be honest, I'm not actually super sure what this "game" is, but I was hoping to get better guidance on being a GM. I just made a welcome post with a bit of my background (Post), but in summary, I am interested in narrative games of the PbtA style, with Avatar Legends being the game of preference at the moment. I understand that most people can read a rulebook, but creating plot hooks that are interesting and engaging is hard, and actually GMing that game in the moment is also hard. All of the DMs around me IRL, and generally in the media, favor D20 systems, so a story-based game with failing forward and shifting narrative control is new to me and my players. Specifically, I was hoping to learn from the experience of the group about how to create good plot hooks, as well as how to best handle failed dice rolls, strange character actions, stalled plot advancement, etc., that generally comes up when playing a narrative game.

I'm excited to get started, but I'm not sure what to do next.

It was a joke, but probably no one has taken that name since it is not very descriptive. :) Most people here are GMs to some degree or the other. No worries, though.
And if the shoe does not fit we should swear at it? :)
This is less a 'game' than a place we can talk about GMing PbtA games, in general or in specific.

We can also try our hand at GMing, and possibly experiment a bit, but such things are generally fairly short-lived and seldom more than a scene (if that).
Hopefully we can help you.
What draws you to PbtA? There are other systems that are 'narrative' focused. Don't stress if you don't have a good answer, but any insights into what you want can help us guide you.
I won't be able to help you with specifics for that game. I don't have the game (though I could borrow it from a friend), and I have not watched the show, though the show is on my list (but it is a long list, and time is short:).

It is not necessary, but what other PbtA games have you looked at? Mainly so we can have some common language.
Yeah. Many PbtA rulebooks provide guidance as to how to create story appropriate to their setting or intent. Hopefully Avatar:Legends helps you there, and knowing the setting and sharing passion for it can help get everyone on the same page about what to expect.

I, personally, struggle with games set in heavily defined settings, not everyone knows the canon material as well as they think they do, and assumptions can lead to weird interactions ways down the line.

People can also approach a game with a goal in mind, often something they wish they saw in the media, and that can be disruptive if not handled properly. It can be useful to speak to the players about that they want to see in the game. This is a common part of more general PbtA games, a big part of 'session zero', but still something that I feel is important for focused ones.

I assume that Avatar talks about this, the series ran for a while, so the exact canon might have varied over the course of that run. Getting everyone on the same page could be important.
Changing from more 'traditional' games to PbtA (or any more narrative game) can be very hard. It is a whole big shift in the way we think (paradigm shift) and people don't always like change, so they resist and try to play it like DnD. I have found it a lot easier to teach RPGs to players who have not played DnD first. Learning a second system is considered the hardest, just like learning a second language is the hardest, after that picking up a third or fourth is easier.
That is true. DnD is the 900lb gorilla. :)

Even here, DnD games get players almost immediately, but other systems take a lot longer to recruit.
That is an all to common plight. I am sorry you had to come to hobby that way.

Not all DnD games are like that, though.

I did not find PbtA to be a 'revelation'. People kept telling me 'you need to take a look at Dungeon World', and a bounced off it many times (wonky website (at the time), and confusion about CC licence but no available version, and 'based on' some other system I did not know and found initially offputting (little did I know how good Apocalypse World was:), and 'learning new things is hard'), but when I did read it, may reaction was 'well, yeah, that is how it should work'. I had been 'failing forward' and 'playing to find out' in all systems, since the beginning.

Reading (and playing if possible, but not essential) other games is a good way to broaden one's mind and improve as a GM.
Start simple, but mostly that comes with practice. Play as much as you can. Play with as many people as you can, watch what they do, and take on the habits that you think are good, while noting the habits that are bad and trying to avoid them. There is no substitute for experience.

Steal from everything you watch or read.
Don't stress about that. Deal with each as it comes up. Rely on your players. They should be acting in good faith, so talking about it will normally deal with any problems.

Remember that a 6- is a 'miss' not a 'fail'. They can still get what they were tying for, just at a high cost. Often watching the players roll a miss and then turning to them with smile on your face and saying: "everything works out perfectly" will leave them paranoid about when the shoe will fall.

This is part of 'failing forward', in that it does not stop the story, but even if you do prevent them getting what they wanted, that is not the end of it. Nothing never happens. If they roll and miss, or get a partial success, make something 'interesting' happen.

This should not be hard if their actions (and therefore the roll) followed on from the fiction. Think what would logically happen next in the fiction and do that, don't overthink it. This is why these games need to fiction first.

