Welcome, Brigneeta! We're glad you're enjoying Shard.

GMing any system, let alone Shard, can be an intimidating, even overwhelming task. Are there any local gaming stores in your area where you might solicit for a GM or a gaming group? Many of these groups are open to new systems and campaigns, even if you're not the one who runs it. It's a hard sell, I know, but it's worth a shot.

There's also a Player Locator section here in the Forums. Not a lot of traffic right now, but we expect that to pick up. You can see if any other Shard players exist in your area. There are also more heavily trafficked gaming forums where you might post a call for Shard players. You never know.

And feel free to share your thoughts, questions, and observations on Shard. We love hearing from players.

Again, welcome aboard!

-Aaron

Welcome to Shard!

It's always awesome to see new players - I've been excited about this game since Scott and Aaron first showed it to those of us at Dragon's Lair in Austin about two years ago.

As for GM'ing a game - that can be kinda scary, no matter what system you use, but Shard is a system that comes complete with a lot of GM tools and the flexibility to play with lots of concepts.

The mechanics are actually the easiest part of GM'ing a game, I've found. Once you learn the mechanics of the game, it becomes a matter of practice. The longer you play, the easier the mechanical aspect will become.

The hard part is actually creating the story you want your players to take part in - with the hardest part (for me) coming with the balance between creating a story that can carry itself forward while not railroading the players.

The best tools I've seen for creating the stories is what I think of as the Fanfiction Approach - find the kind of story you like and adapt it for a game.

Such as, if you like The Seven Samurai or the Magnificent Seven, you can adapt that idea to Shard - a small village or township without people in adventuring professions recruits the characters (Talented level creation, maybe?) to protect them from a nest of demons or bandits or even to help free them from a local tyrant of some kind (evil mayor, etc).

It's also a matter of asking: 'what happens next?' Once your heroes have done epic deeds, what do they do next? Well, having defeated the demons or (Un)Friendly Local Evil Overlord, why not have someone higher up the food chain take note of them and hire them for another job?

This expands your story and gives the characters a chance to slip into larger roles in Dardunah.

You'll find that if you can find a starting point, a story will grow itself organically, both by answering 'what happens next' and through character action. You'll even, I wager, develop an over-arching plotline before you realize it.

I've learned one way to teach myself a new game mechanic is to test it out - create characters specifically for testing, and pit them against each other. It's a great way for you and a friend to play with things like the Spiral Arena, character creation, combat systems and even RP.

Hope some of that made sense and some of that helped!