What is the GM's Job?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I like hats. I like GMing. Clearly, there’s a connection!

But seriously, I think that the GM’s job is to entertain and challenge. It is to know your players and know what they find fun. It is to know what you have fun with. It is to dream up a wonderful world and bring it to life, so that your players have a stage to act upon.

In short, the GM wears many many hats.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Some great answers already - the DM is the single most important part of any gaming group, the success or otherwise of the game rests heavily on the DM's shoulders. Storyteller, scene setter, arbiter, improviser - a good DM must be able to deal with all these aspects while being flexible, quick witted, and imaginative - and most importantly, fair.

I was once told, that as DM, my enjoyment of the game was very much secondary to that of my players. I should treat them as customers, as I was providing a service for them, and should do everything to make them happy.

The guy had a straight face while saying this, to him D&D was little more than an exercise in number crunching, and the DM was just there to be his adversary. He's one reason why I detest powergaming.

My opinion is that the DM's enjoyment is actually much more important than the players, but the players' enjoyment should never be forgotten - as the DM has to invest so much more time, energy, and commonly money into the role - and if the DM doesn't enjoy the game, it is destined to fail. So in that sense, the DM is actually a player, but with much more say in the world!

Yep, If I'm not having fun with the game I'm running I guarantee none of the players will either.

 

[dragoner]

Most games that fail, do so because of the GM quitting, or stopping the game. So fun and engagement by the GM is the 1st or most important job; even though job and fun rarely coincide. Beyond that, the GM is often the neutral adjudicator of the universe, lexicon of the rules, and maybe even the universe creator over all.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I love reffing games but if I hate the ruleset I can't get into the groove and make it fun for the table.

 

[Reynard]

For my part, I think the primary job of the GM is to *enable* the other participants to have fun. The exact process looks a little different in every game, every campaign and every group, but has a generally recognizable structure: the Gm presents situations to which the players respond and the GM adjudicates those responses in a way that draws more responses, rinse and repeat (with the possibility of a finale somewhere down the line). Note that the enabling of the fun extends to things not necessarily within the game itself: the GM often has to arbitrate between players if they aren't meshing well; the GM is often solely responsible for scheduling; the GM is more often than not on the hook for acquiring and mastering the rules of the game. So both in play and out, the GM's job is to make sure everyone at the table (themselves included) has the potential for enjoyment.

I think the biggest contributor to stories of bad GMs is a failure to match the right GMs with the right players. Was the GM boring? That GM might need a group of players that likes a slow, deliberate pace of game. Was the adventure a cliche ridden railroad? There are players that love that sort of thing. Did the GM not know the rules very well and /or was inconsistent? Find a game where the rules are loose and easy to do away with, and then the players that love that style of game. Of course their are objectively bad GMs, but I think they are more rare than one would expect to find after reading a message board.

 

[MNblockhead]

I was once told, that as DM, my enjoyment of the game was very much secondary to that of my players. I should treat them as customers, as I was providing a service for them, and should do everything to make them happy.

Is he paying me? No? Then minotaur-feces to that!

 

[MNblockhead]

Lots of great thoughts in this thread. Not sure I have much to add to what a GM's responsibilities are, but I have some thoughts on what they are *not*.

It is not the GM's responsibility to:

1. Babysit. If you want your kids to play in public games, you remain responsible for them. I say this as a parent. I'm not anti-kid. But I have too much to pay attention to that it would be irresponsible for me to even give the impression that I'm going to look out for your kids.

2. Provide therapy. I believe that as GM, like in other contexts of life, I should practice good etiquette, strive for politeness, and in public games with strangers avoid politics and commonly objectionable content. But my games are not for you to work through whatever issues you might have. TTRPGs *have* been used in therapy, but the primary role of the *those* GMs is a therapist. It isn't the expected role of the GM running the typical game.

3. Run the game exactly as you see fit. Even in organized play, there are different play styles. If you don't like my style, that's okay. Find another table to play at next time. But don't give the GM grief or get in the way of other players' fun because you wanted a hack-and-slash and not urban intrigue, or you a want role-play heavy game, not tactical battles.

