Looking for brief mentorship to DM RPG games

August 22, 2024 8:34 AM

I want to learn how to DM one shot rpg games for my work as a teen librarian. I need some help.

I want to run some one-offs for our teen library patrons. I believe I want to use Roll20, but I am at present completely overwhelmed. I need some handholding to get over the initial learning curve and understand what I need to do to make this work. As an immigrant I don't have any local friends or peers I can approach for help. Roll20 does seem to have some learning resources but they are kind of dispersed, and I'm definitely sensing some 'fish don't know what water is' , inasmuch as I seem to blunder up against assumptions that I'll be used to xyz when it's actually my first time hearing of it.

I played one rpg nearly 30 years ago and liked it, but have next to zero experience.

I'd like to set up a kind of mentoring game for me where the extremely patient DM will explain to me what we're doing and how I might facilitate this for others. (Perhaps there are better ways to train me, I'm not sure.)

I'd like to take the time to run through selecting and setting up a module, selecting and using rules, various bits and pieces of how the various systems work, and like an overview of how the rules and freedom aspects interlock (I feel I kind of need the overview to stop my mind locking into a "how the heck can this possibly work ..?" mode)

I'm most interested in gaining enough skill to be able to do this myself, at least badly, but I do appreciate maybe the best way to learn might be to allow someone else to do it, including a party of our probably-similarly-inexperienced young teen patrons, and observe and ask questions 'offline' as it were - but I don't know if anyone will be up for that.

I'm on the US east coast. Anyone willing to take on an apprentice for a bit?

posted by aesop to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (22 answers total)

hey Aesop! Will you be playing remotely or in-person? Roll20 is mostly used (IME) to facilitate games with remote participants, so if you're playing in-person around a table, you might not have to worry about learning a big complex software package and can instead focus on the RPG ruleset you'll be using.
posted by Sauce Trough at 8:50 AM on August 22

Response by poster: Sauce Trough - thank you - I responded via MeFi mail
posted by aesop at 9:09 AM on August 22

aesop, would you mind also responding here? The answer to that question sets some important context.

I'd recommend avoiding Roll20, or any digital tool if you can avoid it and just focusing on learning the rules and the procedure for running a game. You can skip a lot of complexity by just using pencil and paper, and "theatre of the mind" (describing what happens) rather than getting tangled up in complex software.

Can you tell us more about what system you want to use? And the resources you have at your disposal?
posted by june_dodecahedron at 10:11 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I really don't know which system I want to use, because I don't know anything much about the systems available. It's one of the things I'm hoping to be guided on. I suspect that the simplest possible options will suit both me and my inexperienced patrons best, but I speak from ignorance.

Because I am starting from scratch and have no idea what I am doing I currently have no purchased resources available - it'd be like setting up a chemistry lab with no knowledge of chemistry. I can see spending a couple of hundred dollars if the pilots were successful. (That's another reason why Roll20 appeals- it looks possible to run something as a properly-featured pilot for free.)

As much as pencil and paper are cost-effective, I also need a balance of cost and effort: I don't have a great deal of time to spend on this, so purchasing convenience, albeit somewhat frugally, is somewhat of an option.

Here was my response for Sauce Trough-

I'm anticipating playing in-person, but the aspect of having everything in the computer is appealing: we can't lose bits and pieces, there seems to be plenty of free content that way, and in the nature of the job I frequently have to change occupations on a dime which means very limited setup time. Perhaps you're right and it's worth the differences. FWIW it seems to be the rules (& perhaps the location of various materials) that strike me as complex rather than Roll 20
posted by aesop at 11:00 AM on August 22

At the base, role playing is about a story. All the various systems, dice, etc are to enhance (and sometimes get in the way of) telling that story. You can create a role playing adventure with nothing beyond a plot line and another person. Everything else is in some ways extra.

If your town has a library, there's probably a game store somewhere nearby! Possibly even gamer groups. Almost every game people are awesome and willing to help, at least to let you sit and watch.


