GM Lessons Learned

• The collection of Kerberan NPCs are suggestions. Yes, there should be other Kerberans than the PCs, but if any given NPC would steal the PCs' thunder, cut that character. If you already have a Batman analogue, cut the Night Hag. Note that mileage varies: Nunzio asked that I keep Moreland as a foil to Victor Knight.
• Mike Olson doesn't expect anyone to play the rules as written without customiztion
• During combat, handing off the task of keeping track of the initiative order to a player better suited to it is a win.
• Offering a Fate point per write up done may not work, but is unlikely to hurt.
• Archetype works less well for Non-Strange NPCs. Between Josh and Mike, I've come up with this: Archetype: Human: Function in Story. Thus, for Winston Beuchamp, it's Archetype: Human: Administrator of Alice's Trust Fund.
• The Internet Is Your Friend for all sorts of things, including names and timelines. I've a collection of urls.
• I've made a spreadsheet to keep track of trappings and should post it somewhere.
• In character sheets, list all trappings of all skills with those skills. This will make life easier.
• Never name an Aspect the same thing as a Skill or Gift, or vice versa, or any combination thereof. Please, just don't -- you'll run into confusion about whether one has or has not used the Aspect that round.
• Ghosts of Albion has a timeline covering the part of the century that Kerberos Club gives short shrift to. Use it.
• I now have an abridged edition of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, which looks really cool.
• At least for right now, yes, you really DO need to prepare in advance. This means statting out the NPCs.
• If you can't do that, at least figure out which already generated NPC's stats you can use. Fro example, Winston's Special Social Skill is a good default for a lot of noble npcs.
• Have a couple of minion clusters on hand. In fact, reread the minion rules so you have a clue about how to improve the squads without resorting to making them all Good. Mind, it is annoying that for a group of minions to have a scope at 3, it must also have one at 2 and one at 1, but it's really easy not to bother giving them the extra scopes -- Mike Olson won't mind, honest!
• And, at the very least, figure out who your bad guys are, and what their master plans are BEFORE you run the session, so that you know who the masked figure is. The save by Alice's backstory isn't likely to happen twice.
• When you screw up, own the mistake and hand out Fate Point Apology.
• Put up at least the less than top secret GM Notes on dangling threads.