4. Know all the rules perfectly, at the tip of my finger. Unless they are completely new to the game, players have a responsibility to know the basic rules and the rules pertaining to their characters. I have enough to keep track of as the DM. I've had players who have never played before coming to the table with dice, sharpened pencils, and a copy of the PHB. So, I have little patience for players who come week after week and have to keep borrowing dice, don't bother to even print the free basic rules, and waste everyone's time because they don't know how their characters' abilities work and blame the slow down on the GM.

5. Put up with bad behavior. I see it as my responsibility to be open, welcoming to diverse types of players, and to try to make sure we are all having a good time together. That doesn't mean that I have to put up with players with terrible manners, poor hygiene, or who are abusive to other players. This is contextual. In many game stores, there are strict rules about language. I'll enforce them because I want the game store to continue to allow me to play there. My home games are R rated. But they are not X-rated--my home, my rules.

Have I missed anything? Are there other unreasonable expectations some players have of non-paid GMs?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Lots of great thoughts in this thread. Not sure I have much to add to what a GM's responsibilities are, but I have some thoughts on what they are *not*.

It is not the GM's responsibility to:

2. Provide therapy. I believe that as GM, like in other contexts of life, I should practice good etiquette, strive for politeness, and in public games with strangers avoid politics and commonly objectionable content. But my games are not for you to work through whatever issues you might have. TTRPGs *have* been used in therapy, but the primary role of the *those* GMs is a therapist. It isn't the expected role of the GM running the typical game.

Yep. I had a player that was bringing too much of his own baggage to the game table and was acting like this was there for him to use to use an escape from his otherwise sucky life. I tried to make it clear that you don't get to use this as a crutch for your issues.

 

[Blackmoor_Film]

Since every GM will do their campaign differently this is a tough question.

I hate GM's who just phone in the game.

As a player I tend to tax a weak GM, because I really work my character in the game and I spend all my gold building a residence, or small castle. Ideally, this will lead to even more in game chaos as now my secret hide away is a target. I would hope anyway.

As a GM, I expect players to engage. No electronic devices at the table. Don't play the rules, play the situation. I hate passive players who seem to think I am their fun-ness candy to suck on for entertainment - "Ok, make the fun thing pop out of the door, so we can kill it and take it's treasure."

Many people would not like my games because I have been DM'ing a long time and I have gone through a variety of stages in that time. There was a phase where I felt bad killing characters. I just felt bad making people sad. Yet, being a source of mundane entertainment seemed kind of silly too. Now I am older. I run a deadly, but fair game. I roll the dice in the open and let them fall how they fall. My casualty rates are about 10% per session.

I've seen enough arc story addict DM's who are more interested in their own novel than making the game interesting, they really just play with themselves, but they like an audience.

I've seen a lot of campaigns where everyone has reached a high level together and no one has ever died, what is the point of endless sessions of winning easily. This is the fudged game of bad monster die rolls.

So my estimation of a good DM, is that they are entertainers, but that things are only entertaining in a game if the stakes are high, so they also have to provide true adversity and kill a lot of characters. Part of having lots of character death is to get your players used to it. But I am not against letting someone start at a higher level if the party is higher level. I don't care about making people trudge through game after game in order to level up, the point is the game and having fun at it -- and killing lots of characters.

 

[aramis erak]

As a GM, my job is

• Present challenges to the characters that they can overcome.
• Fairly use the agreed upon ruleset
• ensure everyone gets some "screen time"
• make certain there's a real chance of failure as well as success.
• create the illusion that the world exists beyond the PCs.
• Ensure that the rules are agreed upon in the first place.

my job is NOT:

• TO ensure everyone has fun
• to ensure everyone succeeds
• to ensure everyone fails
• to be the sole entertainment. (If you're not amusing me, why am I working to amuse you?
• Solve your problems with gamer X. (Doubly so if X isn't also in the group.)

Just for clarity - everyone having fun is a good thing - but I'm not responsible for my player's fun. I'm responsible for not encouraging unfun play, but I can't guarantee, that everyone enjoys every session.