GreenSea's GM 101 for beginners

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GreenSea

黄緑の勇者
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. Slow As Molasses
Online Availability
11 A.M - 11 P.M GMT +7
Writing Levels
  1. Give-No-Fucks
  2. Beginner
  3. Elementary
  4. Intermediate
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Primarily Prefer Male
Genres
I would tend to play Modern Fantasy or High Fantasy(2017)

Still true to this day(2024)
How to be a GM 101: beginner
Note: this guide is solely to help the community to start to become a GM and this by any means that I write are all correct, it's all base on my view and how I work. Hope this guide helps everyone who ust want to start their own RP. =D
What is GM?
A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator or referee) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for questions regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. The act performed by a gamemaster is sometimes referred to as "Gamemastering" or simply "GM'ing". [1]

Which means that Game master is someone that have the power to control the flow and the life of the RP. They are the ones who have the power to set the rule of the RP and foremost to decline and accept people who'll be joining the RP. GM also will be answering all of the players' questions as well as handle the entire problem that's in the OOC.

Responsibilities of GM

As Uncle Ben said, "with bigger power comes with bigger responsibility," (spiderman references) GM will need a lot of responsibility to make the RP going. Here are some responsibilities you need to have a GM or at least what I've come to conclude;
  1. GM needs to be friendly and strict.
  2. GM need to know their own rp as a whole
  3. GM needs to Keep track of their players; these include taking the first initiative when your players who are shy and etc.
  4. GM need to make an RP to live as long as possible in a fun way
GM needs to be friendly and strict

This could be confusing for some people at first but they will soon to understand of why GM need to be like that. Being strict doesn't mean you need to be control freak, what I mean are more to observe and warn player if they cross the line (it's recommended to give them warning rather than giving them a direct ticket out of your RP unless it's really can't be handle by simple discussion). By being strict also mean that you should not be biased at all time, this is really what you should avoid at all cost. There are steps of how not to being biased but I'll save that for a later time. As for being friendly, means that GM need to interact with players in and out of OOC to build the chemistry that's needed.

GM need to know their own RP as a whole

This sound stupid but I think there are some GM that would constantly changing their RP in the middle of sign up phase and I don't recommend this at all. From my experience, I think a well layout RP are the best out of all RP, without any hesitation on answering potential players and players' question. Although planning isn't a must but I recommend it or… if you doesn't sure about your RP concept just head to Interest check and see if there's people that might like it.

GM needs to Keep track of their players; these include taking the first initiative when your players who are shy and etc.

Yes by keeping track you need to keep in check every week at least of their activity if they haven't post yet in a week. GM also need to socialize with players in and out of the IC to provide chemistry like I said before. For further detail you can check @Acardia 's thread (Really recommend to read the thread): HERE

GM need to make an RP to live as long as possible in a fun way

This is the hardest things that almost all GM including me having trouble with. I rarely have seen a good long run RP that lives at least 4 months, there are variety of reason which makes an RP to be death but fear not, as over these past weeks I've been searching for the reason that an RP long lived;
  1. Dedicated GM and Co-GM
  2. Players are usually around 5+ but mostly in a huge number
  3. A strong foundation on their concept (meaning it's well detailed and well planned)
  4. Post Pace are not too fast but not too Slow, (probably 1 people would have 1 post over 1-3 days)
  5. OOC post are over 100+ replies, which means they talked a lot outside IC
Lastly, is there any suggestion or tips for people that soon going to be GM?
The answer is no sadly, because the best part of being GM is to experience it by yourself.
Sorry for the short post once again I hope this help people who are planning to be GM. If there's any problem regarding about GM-ing, you can PM me and I'll be sure to contact you ASAP. Also sorry if there's any missing content in here, I'll be sure to keep updating this thread!

Extra notes:
And if you aren't that familiar with Roleplaying, I recommend you all to visit @Hana 's thread about introduction to Roleplay:HERE
Sources:
[1]Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamemaster