As I’ve recently been going over my old campaign notes ready to transfer them over to the blog [/shameless self-promotion], it’s been amusing to compare my earliest sessions – and their excessive amounts of planning, world-building and ‘problem+solution’ missions – with my more recent stuff, which a lot more bare bones.

A lot of it is confidence and comfort, I think – back in the day, I really wouldn’t have felt safe GMing without copious amounts of notes (most of which were never used, because the PCs headed in a completely different direction to the one I’d planned…); nowadays I know I’m capable of winging things, provided I’ve jotted down the important info (NPC personalities, plot hooks and weird stuff), but it’s the experience – and all those mistakes – that enables that confidence.

This is the GM’s who takes joy when the monsters are kicking the snot out of the PC’s. They sit there and giggle like school girls cause they are “winning” and they are taking great joy in the situation.

This statement reminds me of a book I read a while ago (Caverns of Socrates by Dennis L. McKiernan.) If memory serves, it’s about a group of LARPers who are chosen to playtest a new computer simulation that’ll allow them to play while really *believing* that they are their characters. But the computer, which is semi-autonomous, begins playing against them for real, throwing impossible challenges at them, and also trapping them in the simulation so that it can’t be shut off without killing them in real life.

What set the computer off? If I remember right, it was an event in which the computer nearly enticed all of the players into a trap that would have killed them. It seemed to become very thoughtful after that, and the technicians asked it why. It’s answer was something like this: “I nearly just won. I’ve never actually won before.” So basically that whole book is an exaggerated example of what happens when the GM decides that the game is actually about winning. And I’m going to stop now, before I make any less sense.

A player questioning your decision is not challenging the GM’s authority. That player is either trying to keep the game fair and balanced, or may need the details of the situation explained in more detail. Such a player may be a real benefit for any GM to have at the table.

A player who tries to make the ruling for the GM, or in spite of the GM already making the decision is trying to usurp the GM’s authority and take control of the game.

For example, I once ran a game where the players were characters trying to escape a city in the middle of a zombie outbreak. The PCs found an abandon military complex and in the motor pool was a Humvee. The PCs got in the Humvee and head off onto the open road.

This game was a zombie flick. Some NPCs were along for the ride and were there to cause turbulence. Some were paranoid and accused a PC of being the “cause” of the zombies when the PC displayed his psychic powers. Needless to say there was an eventual firefight that broke out in the Humvee itself.

Once the firefight was over I asked a player to roll to see if the Humvee would start up again as during the firefight 2 NPCs fired weapons at the PC driver. Another player immediately said “No. Humvees are heavily reinforced. There is no need to roll. The engine will start again just fine.”

I disagreed, and asked for the roll. The arguing player then explained that he constantly researched military publications and that I was wrong. He was blatantly challenging my authority as a GM under the claim that I was not being “realistic”.

Here were the numerous problems:

1) The PCs and NPCs were firing M16s at each other at point blank range in a Humvee. The realistic resolution would have been that many PCs and NPCs would have died from the firing of those weapons. That would have been a much crappier game though.

2) The arguing player did not serve in the military. 1 other player was in the military and had driven Humvees. The player who ahd firsthand knowledge of what it was like to be in and drive a Humvee thought that the dice roll was a valid call. The arguing player would not acknowledge this.

3) There were zombies and psychic powers. Nobody else at the table cared if the rest of the game was realistic. It was clear from the beginning that we were not running a highly realistic game and I know that this player understood that from before he even joined the game.

The problem here was that this player wanted to play a different type of game. He made it clear that he was a fan of military operations type games. He wanted the zombie game to turn into a military operations game. He didn’t care about the fact that the rest of the group did not want to play a military operations game. The player was actively trying to take the game out of my hands and turn it into the game that he wanted to play.

I as the GM did not allow it. I know that I made the right decision because the rest of the group had a lot of fun playing that game.

Now if the arguing player had said something like “Hey, you didn’t ask for a roll when situation X occurred that is very similar to this one. What gives?” that would have been different. If the player had pointed out a rule or stat that would have negated my ruling that would have been different. If the player had just said that he wasn’t enjoying the game very much that would have been different. In this case though the player was just trying to take the game over from me, because it wasn’t his type of game.

Eventually the player left the group on his own, and I can’t say that I miss him. Of that group I’m still running for the rest of the players when we have the time to get together and 2 are now in my new group. When I think about that session I know that in the end my call was right and that not backing down and asserting my authority was the right thing to do.

Another that I would add to that list is this: As a GM you are there for the players; to paint the scene that the players take center stage in. You are the unsung hero who lets the players take all the glory. I have seen too often a GM who for some reason thinks it’s him VS the players. This ia the GM’s who takes joy when the monsters are kicking the snot out of the PC’s. They sit there and giggle like school girls cause they are “winning” and they are taking great joy in the situation. Then suddenly, the bad guys become useless, and the PC’s manage to win by what seems like a miracle. This is NOT fun as a player, or anyone even watching the game for that matter.

