How To Be A GM

I'm deviating from my blog topic of travel to discuss something that came up today when I was talking to my daughter--how to be a GM. After you read this, I would be greatly interested in your input as a GM and/or player, whether you agree or disagree, and what suggestions you would add to help someone be the best GM. At the very end of this entry, I'll provide a great video that I think epitomizes what a game should be like, and a link to a great site for learning how to be a GM and improving your skills.

I've been playing RPGs since my first foray into AD&D in 1980. A childhood friend of mine and his brother bought the three core books and we decided to give it a go. It was relatively easy to become a DM back then--buy a module (a pre-written adventure), read it, and then take the players along for a ride through the module. The module had all the text that described the scene, had the monsters that would be encountered during said adventure, and the treasure that would be doled out once the monsters were slain. And as young kids, we didn't have all the weight of reality sitting on our shoulders. There was little effort required to suspend disbelief. We just got in to the story and went along for the ride. We joked, we ate, we socialized. It was all about improving our characters to become masters of the world, and for the GM it was all about telling the story and finally sharing the secrets and surprises that the players had yet to uncover. For everyone it was about hanging with friends, socializing, and building memories that would be shared for decades. Unfortunately, so much of that has been lost over the last couple decades, and gaming has morphed into a "me, the GM, versus you, the players." This is not conducive to shared fun or fond memories. We've lost sight of the core of gaming, acceptance of fantasy, and especially what a GM's job is.

Socializing, that's the core of gaming. If you can't enjoy hanging out as a group just talking, you probably shouldn't be gaming together. This is the first key point, and so critical to gaming in general. I've played with many groups over the years, both face-to-face and online, and the majority of those groups were not fun to be a part of. It could have been something minor like one of the players just constantly cracking unfunny jokes, something a bit more serious like favoritism among the established friends, to something pretty major such as constant arguing about everything that everyone was doing wrong. I saw it from GMs as well as players. Any injection of poison into the group will result in the dissolving of the group, or at the very least splintering, as irritated players leave the group. Sadly, this poison is almost always the fault of the GM, in the majority of the groups that I joined and then quickly left. (Note: I did not leave all the groups because of that, some I simply couldn't play with due to real life issues getting in the way, especially as I got older, so don't assume a player's departure is do to "poison." Communication is critical here.) As I just mentioned, communication is critical in any group. Everyone needs to be a respected member of the group and treated as an equal. If the group cannot communicate and be honest and open with one another that tends to indicate an underlying problem and the group should either work on fixing it, or breaking up before feelings are really hurt. This is one of the first jobs of the GM--communication. Not just taking the group on the adventure, but also making sure that everyone is treated fairly and equally. Every player should be given an opportunity to give input, and to make mistakes. If a player makes a mistake, don't ridicule the player - a little friendly ribbing is fine, but make it and keep it friendly. The GM is telling a story that is typically only faintly based in reality, after all who wants to play the game commuting to work and doing business after a week of really doing just that. Games are meant to be fantastic, fun, and frivolous.

Fantasy, not swords and sorcery, but the opposite of reality, is what the gaming worlds are set in regardless of the genre. It could be a gritty realistic mission set in modern day, trying to stop some evil corporation from controlling the minds of the populace, but it is still fantasy, and should be treated as such. I feel like the older we get the more we lose sight of the ability to suspend disbelief and we keep demanding more and more realism in our games, and I think this is a very wrong approach to take. Sure, you can go for a high level of reality, but if the players aren't larger than life heroes capable of extraordinary feats, what's the point? One of my favorite systems in my teen years was Aftermath, a game set in a post-apocalyptic world. The system is incredibly crunchy (high level of realism), and characters can die a million ways to Tuesday, but ultimately it was still fantasy. There were still elements of the game that were simply unrealistic and improbable, and characters could still live through attacks that would render any real life person hospitalized for quite some time. That's the point I'm trying to make. The world of your game, regardless of genre, needs to be survivable and have plenty of opportunities to be a hero, or be challenged within a acceptable level. It seems like more and more GMs are taking this "me versus the players" approach to the games, and regardless of what you may think, I believe this is a terrible approach.

