Game Master School – Part 1: So You Have a Story

You’ve got a story you want to tell.

Maybe it’s been living in your head for years. Maybe it’s a brand-new spark, just a single scene you can’t stop thinking about. Either way, it starts the same: you feel that pull to share it, to build something with it… and then someone says the words that change everything:

“You should run a game.”

If your immediate reaction is panic, you’re in excellent company. New Game Masters often assume GMing requires encyclopedic knowledge, flawless improvisation, and the confidence of a stage performer. The reality is much kinder: GMing is a learnable craft, and your first step doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be played.

I’m Helgi Már. I’ve been a Game Master for over thirty-three years, and I’ve run more games than I can count. Today I work at Quest Portal, and I also run games professionally for people who can’t get enough roleplaying in their lives. Roleplaying games shaped who I am, and they can do something similar for you, not by making you “better,” but by giving you a place to practice creativity, confidence, and connection with other people.

I grew up in rural Iceland. Winters were long, the distance to school was real, and I spent much of my youth at a boarding school. We played every night. I was young and inexperienced, and I made plenty of mistakes, often spectacular ones. But those endless winter nights gave me the gift every GM needs: repetition. I learned by doing, failing, laughing, and doing it again. That’s how GMs are made.

This post is for the person standing at the edge of their first session thinking, What if I mess this up?

You won’t. And even if you do, it won’t matter nearly as much as you think.

Insecurity Is Normal (and Often a Good Sign)

Let’s talk about the big shadow most new GMs carry into their first game: insecurity.

GMing can feel overwhelming because it sounds like you’re responsible for everything: the world, the villains, the pacing, the rules, the fun, the spotlight, the energy in the room. Taken all at once, that’s too much.

The trick is realizing that the nervousness isn’t proof you’re unprepared, it’s proof you care. That knot in your stomach is the same feeling athletes get before competition and performers feel before the curtain rises. It’s not failure. It’s anticipation.

And the funny thing about anticipation is that it converts into momentum once you begin.

How to Make Your First Session Easier

New GMs usually make one mistake above all others: they try to prepare for everything. You can’t. Players will surprise you. They will ask questions you didn’t expect. They will obsess over a random detail and ignore the plot hook you lovingly polished.

So instead of preparing more, prepare smarter.

1) Prep less than you think you need

For your first session, you only need three ingredients:

One villain
One location
One problem

That’s enough to create momentum. That’s enough to start play. Everything else can be discovered together at the table.

2) Make cheat sheets your best friend

Give yourself a small safety net:

A short list of NPC names
A few quirks or traits you can assign quickly
A couple of encounters you can drop in if the session slows down
Three plot twists you can use when the party goes sideways (they will)

One classic example: players will ask for the innkeeper’s name. They always do. A list of names turns that moment from panic into confidence.

Tools can help here, too. Quest Portal Assistant can act like a co-GM in your pocket, helping you generate NPCs, locations, and ideas when you need them most.

3) Borrow shamelessly

The fastest way to get better at GMing is to remove the pressure of originality.

Steal from books, movies, games, history, whatever you love. Rename characters. Reskin motivations. Combine two familiar ideas into something that feels new.

Your players don’t want a never-before-seen masterpiece. They want a fun night, meaningful choices, and a story they get to shape.

Take Care of the GM, Too

Running a game is creative work, and creative work costs energy.

During play, take breaks. Stand up. Drink water. Grab a snack. Give your brain a moment to breathe. A short pause can solve a pacing problem, give you time to think, and reset the table’s focus.

After the session, do one thing that will accelerate your growth faster than almost anything else:

Journal for five minutes.

Write:

What worked
What didn’t
What you want to try next time

It doesn’t need to be a diary. Just a quick debrief. You’re not only recording the session—you’re training your instincts.

Practical Resources for New Game Masters

If you want help outside the table, there are excellent resources available:

r/DMAcademy (Reddit): a huge community of GMs asking and answering practical questions
Sly Flourish / The Lazy DM: great for learning how to prep lightly and effectively
The Lazy Dungeon Master and Never Unprepared: fantastic books for reducing stress and improving session structure
Calm or Headspace: surprisingly useful if pre-session nerves hit hard

The point isn’t to become dependent on resources—it’s to know you’re not alone, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

The Myth of the Perfect World

A lot of new GMs burn out before they even start because of a trap disguised as productivity: over-worldbuilding.