As a GM you need to fill in the rest of the story that the players cannot. You should make it fun and challenging for them and provide them with an enjoyable game session. That is how a GM “wins” – when the players have had a good time playing the game and want to come back for more.

Another Mistake is a spin off of Mistake #1&2. I had a GM who wanted to create a dynamic world where there were multiple storylines floating around and the PC’s had free roam (this GM HATED railroading). The problem with this is that the players had no idea which leads were for which “plots”. They would think that they were on the right track when really they were spinning in circles. At one time this group had unknowingly started 4 separate possible adventure paths. To the GM this was frustrating. To the players it was even more so. I can understand his motives for wanting to create a world where the players could choose thier own destiny, but sometimes a little guidance goes a long way.

As a GM I try not to railroad my players. I let them make choices and go their own way. They don’t need to know that any way they choose to take will lead to where they need to go. For example if they needed to go take to Guy A at Tavern A, but decided to avoid that place and go to taverns B,C and D, then Guy A would just happen to be in one of those places instead. That’s not railroading, that improvising that allows the players the ability to have control over their destiny and yet keeps the plot moving in the right direction. Having all the other taverns be closed down and the only place the players could go is tavern A is railroading.

I definitely think this is one of those double-edged swords. It’s great to have those details to make the world seem believable, but as the quote above suggests, too much can mean you miss the story! Perhaps known as the “Sandbox” error.

By far the healthiest approach to take to being DM is to accept that yourself have taken the responsibility for creating a fun experience for everyone else. All of the joy you derive from being DM should come from your players’ having fun with the thing that you created. If you harbour a spirit of competition or confrontation with your players, sooner or later it’s going to result in a not-fun argument.

If players dispute my ruling, I never say ‘I’m the DM and what I say goes’ or politely smile and nod while they speak, and then simply repeat that I’m the DM and what I say goes. I simply ask them for their solution. Who knows? Maybe they have a more reasonable solution in mind than you did. And, if their solution is somehow unreasonable, politely pointing out to them where their reasoning is flawed is far more likely to satisfy them than simply stonewalling them. Remember that playing an RPG is meant to be a game, not a court of law, and that your only goal as DM is to make the players happy. If they want to fudge the rule book to give their characters an edge, let them, if it makes them happy. If another player objects, or feels that somebody is abusing the system to give their own character unfair advantages at the expense of other players, then you have a reasonable counter-argument to the disputer.

I have the same issue: too afraid to kill off any PC, or too nervous to mess it up (especially when there at 10-some enemies to fight in one encounter) and as a result my fights tend to be easy and boring.

I’ve come up with a plan, though, that I will try out on my next session: I’m compiling a sort of combat tactics list, ranging from easy ones (for d20: use sunder and disarm more often, try to flank as much as possible, …) to more complicated ones (again, for d20: paralyze/blind/silence magic users first, and try to keep away the melee-types, …). The tactics cover a number of situations, from combat preparations, over aggressive fighting and defensive fighting, to abandoning combat safely. It’s got personal tactics, group tactics, terrain tactics, …

I plan to print out this list, and stick it to my screen. Hopefully that will boost my confidence and give me some inspiration to perform memorable tricks against the players. There’s one caveat, though: keeping the list short and consise for quick peeks, but at the same time extensive enough.

If I had to name my own top mistake, though, I’d say that it’s failing to challenge the players, especially in combat. Sometimes I’m so nervous that I’m going to mess something up in my planning fights and then end up killing everyone that I go too far in the other direction and make things way too easy. My next session is going to start out with a big fight, and I’m still debating with myself over how to balance it. (Combat in general is tough for me; I’m still trying to figure out a good way to streamline it in my SR4 games, since it seems to drag on forever.)

Damn, but I wish I had a resource like this when I was starting out…

Telas

I’ve hit all of those, I’ve listened to new Game Masters detail their cool worlds, cool NPCs, exactly how the PCs will go, exactly what clues will lead them there, and then change course to let them do what they want. These are definitely the big ones that every GM hits.

Great post!

One thing that I’d add under Mistake #3 is that Newbie GMs, especially “DMs,” often cut their teeth on running an adventure for his established gaming group. This set-up comes with a built-in pet NPC (the old PC). This is especially difficult in “rotating chair” campaigns where many DMs are also PCs and it’s S.O.P. to keep the PC/pet NPC in the game when the chair rotates.

BTW – That whole first post thing was by accident. I was frustrated by how my next article in the works refuses to come out perfect, and really didn’t pay attention to what I was doing as I posted this one. Therefore it was fate intervening on our behalf!