So.... A lot of my favorite games are pretty rules light. There's of course a dozen different main systems and a thousand minor ones.

Dungeons and Dragons is of course the big grandpa, the original. Pretty rules heavy with lots of information and data. The good thing is there is a ton of modules and information. To play all you really need is some characters made up, a pencil and a dice roller (virtual or physical. D&D loves 20 and 10 sided dice.) Pathfinder is D&D with the serial number filled off and a Legally Distinct amount of cosmic changes. I, uh, recommended borrowing or downloading the basics to see if it meets your needs. The Dungeon Masters guide is the basics starting point.. If you play D&D, be prepared for parents complaining about Satanic Panic, murder and witchcraft simulation, etc. it's not as bad as it was, but still exists.

White Wolf/Vampire has a lot of simple systems compared to D&D, but the subject matter is probably intense.

Shadowrun and Warhammer.... Palladium... Might be a lot to deal with, lol.

Firefly, a system based on the space Western TV show, uses three statistics and not much else: Fighting, Finesse, and Figuring. Brawn, fancy stuff, and smarts, basically. Any attempted activity falls under those three.


I find a lot of value in pretty simple games. Like Honey Heist.

You're a bear, trying to steal honey. You have a plan, but you and your criminal friends are dang ol bears. And then you just use the basics of journalism to create a scenario: Who, what, when, where, how. The bears are going to steal honey from... A zoo... Taken over by an insane fisherman.... Guarded by angry octopi, pressure plates, and video cameras. The location has typical zoo stuff, enclosures, animals, behind the scenes stuff, restaurants, bathrooms. Present your made up scenario and let the kids run wild making a plan. Your job is to try to gently guide the chaos, herd those cats. Balance challenge and letting them succeed step by step.


Or just let the kids create a scenario! Have them write a bunch of random stuff on notecards and toss it in a pile and draw the game from it. Everyone writes down a couple of heroes, a few monsters, a location or two, maybe some special powers, and it's just super fun insanity. Like, the party made up of the abomination snowman, a rodeo clown and a high end art docent are fighting giant penguins in the rain forest, then a thousand glow in the dark mosquitos in a dance club. What are their statistics? Who cares! They have any abilities and skills you can reasonably argue.


There's videos of any and all kinds of games being played, some of which even explains the methods lol. I don't know any good ones, but they are there.
posted by Jacen at 11:12 AM on August 22 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I applaud the storytelling and 'let them create it' aspects, but, respectfully, that is all post-training-wheels stuff. I don't think I can start there.

I need to follow some created content and learn how to expand from there. I certainly can't envisage successfully shepherding teens' creativity through this with no notion of how it all hangs together beforehand, and I'm really going to need to learn the ropes on something with bumpers (now there's a mixed metaphor for ya).
posted by aesop at 11:20 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]

When I was a baby DM and wanted to run my first D&D 5e session, this video from Matt Coleville (and the next couple in that playlist) helped me immensely. Everything he does on an online dungeon-drawing app you can do on graph or plain paper with a pencil and a ruler.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 11:55 AM on August 22 [3 favorites]

You've got to pick an easier game system to use than Dungeons and Dragons of any edition. The less numbers and rules the better, for a new GM and new players.

But more importantly - you really should get some PLAYING time in, if your last experience of this was decades ago. I recommend doing this research in person! Find your local game stores, which may have tables or space to play these games in, and talk with the staff about what evenings are popular with RPG gamers, or if anyone has an open table. Then when you find a game to join, you can do a lot of watching the GM do their thing.

To run a game is like an improv theater session of a radio drama. You're making up parts of a story, but only the half of it that faces the audience/players, and they provide the other half. But there's a lot more to it than that.

The dice rules only happen when there is conflict, a fight, some kind of effort where there can be relative success or failure. A lot of popular games like D&D, Pathfinder, the White Wolf games, the Warhammer games, they have a fuck ton of rules for fighting and so much math that they should be computer games. They don't always have advice or guidance for the rest of the story!

