Quick tips to help out some new players, please.

Some friends of mine just started playing the game and now one of them is going to try to GM. Any tips on how to help them without ending up in charge? (I'm still having to explain how making chacters works, even though one of them own the core book.)

 

Truly, the only way to become good at GMing is to go and do it. Sure, you'll be a bit slow, or a bit disjointed at first, but after a few campaigns you should be truckin' along just fine.

However, I do have a few tips for your fledgling GMs:
1 - Try not to force the characters to do things. Trust me, they just end up resenting it. You may have an amazing set of events ready to be served up for them, but if they wanna, say, get hired by a company and work their way up and get the boss' trust in order to see him instead of going in and bribing the guards (or just shooting their way up), you gotta accomidate them. Besides, coming up with a great side-quest on the spot is THE most exhilerating feeling for the GM.

2 - You can't come up with a plan for everything the PCs do. You just can't. You also can't come up with a plan for every lucky (or unlucky) roll the PCs have. For instance, I once had a large battle with a high-powered bounty hunter. What does our Wookiee do? Rolls a critical hit and kills her first shot... grr..... Rolled up that bounty hunter, too. Expected her to live a bit longer than she did.

3 - Have fun. If you're not enjoying yourself, the players aren't, either.

4 - Get to know what kind of adventures your group likes. Some like the typical D&D-type "dungeon crawl" (or in this case, "how many stormtroopers can we shoot up today?"), some like more cerebral adventures ("Okay, how do we prevent all-out war happening on this planet while still not getting involved in either side"). Do a few sample adventures found in the core book, the Star Wars Gamer magazines, the old WEG sourcebooks, and see what they like. Then you can start designing your own adventures to suit their, and your, needs.

Hope that this uber-long post helps you out, Crimson.

 

Another tip : tell your GM to always keep a few NPC profiles ready to be used for generic encounters (when the PC, as it's almost unavoidable, move away from the path you designed for them), even if they're not used they enrich the playing environment and still can be introduced later (improvising profiles is possible, but it requires a really good knowledge of the systems)

 

Might I suggest swinging by my page? There you will find a bounty of help files on how to GM, plot out a story arc, build a background for a character and so on and so on. Just about everything you could possably want, in one location.

http://www.the-chaos-crew.com/swrpg/gm/resource/resource.htm

 

Thanks. I've been playing/GMing for a while but I had to guess my way in the beginning. Anyway I'll pass this info on to my group on greens.