System matters and free kriegsspiel

[S'mon]

I suspect that's because you haven't been exposed to environments where there's a sharply limited amount of GMs, and as such, the ones present can get away with things that wouldn't fly where its easier to shop for a better GM.

Hm, yes I'm most familiar with the London D&D Meetup, and my own Meetup I ran for a few years. Lots of GMs & lots of players, but number of GMs always the limiting factor. Certainly weaker GMs can struggle to keep a steady group in that environment.

Edit: Do you think bad/untrustworthy GMs are more common than bad/untrustworthy players? While I won't play with most GMs, I've always taken the view that's because my standards are unreasonable, not that most GMs are objectively terrible.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or run in an environment where it's easier to shop for better players.

Since we were talking about the frequency of GMs with problems, I fail to see how that relates at all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hm, yes I'm most familiar with the London D&D Meetup, and my own Meetup I ran for a few years. Lots of GMs & lots of players, but number of GMs always the limiting factor. Certainly weaker GMs can struggle to keep a steady group in that environment.

Edit: Do you think bad/untrustworthy GMs are more common than bad/untrustworthy players? While I won't play with most GMs, I've always taken the view that's because my standards are unreasonable, not that most GMs are objectively terrible.

I don't have any sense they're more common than bad players, just that they're able to get by longer because in many places the GM/player ratio is such people will put up with problems with a GM where a player, barring specifics of the social setup (someone's relative or the person who supplies the play location) would be more likely to get the boot.

If you think about it, there's no particular reason the willingness to GM is going to make one less likely to have problems (though it might select for different ones or where they express themselves in different kinds of ways.)

 

[overgeeked]

Since we were talking about the frequency of GMs with problems, I fail to see how that relates at all.

We were talking about the frequency of GMs having problems...with players. So, you know, kinda relevant.

 

[Thomas Shey]

We were talking about the frequency of GMs having problems...with players. So, you know, kinda relevant.

No, I wasn't. I was responding to S'mon's ratio question statement and disagreeing that there's any intrinsically better issue with random players or random GMs. How easy or not it is to dump players could not be less relevant to that.

 

[aramis erak]

Hm, yes I'm most familiar with the London D&D Meetup, and my own Meetup I ran for a few years. Lots of GMs & lots of players, but number of GMs always the limiting factor. Certainly weaker GMs can struggle to keep a steady group in that environment.

Edit: Do you think bad/untrustworthy GMs are more common than bad/untrustworthy players? While I won't play with most GMs, I've always taken the view that's because my standards are unreasonable, not that most GMs are objectively terrible.

With GM's, I think bad due to inexperience is VERY common, and bad due to general maleficence/misanthropy is fairly rare (maybe 1 in 30?)... I've played under less than 20 GM's...
3 sucked from inexperience. Not counting them in the other categories
2 had story train syndrome, with the story on rails outside organized play.
2 arbitrarily changed rules on a whim. Some don't consider that an issue, it was the issue I walked over.
1 was out to kill all the PCs while running rules as written and restricted himself to balanced encounters. I hated it. Mostly minis play.
1 was upset I was dragged along; player hadn't cleared it with him. He made his displeasure clear... and added my character naked and strapped to a carry pole. (I've wound up working for him and with him down the road... I'll never again belly up to a table he's running, tho. I'd rather have been told "No" than what happened.)
3 were competent and fun.
4 more were playable and sorta-fun.
1 was annoyingly monty-haul...

 

[Thomas Shey]

With GM's, I think bad due to inexperience is VERY common, and bad due to general maleficence/misanthropy is fairly rare (maybe 1 in 30?)... I've played under less than 20 GM's...

There's a third case: lacks talent for the job but insists on doing it anyway. Less malevolence (and experience doesn't always help; Dunning-Kruger is a thing) than just not knowing when to quit.

 

[aramis erak]

There's a third case: lacks talent for the job but insists on doing it anyway. Less malevolence (and experience doesn't always help; Dunning-Kruger is a thing) than just not knowing when to quit.

There are different areas of incompetence. It only takes one area to grind a game to a halt.

 

[pemerton]

My impression of GMs is that many are not as good as they think they are! (I'll leave others to judge that in my case.)

The biggest issues I've encountered are (i) a carelessness about rules in circumstances where other people at the table care, and (ii) weak dramatic imagination. Practice is the cure for both, I think, but there has to be some diligence to the practice. Just repeating one's bad habits won't lead to improvement!

 

[Campbell]

I can't really speak for the open game experience. All my gaming has pretty much been within social groups because I pretty much only feel comfortable gaming with people I enjoy spending time with. If I would not want to chill with you we're not gaming. I haven't really experienced in GMs or players I would consider bad. Plenty of people who wanted different things out of the experience, but no one I would call bad.

I can't imagine gaming with people I did not have great relationships actually. It sounds awful.