As your Lawyer I advise...

There are a million more nuances, approaches, styles, tricks procedures...but that's it: Say yes & Don't invest.

Honorary mentions and tangential formulations: be a good person, be a good friend, bring the enthusiasm, bring the awesome, be a fan of the characters.

Be involved and engaged, ready to go when it's my turn, and able to cede my turn to the other players once I'm done. Pass the spotlight around.

Gaming is about hanging out with friends, not playing by rules. Once the latter gets in the way of the former, you've stopped gaming.

Remember, the players aren't your enemies. They're your entertainment: give them room, and they will find ways to be either awesome or awesomely stupid; either way, I get entertained.


Don't get bogged down with the rules, especially when it comes to skills. If you don't know the rule, and can't find the rule in about 5 flips of the page, roll versus the most applicable statistic, and maybe apply a quick modifier.

Let the players do cool shit in combat, like swinging on the chandelier. You'll spend most of your time in combat anyway, so you might as well make it more interesting than "i attack, i hit, i do 7 damage".

Reward good description and good roleplay with mechanical benefits, no matter the system, no matter the situation.

Make a normal, average everyday GMPC that tags along with the characters to do some mundane thing that the players can't be bothered spending the XP on to learn, like pilot the boat or fence stolen goods, but is otherwise useless.

Speak in funny voices.

For playing, trust your GM.

Be on the same page as your GM and the other players.

If you're playing bad guys, be bad constructively for the game. In fact, always favor constructive actions that help the game, whether good or evil or in between.

Don't roll unless both success and failure will mean something interesting.


Try to stay focused on the game. It doesn't have to be constant laser focus, but  makes it suck for everyone else.

Let the other players play as well.