Planning Day 1

Perhaps the best way to describe a player in the tabletop role-playing genre isn't someone who plays the game, or perhaps someone who you (as a Game Master) can command.  Maybe it's not a friend who is ready to listen to the story you have to tell.  No, I think there's a different word for what a Player is.  I'm not going to use that word, instead I will use the word nuisance.  A players sole duty in a D&D or any other role-playing game, is to achieve the goals of the campaign while slaughtering monsters, demons, and the occasional bad guy. However, in most games I have played the players try and outwit any plans the Dungeon Master has laid out.  Often times re-writing the course of the game with a single action or dice roll.  That isn't to say that the players never achieve the goals of the game.  While the game may come to a conclusion (the evil fairy queen is destroyed and her minions chucked in a pit of lava) it often comes to an unexpected ending (The fairy queen is dumped into an alternate dimension full of lava two sessions early in the game).

Games are tons of fun, but part 1 of any game (after gathering possible players) is to plan your first session.  in order to begin planning you must do several things:

1.  Plan the gaming system you will use.

First off, you must decide what game you want to play.  Will it be Dungeons and Dragons?  Or Vampire the Masquerade?  What about Mutants and Masterminds?  This question will be mostly up to the GM, but can sometimes be decided by the players.  Sometimes, many times, it is the GM's duty to motivate the players into wanting to play the game you want to host, instead of what the players may want.

For example: A few players just finished up a Werewolf campaign and may want to continue playing a werewolf game.  It is up to the DM to get them excited about the new game.  Often this conflict comes from how exciting the game the player just had was, and the DM must rebuttal the player with their own stories of how the new game will be awesome.  This can be done by telling stories like "I once played a Dwarf with six arms and a battleaxe in each arm. . ."  or by letting the players know of the possibilities like "In BESM you can make a character that transforms just like a DBZ character!"

I find this to be one of the easiest part of starting a game.  I usually just throw in a twist like "And then you'll all get a free template and start at level 10!"  That usually perks up the players ears.  But just how to decide how strong a campaign should be?

2.  Decide how powerful of a campaign you will have.

To decide the power level of a campaign can be a bit of a pain, if not a bit intimidating.  Each game system has a power level, or difficulty rating for the things players run into in games.  D&D uses Challenge Ratings and Character Levels.  BESM uses Power levels.  VtM uses Generations and Experience.   Each game determines its' own way of letting you know just how powerful something in the game is.  

There are two things you must keep in mind when deciding the strength of the players, Making the game too easy, and making the game too hard.  This is easy to do as an inexperienced GM, throwing a group of level 1 adventurers in to fight a level 7 monster.  While possible they can defeat it, it isn't much fun if a player or two are killed before the end of the first session.  On the other hand, if your campaign is too powerful, the opposite can happen.  Set a group of level 7 characters to fight a couple of level 1 or 2 bandits, and they'll slice through them in 2 rounds.  The challenge of the game is finding that balance, where the players will fight an opponent they feel is strong but not overly powerful.  Sometimes this can be a bit of trial and error, but remember, as the GM, you can always fib the numbers a little to make something a little weaker or stronger as you see fit.  Never let the players just parade through the villains layer unchallenged, it makes for a very undramatic or unmemorable game.  

Many games have books dedicated to just enemies the players will face, like beastiaries or Monster Manuals, so creating an encounter similar to the players level is fairly easy, if everyone in the party is level 10, then they must fight at least a level 10 monster.  Others, like VtM, don't include those since they take place in the modern world.  In those cases it is the GM's duty to craft every person and thing they fight.  If this is your first time being a GM, you might want to try a game with a Monster Manual, even if the rules are a little more complicated.  

3.  Decide on the tone of the game.

This is sometimes I sometimes struggle with.  I am a guy who has a mind that thinks up a hundred jokes every time something even slightly silly happens.  It is in my nature, that when someone fails at a roll, I immediately think of something hilarious.  Someone rolls a 1 on shooting a crossbow, so I say "The string on the crossbow breaks, whipping back and slapping you on the face, while the bolt is launched straight into a pie shop, hitting the window sill just so that the pie is launched into the air and smashes into your face, take 1d4 points of damage!"  and Only I will find it hilarious since the tone of the game is serious and dramatic.  If you want your heroes to be silly, by all means, slap them with a pie to the face.  However if the game is going to be a zombie apocalypse in the medieval era with a serious undertone and a just a bit of "why do even go on", then please, leave the pies out of it.  Occasional humor is okay, but going too far out of the mood of the game, makes it okay to detract from the serious moments, or the goofy moments.  And it's easier to keep the players focused on the mood of the game if it is maintained.  I can't tell you how often it happens, a GM allows a player to be a pimp as an archetype in the beginning of the game, and when during the most dramatic part of the game, all that player can think of is "Can I make the Evil Fairy Queen submit to me and make her a working girl if I pimp slap her?" (perhaps in not such nice terms).  It can ruin the game.  

4.  Plan out the game.

In order to do so properly, you must think of what players are likely to do, and what reactions players might have to certain scenarios.  Plan a general path  of action, something like "players start at level 8 in castle, the castle will have six level 8 paladins, 5 kobolds, and a wizard level 10.  The castle will have a dungeon with several rooms and no major loot, one staircase leading upstairs, a main room for battles, and a tower with the wizard."  Then let the players go at it.  If you're going to install traps into your game, make sure to have a basic idea how your players will be able to disable them, will it take a simple "Disable Device" Check, or will they have to "Match the red circles to the Runes on the previous rooms".

Ultimately, you and your players will work together to make the adventure, so have fun!  And if the first game isn't that great, learn and adjust!