[UPDATE 1.2] The Ultimate Guide to Garry's Mod (for beginners)

A guide to explain to a beginner the basics of the game, such as movement, interaction, gamemodes and others.

Basic Controls and Movement

If you have played a Source game before Garry's mod, such as Half-Life 2 (on which Gmod is based on), Portal, Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2, you should probably already know the controls already. If you do, then you should continue to the next section now. Otherwise, continue reading.

The defaults EDIT(you can change them in the options) mine are as follows:
W, A, S and D keys - Move around
Left mouse button - Fire weapon/tool
Right mouse button - Varies, depending on what weapon/tool you're holding
R key - Reload / Unfreeze (explained later)
Q key (hold)- Open the Spawn Menu (explained later).
E key - Interact - Press buttons, enter vehicles/chairs, etc.
V key - Toggles "No-Clip". Lets you fly around the level like a ghost.
X key - Voice chat (I set it to suicide)
Z key - Undo (delete something after you have spawned it)
C key - Context menu.
Left shift key - Sprint (Move faster)/increase flying speed during Noclip
Left control (Ctrl) - Crouch / decrease noclip speed
Alt key - Decrease movement speed (walk)

Here is what the Options -> Controls menu looks like.

Singleplayer and Basic Prop Interaction

In order to start a new game, go to the main menu and press "Start New Game". Select a map of your liking (the default ones are gm_flatgrass and gm_construct. I recommend that you select construct.) They are both good maps, but gm_construct has more features unlike gm_flatgrass.

After you have loaded the game, you will be holding the physgun (short for physics gun). By default it's blue, but you can easily change that. The physgun is used to move entities around and is the most important / main tool in the game.

Press the Q menu. On the top, you will see 8 bars. The ones you will mostly use are Spawnlists, Weapons, Entities, NPCs, Vehicles (not in order). The others are for later on.

Go to Spawnlists. Then look on the left side of the menu. There you can see all spawnlists, from which you can spawn props, effects and ragdolls (next section). In order to spawn a prop, press its icon. Then it will appear where you were looking at (your crosshair). I recommend that you look at the ground infront of you for easy access to the prop.

After you have spawned your desireable prop, hold the left mouse button (Mouse 1) with the physgun equipped. Now you can manupulate the prop. Move it around and hold it in the air.
-To spin a prop, you have to hold it and press E at the same time. This will make the prop spin.
-To symmetrically spin a prop do as said above, but press SHIFT too, along with E.
-To FREEZE a prop, press the right mouse button (Mouse 2). Then the prop will stay in the way you left it, even if it's floating in the air.

On the right side of the Q menu, however, are the tools. They are used in construction, to edit items' properties or others.

Types of "things"

There are types of spawnable "things". They are "entities", but I am using this word because "entity" is a type of thing, so I dont want to confuse you. I already did? Sorry.

Props - A door, a stove, a plank, a melon, a TV, whatever else. They can be picked up, frozen, welded and etc.

NPCs - Stands for Non-Player Character / AI. They can be friendy or enemy. They cannot be frozen in the air. In the context menu (C) you can edit their behaviour (Disable thinking, etc) and weapons (what they are equipped with)

Ragdolls - Prop versions of NPCs. They don't have AI, they dont stand on their own. They can be manipulated with the face poser, finger poser, eye poser, inflator and other tools.

Vehicles - Cars, trains and others. They can be driven. Most times planes and helicopters are in the entities category.

Effects - For ex. an explosion effect, fog, etc. You cannot hit them and you can go trough them. There is a green circle where you can pick them up. When you equip your camera, the circle won't be visible. This makes effects ideal for screenshots and videos.

Entities - All sorts of things. Most times subscribed addons will appear there, such as airplanes, bombs, some of the weapons, some of the vehicles, etc. It's quite hard for me to explain, but I'm sure you're smart enough and will figure it out.

Multiplayer Gamemodes

If you, and you will eventually, get tired of singleplayer, you can join a multiplayer server. The problem in choosing one is the variety of gamemodes.

Here are some of the most popular and most played gamemodes:

Sandbox - Build and create stuff, just like singleplayer. Recently many sandbox servers turned into "warservers", which is basically sandbox with weapons and PvP combat.

DarkRP - Roleplay. Select a job, do it, dont break rules. NOTE: Before playing this make sure that you DO read the rules, otherwise you will be banned from that server!

Prophunt - Two teams - Props and Hunters (?). The props hide around the map, disguised, while the other team has to find and kill them. (Kind of Hide and Seek).

1942RP - DarkRP in Nazi Germany. Very similar, although the rules are a bit different (very fun!)

Trouble in Terrorist Town - In this gamemode, you are all terrorists, however hidden amongst you are one or more traitors. Who can you trust? Kill the traitors before they kill you!

ZombieRP - In this gamemode, you play the Zombie Apocalypse version of DarkRP. Play as a Survivor, or a Military Man to try to keep the peace. Jobs don't earn much, so you probably will be killing Zombies for money.

Murder - In this gamemode there is a murderer amongst you. Like TTT, you don't know who to trust or who to kill. The only one you can trust is the guy with the gun, but can he trust you?



Most of these require you to download Workshop addons, every server - different. Because of that make sure that you read the next section.

Workshop and Addons

In this section, we will look at the Steam Workshop, a service on Steam which allows users to create, download, rate and share addons for various games on Steam, including Garry's Mod.

First, go to the main menu. There is a button that says "Addons". Click on it. Now, there should be a menu containing all your subscribed items on the right, and a button "Open Workshop" on the left. There are many types of addons available, but as a start try looking for a new map, because gm_construct gets boring easily. Click on "Maps" to the right, then click on "Top Rated", if it's not already selected. Search for a map, and if you think it looks good, click the green plus. Garry's Mod will then start downloading the addon. Once it's finished, you will have to restart Garry's Mod so that the addon can apply. When you do so, launch a game and try it out!

Personal Notes

First of all, I would like to ask you not to troll or ruin the game for anyone.


Here are some of my favourite addons:

WAC Aircraft
GBombs
Wiremod (for advanced users)
Pewpew v2
Advanced Duplicator


Favourite maps:

gm_construct_flatgrass_v6-2
gm_warmap_v5

[nonnoxer]

okay thanks

[waffleman]

What do you mean? To spawn objects, press Q, select a prop, and it will spawn at where you're looking at.

About the spawn menu being glitchy, please explain. You could try restarting the game, that could help.

[nonnoxer]

Thanks, great guide. But I have a question. How do you spawn objects? And also my GMod seems to be glitchy because I cant do anything in the spawn menu.

[waffleman]

It's difficult. If you're a beginner, just don't bother.

[youeeef]

how do we make addons?

[waffleman]

@Orangepumpkin7 Trough workshop, too, if its there.

[Bazoogle]

You manually set X to suicide, normally it's voice chat...

[the smooth operator]

What do I do if I troll people to have fun?

[Franco]

admin at http://www.clockworkgaming.us

[loosestrick enjoyer]

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