The GMing Handbook

[Trakaton Kalkoran]

The GMing Handbook

Within our events in House Horuset, it's a great idea to decide at the planning stage what exactly it is you want to base your event around. What is detailed below is not a completely comprehensive list of everything you could put in your events and neither is there an expectation for you to include ALL of the below in your events. The below does help those of us who sometimes get stuck making events, get ideas together of what they’d like to run. However, before we get onto what you can include in your event, there are several factors that must be considered regardless of whether you’re running a combat, tactics and history based event or a puzzle event based on vehicles and slicing.

Factors:

Time - Time is by far the single most important aspect of an event. All of House Horuset’s better events have existed within the four hour time limit, as not only does it mean your own and your Co-GMs ability to GM isn’t compromised by getting tired throughout the event,  it means your participants have a greater chance of being able to stick it out to the end. When planning your event, keep the four hour time limit in mind and put in enough content that could take them anywhere from the 3-4 hour mark. Nobody is sad with an event ending early, as it means Free RP afterwards for those who want it and to log off for those who are tired! Remember to include some form of IC reason to get everyone out if the event goes on longer than four hours! 


Pacing - The pacing of an event is important to ensure that an event has enough engaging content throughout it. This comes in with time, as if you plan an event that has all of the content in the latter half of the event what you can’t guarantee is that your participants will get through the first half, realising that all the objectives are going to be met at the end. Similarly, if you have all of your content right at the very start of the event, participants may feel like the event was rushed and not realise there is nothing left to do at the end.


Player Intervention - One thing that can easily stall an event is when a participant OOCly wants a re-emote because they disagree with something that has happened to their character. While nobody can predict exactly where this might happen in an event, we can be aware of where it is most likely to happen compared to other points. For example, in an event that has interactable NPCs, a participant may be trying to get information out of them and be unhappy with how the NPC responded to their attempts. This can stall the event completely, so be aware of these stress points and emote clearly when you’re in them to avoid stalls. For example, nobody will intervene at the point of an exposition story dump, but they just might when combat begins! Doubly so when doing an ‘and stop’ command, let people be where they should be.


Number of GMs - An incredibly important part of any event is how many GMs you have. In House Horuset, Operations, Lessons and Acolyte Tasks often have just 1 GM. Medium sized events like Imperial events can usually get away with 2 GMs. However, any and all full scale Guild Events should be aiming for 3 GMs at a minimum at all times. We all know that HH can reach 15+ participants very easily and can even do 20+ more often than not on main guild events, so having the GM capacity to facilitate this is beyond important.


A list of good practices to see an event run efficiently and keep people engaged:


Pre-written Emotes - Absolutely imperative in every event. Pre-writing GM emotes like your environment emotes and things you know for certain will happen will help keep the event going at a good pace and ensure that the GMs aren’t needing to call a stop for 20 minutes as they hurriedly type out an environment emote that they knew they would need. It helps keep your players engaged with what is going on in the RP, instead of being distracted by other entertainment as they wait for the emote that could have been pre-written. This includes pre-writing emotes such as Force Sense responses, which we often receive several dozen of per event. Having a Force Sense response pre-written for certain areas will save GMs an insurmountable amount of time which they can use to focus on other aspects of the event.


Split up the Ops group - 15 players might seem like alot, but with 3 GMs if you all split up the ops group into 3 ops groups, then that swiftly becomes only 5 players for 1 GM which is a very manageable number. This doesn’t just have to be for combat, but this is by far when it works best. Organise 3 ‘flanks’ for the combat to happen, have everyone in their own ops group and work from there. Each GM can put out emotes for everyone to see through the ingame /o chat or in /yell if everyone is nearby of how their particular flank’s players are doing. 


GMs use their toons as markers - If a GM is describing where something is, have a GM stand where it is so people can see it ingame! GMs only have access to the chatbox, the environment and their own toon to explain and show where things are that are relevant to the event. If a GM describes that a certain plant atop the edge of the rocks looks suspiciously like a camouflaged Republic soldier, then the GM should also be standing where that is so that the participants don’t get confused with another edge of the rocks or a different plant on the same edge of the rocks. GMs running around and trying to see everything that is happening isn’t necessary, as everything that is needed for a GM to see can be…


Ops chat only for GM relevant emotes - …put into the ops chat! During the landing emote when the players are brought to the event location, there should always be an OOC part to that first emote explaining some of the basic things that the GM wants their players to keep in mind. This should include things like only using Ops chat for emotes that the GM needs to see, sticking to 2 paragraphs if the players do find themselves in ops order etc. Ensuring that ops chat doesn’t get cluttered by non-GM directed emotes will make GMing alot easier as you’ll be able to pick out the important parts without dredging through emotes that you don’t need to see. While holomessages are often also put into ops chat, the ordinary holocom channel of /o could be used instead in big guild events since everyone who is online will be at the event. This means that even less clutter goes into ops chat, making it even easier for you to see what you need to be responding to.


A non-comprehensive list of possible aspects to an event:


Story - Story is the backbone of most events, but sometimes it's not necessary to make an enjoyable event for the participants. Story should be considered when the participants are aware/told what it is that made the event happen or why it is happening, if its behind the scenes and the participants aren’t aware then the benefit of the story to the participants can be lost. A lesson, for example, has no story to it. Compare that with the events of the War Arcs, and you see that each event had a distinct story about it that explained what it was that got the participants to the point where the event was necessary and what the consequences are if the participants don’t complete the event.