GMing--game mastering--is not about you lording over the players, monologuing for hours on end, and/or trying to kill the players' characters at every turn. It is about revealing the world to players, making rules decisions, and being a part of the group. I've played with GMs that completely lost sight of one or more of those things, and it was a horrible experience in every case. I wanted nothing more than to immediately leave. In a couple cases, I actually did. GMs are really a lot like teachers, and there is a specific skillset required to be a good GM, much like being a good teacher. Skill number one: leadership. Skill number two: communication. Skill number three: empathy. After that are additional skills such as critical thinking, good memory, creativity, etc. But those first three are critical to the success of any game/group. You are effectively the leader of the group, but as a leader you don't bark out orders, you "lead" the group. You help them make decisions, guide them to conclusions, and make judgment calls. But you do all this by communicating clearly and empathizing with the players. Give them outs for poor decisions from time to time. Never take a player's suggestion if it goes against your gut, or your plans for the story. Listen to the suggestion and shelve it for later as a possible idea for a plot line. And when it comes to the rules (and you can find this in practically every system written) they are suggestions for play. The are not etched in stone and if the story would be better served by ignoring a rule this go around because the story would be better, do just that. But also be fair and open. Tell the players that you are ignoring that rule for sake of the story. And this next part is critical, only do that for the players. The NPCs (non player characters that the GM controls) should never be allowed to break the rules. The players have a set reality of rules that they are assuming everyone has to play by, and if you get willy-nilly with those rules for the NPCs, the players will lose their suspension of disbelief and thus the fun quotient will drop. Yes, this means that the players will "win" more often, but that's the point--players are the protagonists of their combined story. Who wants to read about the heroes of the story dying? It simply isn't fun, and fun is what gaming is all about.

So in conclusion, the GM's job is a big one. You have to juggle a lot of stuff at once. And it isn't easy. It takes time to master the skills required, and some never even do that. Not everyone can be a GM either. There seems to be this feeling in the gaming society that anyone can be a GM, and while I can agree with that to a point, I have to define it a bit further, anyone can be a GM, but only certain people can be great GMs. I've played with many game designers and publishers over the years and surprisingly, a lot of them are not very good GMs. They have the imagination, creativity, and rules knowledge, but they lack the three primary skills of leadership, communication, and empathy. Many of them I've found to be in the camp of "kill as many characters as I can." That is typically only fun for one person, the GM. Gaming is all about creating heroes, hopefully epic heroes that will become legends in time. How could that happen if the GM seeks to kill them at every turn? Don't get me wrong though, challenge is a major part of the game play. The players need to be challenged, they need to fear for their characters' lives, but at the same time the GM should be looking to making these challenges exciting, but survivable. Now if a player just goes and does something that is beyond dumb because they think it would be funny and they know it will result in their character's death, I say they kind of deserve it. But if they they just made a bad judgement call and they were solidly in character, and felt there was a chance, make it a learning experience and let there be consequences other than death. Ultimately, your job as GM is to help the players tell a story of heroic endeavors and guide them through the world making memories that will last a lifetime.

PS: There are a lot of tools that GMs can use these days, but I would recommend just starting with the basics: paper, pencils, and dice alone. Once you get the knack of GMing with these simple tools, you can start adding additional "tools" such as miniatures, tokens, maps, electronic devices, etc. Just remember that very little can beat the theater of the mind. But if you have players that struggle with visualizing, than definitely add those simple tools as soon as possible because you are an empathetic GM and want to help the players as much as you can.

This nine minute video really sums up what I want out of any game I play or GM, and is the pinnacle of what gaming is all about for me. If you haven't ever seen this, or even if you have, please do yourself a favor and watch it, and when it is done, ask yourself if you would like to achieve this as a player, or have this be your story as a GM, and as a GM what will you do to make it a reality.

As for a great resource to improve your GMing skills, find great ideas to try, as well as tools you might find useful, I strongly recommend this one: https://roleplayingtips.com/ Note that there is a link to the blog at the bottom, and there is also a great newsletter that you can subscribe to that delivers content right to your inbox.

