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MazeWorld is designed as a play-by-chat tabletop RPG where bots handle dice and random generation. It's not only okay but highly encouraged to keep an internet browser with wiki pages open while playing and running a session. This wiki is your rulebook.
* [[GM Guide 1: How to build a new player's sheet]]
* [[GM Guide 2: How to travel in the Mazes]]
== Know yourself ==
'''Recommended:''' MzW is a high-damage model game, where one-shot kills are absolutely possible. I think the game offers a fair amount of opportunities and methods to avoid overly dangerous threats until the players are ready for them. However, sometimes there is no avoiding a deadly fate. MazeWorld has historically run on the principle of permadeath, owing to its roots as a heavily roguelike-inspired project, until it became more of a fully-fledged game. Sometimes, death may not occur, but the circumstances resulted in a character losing limbs, in such a way that continuing their adventures would become very unlikely, to the point they may as well be retired.
I generally ask players how deadly they want the game to be by offering a sort of "difficulty level" selectorfew options, intended to tailor players to different playstyles:* '''Hard modePermadeath''': This is how the game was originally designed. One life, permanent death. Treat the game as a roguelike.
* '''Three lives''': The player character can die up to three times until death becomes permanent. How you want to explain this ability to come back from the dead is up to you - examples below.
** A [[Scientific Community|a science team]] has created backup clone bodies for you, and figured out a way to preserve your consciousness after death, but could not make more than two additional bodies.
** You have a special deal with [[Heaven]] or [[Hell]] (your soul is their property, you're an agent, etc.) that prevents you from completely dying even after your body's vital functions have been terminated.
** [[Hebizuka Jinkou|The Administrator]] did it.
* '''Infinite lives''': Same principle as three lives, but there are effectively no limits to the number of times you can come back.
* '''Hero mode''': The player character can't die; anything that would have caused lethal damage instead causes just enough to be a heavy setback but not actual death. The character eventually wakes up again. An option for players who want to explore and have cinematic adventures but do not want death to hinder them.
If you go for a three-lives or infinite-lives approach, I recommend the following:
Learning the identity of the target can be an investigative task, requiring the PCs to search for clues, make use of their resources or publicly-known information, talk to people, and potentially get in danger just for trying to pry.
Tracking the target down and getting to him can involve [[stealth]] and [[combat mode|combat]], where you will actually face an armed group of enemies trying to protect the target; not to mention the target could also be well-armed and ready for a fight by themselves.
Don't forget the transitional scenes; the parts where you have to travel from location to location, which exposes you to the dangers of the [[UA]]. It may be tempting to offer skips, but don't neglect the potential of meeting people and finding useful loot on the way to the target; perhaps one of the characters is hurting for supplies (low on ammo, no meds...), perhaps the target is involved with a [[raider gangs|gang]] living in the UA, which could be an opportunity for your players to extract useful information... There are many possibilities!
As the GM, you are the master of pacing.
If it's taking too long to get to the next important objective, don't hesitate to cut and abridge. While I recommend using the [[UA]] as much as possible, if your adventure spans across several towns and multiple Zones, it is sometimes useful not to play through every single room of every single UA trip, particularly if your current plot is long and involved. If you planned (...move intended location to a closer location)
If you can't make the players get to their destinations faster, then don't hesitate to move locations where things are intended to happen.
* Example: If you planned on the PCs to visit a particular bar in a particular location so they could overhear rumors or stories on where next to go, ask yourself whether it really matters if they get their information from that one specific bar in that one specific town. Would the story break or be derailed if they got it from the local bar in the town they happen to be in right now?
Inversely, if your players are enjoying themselves in a particular location or situation, don't rush them out of it too quickly, allow for it to last. It could well be an opportunity for you to take notes...
* Example: If your players are trying to gather clues for a murder mystery and they're getting a knack out of interviewing various shop owners and local inhabitants, discovering their names and personalities, let them! If they feel the information they learn that way could be useful... consider making it useful, even if you hadn't planned on it before.
If accelerating or slowing the pace of the plot is not enough, and relocating the key locations isn't enough, don't hesitate to go for more radical measures. Maybe the key location is in a different town. Maybe that specific story element isn't needed at all and the plot would flow naturally without it. As long as the key plot points that make up your story are maintained, it won't make that much of a difference to your players if it doesn't happen exactly where you had intended for it to happen.
=== Downtime ===
It's still possible to play between plots and stories, and it's perfectly fine to spend 4 hours talking to fellow patrons and getting drunk at the local [[bar]] somewhere in the Eastern Zone, if that's what the players want to do. Offer players some downtime or daily life scenes, if they're interested.