Suddenly you’re drawing continents, designing religions, mapping trade routes, inventing royal family trees, and writing a thousand-year timeline of wars and forgotten empires. If you genuinely love that, great. But if you’re doing it because you think you must, you’re spending your energy in the wrong place.

Here’s the truth:

Your players don’t need a thousand years of history. They need what’s in front of them right now.

Six Tricks to Avoid Overprepping

1: Front porch, not the palace

Build the entryway, not the whole castle. If the campaign starts in a tavern, prep the tavern. The capital city can wait.

2: Fog of war

Until the players go somewhere, it’s fog. Keep a list of ideas and pull from it when needed.

3: The Rule of Three

Any location comes alive with:

One NPC
One problem
One sensory detail

Grumpy blacksmith. Mayor on the take. Faint smell of fish in the market. Done.

4: Recycle and reskin

Unused content is not wasted content. That goblin cave from last campaign becomes a bandit hideout. Players rarely notice, and even if they do, they usually enjoy the familiarity.

5: Cheat-sheet NPCs

Keep a list ready:

Tilda, cheerful baker who gambles
Ronan, exhausted guard captain
Maris, old woman who knows too much

Names + quirks = instant character.

6: Let players help build the world

Session Zero is your secret weapon. Ask:

“What rumor have you heard about this town?”
“Who is a dangerous faction here?”
“Where are you from, and why did you leave?”

Players create lore, and then they care about it because it’s partly theirs.

Quest Portal as a Prep Multiplier

This is one of the reasons Quest Portal can be genuinely useful for new GMs. When your brain is tired, the Assistant can give you options quickly: tavern names, NPC hooks, encounters, twists, even small sensory details to bring scenes to life.

It’s not there to replace you. It’s there to keep you moving.

The GM’s Toolbox: Timeline, Locations, Characters

If you don’t need an encyclopedia, what do you need?

Think of GMing like a toolbox with three essential tools:

1) Timeline

The timeline answers a powerful question:

What happens if the heroes do nothing?

Raiders attack. A villain completes a ritual. A festival ends. A prisoner is moved. The world has motion. Motion creates urgency.

2) Locations

Locations are the stage where choices become real. A location doesn’t need paragraphs of lore; it needs something players can picture and interact with: sound, smell, texture, mood, and one or two meaningful details.

3) Characters

Characters are the face of your world. One strong NPC can carry an entire session: a desperate mayor, a rival adventurer, a charming liar, a villain who never appears directly but always leaves fingerprints on the story.

When you combine these three tools, prep becomes shockingly simple:

Timeline: raiders attack in three days
Location: a forest village on the edge of trouble
Character: a mayor begging for help

That’s a session.

Story Structure Made Simple: The Five-Room Dungeon

Once you’ve got the basics, structure makes your sessions easier to run and more satisfying to play. One of the best templates is the five-room dungeon. It doesn’t have to be a literal dungeon, it’s a five-beat story pattern. Credit to Johnn Four (Roleplayingtips.com) though many people also encountered it through Matt Colville’s work at MCDM.

The five beats/rooms are:

Entrance Guardian
Puzzle or Roleplay Challenge
Trick or Setback
Climactic Battle
Reward or Revelation

Example: Bree in The Fellowship of the Ring

If you think back to that part of the movie or book, you can see the pattern clearly when the Hobbits arrive at Bree:

Entrance Guardian: the suspicious gatekeeper is a social encounter
Roleplay Challenge: blending in at The Prancing Pony while waiting for Gandalf
Setback: Frodo slips and puts on the Ring, exposing them
Climax: the Nazgûl attack at night, forcing a desperate escape
Reward/Revelation: Strider joins them—guidance and protection for the road ahead

Five beats. A complete arc. Manageable prep. Strong pacing.

Final Takeaway: You Don’t Need Perfection to Start

If you remember one thing from this post, let it be this:

You don’t have to know everything, and you don’t have to be perfect.

Your players aren’t looking for flawless execution. They want to roll dice, laugh, make choices, and tell a story together. If you give them that, you’ve succeeded.

And if you want support while you build confidence, Quest Portal can help you brainstorm characters, design locations, and build timelines quickly, especially on nights when your creative energy is running low.

This is only the beginning. In the rest of the series, we’ll dig deeper into the three tools—timeline, locations, and characters—and use them to build your own five-room dungeon from scratch.

See you in the next part.

Jump to section