@surreality said in Favicon:
there is a broad and enjoyable medium between stark minimalism and angelfire glitterbomb circa 1998 with shimmering snowflakes chasing your cursor and pixies screaming on click
Us old people like to call that middle ground "the rest of existence."
I don't care that your child wants to play with it. It's my phone.
@Ninjakitten said in How to BeipMU: The best MU Client for Windows:
Wine needs more love
OS agnostic programming needs more love.
I will also say, as a double-post, I am far more campaign-oriented than scene-oriented as far as my GM-ing rules go. Scenes don't really need rules. Take an idea, run it. People will like it, it'll be resolved, or they won't and it won't.
Ultimate rule: Learn by doing. If you want to run a thing, run it. It might not be your magnum opus, but every attempt is one more step to mastery.
@Ghost I can also recommend Matt Colville's Running the Game series. It's rather longer than GM Tips, but good if you want detailed information on worldbuilding, dealing with adversaries, and so forth.
The keyest of key things about becoming any kind of GM is that you need to be open to criticism. That doesn't mean you should just tolerate abuse, but you definitely need to be okay with one of the players in your story coming to you with something that's bothering them or concerns them.
You also need to become comfortable with the idea of approaching players, if their behaviour is bothering you or if you don't feel that they're participating as well as they might. Engagement and such things are all part of your job when you take on this role.
@silverfox said in How do you like things GMed?:
What do you usually do to start a scene, or if you are building something larger than one scene, how do you begin that?
The first step, I would say, is to learn all you can about the characters and players you want to draw in. You're designing the scenario (be it one scene or a long-lingering plot) for both their fun and to tell your story. There's no use in running a plot full of investigation and intrigue for people that only like hitting things, for instance.
Once that is mostly done I usually start with thoughts for the plot or scene's end. Sort of.
What is the ultimate goal for the scene/plot/whatever? That goal might never be reached, and might change as things move on, but it helps to ground the middle bits and the beginning - as having far too much freedom can send my mind mind racing, so that I obsess over the middle but never get to the end - and planning (not setting down a definitive plan, just planning) helps to establish reasons for why the players and characters involved will want to keep telling this story with you when things go wrong.