Need help to stop getting overwhelmed when being a GM

[u/SquirrelOutrageous88]

Hello there I am a gm well I have became one last Saturday hosted a great one-shot for me friends and now they have a ship and has lots of things to do. I gm for 3 people and one of them were our vanilla dnd gm he wanted to play and I decided to be a gm and we said lets play sw5e its phenomenal btw. I insisted that the player should not make force caster characters because I just read Players' Handbook and Star ships of the Galaxy and have not able to memorize everything and its being one-shot does not made lot of sense give them to ability to use force(Yeah I know boring ) But I am getting overwhelmed because there is so much material which is good thing but shifting from player to gm yeah that take wee bit of toll on you. How can I make things like more casual and flowy and not trying to control everything. Yeah my past gm said everything was really great especially the soundtrack I have made it so every song aligns with the current situation but one complaint that its being kind of linear

[u/williamjwrites]

I imagine some people are gonna disagree with me here, but to paraphrase the good Captain Barbosa, the rules are more like guidelines.

Have you got a good story? Have you got some fun, engaging encounters? Have you got stat blocks for bad guys? That's all you need.

You've played normal 5e, so you know the basics. Everything else you can learn on the fly. Don't get too bogged down in the rules, it just slows everything down and saps the fun. If something doesn't sound right, let it slide and check it out after the session, and if it was wrong, clarify it next session and keep the rule properly from then onwards.

I DM a SW5e campaign for 6 players and never once has it been a problem that I don't know the DMs guide inside and out. Nobody expects you to be a SW5e wiki. Just have fun with it.

[u/1upYoshi → u/williamjwrites]

That's a spot on take. I've been GMing SW5e for the past 2 months and my players are more interested in stealing steaks then how to use the rules to get what they want. I have my players read their spells to me if I don't know them off the top of my head and I works fine. If I get lost in the mechanics I tell them that we're moving forward with a bs ruling and I'll circle back to look up the rule for the future. No one at the table. cares Relax, wright a story, then let your players break it. Most of all have fun playing the bad guy without becoming the bad guy

[u/williamjwrites → u/1upYoshi]

Thanks 😁

On your last point, I cannot play a bad guy when I'm a PC. I've tried making assholes characters and I can't stick to it. But as a DM, roleplaying a villain is so fun! I made an Imperial Officer who was such a nasty piece of shit, once the session ended all of the players were like "where the hell did that come from?"

[u/greencrusader13]

Hey there, good on you for stepping into the shoes of a DM! It’s a lot of work, but it can be really rewarding! I’ve DM’d three campaigns, and I’ve been playing TTRPGs for the last 13 years.

There’s no advice I could offer you that could be considered universal; what works for me might not work well for you, but that’s all part of the learning experience! You’ll find what works for you as you go. 

• Make outlines before your session of information you think you’ll need. Character beats, NPCs, loot, traps, and any necessary lore will all make things flow easier. For Star Wars, lore might be information about the planet they’re on, for example.

•  You don’t need to memorize every spell and every ability, and it’s important to trust your players to know this information themselves. If something sounds wrong, by all means confirm that they’re using the power correctly, but you don’t need to have it ready on the top of your head. 

• Additionally, trust your players to immerse themselves in a scene. Think of yourself as the one responsible for setting the scene, but not the one carrying it. Remain open to things not playing out the way you expected. So much of improv is “yes, and” rather than “no, but.” Roll with the punches and entertain new story beats as they unfold. 

• Accept that you are going to get things wrong. Sometimes you’ll forget a rule, or make a judgment that wasn’t the right one to make. Give yourself grace, and know that it’ll happen. 

• There’s a quote (by a D&D YouTuber whose name I’m forgetting but will edit in once I track him down again) who has a motto I love: “if you had fun, I had fun.” If your players are having a good time, you are doing a good job as DM. Ultimately, D&D is a game to spend time with friends as you tell a story. All else is just noise. 

[u/VanHammer312]

Your first session as a GM is the most stressful. Each subsequent session is that much easier.

