In Your Experience: How Good are GM's?

[Kerranin]

Oh, I agree. I was just saying I have a tendency to be kind of pessimistic when it comes to DMs. I find most other people are more tolerant of DMs than I am.

More than once I've been a bit baffled when after a con game someone will come up to me and say "That was great! I'm glad we had such a good DM!" and I'll say to them "What? He didn't know the rules for grappling or damage reduction. Because of those two things, he managed to turn what would have been an easy fight into an extremely hard one and we all nearly died. It's only because we worked together and used every power we had that we didn't." and they'd reply with "What? I didn't notice he made any mistakes. It was just a fun battle."

I'm afraid I would have to disagree with your definition of a good DM Majoru.
It is nice to have a DM who knows the rules, but what is really important to me is a DM who is trying to make the game fun for the players and themselves.
I'll grant that knowledge of the rules reduces distractions, but as long as a DM will listen to players and then make a ruling, I don't see an issue. It sounds more like an issue of mistrust between player(s) and DM. What do you think?
Obviously these are just my opinions, feel free to disagree.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with Majoru on this point. One thing I want from a GM is a sound application of the rules, so that I get what I bargained for when I play my PC.

That doesn't mean I won't forgive the occasional error (and as a GM I make mistakes from time to time, like forgetting about a minor combat modifier or making a minor arithmetic error). And(unlike Majoru) I'm certainaly happy for a GM to draw on the players as a source of rules knowledge.

But I don't really like a GM who is making up the rules as s/he goes along. (Making up the gameworld as s/he goes along is a whole other thing - I've got nothing against that!)

 

[Dykstrav]

I'm also on Majoru's side on this one.

When I play an RPG, I want my choices to matter. If victory is a foregone conclusion (i.e., the DM is willing to fudge things to make his awesome "final boss" battle last suitably long, or worse, make sure that we always win and no character ever dies), the decisions that I make as a player matter less. That's what happens when consequences are divorced from the actions that we take, and it's the most "anti-fun" thing that I can conceive of.

I'd rather defeat a hatchling dragon by the party's own means than defeat an ancient wyrm because the DM is fudging for us or has an NPC swoop in and save the day.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

I've played with some particurly awesome DM's, I've also played with some terrible ones. The terrible ones, I've walked, or taken over the DMing duties as soon as I could while remaining as nice as I could about it. I'd say I've had about 75% good, and about 25% bad.

The thing is, a lot of people are just not cut out to DM. They look at it just like playing their own character, instead of playing the villians of the piece. They get upset when their 'characters' die. Or they can't stand to lose a social situation with the party. But they just can't seem to switch their mindset.

The good DM's have a good knowledge of the rules, and could fudge it with a straight enough face when they needed to for us to not notice it at the time. They also have a good ability to tell a story. They stories make sense and are compelling enough that the players want to see how it ends. A great DM makes them want to help tell the story themselves.

-Ashrum

 

[xipetotec]

While this thread does raise interesting points, I have to say it makes being a new GM (not to mention relatively new RPGer in general! ) quite intimidating.

All I can say from a beginner's point of view is feeling a need to make sure my players are entertained and for sure knowing your players.

In the course of beginning, I've found one of my players just plain does not like D&D. But **loves** Call of Cthulhu. In fact, my whole group has taken a strong love for the latter. And they gladly put up with my plodding "newbyness" for this game.

All this to say that I can definitely see how your players can definitely make the game too.

 

[Rel]

All I can say from a beginner's point of view is feeling a need to make sure my players are entertained and for sure knowing your players.

You're doing it exactly right.

 

[Stormonu]

Every player or DM (including me) has their annoying points, and unfortunately for me, I tend to latch on and I tend to only remember what annoys me (so I don't do the same thing myself in the future). Even if (often especially if) it's a minor thing.

It's hard for me to put a number to bad DM's because I generally DM about 90% of the time; usually the only time I encounter another DM is at a Con, and I can't remember one experience that I enjoyed by the end of the session (It's why I refuse to play in Living Games). I'm a bit more forgiving of my own group DMing; I know them better and I often know they're still learning and get to watch them improve with each session - and I do learn to get to steal their good stuff.

As far as truly bad (overall) DMs, in my 20+ years I can only remember two - one was a jerkwad hell-bent on "beating" the players and the other was a cheater (not a fudger, but a flat-out cheater) who was more concerned with his DMPCs and railroad plot that what were doing (really, in his games, we could have just stood on the sidelines and watched the whole thing chug along to its inevitable conclusion). Both games I quit very quickly - and ended up (inadvertently) taking the players with me.

At worst, all the other DMs I've run across just needed more seasoning or were adequate.

 

[Hussar]

Just to bounce off of xipetotec's point. I'm more than willing to cut a GM slack. GMing is hard enough without having some jerk player constantly berate the GM's abilities. Running a rough game because you've just started GMing is totally understandable. No arguments from me.

Running a rough game because you absolutely refuse to learn from your mistakes and keep beating the players over the head with the same ridonkulus crap week after week, and I'm out the door.

 

[the Jester]

Well, I've had a couple of bad dms over the years and a couple of fair ones too, but the vast majority of the games I've played in (as opposed to dming myself) have been under some good to great dms.

Also, I consider myself to be a good dm based on feedback (e.g. I won a "best dm" prize in a tournament with 3 dms years back; I've gotten several players at cons to say they are going to give systems a try that they hadn't intended to; I have an overabundance of players and a constant waiting list; diaglo enjoyed the 3e game I ran for him; etc.) and I am the dm in our group well over 85% of the time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Just to bounce off of xipetotec's point. I'm more than willing to cut a GM slack. GMing is hard enough without having some jerk player constantly berate the GM's abilities. Running a rough game because you've just started GMing is totally understandable. No arguments from me.

Running a rough game because you absolutely refuse to learn from your mistakes and keep beating the players over the head with the same ridonkulus crap week after week, and I'm out the door.

See, IMHO, the game is amazingly self-correcting in that way.

Running a game no one wants to play in? Guess what! You're no longer running a game.

Constantly whining that the game is too rough because you absolutely refuse to learn from your mistakes? Guess what! You're no longer playing in that game.

Problem? Problem solved! It's a thing of beauty.......!



RC

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