When talking to other DM/GM's what kinda things do you like to ask them about running games?

[Maydris]

I have recently been trying to up my game in terms of DMing and have taken to playing in more public games to get a feel for how other DM's go about running their games telling there stories and presenting their characters, I have found it really helpful.
I was wondering though when other people go looking for the same stuff what kind of questions do you like to ask, what kinda information is most helpful to you to improve your DMing style and the stories you tell. If you sat down and talked to them and asked them questions what would you ask? I am planning to do just that and I am looking for some good questions that maybe I had not considered. Thanks!

 

[aramis erak]

D&D: How they interpret the most recent errata

others: how they solve certain issues that crop up with certain older games.

 

[steenan]

Same page tool is definitely a good starting point.

I would also ask the GM:
- How they approach morality?
- Is there a clear distinction between NPCs and antagonists? (also known as "Are orcs people or monsters?")
- What trigger topics may show up in game?
- What do we describe, what do we ignore and what do we mention, but fade to black? (this mostly concerns violence and sex)

 

[innerdude]

I have recently been trying to up my game in terms of DMing and have taken to playing in more public games to get a feel for how other DM's go about running their games telling there stories and presenting their characters, I have found it really helpful.
I was wondering though when other people go looking for the same stuff what kind of questions do you like to ask, what kinda information is most helpful to you to improve your DMing style and the stories you tell. If you sat down and talked to them and asked them questions what would you ask? I am planning to do just that and I am looking for some good questions that maybe I had not considered. Thanks!

The best advice I ever got for being a GM was, "There is no story." In other words, there is no prescribed "ending" or organized "narrative" to which PCs must inevitably be pushed. As soon as I let go of that illusory construct, my abilities and enjoyment as a GM moved forward tremendously.

The natural outgrowth of that move was to take a "scene framing" approach to sessions and encounters. I'm not setting any outcome for a given scene, I'm merely setting the "frame," letting the players interact with it to determine its outcome using any and all resources at their disposal, then "spinning out" the next set of scene frames based on the results in the fiction. When @pemerton described his method for GM-ing, it was instantly recognizable to me, because I had been doing it for 6 or 8 months at that point. But it took several years of struggle to embrace that approach.

For me the big questions I'd ask other GMs would revolve around how to ensure that you're setting up the right kind of campaign. The biggest problem RPGs have in many cases boils down to unmet expectations on the part of one or more participants. I'd ask questions related to genre-specific principles, like, "To get the right feel for space opera, how do you approach player concern X?" Or, "Are there creative ways to do mass combat in fantasy that don't de-protagonize the players?"

Other than that, most of my questions end up being system-specific. Once I've determined the feel and style I want for a particular campaign, and chosen a system (usually this involves collaboration with the players), I'll make a checklist of things I see as being key points that I'm not familiar with.

Ultimately I think there are really only a handful of "universal" principles of GM-ing. Once you get past the well-documented general GM-ing stuff, the real "meat" of GM questions will be more tightly focused on genre/style and how to maintain the right "feel" at the table. Among those would be questions on how to radically reduce encounter prep for a given system.

 

[Maydris]

Same page tool is definitely a good starting point.

I would also ask the GM:
- How they approach morality?
- Is there a clear distinction between NPCs and antagonists? (also known as "Are orcs people or monsters?")
- What trigger topics may show up in game?
- What do we describe, what do we ignore and what do we mention, but fade to black? (this mostly concerns violence and sex)

These are good, I really like the morality and the what are monsters question, they are elements I have been very heavily pushing in my games

 

[Maydris]

Ultimately I think there are really only a handful of "universal" principles of GM-ing. Once you get past the well-documented general GM-ing stuff, the real "meat" of GM questions will be more tightly focused on genre/style and how to maintain the right "feel" at the table. Among those would be questions on how to radically reduce encounter prep for a given system.

I really like your advice, in fact I to a certain extent believe I kinda follow it already in that I have a set scenario for my players but the ending is fluid as to be altered by the players choices or actions and from there I build up new scenes based on its outcome.

For you what are those universal principles of GMing? I aim aiming to try to come up with a good series of questions to help me gleam knowledge from GM's I meet, having good general questions to start the conversation is in my opinion a good approach and from there being able to ask more and more thing as conversations branch off the broader questions. I have had the opportunity to play with a lot of new GM's recently playing in public games at stores and have enjoyed insights I have picked up from playing with someone different, but at the end of the day I cant play in everyone's games so being able to at least ask them about their GMing methods would be nice.

 

[pemerton]

I have a set scenario for my players but the ending is fluid as to be altered by the players choices or actions and from there I build up new scenes based on its outcome.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "set scenario . . . but the ending is fluid".

I have had the opportunity to play with a lot of new GM's recently playing in public games at stores and have enjoyed insights I have picked up from playing with someone different, but at the end of the day I cant play in everyone's games so being able to at least ask them about their GMing methods would be nice.

I think the questions you want to ask depend a bit on what sort of information you're trying to find out.

Another thing to take into account is that many people don't have a very good vocabulary for describing what they do in abstract or general terms, so it can be more helpful to ask about details or concrete instances. A non-RPGing example: I am an academic, and if you ask me, or any of my colleagues, whether we make our lectures "engaging" the answer will be "yes". But given the regular student complaints about boring lectures, we can't all be correct in our self-evaluation! So to learn about our lecturing approaches, you'd want to ask more specific questions, eg "How many students answer questions in your typical lecture?"

