Worlds of Design: WANTED - More Game Masters

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There never seems to be enough game masters to go around, a problem that’s been around for as long as the hobby has existed. So what do we do about it?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Game Mastering is Work​

There’s a long-term trend to reduce the burdens of game mastering so that there are more GMs to play tabletop role-playing games, specifically Dungeons & Dragons and its descendants. There never seems to be enough, and it’s been a problem for the 45+ years that I, and some of you, have been playing RPGs.

I wouldn’t call GMing hard work, but it is definitely work. People don’t generally like to work in their entertainment. Most GMs undertake the work in order to allow their friends to be entertained. We could say that it’s a necessary evil. I always try to persuade most or all of the players in my group to also GM so that no one has to do the work all the time, but my impression is it’s more common for one GM to run a game for many sessions. At college game clubs, there are always enough players when someone offers to GM. Players who can’t find a GM are much more common.

GMing isn’t work for everyone, of course. Some may conceive the GM as a storyteller, and they want to tell (their) stories. I have a friend who is a software engineer and gamer, but also writes haiku every day and novels once a year (in National Novel Writing Month). He says he GMs with just a small amount of notes and makes the rest up as he goes along. So for him GMing may be another creative outlet, no more work than writing his daily haiku.

After having been player far more than GM for many years, my brother ran a campaign as sole GM, because he didn’t allow players to read the rules beyond the D&D Player’s Handbook! I can think of other reasons, but what’s important is that not many people prefer GMing to playing.

Why This is a Problem​

In video RPGs computer programming is as close as we get to a GM, so there’s no problem of lack of GM’s limiting the number of video games that are played. As you know, vastly more people play video RPGs than tabletop RPGs.

This is a problem for publishers. The GM in D&D-style games can be potentially in conflict with players, which is not an attractive role for many people. If a game doesn’t have enough GMs, the number of games played is limited by that insufficiency. And if the number of games played is limited, then there will be fewer people playing the game, which is likely to translate to fewer sales both of player and GM products.

The publishers of D&D undoubtedly saw that the appeal of the game was being limited by insufficient availability of GMs. What could they do to reduce the load on the GM?

How to Fix It​

One way to change the role of GMs so that it’s less likely to conflict with players is to make the rules absolutes rather than guidelines, and make the GM merely the arbiter (interpreter and enforcer) of rules rather than the creative “god” of the campaign.

When rules are very clear, the GM doesn’t have to make a lot of judgment calls, and it reduces negotiation (even though, in essence, RPGs are structured negotiations between players and GM). If you’re a team sports fan you know that fans particularly complain about referee judgment calls. It’s hard to make rules absolutely clear (see my previous Worlds of Design article, “Precision”) but the effort has been made. I’m particularly impressed with the systematic Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules.

Further, those GMs who need encouragement can use commercially available modules/adventures, which do even more to take the burden off the GM. How many GMs still make up their own adventures? I don't know, but evidently a small minority.

The Downside of Making it Easier​

I think of RPGs as games, not storytelling. When everyone plays the same adventure, it creates the risk of the same experience. I like the idea of fun from emergent play, where anything can happen and players stray outside the boxed text.

The x-factor that differentiates each game is the players and GM together. New GMs may stick closely to the text while experienced GMs stray from it, and really experienced GMs just make it up without too much prep time.

I think a good GM using the more flexible methods will create a more interesting game than one using the follow-the-rules-to-the-letter method. In my opinion, role-playing a situation is more interesting than rolling dice to resolve it, both as participant and as observer. Readership of this column surely has a different opinion, hence our poll.

Your Turn: How much do you GM, as opposed to act as a player, in RPGs?

 

[billd91]

Eh...

I’ve been DMing for 40 years and I like running published adventures if they’re good.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One way to change the role of GMs so that it’s less likely to conflict with players is to make the rules absolutes rather than guidelines

This is completely backwards. This is giving a free licence for players who know the rules better than the DM to give them a hard time. Emphasising that the DM's rulings are absolute and override anything in the rulebook is the best way to deal with conflict for inexperienced DMs.

Further, those GMs who need encouragement can use commercially available modules/adventures, which do even more to take the burden off the GM.

Whilst kinda good advice, I find that when a player decides the do want to be a DM, it is because they want to tell their own stories or create their own worlds.

When I started DMing I mostly created my own content. These days I mix in published adventures to reduce my workload. It's like using published lessons as a teacher. It's probably not as good (to you) as the stuff you create yourself, but there simply isn't time to handcraft wonderful lessons all the time.


Major barriers barriers to players becoming DMs are workload and cost. I DMed when I was at school and again once I was semi-retired. In between that life keeps you far too busy with career and family. And the DM spends by far the most on rulebooks. Several of my players simply can't afford to buy rulebooks.

 

[Imaculata]

I don't think "storytelling" is the primary GM skill. GMs facilitate group storytelling. Sometimes that's because they themselves are great storytellers, but sometimes it's because they are good at herding cats, or because they are more rules oriented than their players, or because they have strong interpersonal skills.

Knowing the rules well is a useful skill for a DM, but is no guarantee for a fun game. DM's can lean on their players for the rules and still create a fun game. Likewise, strong interpersonal skills help with creating a pleasant environment for people to play in, which is also very valuable. But not the most valuable skill a DM can have, I think.

Now both of these two points of yours can affect my enjoyment of D&D, I am not denying that. But for me, my primary enjoyment comes from what I'm playing, and how it is being presented to me by the DM.

I must admit some bias in that respect; I have never played a published adventure of which I thought the story was above average. But I have played a lot with DM's who are great storytellers. So this has made me very skeptical that published material can have a good story at all.

