I'm going to go one level higher in abstraction that Brett is, because while I don't disagree with him, I think he's making a mistake most of us make in misunderstanding what an RPG is (or, perhaps, just assuming that everyone else already knows and it can go unsaid). I have seen game after game that failed to follow all of his advice, but were HUGE hits anyway. It took me awhile to grasp it, but I have my grand unifying RPG theory, and it is this:
An RPG is a social event, an excuse for friends to gather.
An RPG follows all the same rules as a party:
- Have a set time, invite everyone in advance, stick to that time. RSVP.
- Avoid inviting people you know will clash with one another, and prefer people who tend to get along well without any additional effort from you.
- Have plenty of good food and drink
- Have an inviting space for your social event
- Have something fun to do, or to faciliate talk among your party attendees
EVERYTHING you see in advice for RPGs is really just an attempt to improve that last point, but the fact is, you can get a ton of mileage out of hitting the other points. Even if people just shoot the breeze and drink your beer and eat your pizza and make jokes and completely fail to connect with the game,
if they have fun, they'll consider it a success and will want to do it again.
I'm not saying anyone is wrong-headed for worrying about things like pacing and good character design and descriptive skills. I worry about those too, but if we're going to start somewhere, start HERE. Understand how to throw a nice party first, how to be social first, and build everything out from there, because it's too often neglected, and it can cover your bases when the rest fails.