In an RPGing context, if you ask a GM if that GM runs a railroad the answer will typically be "Of course not!" Here are some more specific questions that I would want to ask a GM to work out whether or not his/her game is too railroad-y for me (I'm assuming that the game itself is D&D or some similar fantasy adventure RPG):

* Who decides who the "big bad" is - the players or the GM?

* Who decides what is acceptable behaviour for a cleric of a given god - the player of the cleric, or the GM playing the god as an NPC?

* What consequences would you impose on a paladin who negotiated some sort of deal or compromise with the orcs raiding the village?

* When a PC dies, do you discuss with the player whether or not s/he wants to keep playing that PC, and if s/he does work out a way to bring the PC back into the game?

* How do you manage the interaction between "PC sidequests" and the main action of the game?​

That's not a definitive list by any means, but it touches on some elements of game play that are important to me, and where I've encountered clashes with GMing styles both in play, and in discussions on these boards.

 

[Maydris]

I'm not sure what you mean by a "set scenario . . . but the ending is fluid".

The statement above refers to s scenario in which say I set up a scene in which a king has set the task for the players to go find and deal with a gang of druids with a promise of a non-descript reward upon completion. The stage is set for the scenario but the approach can very and therefore so to will the ending. Based on how a conclusion is reached I adjust the story to match the new narrative, say they meet the druids, but the druids convince them that they are good and the king is evil setting them on a new tangent instead of the original intention of killing them. This is what I mean by fluid.

That's not a definitive list by any means, but it touches on some elements of game play that are important to me, and where I've encountered clashes with GMing styles both in play, and in discussions on these boards.

They are not a list of definitive questions no but they are very good questions. I do think it would be hard to get a truly perfect list of questions to meet every situation, but it never hurts to strive towards perfection. I like to try to find merit in everyone’s methods, they may not all be perfect but there are always good ideas.

 

[Manbearcat]

I have recently been trying to up my game in terms of DMing and have taken to playing in more public games to get a feel for how other DM's go about running their games telling there stories and presenting their characters, I have found it really helpful.
I was wondering though when other people go looking for the same stuff what kind of questions do you like to ask, what kinda information is most helpful to you to improve your DMing style and the stories you tell. If you sat down and talked to them and asked them questions what would you ask? I am planning to do just that and I am looking for some good questions that maybe I had not considered. Thanks!

I think most of the conversations that I like to strike up with fellow GMs are related to what place, if any, does GM Force have in play procedures and what should be systemitized.

Take two recent TTRPG releases, 13th Age by Heinsoo and Tweet (whom I both hold in very high regard) and D&D 5e by Mearls et al. The noncombat resolution mechanics for these two systems have some similarities that I personally have some trouble with because of the "Force vs Systemitized" question.

In 13th Age, the DCs are subjective. They're set based on the level of the PCs (thusly, PC build math) to consistently engender a feel of competent, heroic protagonists and to systemetize dramatically appropriate outputs. They go further. Players are counselled to telegraph the intent behind their noncombat action declarations. GMs are counselled to use Fail Forward with that intent (and the stakes) as the primary inputs when narrating the results of noncombat actions that have failed to reach target number. So the question with 13th Age becomes "are their hard failures in this system?" "Is there the equivalent of a 6- (hard failure with punitive results) in PBtA systems or are all results either a 7-9 or a 10 +?" if there is a hard failure that is meant to manifest in play, what play procedures and principles govern it because it certainly isn't systemitized? "How do you handle that at your home table?" So then we're talking about negotiated stakes perhaps and transparency of potential hard failure before the dice are rolled. Or we're asserting something like "no, there are no hard failures in 13th Age noncombat action resolution...just setbacks and story losses."

5e has similar (but more tangled in my estimation) issues. DCs are not subjective. The system isn't about protagonizing players through their PCs and engendering dramatically appropriate outcomes. GMs are specifically counselled to use fantasy world-based, internally consistent causul logic (process simulation...contrast with genre logic and subjective DCs) to set DCs. PC build math doesn't orbit around subjective DCs to engender that protoganization and a bell curve or specific % of results. We don't have players being counselled to transparently telegraph intent as in 13th Age. However, we then have GMs being counselled to use Fail Forward now and again to engender some level of protagonization and dramatically appropriate/interesting results. So a bevy of questions come up about GM Force vs Systemization here. "When do I use Fail Forward?" "When do I not?" "What do I base it on with respect to the PCs action declaration (eg their intent...which isn't advised to be telegraphed...or process simulation principles)?" "When and how do I decide (as it appears to be GM Force rather than Systemization that dictates failure conditions/appropriateness on a per check basis) a hard failure is appropriate?"

These are the sorts of questions and conversations I like to have with GMs. Sussing out the wherefors and whys are the primary reason I engage in RPG message board posting.

 

[Dave R]

Not originally mine, but I've adopted it: "If I want to swing on a chandelier and kick an orc in the face, what do I need to roll?"

Also: "Sandbox? GM's story? Somewhere in between?"

Those two tell you a lot about GMing style.