During New Gamemaster Month, we’re going to give you the skills and confidence to become a GM. We’ll guide you through the process of understanding the rules, the setting, and your first adventure, and by the end of it you’re going to run a game—and love it!

Gamemastering. To some gamers, it seems to come naturally, but to others—longtime veterans of gaming, as well as newbies just entering the hobby—it’s a bit intimidating. But running an RPG can be an incredible joy, and GMs keep our hobby thriving and growing. That’s why we created New Gamemaster Month. If you’ve ever thought about running an RPG, but haven’t taken the plunge, we have good news: Stick with us for a month, and come this time in February you’ll be a real, honest-to-goodness GM. It’ll be easy, and it’ll be fun. We promise.

Why Run A Game?

Before we get started, though, a question: Why should you run an RPG? Well, if there is one factor that limits the spread of RPGs, it’s the number of GMs. For most types of games you don’t really need any specialized “equipment,” just the game itself (usually), a handful of players (usually), a place to play, and in some cases a gaming platform of some sort. Tabletop RPGs are a bit different—they can’t happen unless at least one person in the group steps up to take on a special role. A role that requires a bit more preparation, effort, organization, and tolerance for the spotlight. Without GMs, RPGs can’t happen. As a GM, you’ll be helping the RPG world in general.

But the fact that you’re reading this tells me you probably already know a more important reason: It’s an activity we GMs really take joy in. Heck, there’s more to it than joy—it’s practically a need. A creative drive. For a lot of GMs, crafting a compelling world, peopling it with interesting characters, laying out engaging conflicts and mysteries, and then revealing these to the players as they work their way through their story (and often being surprised by their contributions along the way) is incredibly fulfilling. Nothing scratches the creative itch in quite the unique way that GMing does.

You’ve seen that, and you feel its pull—that’s why you’re interested in New Gamemaster Month. That’s why you want to run a game.

So What Are You Getting Into?

Putting yourself behind the proverbial GM screen seems daunting. There must be some trick to it that’s not obvious, right? Some secret handed down in whispers from master to master, or an innate gift that you have or you don’t? And so many pitfalls: What if the other players know the rules better than you? Or the setting? Or would do such a better job that they see right through your flailing attempts to make the adventure or campaign work?

Here’s the secret to GMing: It’s easy.

Really, it’s easy. Once you’re sitting in the GM’s chair, and you’ve run a session or three, you’ll agree. But from where you’re sitting now, it’s no surprise that it seems a bit intimidating. That’s just jitters.

You’ll need to understand how your rules work, sure, but you don’t have to be the biggest expert, regardless of whether your players are all newbies or are veterans who’ve played the game for years. You don’t have to have every nook and cranny of the setting committed to memory, either—in fact, the setting is yours to craft, and elements you interpret differently than what’s in print (on purpose or by accident) make the setting your own. That’s a feature, not a bug.

More important than any of those factors, though, is confidence. You need to feel that you can do it. That’s the secret sauce. It’s the only secret sauce.

So that’s what we’re going to give you over the next four weeks: skills and confidence. We’ll guide you through the process of understanding the rules, the setting, and your first adventure, so you’ll have the skills to run your first game. And along the way, we’ll give you the confidence that you have everything you need. To top it off, we’ll give you a little kick in the pants at the end, to turn that skill and confidence into an actual, live game session that you’ll run and enjoy.

That’s right: In four weeks, you’ll be a real, live, GM.

How Will This Happen?

Here’s the New Gamemaster Month plan of action: You’ll find a new post, right here on newgamemastermonth.com, every Tuesday and Thursday between now and January 30th. With each post, we’ll discuss the next step in your journey and give you a small activity that builds to your first GMing session. (Don’t worry, it’s not homework. This is fun stuff.)

As mentioned above, we’ll cover rules, setting, and the adventure itself. But we’ll also talk about the other elements of running a game: Stuff like wrangling players, lining up a time and place, and even laying in snacks. Everything you need to think about to get your game going and ensure it’s a success.

You choose the game you want to run. Four companies are partnering in New Gamemaster Month this year, giving you the opportunity to run your choice of games:

Numenera

Unknown Armies

Trail of Cthulhu

7th Sea

Which game should you choose? That’s up to you. Experience with the game will help, but isn’t necessary—the most important thing is that the game, its setting, and the adventure are all things you’ll enjoy.

Regardless of your choice, we’ll work from a published adventure that’s friendly to newbie GMs, so we’ll be able to focus this month on the act of GMing rather than the process of designing an adventure. The fundamentals are transferable, though: Once you’ve run your New Gamemaster Month adventure, you’ll be a full-fledged GM capable of taking on other systems, building your own worlds, and crafting your own adventures, if you desire, from scratch.

All you need to do is join us twice a week, read these posts, and follow through with the activities we recommend for the game you’ve chosen. You’ll commit a little time to the process—a few hours a week, tops—but by the end you’ll be ready to run!