If you are struggling to work out how to deal with a missed roll, it may be that that roll did not make sense in the fiction. Not a problem, next time sort out the fiction fist. This can be tricky in PbP where people want to 'save time' by tossing in a roll before things are ironed out, I don't have a good answer for that, talk to your players.

Look to your Moves and Agenda and Principles, they should guide you to the right responses. On a miss you make a Move (from the GM Move list). The game almost plays itself.
These can be fun. But make sure that they make sense in the fiction of the world you are playing in. This is the responsibility of everyone at the table, not only the GM. Heavily simulationist games might be able to get away with players ignoring 'real world consequences' if their actions fall within the 'rules of the game', but 'story games' need everyone to base their actions on the story. (If you want, we can talk about FKR, but it is pretty far afield from the current discussion.)
That is a whole different kettle of fish. But, again, you can turn to your players and ask them. 'Story games' tend to be more about the story, so they seldom stall in the same way that simulationist games do, the players' characters' actions all have impact on the world and should keep things moving. Seldom do these types of games have the GM come up with a story to feed to the players, so whatever they do 'advances the plot'.

(There are many caveats on this one. We can talk about specific issues in more detail if you want.)
Honestly? While you are welcome to ask any questions here, it may be 'best' to jump in and join a game, either as a player (making your name a lie :) or start one yourself, as I see you have done.

If you start a game, be honest with your players about your level of experience and that you are trying to learn, and where you are weak or nervous. Tell them that they are part of an experiment and ask for their help. People here are very helpful.

Leaning PbP is a thing of its own. Psybermagi runs a game for new players, aimed at teaching them how to use GamerPlane and PbP. It might be helpful to try that, but you can also just ask if you have questions about how things work on the site.

I also run a game for new players that is a bit less focused on teaching GP PbP (there was an existing game doing that, and then the abovementioned Psybermagi game), but we deal with such things as needed. We use World of Dungeons which is a very light-weight, 'one page', PbtA system, loosely related to Dungeon World (it was a joke as part of their kickstarter campaign, but turned out pretty good). It is very light on rules (pretty much just the Act Under Pressure move for everything), so is not the best illustration of how to run a more complex PbtA game. You are welcome to take a look.

Welcome, GameMaster!
I haven't read vague's reply fully yet, I'm sure it's full of tips. The one I can think of is this:
When in doubt, ask your player(s) what they think should happen. Often someone at the table already has a cool idea in their head because they had time to think about it while the GM was busy with dice and notes. You might have to tweak the response, because players tend to be harder on themselves than a GM would be.

Besides that, for us GMs it's kinda fun to let a player decide their own fate :D

I'm in the World of Dungeons game that vague mentions. Can recommend! It's a public game, so you can always have a quick look first.
That reminds me, I need to update the history of events again...

You can't prove that. :)
Good advice, that. [sarcasm] I would never have thought of that! [/sarcasm] :)

You will hear this advice a lot, since it is one of your most powerful tools. Most of the time the combined brainpower of the whole table it higher than that of the GM alone.
Yes. For many reasons.

Often because they were thinking about the possible outcomes before they committed to the roll, and dreading one in particular.

It is common practice to move the spotlight to another player at times of high excitement, so sometimes they have had time to think about it while the GM was dealing with other players or scenes. This is less of a thing in PbP where we don't wait for each others time in the spotlight, we are all in the spotlight simultaneously.

But in PbP they may have posted their roll, and then had to wait hours for the GM to see it and start thinking of a response (we can talk about this in more detail if you are interested), so they have a head start. Once players know they get to contribute, they can even, in OOC, put down their thoughts about what might happen before being asked, saving time.
As TheGenerator says, they are often harder on themselves than the GM would be, but also, sometimes they will voice a possible outcome that they (OOC) don't want to see happen but were dreading, your asking can allow them to preemptively X-Card that outcome.

You will very often need to soften what they propose. Players often think in small, immediate, terms. Their suggestions about outcomes can break the characters or the world quite quickly.
As the OG rulebook says: 'Sometimes, disclaim decision-making.'

It is part of the rules.

I'm kinda hoping that "GM" narrows me down to narrative games, since the crunchy games usually use "DM."

I like PbtA because the system flows really well and the dice rolls are all interesting. I am familiar with other narrative games like Fate and Traveller, but I am not a huge fan of meta currency. I think the unpredictability of using dice to shift narrative control keeps the story feral, as opposed to spending currency at will to seize control when you want. I also like the generic "do something" moves so that I don't have to worry about specific moves or stats for every little action.