Role-Playing Games Are Good For Everyone

"Dungeons and Dragons," "Champions," and "GURPS" are the titles of three of the most popular role-playing games, yet most non-gamers have never heard of them. If they have heard of any of them, "Dungeons and Dragons" is likely to be the one they recognize, but not for its positive aspects. "Dungeons and Dragons," or more popularly, D&D, is considered the epitome of the role-playing game, or RPG. Many non-gamers equate it with a group of stereotypical nerds or geeks sitting around a table eating pizza, rolling dice, and playing make-believe, and to a great extent, they are correct. After all, stereotypes are based on common perceptions. What the non-gamer misses, however, are the many benefits that RPGs provide. As an avid role-playing enthusiast, or simply, a "gamer," since the age of ten, I have benefited greatly from RPGs, and now at the age of forty, I look back on my gaming experiences and realize the role that they have played in my life from an educational perspective. Playing RPGs improved my literacy skills, strengthened my creativity, and gave me strong analytical skills.

"Verisimilitude," "maladroit," "perquisite"—all words that I learned and knew the definition of by the age of eleven. The single most important aspect of role-playing games is the ability to read, comprehend, and recall information, and to use that information to communicate with the other players. Much like the popular games "Monopoly," "Life," and "Clue" that we all played as children, RPGs have rules that control the game and determine outcomes, but these rules tend to be written in books that are at least thirty-two pages long, much larger then the couple of pages of a typical board game. Because the rule books are also typically written by well-educated individuals for adult audiences, as a young boy, I found myself stumbling over the words and having to look them up. I wanted to because it was not school work, it was a game. The rule books spoke of fantastic ideas, places, and creatures that compelled me to find the original sources—the literature that inspired the games. I found myself consuming books such as King Kong, The Lord of the Rings, and I, Robot, not as school assignments, but as background material for the RPGs that I played. My friends were doing the same, and when we got together to play RPGs, we each brought new words to the table. I was learning words in the RPG books that I read that were years ahead of my fellow classmates. Many of these words were showing up in the purchased adventures, or modules, that we used for our games.

Many RPGs that were published in the late 70s and 80s had adventures that gamers could buy, which one player, the game master, or GM, would read and then use as a story to lead the other players through. The GM would present the setting, describing the area that the players’ characters, or PCs, would be adventuring in, and the players would then use that information to make decisions about what they wanted their characters to do. This typically involved overcoming an obstacle, righting a wrong, or discovering a secret. In other words, the players were pretending that they were mythical heroes, and their characters provided the abilities that their heroes had via the mechanics of the game. The restrictions placed on the PCs meant that the players could not simply say they overcame a given obstacle. The player would have to use only the abilities that their character had, much like real life in the sense that no one can do everything and we have to find solutions to problems using our own experiences and abilities. This lead the players to come up with surprisingly creative ways to overcome the problems that the GM presented. Eventually, I outgrew the published adventures and found myself creating my own scenarios. I used what I had learned in those adventures and the various novels I read to create my own unique worlds and puzzles for the players to solve.

The puzzles and obstacles in RPGs are where a great deal of analytical thinking is done. Players and GMs alike have to use analytical thinking in RPGs to solve problems or create sophisticated obstacles, respectively. Although it is the same thought processes that a writer goes through when creating a story, in the case of an RPG, the writer has no idea what his protagonists will do in a given situation, and more often then not, they do something the GM never thought of. At the same time, the players are the readers of the novel, not knowing where the story is going, or what the characters are thinking, and their control of the story lies only in their ability to influence events from their perspective alone. This, in turn, requires the GM to be able to think through the series of causes and effects at a moment's notice to keep the story moving, and to fit the players’ actions into the story. Another way of understanding the concepts would be to look at an RPG as a group of actors performing improvisational theater with a set of guidelines that control their behavior with random elements being presented by the director.

By now, it should be apparent to the reader that role-playing games improve literacy skills through reading and communicating with fellow players, boost creativity by exercising the imagination of the players, and strengthen analytical skills through the creation and solving of complex problems. I have played many RPGs over the years, in a number of genres and settings, and I am continually impressed with the general intelligence level of gamers in general. When I step back and look at my own educational experience, I see many times that role playing was used in the classroom—without it being a game—such as when I had to present reports on Alexander the Great and Thomas Edison, and I dressed up like the characters and presented their biographies as if I were those people. It is no surprise then that RPGs themselves are starting to find their way into the classroom, and some teachers are even sponsoring RPG clubs at their schools.