Advice for a potential GM?

I\'m considering G Ming a tabletop RP game with a group of friends. Whether I will GM or not is very undecided, but if I do, I need to choose a roleplaying system. Pathfinder or D&D won\'t work because this is going to be a sci-fi game (with elements of cosmic horror).

The first system I was introduced to is GURPS and it looked great from the player end... until I got to see the combat mechanics. Last session, we spent 30 minutes on what was effectively a crate getting dropped on my character, before eventually giving up and coming up with our own a damage dice to roll for this purpose. It seems that GURPS as a system creates a lot to keep track of for the GM, and would thus make combat etc. rather difficult. I don\'t anticipate much combat in my game, but there will be some, and I would rather it not take multiple sessions to resolve. I could just follow the policy other G Ms amongst my friends have, and simplify it from what the rules say, but I don\'t want to do some of the handwaves my friend have resorted to (such as editing out all forms of ranged weaponry from a high-tech setting).

Alternatively, one of my friends has suggested taking the God Machine Chronicles and removing all of the stuff I don\'t need, and using that as a much more streamlined system. My concern is that God Machine is designed with a specific backstory in mind that I don\'t want to work within. My second concern is that it isn\'t general enough (e.g. there is one drive skill, while driving a car or driving a spaceship are different both IRL and for my campaign). I\'ll soon have a chance to actually read God Machine, and perhaps that will resolve things. In the meantime, what is your advice on this? Which system should I use?

I think I'd need to know more about what systems you've enjoyed playing as well as a general description of complexity level before I could begin to offer a recommendation. For example, my first instinct was to recommend FATE, but upon further review, you might find that too simplistic.

Thank you for the reply! I've certainly enjoyed playing GURPS, but I'm mostly concerned that its complex combat mechanics will be difficult to keep track of as a GM. Other than that, I've played Pathfinder, and found it to be a bit simplistic, though certainly fun with a good GM. Our groups GM is currently trying Vampire the Requiem, but I've only come for one session, so I can't judge that system yet.

As a player, I certainly like complex and detailed games. Now that I'm faced with the challenge of actually G Ming such a game... that's where my dilemma comes in

edited 17th Jan '15 1:46:31 PM by Spaceman9800

The God Machine / World of Darkness is of low to moderate complexity, though when I DM'd it, it was to a lot of first timers so it was still kinda uphill. They all made it through OK though, and DM'ing it wasn't too hard from a mechanics perspective, most of my time was spent in actual storytelling.

Regarding the "too few skills" aspect: you can always use skill specialties as prerequisites to do different related things. For example, Drive (Piloting) (Speeder) or Craft (Droids) (Spaceship Repair). You could always house rule entire new skills, some setting books like Ancient Rome replaced Drive with Horsemanship, and Computers with Military Tactics.

But is the God Machine ruleset (with modification) really appropriate for use in non-World of Darkness Settings?

edited 18th Jan '15 8:59:34 PM by Spaceman9800

I'm going to go ahead and throw in FATE as a suggestion, but it's not everybody's cup of tea. Alternatively, if you are using cosmic horror, just use Call of Cthulhu, and homebrew in sci-fi style equipment and the like.

Small modifications to the rules have also been used for super-heroes, space exploration, 1920's pulp, and I don't even know what to classify Exalted as. Plus, for different Urban Fantasy than World Of Darkness, there's Scion.

So yes, the system itself certainly has the versatility to do most anything, with a good GM.

Pathfinder is a bit too simplistic for you? Clearly, you want to run HERO System then.

In all seriousness, it's a bit tricky to properly balance making a system sufficiently "fiddly" without combat getting extremely bogged down (heck, I find it gets bogged down pretty fast in 3.5 and Pathfinder, particularly when people get enough feats and powers that you see everyone dividing out what's happening on move and standard actions, and they're debating whether to burn their swift/immediate now or save them for later, while taking at least two free actions (maintaining an effect and talking to someone else).

The World of Darkness system tends to flow pretty well, but it's definitely more simplistic than Pathfinder. Not that you can't bolt on a bunch of extra bits, but I find that the game becomes much less elegant when you do regardless of whether you're playing Vampire, Hunter, or any other in the line... heck, I generally find that the game suffers if you allow the party to take different splats even if you keep each character restricted to a single splat - even if the vampire only has access to vampire powers, it starts getting messy when you figure out how his powers work around the mage, and how both of them affect that changeling over there.

For the note about how it can do different genres... well, technically true. I tend to think that it collapses on itself at higher power levels. The problem being that supers games usually start at higher power levels, so I'm generally not fond of Aberrant - it felt a little too close to Rifts for my tastes.

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, given that it's a Fantasy Kitchen Sink and probably a few canon details away from being a World of Weirdness, but I think Shadowrun might work for you. It's sufficiently fiddly and it's already in a sci-fi setting. You can strip out the parts that don't suit you and add stuff that does (heck, the in-setting insect spirits are a couple lines of description away from being a Cosmic Horror already; changing that feels like it's just cosmetic).

I say we try to put more of the responsibility for a positive gaming experience on the players, we share our needs too. You don't have to like the creation, but be nice about it. Players in my really few games have sometimes casually commented that "GM created NPC X sucks." Subjectively, that might be true, but there might be more tactful ways to say it. All the hours I spent writing up that character, their background, history, and motives, and weaving them into the world mean that I'm a little attached to them. With negative player feedback I'm going to minimize thier role because the players aren't responding to them well. That's fine. I tell myself during world creation I need to maintain some non-attachment about it because the world will be different once the players touch it. On the other hand, I don't like it when my creation is outright insulted, or players going out of thier character's ways to eliminate an NPC, thankfully your average Tabletop Gamer tend to avoid such path. The positive side of this is to share with the GM when something goes well or when something in the world is cool. One of my players called me after my last session and said, "That was neat".

This is probably not a really important advice, but it can help to lighten the moods. Don't beat yourself over screwing up, try to figure a way around it without having ruin the play, but, since you are playing with friends you can sometimes just laugh a bit and get back to te game. There was this one time my friends forgot to increase thier stats while leveling up, and they somehow made it until the end, it was hilarious yet awsome. They forgot, I forgot to remind them, but it somehow led to a challenging campaign for him. In the end, we just want a positive and fun session!

edited 27th Jan '15 5:08:52 AM by YoKab

I've settled on GURPS in the end because its the system I'm most familiar with, for better or worse, and due to its abundance of high-tech skills and advantages, one that works well for what I plan to do.