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My brother is about to being running his first role-playing game. He has purchased the Doctor Who RPG and i got him the creatures and aliens expansion for Xmas. He is an excellent role-player despite the fact limited experience. He holds his own pretty well amongst a group where the average player has been playing for more than 20 years.

I have given him some advice about structure and the types of encounters and have told him about the level of prep necessary to run a game properly.

If you guys game give me any advice or non game specific resources i can pass onto him they would be greatly appreciated.

1st Advice: Note cards are you friend.

For any system, have some generic encounter on note cards and some extra scenarios (generic location) that you can throw in if the party "veer off" from the general story line.

While it is AWESOME to have a good solid adventure, the party will most likely veer off to some strange detail you put into the game or just wondering what if they do this. This is where the note cards come into play. You can have side adventures and encounters ready and get the party back to the story without railroading them (some players hate that)

Of course alternate stories are good to have too (which you can use at later adventures if you never get around to it)

2nd advice: Know your materials (or at least bookmark or something) you don't have to memorize all the stats and such, but at least have them handy or at least know the general gist of common rules.

3rd advice: know your players. This is very important (could be number 1) do your players LOVE to fight? love to listen to stories? puzzles? you can mold your adventure to cater to your players (less chance of wandering off) plus it will be fun for everyone. Do your players love to "mess with you" if they do, put in some encounters that might just be "hard enough" (this is where knowing your materials come into play)

4th advice: have fun. The whole experience is for YOU and YOUR players to have fun. If either party is not having fun, then the campaign is a wash (IMO)

It goes without saying, but GMs are NOT competing against their players.

Running a game well is akin to reading your players a very complex choose your own adventure book. A certain amount of railroading will be accepted as long as the players feel they have the choice and control. (i.e. unbreakable locked doors are bad, having the players reach the dungeon you had planned regardless of which turn they took on the road is good).

Role-playing Games - Stack Exchange is a good place to go if you have a question.

---------- Post added at 04:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:17 PM ----------

Oh, another thing. Place bookmarks in your books so you can quickly flip to sections. This is especially handy for enemy encounters.

"Plan less, prepare more" is definitely the way to go.

It depends on the specific group, but it's so fucking frustrating when you spend hours planning this grand storyline, and players start completely screwing it up within 15 minutes of the session starting. Creating a general plot-framework for players to muck around in instead of a specific plot is a far more worthwhile investment of time.

I like to supplement the plot-framework with world-building, so I always have extra material to throw out there when things take a severe left-turn, and my players get to do whatever they want while I gently nudge them in the direction I want to go.

SpecialKO said:

"Plan less, prepare more" is definitely the way to go.

It depends on the specific group, but it's so fucking frustrating when you spend hours planning this grand storyline, and players start completely screwing it up within 15 minutes of the session starting. Creating a general plot-framework for players to muck around in instead of a specific plot is a far more worthwhile investment of time.

I like to supplement the plot-framework with world-building, so I always have extra material to throw out there when things take a severe left-turn, and my players get to do whatever they want while I gently nudge them in the direction I want to go.

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bingo! The idea is to "let" your player "think" they have full control of the game (i.e. go anywhere and do stuff) but have realistic obstacles and paths that will lead the players direction that YOU want them to go. Always have multiple paths cause I can assure you that your players will think of ways of doing things that you may not conceive yet

honestly i started my first time as a DM with DnD 4e earlier this fall, i bought the first level precanned campaign thing for newbs. I used its setting and a few story hooks, and then just made the shit up as i went, as my fall semester draws to an end I am preparing the men to go into the final dungeon of the story, wipe out evil and save the day. all of the top of my head, they are so excited and they still haven't realized I am making it up and not using the book.

do you know how good it feels to be told this is possibly one of the greatest stories ever played, and they have no idea you are just making it up every week.