I am available via DM if you like. I have run a dozen long tern games over the last 20 years, played in a dozen more, thousands of hours of this stuff, and I am happy to point you toward some games that are great to run and easier than the technical numbers mess that is D&D and the like. But you really should, kindly, slow down and have some fun with it yourself and figure out which parts of the activity you really like and are good at, before you take on GMing. I'm just saying, you want to know a little more for yourself before you teach it or host a game.
posted by panhopticon at 12:10 PM on August 22 [7 favorites]

A lot of it depends on your players. Some people love all the details in the rules. Some people really like the story telling.
Recently there was a video of Deborah Ann Woll going around. Instead of explaining D&D to John Bernhall, she just starts playing with him. She engages him and does a lot of spoon-feeding of "so what do you do?" and through all of that explains the bare bones of the rules while at the same time showing how to engage players without needing a story arc in front of them.

In playing with my son, what I tried to do was figure out how to say 'yes' as much as possible.

Another option is to look at a system like Monster of the Week. It has relatively simple rules with a lot of options for role play. The canonical phrase from the game when in combat is "roll to kick ass" to which, depending out the outcome, prompts the GM to say something like "tell me what that looks like".
posted by plinth at 1:09 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Have you looked at Fiasco? It’s one shot RPG setups with a variety of themes (e.g. professional wrestling, rock concert). You can watch videos of games online, and it’s very simple to learn and teach. I don’t remember that it strictly needs a DM, you would be playing with the youths or just helping with rules. Some themes might be a bit spicier than you want for teens.
posted by momus_window at 1:58 PM on August 22

To be perfectly frank, if you've not played an RPG in 30 years, you're not going to be a good GM/DM. The players will be relying on you not just for story-telling and roleplaying, but for mechanics of the game.

If I were in your shoes, first, I'd watch a lot of youtube just to get a feel for how DMs and players interact. Critical Role is great for watching gameplay. Then start focusing on how to be a DM. Here's a list of some resources for DMs.

THEN start looking at systems for playing.

OR just start playing in-person so you can interact in person and learn from each other, THEN look at systems later if the demand for remote play is there.
posted by hydra77 at 3:50 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Nthing using a simple one-sheet ttrpg to start (like Honey Heist as suggested, all the Grant Howitt one shots could be great options) or like "Lasers and Feelings" (there are only 2 rolls involved, the game is free to download, and ppl have made lots and lots of variants of it). Fiasco is now available as a card game.

Playing a one shot, watching a one shot, watching ppl online play (Oxventure) on YouTube are all fantastic.

Doing whatever you can to make everything as simple as possible for yourself could help: don't worry about making a huge mystery or LOTR epic.
Set it in one location you can imagine easily. A spaceship, a tavern, a school, a library.
posted by Geameade at 7:24 PM on August 22

Watch some critical role including their handbook help and GM guide material. Play some games. Ask your presumptive players what they want to do, they may want to be very dicerolly or they may want to be more storytelly. Assemble some interested people first and discuss what you guys might like, watch some actual-play (search term) clips. There’s probably a budding dm in your catch,ent who would love to run the games and you can learn from them. Maybe don’t watch critical role or similar to set a more normal expectation. Consider World of Darkness as a system, there’s lots of variants including “human” and it’s quite simple, just D10s. Also think one shot, one shot, one shot, not campaigns. Just a little dungeon crawl, your blorbos go into a house, kill the things in it, get some cake, max 90 mins with pregen characters, no mysterious doors or anything.
posted by Iteki at 7:45 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

The easiest way to get a quick de facto mentorship is to play a game. If you look around at local gamestores and find a learn-to-play session, or google for Adventurers' League sessions in your area, you can find a level 1 game and in a session pick up 90% of the practical stuff you feel you're missing. If you play three sessions you'll probably have found a scenario you'd enjoy running.

