Tips for beginner running this game? Veteran of many systems

[chefdeadpool]

So I've got a really diverse group of players during my Saturday game session. We play a couple of RPGs a night during a 12-ish hour span, and my first next week will be MURPG set in the Spider-Man New York.

I'm a veteran player and GM of tabletop RPGs, and I came to this game after a whole bunch of the 5+ versions of D&D/AD&D (I've played and run them all), Palladium Heroes Unlimited, Fuzion, The Dark Eye 5th Edition, and most importantly I've played and run FASERIP, Villains and Vigilantes, and Mutants and Masterminds.

This system seems really different and I approached it because one of my players is really into diceless RPGs, and I've recently come into his reasoning after dealing with a lot of meaningless randomness in other games.

What tips do you have for a new GamesMaster?  Is there anything I should be wary of when running this game?

This game seems like a lot to take in at one go, so I'm hoping you folks can help me out in making sure I don't miss any key points of the books.

Any help is appreciated!

[Gris]

With that background on hero games you should probably be more than fine, but here are my two cents as a very very long time player of the game:

- Be aware that the game is nowhere near balanced, that shouldn't be an issue on an RPG, but still.
- Take into account that as written, injuries severely diminish characters' capabilities since their energy regeneration gets hindered.
- As a GM you should be accustomed to it, but get ready to improvise.

Besides that, welcome!

[Neros]

Don't invent unless nececaryq
If a player wants a power not covered in the rules, it is stil very likely you can use the mechanics in an alteady defined Action or Modifier (with some tweaks maybe), to simulate the power. It can save lots of time.

But with so much experience with other systems, it is hard to really come up with advice good advice. But Gris got a couple good ones, but I hope mine also will help out abit.

[Brainstem]

May 29, 2017 2:26:15 GMT -5 Neros said:

Don't invent unless nececaryq
If a player wants a power not covered in the rules, it is stil very likely you can use the mechanics in an alteady defined Action or Modifier (with some tweaks maybe), to simulate the power. It can save lots of time.

This 1,000x. And don't be afraid to get a little weird with it; anything can really be anything because, at the end of the day, stones are stones are stones.

Also make sure you're familiar with the terminology. The book uses "stones" as a few different types of things, so be aware of where the differences lie (i.e., energy vs. character creation).

If you can, try to temper your players when they're building characters (or have them pull CADs from the books). Modifiers go off the rails and are very easy to cheese. If a character is too modifier heavy, you lose the "gambling" aspect that would otherwise be a decent balancing factor in the game. WildKnight (another vet here) has used a rule where players can't apply more Modifier stones to an Action than the cost of characters divided by 10 (rounded down and excluding Challenges). In this way, a 40-stone character would be able to stack up to +4 in Modifiers at a given time.

Speaking of Challenges, be careful not to let the players cheese this too much, either. Since the game is so broad, it's up to you as the GM to curtail anything that might be abusive. You won't catch everything, but you can catch some things. "Haunted Past 5" for "teased in high school" is probably too much; those 5 stones go a long way.

Also come up with some kind of Initiative tiebreaker. Unless a character is Agility-centric, chances are you're going to have a lot of players acting on the same beat. If you have something that can make up for this, you can save a headache.