Hello all! I am trying to get the nerve up to run Thea. However I have never done this before and am really nervous. plus I really have no idea where to begin and how to get rating. I have read a couple things to tell me what to do but that only gets me more confused. Please if any one has any ideas or remembers what they did their first time let me know. Thanks. [QUOTE]I am a fragile little tea cup floating in the sea of life.

Try The RPG Site. It has an Actual Play and Gameplay Craft forum you might like. People there don't bite... much.

Well, I GMed SR3 for years, and there is one single thing I would hold up as being THE most important thing to do as the GM.

THE most important thing is to be consistient in your administration of the rules. If you're inconsistient you'll never hear the end of the bitching and the whining whenever something bad happens to a player character. The only way that you can have your games not degenerate into whinefests when bad things happen to characters is if your application of the rules were consistient from day one and so there's no room for argument about whether or not you handled that called shot correctly.

In the even that you need to change the way you were doing something for any reason you must tell all the players exactly what you're going to change and ask each one of them if they agree. Only when all of them agree should you change that rule. If not everyone agrees then you probably won't be able to keep order at the table should you do the rule a different way.

As part of consistiency I'd recommend letting the dice fall where they may and not fudging to save the PCs. IF you fudge once they expect it and they could get all pissy on the day that you refuse to fudge. Let them get a feel for what the real probabilities in game are of things happening and there will be less room for argument.

Of course, in order to be able to do all of these things I'm describing you need to be totally on top of the rules you were using. I say don't be afraid to take the time in them middle of a session to look up a rule as written because it's better to delay the game a bit but be consistient always than it is to wing it and have people get mad that you did it a different way next time. Be on top of all the rules you will use during a session and also be aware of the things which are likely to come up unexpectedly like falling damage rules or rules for ramming a pedestrian with a vehicle.

When I started out GMing years ago I thought I could be all fudgey and friendly, but I learned that that dosen't work if you want to have a real game with a real possibility of failure. You just have to be solidly by the book or at least unwaveringly consistient from day one.

I like the top four articles here. The author is Rich Burlew, creator of insanely popular webcomic The Order Of The Stick, so you know they're good!

Kill your players characters over and over again LOL JK... just be imaginative, and go with the flow. try to let players expand upon the backgrounds of their character and put them into the game from time to time.

One big tip you NEVER EVER EVER want to railroad your players. They will hate you for it. Players have a tendency of not going the way the story is wanting them to go alot of time. Deal with the choices they make and try to find suttle ways to bring them back into the story. For example if they are about to kill a Major NPC have someone show up to save him with a suprise attack and let him get away. but make it smooth. Dont tell them things like well do you really want to do that or alot of times you will find yourself having to wing it and be as flexible as possible when your doing it. If something happens you dont want to happen, and you cant think of what to do about it take a restroom break smoke break or food break and think it over some.

anywho hope that helps

And don't let Wounded Ronin scare you. It's ok to mess up every now and then unless you're players are raging assholes, in which case why are you gaming with them? The important part of screwing up is to admit it when you realize it and fix it if possible. Don't bother with too much retconning unless it's a huge problem (like the difference between 2P and 7P). A few examples of what I've done:

- If you miscalculate someone's attack and they deal more damage to a PC then they should, just wipe that damage off. If you're not sure how much, go with the average + 1. It fixes the problem that probably would have occured, and the +1 makes it so that if the player complains they look like they're being a jerk.

- If for someone reason someone isn't taking as much damage as they should have because of a miscalculation, either add the damage, or if it's too late shift that damage over to future opponents.

The important part, again, is to admit it and fix it. Everyone makes mistakes, but the GMs that try to act as if they didn't don't get respect.

The next important thing, which in my mind is even more important than rules consistency (YMMV) is reality consistency. Actions should have consequences, both good and bad. The important thing is that those consequences are logical. It's one thing to have one gaurd out of 30 know somebody capable of hiring a team to hunt down the PCs that killed him, but if every third gaurd is Lofwyr's godson your players are going to laugh at you.

cybertrucker is right about railroading: it sucks bigtime. However, for the first couple of runs it might be ok. If your first few runs are simplistic and fairly linear, you can tell your players ahead of time that they're like "practice runs" and they should be nice enough to follow the plot for you. Once you've got the hang of running combats, hacking, astral scouting, and the tons of other things that a GM has to do in his games, then you take off the kid gloves and go for the more complicated and player-driven scenarios.
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thank you for all the advice. I will be starting to compile the things I need soon. I just have one question. What are your favorite monsters for 3rd level?