Avatar Legends plays pretty much like any other PbtA game, so anything I learn about the style in general should be readily applicable. I am familiar with Monster of the Week (I really like the theme of monster hunting, and my current AL campaign centers on ghost hunting and horror exploration). I tend to use the Avatar setting very loosely, and just use bending as a way to give players more ability to interact with their environment in a way that seems epic. I do liek how the system focuses on a player's internal struggle for balance, as well as the drive to solve community threats/problems. Even though I think a lot of DnD campaigns are centered around these topics too, AL mechanicizes the shifting of internal balance and rewards the community interaction.

I try to run my sessions as loose as possible so that players have the ability to play out whatever cool moment or power fantasy they may harbor, at least for a minute. So if your character is an earth bender and you really want a scene where you muster all your strength and literally move a mountain, I would allow that to be possible, with a 2d6 + passion roll determining how it goes. On a full or partial miss, I would likely let the mountain still be moved to gratify the player, but there would be other consequences.

My players and I are very used to the PbtA paradigm at this point, so we understand the full/partial success and the narrative consequences. What I personally want to work on is finding new consequences to give to players. I feel like I give the same consequences and it starts to get boring for me, but I can't think of new things ot throw at the party to make their lives more complicated. What type of consequences do you like? What are some of your favorite moments when you let the party fial forward? What results have you given a major roll that significantly advanced the plot?

I very much agree with PbtA feeling like this was the way things were supposed to have been all along, like I was coming home and things finally made sense. The difference was that I have never played in, seen, or even heard of a game that did any of those things, so I was exploring a new world on my own. My only experience with ttrpgs before were tactical combat scenes interspersed with cringy roleplaying cut scenes and random in-game drinking and card games.

On the topic of plot hooks, this is where I am the weakest, full stop. I spend more time worrying about starting plot points that might lead somewhere, anywhere at all, but once I have a plot hook that the players have accepted, I am good at extending it. I have the same issue starting side quests or subplots. What types of plot hooks do you favor? Which ones have been successful in your games? How do you design a good plot hook? This is very system egnostic, but I think I would improve the most if I got better at this.

I have run into the issues of trying to handle rolls that do not make sense, especially for things that should have just been allowed to happen. I agree, my players are eager to throw dice, and I often have to stop them to negotiate for another minute or two.

I have never heard of FKR gaming, but I looked it up briefly and it seems really interesting! You indicated that you had stuff to say on the topic, and I would genuinely love to heard it. Maybe make a new thread? I don't know this site works yet.

I will definitely take a look at the game for new players, as that seems like exactly what I need. I will also look into your game.

Thank you for all your help and I really look forward to hearing your response!

I do often ask my table about what should happen next, but I have not really considered that they have already thought of potential consequences before they made their action. Maybe I can better get at what they were thinking by asking leading questions; eg: what is the worst thing that could happen to you right now; what is your character most afraid of happening; what would make your character stressed; what is the biggest weakness in your character's strategy/plan. I think this might actually be really helpful at my table to avoid the few seconds where my players stare at me and feel awkward and overthink their response to make it less bad for them.

Even better, maybe we can negotiate potential consequences before the roll so everyone is on the same page and we all understand the stakes and feel the tension. That might really elevate my game.

Many excellent question. I fear my answers may be samey and disappointing, but will try to help where I can.
So far as I know, only DnD uses DM. I think it may even be trademarked. GM is the most generic, and many PbtAs use MC. I just use GM.
Agreed.
I saw your conversation about Fate. People will often push their own favourite system in the mistaken understanding that what they find familiar is easy.

Fate is not easy for new players. Fate is hard for new players, and it rewards familiarity. Making good Aspects takes a lot of practice and new players are regularly disappointed that their interesting character is not working properly. :(

Fate also has a lot more mechanics that Fate-fans want to admit. It is definitely not 'rules-lite', and that is not about the Skills, I think that Fate Accelerated is more complex than Fate Core/Condensed.

I do want to like the system, but find it unnecessarily painful every time. :(
I heavily agree. The only system that I have found that did that right is Cypher System. And that is because the only meta-currency is XP, so you can choose to spend XP as Bennies or Fate Points, or save it for Major or Minor Upgrades, and it seems to balance out those uses. The way Cypher hands them out also works more smoothly than Fate Points, the mechanics of which I dislike.
As a general idea, I tend to agree. But taking the time to build up Fate Points and Establish Scene Aspects to then burn them down to get the big win is a valid strategy and can be fun.

