Social things to pursue

Make sure your game's genre is clear to your players. If they're expecting a murder mystery and you give them a dungeon crawl, no one's going to be happy. Your gaming style is important here too. If you have a light-hearted, swashbuckling style of presentation, and your players want to be slow, deliberate, cautious planners, you need to either figure out a happy medium between you all, or consider changing games.

This is really an extension of the above (make sure you all have complimentary gaming styles), plus the addendum that you want all your players to get along. Deadly enemies, or even cold-shouldered-disdainers, should not game together -- it's too much work for you, the GM. Don't invite both of them into the game.

If you accidentally do so, and they can't work their issues out, you'd better ask one politely to leave. Otherwise they're likely to kill your game, whether they mean to or not. You can always play with the departing player in another game.

You're the host. Be on time. Generally we suggest giving a gathering time, and allowing for a half an hour of slop-time. However, if that half hour of slop-time passes, and the game start time arrives, start! Don't let one late player ruin the game for everyone else.

If one player is consistently late, you might ask them, privately and politely, what's up. They may need some help or patience while they deal with some real life issues. They might be struggling with how to ask if the game can be moved to another time or day, or something new may have come up in their lives... or it may be as straightforward as them trying to figure out how to politely drop out of the game.

This is a helpful GM trick -- it's less work keeping a gaming group together if they want to stay together. Have a unifying force -- all your characters are members of the same family, or employed by the same company, or were hit by the same power-granting meteor.

Smart-GM tips:

• You'll have to work with the players to make up characters to do the above, so there are no unpleasant surprises later ("What do you mean, you've always had 'master of the assassins guild' as a best friend, on your character sheet?!").

• Get all the players together to discuss who'll be playing what in-game role. With a little encouragement and help from you, they'll create a team for you to work with -- and you won't end up with everyone playing the same thief role! Doing this helps limit player-player conflict, gives each of them a place to shine (rather than feeling someone else is always stealing their thunder), and encourages the players to concentrate on the game.

• We can't emphasize enough how helpful inter-PC involvement is for the smart GM. If the PCs are all friends, or all on the same team, they all have a reason to be involved in each other's story arcs. When one benefits, they all do. You can encourage this by rewarding them when they work in a mutually supportive fashion, or deliberately perform as a team.

As the host of this party, you don't want folks sitting around bored, or they won't come back next week. If nothing's appearing on screen from your players, ask if anyone's typing. If no one's typed 'yes' in the next half minute or so, move the game on -- have the next planned in-game occurrence happen. This means you actually have to have things planned out to occur in the game.

Smart-GM tips:

• Before each run, make sure you have a little something in mind for each of the characters to do. If one character is slow and unresponsive, you can turn your attention to another. Interesting action and conversation makes folks pay attention and respond.

  The big story arc may be the inheriting character's birthday party. However, lovely baubles on display can tempt the light-fingered character, while the stolid fighter is guarding those very baubles. The engineer or the computer hacker can meet a notable professor from their alma mater, and end up discussing a remarkable new doohickie, which just happens to be the seed for the next story arc... and so on.

Physical things to pursue

This almost goes without saying. If you must leave for any reason let your players know. Give the group a five or ten minute break, but never walk away from the keyboard without warning. Invariably it's the short trip (where you're sure no one could possibly notice you're gone) that turns into topping off your drink, then having to answer the phone, open the front door, use the restroom, and clean up after the cat's latest disaster. When you get back, your players are wondering what happened -- or worse, walked away themselves.

You can't talk to someone that's gone.

If you're only talking to one player, what are the rest of your players doing? Bored players are bad, and keeping the group together keeps everyone involved. Everything takes longer on-line than in face-to-face games, so don't waste any time with singleton adventures during your scarce scheduled gaming time. If you must have a solo bit, arrange with the appropriate player to do it during the week before the game.

Smart GM tip:

• Have plot ideas for all the characters -- don't base your game around just one fascinating character. What if that character's player quits the game? Why will the other player characters stay together?

There's no need to explain how you've created your world to your players -- just present it to them within the game. A good GM allows the players to come to their own OOC and IC conclusions about the game world. Those conclusions may be incorrect, but playing out discovery within the world is part of the fun of gaming.

You may have a completely developed game with a straightforward, linear plot path, or you might be making your world up only a week or so ahead of your players, while roughly plotting out the night's run only an hour or so before the game. Either way, you certainly don't need to tell your players that -- you want your world to appear a seamless, coherent whole to them.

It's no kindness to your players to run if you're not up to it -- and they can tell. Be nice to them and give them your best, just as they give you their best. They're volunteers at your party, so to speak, and you want them to keep coming back.

Be mentally alert and flexible. The one predictable thing about your players is that they'll be unpredictable. If they insist on going in a direction you're completely unprepared for, don't try to force them to do what you want -- they're supposed to be your friends, remember? If you're really caught flat-footed by player decisions, there are a number of options you can try.

• Ask your players OOCly if they really want to go that way, since you've not yet developed that section of the map. If they say yes, feel free to tell them politely that you'll have to call the game here then, because you need the next week to fill that part of the adventure out.

• If you don't need that much time, but you're still startled and would like a moment to consider, call a ten minute drink break. Then go do something calming and relaxing -- get a snack from the kitchen or something -- and figure out what you think the best reaction in-game would be.

Most good players are happy to give an honest GM time to make the game better. It's when the GM tries to hide unpreparedness, and force them into another direction, that players get stubborn and intractable.

Good GMing requires you act like a mature, rational adult. Yes, we know everyone considers themselves such already. Nevertheless, we're saying it because it needs saying. After all, even the most rational of individuals has "down" times where they may unfortunately act like brats.

This category is different from dealing with problem players because it's for you, the GM. We expect people here to behave responsibly, act like adults, and contribute to the enjoyment of the group. You'll want to be sure you avoid behaving like a petty tyrant in-game; wasting time with constant self-justification/explanation; constant whining or playing the martyr; insisting things constantly go your way; or playing when bored, tired, or sick.

Catching yourself doing this once or twice is forgivable. However, if you find yourself doing any of these repeatedly, you might want to seriously consider if you're having fun GMing any more.

If GMing is a joy, playing will be a joy as well. If you're not having fun, rest assured your players won't be either. If it's not fun... why are you doing it? Do what you love.