That's really it for concrete useful advice though. Some other comments though (and I'm happy to chat over MeMail too if you want):

1. Your instinct kind of seems to start with D&D. I think that's a solid instinct. A basic, prepared, 1st level D&D adventure with a map and room descriptions is pretty easy to run, and has mechanics (like skill rolls and combat with initiative order) that sort of naturally cycle the spotlight, at least a bit, through the players. There's also a good chance that this is what random young teens would expect out of an RPG game.

2. IME everyone warning you off VTTs like roll20 is correct. I get why they seem like they'd save trouble, but in reality they are one more thing to track.

3. If you are playing something like D&D, print out first level characters (there are official "pregens" for each class) and have players use them the first time you run. Most of the legal options will be on the sheets, so they'll double as cheat sheets for new players. Do not be brow beaten into letting players design their flying birdman monk or whatever it is they want; this will keep things manageable for you as well as them.

4. Don't worry too much and have fun. All GMs start somewhere, and honestly if you do a bit of preparation, listen to your players, and try to make sure everyone's getting a chance to do something cool you'll be better than some convention GMs I've seen.

A final comment on "rules lite" narrative games, since they've come up in multiple comments: It's a bit of a debate among gamers if these are a good introduction. They often swap out mechanics and procedural rules for open ended creativity, which can awesome or intimidating, depending. (Not everyone walks into their first improv class and feels energized by the freedom.) On the last Ludonarrative Dissidents podcast (co-hosted by MeFi's James Wallis), for example, they were praising Grant Howitt as a game designer and GM but also pointing out his Honey Heist rules give no guidance on how to actually run a session or what they gameplay loop is.
posted by mark k at 7:57 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

Chiming in as another long-time GMb and player - as others have said, you want to start simple and small. A lot of good advice so far!

The suggestion to start with one-page RPGs is a not a bad one, but it assumes you already have some knowledge about how to put an adventure together:
Here's some to check out:
https://gamerant.com/best-one-page-tabletop-rpgs/

Check out your local gaming store and get a sense for what's out there. See if you can join a game or heck run a one page one shot for your friends. You want to have some practice before you try this out with teenagers.

Check out /RPG on Reddit. I swear there are many exact threads asking your exact question

I actually recommend against Critical Role because that's role-playing by voice actors as a performance - I think it's great entertainment but it's not the fastest or best way to really understand how to run a game.
Also it's only D&D, which is a pretty complex RPG.

Here's an article on other Actual Play podcasts to check out:
https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23578213/best-actual-play-podcasts-not-dungeons-dragons-dnd-alternatives
posted by canine epigram at 8:19 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

I also do not suggest listening to professionally produced shows/podcasts for help with this; they are fun, and great to listen to, but they will not provide you with what you're looking for.

(Ctrl-F: shadowdark zero results) Whaaaat, okay. Shadowdark!

Shadowdark is a 'rules light', straightforward, easy ruleset, that just won a crap ton of awards for being both physically well designed, mechanically well designed, and is just a fucking blast to play. It also has everything you need in a single book. I like complex TTRPGs, but I LOVE Shadowdark. You need like a few pieces of paper, and a few sets of dice to play. That's it. Kelsey Dionne takes minimalism very seriously, and that's great. I find it to be the best ruleset to play with folks that are 1- unfamiliar with TTRPGs, and 2- any amount of time restrictions are in place.

Peek through the quickstart rules (They are free! and could in fact, set you up and going). Watch the creator run the game. Her youtube channel has lots of information about why the game is designed the way it is...it's all really optional to watch, but there are some really good gems in there.

If you are absolutely starting from scratch, I would search for a 'module' or other pre-written adventure. This is fine! This is good! They exist for a reason! Beginner and experienced DM's alike use them. Modules are the setting and location stocked with all the 'things' inside the world that you just need to describe to players as they wander around the world you all build together.

Winter's Daughter is very good. Old School Essentials have a couple of anthologies of adventures that would be very compatible with Shadowdark (OSE has their own ruleset, and it is also good, but more complex. I have less direct experience with it). They are also very fun. Modules are the tools to 'learn how to DM'. Barkeep on the Borderlands is also quite fun (if carousing and drinking to solve mysteries as an adventure is age appropriate for your players).

