Starting a new gaming group.

[Vulcan Stev]

This Friday I will be GMing for a completely new group. Most of these players aren't noobs but it will be my first time as GM for a group other than my kids. I'll be running a Savaged, Stargate SG-1 game.

I'll be running the game at the local Youth Center. I'm looking at approximately 6-10 kids, 10-18yrs. The 10-year old is an experienced gamer and the teens are expecting him to be there.

Is there any advice my fellow Dire Paladins would care to impart? What supplies should I bring? etc.

[Berin Kinsman]

Keep the adventure simple.

Include a very easy combat to walk them through, to use as an opportunity to explain the rules.

[Murat, Esq.]

Take the 10 year old aside before you start and bribe him to agree with everything you say.

[Ruminator]

You might want to bring along pre-generated characters (we had a good time with an adventure I ran for some friends where I gave them pre-generated characters and "roleplaying" notes to indicate what this character thought about that character, etc.). This can help them learn about a system without having to learn about creating a character until they are ready.

[Thomas D]

If you can't supply pre-generated characters like Ruminator suggests, have the kids create their characters together. That way, they'll hopefully all be able to work together and you'll lessen the chance of having a whole bunch of min-maxed orphan lone wolf gunbunnies running around, blowing everything up.

[Kenneth Newquist]

Another option for characters is to do half-gens. That is, come up with enough to run the character (e.g. abilities, some skills, basic weapons, edges, a hinderence) but then leave a few points points left over for them to buy something else. Let them know that they have that option at the beginning of the game, and then as you're running it, they can ask (or you can suggest) that they add a skill or bump up a stat when they get stuck.

For example, a soldier might want to pump up his shoot score for a firefight or a scientist might want to add that extra knowledge skill.

I played in a Spirit of the Century game at GenCon that used this approach and it went great. Of course, with Spirit of the Century, it's a little easier just given the nature of Aspects, but I think it's an idea that's easily adapted to any game. It cuts down on the initial startup time because people aren't building characters from scratch, but it also lets them feel like they *own* the character because they had a chance to customize it.

[Sir Golgotha, KEoPS]

Thomas D suggested this for convention games on a thread a while ago (now since deleted, I just checked). I have started using the almost-finished characters with Midian (Kaylee characters), and it seems to work quite well. It not only speeds up generation time, but it limits open-ended character choices to selecting from a list of mostly-pregens. This is very helpful for first-time roleplayers. Wide open choices can be scary.

In addition, Kaylees are a sneaky quick-peak into the game mechanics, as the new player learns--right away--how a point here or a point there affects the end result. The stats stop being hieroglyphic numbers on a piece of paper, and start taking on some meaning.

I would suggest--assuming you aren't using characters from the show as pc's--that you make the Kaylee almost-pregens as very simple archetypes: Big Strong Guy, for example, or Witty History Expert.