I have come to prefer to play with DM's who run their own creations and do it well. Because the stuff they tend to come up with is leagues better than anything published that I've ever played.

The things that good storytellers tend to do better than published adventures are:

-A good plot
-A good hook, or several
-High stakes
-Memorable characters
-Memorable encounters and events
-Humor
-Emotional investment / drama
-Suspense
-World building
-Proper naming of locations and characters


These are the things I need in my D&D game, and are ultimately also the things that bother me if not done properly. Most published adventures (that I've played) fail at several, if not all of these points. Which is why I have come to value storytelling and worldbuilding so highly.

Are these rediculously high standards? Or do others also value these things as much as I do?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In my opinion, what seperates an average DM from a good DM, is the quality of their storytelling.

I don't think "storytelling" is the primary GM skill.

You are both right.

There is no one way to DM. "DM as storyteller" and "DM as facilitator" are equally valid approaches.

I will say this, speaking as the "storyteller" type DM: I DM because I want to tell stories. That's my motivation. The only way you would get me to be a "facilitator" type DM is if you paid me to do it.

Really, I think the question has to be "why do some people DM?". The answer to "why don't people DM?" Is obvious: it's hard work, it's expensive, it's sometimes thankless. Really, no one in their right mind would do it!

 

[Lanefan]

Its interesting that the poll results, as of this time, do not support the premise that gms are hard to find, but in fact indicate that most players actually prefer to run a game themselves (myself included). Epiphany time: most of the players at your table actually want to run the game themselves.

That'd sure be news to me.

Of the four players I had at the start of the covid break, all of whom have well over 25 years of gaming under their belts: one is also a DM and has been for longer than I have; two have briefly tried DMing in the past and decided it wasn't their thing; and the fourth has thus far shown not the slightest interest in it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, I've been trying to get a break from DMing for around 4 years. I keep asking. No one else wants to do it.

 

[Lanefan]

Nah. If you are busy and experienced and know the game it’s faster to make your own. That’s my opinion and experience. They can be fun to read for ideas. Published modules are just more work once you have built up your own material, plots, and threads over years of playing.

As someone who has built up rather a staggering load of material, plots and threads over years of running my campaign, I have to disagree.

With occasional exceptions, taking a published module and dropping it into my game takes me considerably less work overall than writing a homebrew module or adventure.

With any module, be it homebrew or published, I have to:

--- Make it fit into the ongoing backstory and threads of the campaign

But, with a published module I don't have to:

--- Map it
--- Determine the functions and-or contents of its various rooms, locations, etc.
--- Design and implement any traps, puzzles, and-or riddles
--- Populate it and stat out the inhabitants
--- Place treasure, loot, and valuables

The only extra work I have to do with a published module that I don't need to do with a homebrew is:

--- System/edition conversion. (in some cases I can literally do this on the fly while running the adventure; in other cases it can be tedious)

 

[Imaculata]

Recently I finally finished a campaign with my group of players for the first time. It was a D20 Call of Cthulhu campaign called Horror at the Huxley House, intended at first as only a one-shot, which then unfolded into an adventure of several sessions.

Now that it is over, there is a gap in our weekly D&D sessions. I am still also running a years long 3.5 Pirate Campaign, but I don't fancy picking up a 2nd DM hat yet again. I want to be player for a while. While I do have some material lying around for 2 new campaigns, they are as of yet unfinished. So my group is really looking for someone to jump in and take the reigns for a while. And we're finding that to be difficult. Preparing a campaign takes a lot of time and work.

 

[Reynard]

You are both right.

There is no one way to DM. "DM as storyteller" and "DM as facilitator" are equally valid approaches.

I will say this, speaking as the "storyteller" type DM: I DM because I want to tell stories. That's my motivation. The only way you would get me to be a "facilitator" type DM is if you paid me to do it.

Really, I think the question has to be "why do some people DM?". The answer to "why don't people DM?" Is obvious: it's hard work, it's expensive, it's sometimes thankless. Really, no one in their right mind would do it!

Everyone has their own preferences and reasons for enjoying RPGs, and that's wonderful. But I am generally against the DM "telling stories" at least in long form campaign games because "telling stories" means both prescribing and proscribing things better left to player choice, dice rolls and whim. I can -- and have! -- write a novel if I want to "tell a story." I run games for a different reason entirely.

 

[Regnier_LoT]

About running published modules or not, the only problem I have see with them comes from the rise of VTTs and online gaming. The playing ratio has increased so much that you may have issues running a specific module because everyone may have already played it.

My experience in the Discord servers where I run games is that there is a lot of GMs which pick 3-7 published modules and that is all they run until everyone in the server has played them. Many of those modules are introductory adventures from the publishers, which means that when a new GM arrives in the server wanting to run a tutorial adventure, everyone has already played the adventure and so the game is cancelled by lack of players. After all, the vast majority prefers to play something new before doing the same stuff all over again.

I feel this problem has always been present in the hobby, but when you play or run in a weekly basis with your group of friends you never notice it (after all, by the time you finish a published campaign you probably have had time to buy another one). However, because playing online is so fast and easy, the trend I have seen so far is that players/GMs play 2-4 sessions per week. There are even players who play 8 times per week and GMs who run 7 sessions per week using only published modules.

My opinion is that, unless publishers are able to speed-up the creation of new modules and adventures, at some point in the future a lot of potential GMs will be forced to write their own stuff because they will have trouble finding groups that haven't played already what has been published so far, especially if they don't have a group of friends to play with.

Another way to fix this would be to make more sandbox-oriented modules which actually allows replayability instead of being a railroad experience, so that players can find some value in redoing the module.