=== Surprises and the unexpected === Murphy's Law of Combat #8: No plan survives initial contact unscathed. Especially with player characters. Traveling in the [[Uncivilized Area]] is all about the unexpected. You may well be running a plot that is more talking and thinking than shooting and strategy, but suddenly, a [[venedrake]] rears its big, ugly purple head. Your players are starting to regret showing up with trench-coats and [[.38 Special]] revolvers. But do they absolutely have to fight the dragon? Consider making it so that particular dragon is wounded, asleep, or otherwise uninterested in attacking, which would most likely result in a very one-sided fight. Never intentionally and suddenly place your players in a situation with really bad odds; otherwise, the game will be very unfair for them. There is one exception to this rule: if your players agree to intentionally throw themselves into really questionable or hopeless situations, then let them deal with the consequences. If they feel that all hope is lost and they are going to discharge their .38s on the Venedrake in a last stand of glory before dying to multiple hits of a Toxicblast, give them that moment of final glory. (wipJust make sure that's actually what your players want. Make sure they're aware that they could've snuck past the dragon without a scratch and that they're ready to deal with what happens if they don't survive.) == Example plot ideas == Here are a few random ideas that can be used as themes for story hooks and plots, with potential twists and turns listed under each. This is not an exhaustive list by any means! Feel free to take inspiration from them, take bits and pieces, or come up with totally original ideas. * You belong to a small group of UA dwellers who must fight every day to survive, dreaming to one day move into the safety of a town.** You can't move into a town because you simply don't make enough money, surviving on UA scavenging and spending what little money they have on supplies as a [[convenience store]]. You hope to score a big enough job, or stable employment, to be able to move in.** You're banned from entering the local towns because you belong to a [[raider gangs|gang]] which the town considers their enemy. Yet, leaving the gang is impossible; they are the closest thing to a family you have, and they don't take kindly to traitors.* You're part of a courier caravan. Perhaps you are the courier (the person carrying the package), or you work as armed security for the courier, protecting them from harm. You travel from town to town delivering merchandise, mail, important objects, braving the dangers of the UA, and living off of the contract money. You attract all sorts of bad people who want what you carry, but you're used to it.** The caravan is composed of lifelong, inseparable friends; or maybe they're all members of the same family.** One of the armed security is a mercenary, either independent or affiliated with [[MAIM]], only in it for the money.* You belong to the [[Military]], and your job is to patrol the Mazes to seek out and destroy critters and critter nests in the [[UA]]. Food, shelter, guns, ammunition, training, and companions; you have it all, but you frequently head into the UA, putting your life on the line to keep [[Civilized Areas]] safe and trade routes safer.** Your unit is stationed near the [[Youkai Nation]]'s territory, and you frequently exchange fire with [[activist fighter|activist fighters]] during the course.** You are part of the elite [[Phantom Forces]] branch, among the best of the best. Your unit is frequently sent to attack groups of [[activist fighter|fighters]] and eliminate important [[activist squadleader|activist squadleaders]] in various hotspots of the UA, but your unit is also frequently harassing youkai caravans, traders, and [[citizen]] travelers, with all that it implies.* You are an [[activist fighter]] belonging to a [[Youkai Nation]] task force. Your fellows in the Youkai Nation consider you a brave and honorable warrior, defending your land and your right of self-determination from the military invaders.** You patrol the routes between the Nation's towns, keeping them safe and critter-free so your fellows can travel safely.** Your task force is sent on ambush missions against patrolling [[Military]] squads, tasked with looting them of anything of use, and you or your squadmates dream of one day attacking a military town and expand the Nation's territory.* You are a mercenary, and your main source of revenue is contract killing and bodyguarding. Individuals and towns pay for your services to "clean up" their towns and intersections of undesirable riffraff, to eliminate specific individuals, or to serve as a bodyguard for a client in need of protection. ** You're hired to do something outside of your usual field of work, finding yourself doing detective work, looking for a missing person or a stolen valuable. You accepted because it pays well.** You are affiliated with the [[Mercenary Agency in the Mazes]] (MAIM), which binds you to the agency's ''mercenary ethics''; you are only loyal to the terms of your contract and to MAIM, not to any individual, group or faction, even if you're working for them extensively. You may be working on behalf of the Syndicate one day and for a police officer the next. Some people respect the ''mercenary ethics''; others don't.* You belong to the [[Duster Bandits]], a loosely associated band of outlaws who respect the ''Bandit Code'': you only target the wealthy and the powerful, you help the poor and the destitute, you reject civilized life and find it abhorrent to hide in the safety of a [[town]] or an [[intersection]], and you refuse all authority, whether from the [[Police]] or another faction.** You save the life of someone in need of help, only to find out they're a rich and powerful [[citizen]] in a major town. The person you rescued offers many rewards that could set you up for life, but you'd have to break the Code and give up on the Bandit life... which might anger fellow Bandits.** Your group successfully kidnapped a high-profile target, intended to set all of you for life, but one member of your group develops Lima syndrome for the target and runs away with them, denying your group a chance to make money, and resulting in the capture or death of the other members. You survived, but you ended up in prison. After release, you're seeking revenge.** You're the one who ran away with the target, and you are on the run from fellow Bandits.* You are a [[trader]], operating an individual shop in a [[town]] or an [[intersection]]. Once a week, you have to close the shop to replenish your shop's inventory, which leads you across different towns to order merchandise from various suppliers, sometimes with the help of couriers or armed escorts with big backpacks.** Your shop is struggling, and your ability to run the shop depends on a big, upcoming sale. But before you can make it, your shop is the target of a robbery, and the expensive merchandise is stolen from you. Your options are to find the merchandise back, or close the shop and lose your source of income.** You were in the shop during the robbery and you were wounded. You passed out during the attack, but you survived and you were dragged to the nearest [[hospital]]. The experience traumatized you and gave you an additional motive to seek revenge.** You have the sympathy of a law enforcer, either local (a [[TownSec]] officer) or a member of the [[Maze Police]]. Perhaps they're your friend, or have some other vested interest in helping you.** The local [[town hall|mayor]] or [[InterSec Chief]] is in cahoots with the robbers, allowing it to happen (perhaps even orchestrating it or commissioning it). They might have a grudge against you, or they're trying to remove you so your shop emplacement can be sold to someone else.
[[Category:Getting startedGM guide]]