I am not local to you, but would be more than willing to discuss what the process looks like on the DM side of things to prepare for and run a game. I would be more than happy to pull together some resources for you and discuss if you'd like. I've played in a few games, and DM'd a few games for both adults and middle/high schoolers. Feel free to memail me to set something up.
posted by furnace.heart at 10:37 PM on August 22 [3 favorites]

In general, nerds have taken over the world for better or for worse and the satanic panic is long behind us, but speaking as someone who started the d&d club in their Catholic high School, despite not being Christian, way back in the dark ages, you will obviously need to be mindful of what you are running. Iteki's suggestion of vampire is a decent one except for the fact that you're playing with teenagers, and if it were me, given the nature of both the genre and that particular game, I would not touch it with a 10-ft pole. That's a game to play with your own friends if you're on a vampire kick.

Furnace.heart has some good ideas for simple d&d like systems to check out.
Mothership is another fairly simple line of RPG that comes with a bunch of different settings and modules to check out. Genres are generally more science fiction if that's your thing. I'm also happy to discuss RPGs and GMing in general via DM
posted by canine epigram at 3:34 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]

On top of some other considerations stated above, Roll20 actually has a MASSIVE learning curve to DM with. Its super easy to play on with an experienced DM but wow. I started DMing last year and totally failed to use Roll20 well.

My advice would be: use DNDbeyond the official Dnd site, to create a Campaign. Use one of the premade campaign options that have pre-generated characters to choose from, like “Frozen Sick”.

Have the players sign up for Dndbeyond (it is free) and choose one of the premade characters. You should then be able to just have them do all rolling and using their abilities on the site. You can just follow the plot of the module and run the game that way! I DM games for kids in Libraries and I think this is the easiest method. I don’t think some other system is the right method because kids don’t usually want to play those, they want to play D&D!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:23 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. It's a little overwhelming and I appreciate the advice. If I don't get back to anyone, it may likely be that I am still trying to set aside some time to pay attention the advice that's already here - (ie if I don't appear in anyone's mefimail it is quite likely because I'm trying to do my homework first and play a game or two.)

As an aside, I don't have a lot of time to devote to this outside work hours as I have a lot of mostly-unrelated hobbies and pursuits in other spheres, and I am a wee bit allergic to bringing work home with me even if it has the prospect of being fun (which yeah, may be dumb). This means I'm not usually putting evenings or weekends on the table as learning time, (esp with other gamers who can learn me up) which I may have to grumble about and get over just this once.
posted by aesop at 6:55 AM on August 23

We're here when you're ready.
I'm just jazzed to see more RPGers come out of the woodwork!
posted by canine epigram at 9:52 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]

To clarify, I suggested the world of darkness ruleset, not Vampire/Masquerade, you can use the humans (hunter) ruleset to play firefighters or historians if you like. The mummy ruleset would also be pretty unpanicy. The team behind critical role have released a fully new system that is pretty cute, not insanely rules crazy but still prolly, it's called Dagger heart, and you can watch them play test it on YouTube to see how it.plays.

Also, honest to God, My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria is genuinely designed to play with kids and it's pretty awesome. Three stats that match your dice, cooperation is important, and it's a five minute learning curve. If you think your kids would be weird about MLP just call it SpongeBob and friends or whatever kids are into these days and run the same rules.
posted by Iteki at 11:11 AM on August 23

Response by poster: I'm booking myself in to do a one-shot on StartPlaying next Friday as the most convenient way for me to join a game. It'll be D&D which may be more complicated than it need be, but I guess it's at least going to give me the main-sequence so to speak of what RPG rules look like. I think with a bit more confidence I might be back to ask about recommendations for specific modules to start with. (BTW I did log into D&D beyond and tried to investigate the delightfully-named Frozen Sick, but couldn't get into it to read anything/start it at all. Learning curve strikes again.)
posted by aesop at 1:02 PM on August 23 [2 favorites]