If the GM does it right it is not an 'instant win' and has all the risks spread out in the setup/planning phase so the players seldom reach the climax and are disappointed by one bad dice roll. The GM needs to make that a difficult strategy, though, else pump-and-dump becomes a boring way to play. Most of the time this should not be the way things are done.
?? It sound like you are dumping on PbtA! We won't have that here! :)

I am not sure if you are saying this is something like from Fate or Traveller? PbtA often has a whole list of specific Moves and no generic way to do things. I find that specificity can really help players get unstuck, but does sometimes result in them looking to their sheets rather than looking to the fiction when they want to know what they should do next.
Cool. That gives us some shared vocabulary. I really like Monster of the Week (MotW), but it is not the best written game, and quite hard to learn from. It also does not have the best GM advice section. It is often worth reading other PbtA games just to see what they have to say, even if one does not plan to run/play them.

If you can get it, it is also worth reading Blades in the Dark, it is PbtA-adjacent, and very hard to run in PbP (unless everyone knows the swiss-clock of its rules), but it teaches a lot of good habits that are useful in PbtA.
I can not comment in this instance, but often 'licensed-IP' games can be hard to play loosely. There is also Legend of the Elements that I looked at when my players wanted me to run Avatar(ish) for them. I am not sure it had enough 'bending' to be a replacement, though, it was a long time ago.
Most PbtA games admonish the GM not to prepare a session. Even MotW —which asks you to prepare a mystery— orders you to 'not plan ahead'.

When I create a 'mystery' or scenario, I don't decide how it needs to be solved. I generally check that I can come up with a few ways to possibly tackle it —if I can't think of any, then it may be a broken dead-end— and then follow what the players think is happening whenever it is feasible. In MotW I don't start with a firm idea of what they are facing, what they think is happening shapes the facts in the end.
There are a few angles to this:

First, don't stress too much about finding 'new and novel' ways to do things. Most often the first thing that comes to your mind is the right thing to do. Speak to your players and, unless they are saying they are bored with the types of consequence, stick to what works.

But you can immerse your brain in relevant fiction before going into a game. Not only will that give you ideas about future plot-points, it will prime you to respond in ways that fit the particular game. This can be harder in PbP where we might have to hold several games and genres in our minds at the same time, but PbP gives a lot more time to think about how to respond.

Don't worry too much about taking a few seconds to think about what you want to do. It feels like an age when you are on the spot, but ask your players about it later and you will probably find they did not even notice. They will thank you for not rushing (or they would if they noticed:).
We all feel that way. Unless it is getting boring for the players, remember that most of the interesting stuff comes from how they deal with it, not from what 'it' is. Unless their reactions are also getting repetitive, presenting them with similar (some may say: genre-appropriate) outcomes is not a problem and is probably what you should be doing most of the time.
You are not supposed to. If you are playing Avatar, give them complications that you have seen in Avatar. If you are playing MotW give them the sorts of complications you have seen in Supernatural, or Buffy, or whatever your game's touchstones are.

It is much better to keep the responses within the 'feel' of the game you are playing than to 'surprise' your players. Surprise is not always good (we will come back to this).
I honestly can't answer that. I react in the moment and, out of context, they would not be very interesting.

Have you ever heard someone else try to tell you about their own game? Everyone rolls their eyes and is bored. 'You had to be there, man!'
The only example I can think of is when a Albert (the bartender) rolled a 12+ on bravely attacking some skeletons and his god (god of Fire and Conquest) turned his broomstick (his only weapon?) into a 'flaming staff' which then powered everyone else's weapons upon contact and made the undead easy(er) to deal with. Maybe TheGenerator can find that in their summary of that game. :)
Right on, bother! :)

So many people have said to me: "This is what I thought DnD was going to be like!" after being disappointing with the number-crunchy-nit-picking.
Possibly my advantage is that I found the books (aDnD 2nd Edition?) and had to work out for myself how to play. So many people learned bad habits from grognard GMs or those who were beaten down by bad groups. I hear horror stories, but had a hard time taking them seriously till I saw how some players played.
That is always the scary part. Talk to your players, elicit plot hooks from them and what they are interested in, that way you never have to worry about your plot hooks not being picked up.

Look into the concept of 'flags' —building plot-hooks/ideas/worlds based on the players' character sheet choices. Though that can bite you if the players optimise to hurry through combat because that is what they find boring and you interpret that as 'they have speced for combat, I will give them combat'. Talk to your players about why they have chosen something and why they have left something off their sheet.

