Firsttime GM, has: plot, needs: pointers, persons and polish

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Elbereth

I'm completely new at this, but I hope I won't come off as a complete drooling imbecile.

We're cool with that, so long as the spit stays off the books. Those hardcover books are costly.

Originally Posted by Elbereth

I really, really, really want to make a world we can all build on and expand and discuss obscure details in, and not just a quick hack-and-slash setting. Is this even remotely possible to achieve on a first time out, or am I getting in way, way over my head?

Sure: if you leave space for it. Start with broad brush strokes before filling in details. You'll do much of the filling on the fly.

Originally Posted by Elbereth

NPCs - I'm simply not sure how many/how detailed I should make them, and how often they should be encountered in order to make for an interesting game (not including henchmen-baddies, who are pretty much strong-but-not-too-skilled zombie-types that show up randomly) Also, I kindda suck a character creation, but one of the players rock at it - could I give him a general outline and have him make a "sketch" for me to polish off, or is it just a huge stinkin' no-no to outsource GM-duties like that?

I work from a campaign document that's well over 70,000 words long, and I have full stats for only about 25 NPCs. As a general rule, you don't need stats unless they'll need to do something with stats. And "doing something with stats" means mostly combat. You can assume all 10s for stats, a professional skill at 12, and a few background skills at 8-11 for regular folks.

I subscribe to an NPC-making technique from a Dragon Magazine from a quarter-century ago (#184): the Seven Sentence NPC. What you need to know is what the NPC does, how he looks, how he is going to act, and reasons to interact with him. For NPCs I make up on the fly, they don't even get that much: just a name, role, visual quirk, and mannerism. (I have a list with a name, race, sex, quirk, mannerism that I wrote beforehand, so when I need a hobbit man for a blacksmith, I just grab the hobbit man on the list and use the details I already have. I roll up a new set of details for the name, quirk, and mannerism for that entry after the session.) I add the rest after the session in case they interact with him again. If they interact with him again, I add a little more, and so on. And I have loads of detailed NPCs.

Originally Posted by Elbereth

Bundles of joy - the point of the plot (at least the first leg of it) is to get from A to B without losing your toddler. A dead/kidnapped/abandoned child will result in instant mission fail and void the scenario. I'm unsure if I should construct the toddlers as NPCs or if I should treat them as priceless objects - objects would simplify the game, but NPCs would allow for more realism.

I'm more concerned that you used a four-letter word: "plot." Make problems, not solutions, and expect the unexpected. You have a good problem--the toddler being a load--but what happens if the player loses his kid? And if you have more than three players and don't coddle them, one will lose it. Having a player sit around doing nothing is unfun. Giving bonus character points to those who bring the toddlers successfully is a better idea. And let them come up with their own ways of getting them there and their own paths!

Originally Posted by Elbereth

Oh no! It's a plot hole! - I would really like to construct some sort of plot-hole-fixer for emergencies (like the Doctor has his sonic screwdriver or the supercomputer of Agents of Shield). It doesn't have to be 100% believable, but it's obviously not at all feasible that one of the characters should have a super-computer in her pocket or suddenly sprout wings. Any thoughts/ideas/lessons learned?

Get rid of the rigid plot. It's alright to have a loose idea of what folks will do, and NPCs may have plans, but that's all they are: plans. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

More to the point, if everyone is having fun going on a tangent, enjoy the tangent instead. Don't try to steer everyone to some predetermined goal.

I've snipped your scenario notes, but it seems alright, not too tight. So you can expand upon it later, if you want. I'm not sure that you'll want an ongoing campaign with everyone playing himself or a variant self, however. The novelty wears thin fast.