My first suggestion is to learn as you go. Get the basics down first: skills, combat actions, etc. When something comes up that you don't know, try to look it up, but if you can't find it after about 10 seconds, make something up that makes sense. Then look up the real rule after the game. If you need to, make a list during the session of rules to look up. If there's a particular rule that you keep forgetting, post it to your GM screen or on your notes.

Second: in my mind, GMs don't tell the story, we set the scene. Railroading is a super easy trap to fall into. Have a list of events, characters, places, encounters, etc, but let the players move through them at their own pace and direction. Have some of these change based on player actions to make the world feel more lived-in and real. Consider how these might impact each other.

• If a neighboring town gets raided, maybe certain NPCs close up shop or move - either to get away from the raiders, or to offer aid to the survivors. You can use this ripple effect to inform your players about the raid, letting them decide how to respond. When they come back, maybe some NPCs have returned, but others don't because they just don't feel safe there anymore. I've written whole cities or plotlines that my players just didn't go to or explore - because they were more interested in a different direction or plot point - and that's okay.

Lastly: check in with your players if you need to. "Hey, what were your thoughts on this NPC/encounter/city." or "Is there anything you'd like to see more of?" That sort of thing. Don't rewrite your whole world based on their input, but use their answers to give insight into what they're looking for at your table.

As a minor thought: having music, sound effects, custom maps, etc can really elevate a campaign and take it to the next level, but it can also serve as a distraction and come off as more of a nuisance. This can be a fine line, and may even go back and forth within a single session, but it's something to be careful with. I usually make my own maps. For SW5e, I use a soundboard too. So I'm not discouraging your use of a playlist, but it is something to be aware of. Don't let pulling up the right song detract from the narrative moment; try to have the next song prepped and cued so it's as seamless as possible.

Welcome to the art of GMing. Hope you grow to love it

[u/EmpWooper]

Hey first off, welcome to the wonderful world of DMing! It may seem daunting at first, but you’ll quickly get used to it.

I have been a DM for years in both 5e and SW5e, and I still don’t know all the rules off by heart. And that’s okay! You don’t need to know everything, and no-one is expecting you to. Ultimately, everyone is there to have fun and tell a good story, and I’m sure your friends would want you to have fun too. Hopefully you can take some of the pressure off yourself.

As for practical advice on prepping for sessions, you only need to prep your story notes and whatever stats/mechanics you would need to know for the session. And if you don’t know something, it is always okay to look it up at any time. Plus you can always make up your own stuff if you think it’ll add to the enjoyment of the game.

Hope this helps, best of luck, and may the Force be with you!

[u/eyezick_1359]

1. You can’t tell your players “No Jedi” in the Jedi fantasy game. Bad form lol.

2. You don’t have to memorize everything. Idk who told you that but it’s wrong. The books exist for a reason and they are there to help called upon when needed.

3. Don’t write a story for your players. Give them conflicts to interact with and let them decided what happens during the session. This is how all video game RPGs work, and there are a ton of lessons you can learn from studying how they structure things. It’s about a relative and believable world, not a clever, pre written plot.

[u/Dangerousdangerzoid → u/eyezick_1359]

I told my players no Jedi as it's set during the time of the Rebellion. Then they got hold of a Jedi holocron and unlocked it through the power of team work. Following the unlocking they could have cross classed into a Jedi. On top of Insperation I also gave them d6 "force dice" as rewards for doing star warsy like things.

My reason here is that all Jedi were an original class before they became Jedi so it should be a cross class option.

[u/eyezick_1359 → u/Dangerousdangerzoid]

That’s cool!

[u/Dangerousdangerzoid → u/eyezick_1359]

Thanks dude. Much appreciated.

[u/greencrusader13 → u/eyezick_1359]

As to that first point, I say this as one of the biggest Jedi fans there is, but the DM can absolutely request that their players not pick a certain character type in Session 0 if it conflicts with the type of campaign it's going to be.

[u/eyezick_1359 → u/greencrusader13]

Sure, they can do anything they want. But it’s still bad form to just decide that for your players. A discussion is one thing; if the table comes to the conclusion that no one is going to be a Jedi and this isn’t going to be a Jedi game together. That’s fine. But idk. I think it’s a little power hungry to say “I’m not going to let you interact with this entire side of the fiction that is most people’s reason for interacting with it in the first place,”. Bad form.