Many players summarise their playbook when they create a sheet here on GP. But I encourage them to leave the negative choices in the sheet, since what they did not choose is often as telling as what they did choose.
Then focus on that. That is the fun part. Talk to your player about any plot-hooks they 'rejected' and about why (most of the time it will be because they did not notice it:). Tailor your future plot-hooks to the ones they gravitate towards.

Share the burden.

Don't fret about the plot-not-taken. There will be other games in the future, and you can try them again and see if they work there.
Depending on what sort of issues you have had, the answers may be the same as above, with the added caveat that the players may have 'rejected' it because they were having fun and did not want to get distracted.

Be careful of side-quests in PbP, they can take months. :)
I don't tend to think in terms of 'plot-hooks'. I tend to present the world and see what the players engage with and then flesh that out in more story. But this is not a system that will work for all groups or settings.

Think about what you are trying to achieve. Do you need more plot-hooks? What do the players want to do? Talk to your players.
Many PbtAs are more explicit about this —and this is a point Blades in the Dark makes better than most— but the players should never be surprised by the outcome of a roll. If they 'did not expect that' then the fiction was possibly not sufficiently established.

The direction the story takes can be surprising (though it does not need to be), but the direct outcome should not be. You never want to hear you player say 'I did not think he would attack me for that!'.

I tell my player that they are not allowed to roll dice unless I have asked them to. I seldom enforce that as a rule, but it is a good starting point and can be relaxed after everyone has a fuller understanding of the way things work.
The point I think I was making is that FKR (or FK) was designed for all professional soldiers, the assumption was that they all had a very good, well-grounded understanding of what was 'reasonable'. We don't have that in most of our RPGs, so FKR is often a pipe-dream. It is unquestionably the 'best' RPG system... but only works in very selective groups. :(

I do still want my rules to get out of the way and let me play.

Not surprising... the probably haven't. Not unless you all talked about it before the roll, and in that case, you have thought about it too. :)

But if they have, then use what they thought about, else think about it now while chatting about it.
That is specifically a Basic Move in Urban Shadows.
Yeah. Try not to put them under the microscope when they are not expecting it. You don't want them to be deer-in-the-headlights. :)

I will often warn them: "I am going to cut away to Bob. When I come back I will ask you <...>. Don't worry if you can't answer.". That way they have time prepare.

Eventually they get in the habit and start to offer their ideas before I ask. That is great since they are more likely to make the offer when they have ideas they are excited about.

I am pretty sure the rules say you have to do that. They always talk about 'Harm as Established' and this is the 'establishing' part.

From Monster of the Week: Say what honesty demands, covers most of it.

If the players don't fully know that they doing and what they are rolling for, it can get messy. They can not see the scene inside your head.

I appreciate your response! I agree that Fate is super complex, and I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze.

I am not dumping on PbtA, I would never take the name of the TTRPG Gods in vain. I genuinely actually enjoy having vague moves like "Rely on skills and training," "Push your luck," and "Defy danger" because they encompass a lot of moves and act as a catch-all if everyone thinks a move was triggered but none of the other moves were explicitly invoked.

I am also familiar with Blades in the Dark and often steal its clock system to supplement by PbtA games because I often find it is easy to tick a clock on failed roll, and that sets up a future hard move in a way that builds tension and also seems fair. I consider it a visual representation of "fortell future badness," which is almost always a GM move.

Thank you for all of your advice! I'll try to work some of it into my games.

Yeah, but you only get to use them when one of the other moves does not apply. Some games have a lot of moves.

I am a great fan of Impulse Drive (check out the 'free' version as it has everything you need bar the art), but it sure has a lot of Moves.
So many people say that. Clocks are from Apocalypse World! (Yeah, I knowledge that Blades made them famous.:)

I was more thinking about how it describes dice outcomes and fiction first, and the general advice for GMs it gives.

Oh no, clocks are actually from Apocalypse World?? I learn something every day! I thought I had been stealing from Blades, although I guess it doesn't reallt matter where I am stealing from, as long as it is working. I'll have to check out Impulse Drive, thank you!

To be honest, Fate is less complex in PbP. I'm in my 2nd and 3rd game of it now and the negotiating in PbP is super easy. You just roll and say "if needed I will spend 1 fate point to give myself a +2". Then it's up to the GM to decide if it's needed or not. You can choose to narrate it before or after.

I really enjoy the system. Playing around with the aspect is super fun to me as I love doing improv stuff.

Much easier than D&D combat in PbP if you ask me.