Interactable NPCs - Interactable NPCs have been used in House Horuset for plenty of different events, ranging from Acolyte Trials with our cornerstone information gathering in a bar to participants being able to lead squads of soldiers or direct civilians from A to B. Including interactable NPCs is GM INTENSIVE as it is often expected by our participants for one GM to stick playing one NPC while they’re in view. Be wary about adding too many NPCs or too many other GM intensive aspects to your event.

Combat - The standard inclusion for most events, it will be a surprise to nobody when I say that combat is GM INTENSIVE. With the way Ops Order works as a system, combat is by far the most slowing factor to any event. Remember to SPLIT your participants into multiple GM groups if combat is necessary, so that it can be worked through as quickly and enjoyably as possible with multiple groups taking different groups of enemies down.

Puzzles - Puzzles are an often forgotten part of any event. They’re a fun inclusion provided that the participants understand what the puzzle in front of them is. Due to the limitations of the swtor platform, COMPLICATED PUZZLES SHOULD NOT BE INCLUDED. Usually the difficulty for the participants is in gathering the pieces for the puzzle and then organising who does what, considering Sith power politics in the mix. A simple “There is a painting and a statue near the painting. The statue is headless and it seems to be missing its scepter” when the participants are aware that they should be aiming to restore the statue is a nice easy puzzle that will take the participants a good hour to complete. Include two different heads, let them compare the two to the painting.

Slicing - Slicing comes in many forms and does not necessarily require the skill slicing to be done. This can be any interaction with terminals or systems that are plainly obviously meant to be interacted with. Putting content into a terminal or system, locked or otherwise, is incredibly rewarding for any participant who comes across it when it is usable in the event.

Engineering - Like with Slicing, Engineering can come in many forms. It could be as simple as welding together a connection with a nearby plasma torch to restore power to a facility or the much more intricate fortification of a defensive line to hold against an enemy force. Including engineering is rewarding for any participant who would get involved and does not necessarily require a participant to have skill in it for it to be useful.

Vehicles - Vehicles are often tied to combat in the form of Walkers, Tanks and Speeders but they don’t necessarily have to be. The Star Wars universe has plenty of different vehicles and the inclusion of some is fun for the participants, provided they get to interact with them in some form. This could be by infiltrating a swoop race to claim the first place prize by winning the track or it could be the known fact that participants can bring vehicles from Th’Asidra’s supply for fighting or travelling.

History - History can be in any form and many characters and players revel in the chance to show off what they know and learn more in the process. History doesn’t necessarily need to be based around the Sith or the Empire, but the inclusion of history in an event that has meaningful impact later in the event is a wonderful aspect for participants to have in an event. An example would be the history unveiled of a custom created dark jedi from the Jedi Civil War, which at the end of the event if the participants can recollect it, are able to find something that such a Dark Jedi held as important. While the gaining of historical knowledge is great, always attempt for it to have some impact on the event, chain or arc if it is remembered.

Tactics/Planning - Tactics/Planning is not necessarily something immediately combat related. It could be a chance in the event to decide a path taken when on a heist or it could be the careful navigation of a Sith opera room to steal an ID tag from one of the audience without them realising. In combat, tactics/planning should be considered when the normal “run at the enemy, shoot at the enemy” obviously requires abit more thought so that a plan can be developed either beforehand or on the fly by the IC leadership or participants with a strong spine.

First Aid - First aid does not mean make one of your participants incapable for all of the event so others can tend to them! First aid could be the healing of friendly NPCs that once healed, join the battle on your side, it could be that an entire event is based around reinforcing an Imperial position and evacuating certain officers for medical aid. First Aid could also be considered if the participants have to wear some form of mask or suit to be able to navigate through the event and having it so that if a suit is punctured, others will have to deal with the wounded. 


Suitable Locations for smaller 4 person adventures/missions:
(Or 3 participants and 1 dedicated GM)


The Foundry - Access to a Republic Bridge at the very start, alongside one other Republic ship room. Republic ship is a Thranta-Class Corvette in lore, don't talk to anyone in terms of the quests.

Black Talon - Access to a large section of an Imperial ship, after killing some mobs. Don't talk to anyone on the bridge in terms of quests

Battle of Ilum - Access to a hanger, talk to the terminal and then you get access to an Imperial outpost on Ilum in the middle of a battle + the first part of a trench without any kind of mob killing. Very good for a defense based mission.

Athiss - Excellent layout of a several Sith Tombs. Can Provided you have the right crafting skill, you can use the entire full length of the flashpoint if you so desired.

Collicoid War Games - Mixture of Sith, Criminals, Independents and Jedi/Republic all in the opening hanger and corridor. Open expanse region afterwards for a proper battle/gladiator fight. No mobs, unless the turrets are activated when inside the arena.

Kuat Drive Yards - Has access to an Imperial bridge and hanger immediately, just don't activate the shuttle's door when you're down in the hanger.

In summary, hopefully this will provide a framework, but not a ruleset, for people to be able to use if they wish when creating events for the future!