GMs: Guiding Morals in GMing

[Lanefan]

What I try to do (success rate sometimes variable):

Be neutral. This includes no fudging, no on-the-fly changes to encounters if things get too easy or hard, etc. And most importantly, no favouritisim toward any given player(s) or character(s).

Be committed. This means showing up for the game on time (if not early) with my prep in at least some sort of useable condition. It also means running the campaign for as long - as in, as many years - as anyone wants to play in it.

Be consistent. This means sticking to in-campaign precedents and rulings, having clear in-fiction reasons for major mid-campaign setting or rules changes, and so forth. It also means being consistent with setting - if that wall had a door in it last time you were here, that door is either still there now or there'll be a damn good reason why it isn't.

Be malleable. This means that while I'll usually have a macro-level storyboard in mind, the players are always free to (intentionally or otherwise) chuck it out the window and go a different way; and I have to be ready willing and able to go into react mode on less than a moment's notice. Another way to put this would be "Be able and willing to wing it".

Make the game my own. This means if a rule or sub-system makes no sense to me, or is illogical, or potentially produces ridiculous or broken results in play, chuck it and if necessary replace it with something better.

Use every tool in the box, but infrequently or rarely and only when it makes sense. This means yes, I'll occasionally do a bit of hard railroading (e.g. "Yes you've just all been teleported halfway across the continent - you're someone else's divine intervention!"), or now and then coincidence might get stretched a bit beyond the breaking point (usually to get someone's PC into a party), and so forth.

Treat both the setting and the campaign as bigger than the characters. Characters and stories (and players) will come and go, but the setting endures and the campaign goes on. (exception: if the PCs in fact destroy the setting or game world - which I've seen done - that's it, game over)

The characters are native to and representative of the setting. This means the PCs aren't special snowflakes just because they are PCs, their specialness is earned through their actions. It also means the PCs are representative of their species' population, with corresponding benefits and drawbacks.

 

[Celebrim]

I think a lot of systems these days refer to these as agendas.

 

[Umbran]

I think a lot of systems these days refer to these as agendas.

My agenda is the thing I want to get.

My precepts guide how I reach my agendas.

 

[Digdude]

Everyone is looking for something out of a rpg, a good DM knows how to make these points intersect, while having fun themselves. There is no right or wrong way to do it, just what works.

 

[MGibster]

I suppose my agenda has changed as I've softened in my old age. It used to be that I wanted nothing more than to torture the players and drink in their tears, but in more recent years, I've realized their tears offer little in the way of nutritional value.

My main agenda is to have a good time. How we accomplish that depends on the game. In a horror game, yeah, you bet I want my players to be a little disturbed. Do I want the PCs to succeed? Yes. I don't mind if they fail but I'm rooting for them as overall success is more often more interesting than failure.

 

[soviet]

Kill a player in the first session as a message to the others.

 

[JAMUMU]

Kill a player in the first session as a message to the others.

Da comrade. This way, when remaining players look at character sheets, they take game much more seriously.

 

[pointofyou]

So something in another threat got me thinking.
So many GM style arguments come down to clashes of what can be called "Guiding Morals." What I mean is, having a few key principles of how a game should be run, priorities of play, that you are willing to bend other considerations to serve.
So these could include such things as "Challenge my players" or "Everyone has fun" or perhaps "Safety First."

What sorts of guiding moral principles govern how you run your games?

I do not do anything as a GM which I would abhor a GM doing if I were playing. I run games I'd love to play in.

 

[Celebrim]

So in answer of the original question, my "guiding morality" when GMing is: "Be the GM that you would want to have if you were a player." To a certain extent this, as much as I am able becomes, "Be the GM that your players want you to be.", in that I will try to observe what the players like and give them more of that. But I also have to have fun and enjoy the prep and running the game, so there is always a bit of what I want in the game as well. For my current group, I think they would prefer more linear adventures with less problem solving and investigation and more combat, but I balk from that to a certain extent because I don't enjoy leading groups around by the nose and likewise do enjoy more RP and game variety than just one combat encounter after another.

As far as my agenda as a GM are concerned:

a) Players can't be expected to not metagame, so if you want to avoid player actions being driven by meta knowledge leak as a little of that as possible.
b) As much as possible without violating 'a' be transparent and honest about the game and what is happening and don't fudge results.
c) As DW puts it, "Play to find out what happens." Prepare for what the players might do but don't get hung up on fantasies of what you want to have happen or impressing the players or imagining how exciting it would be if the game plays out in a particular way as if the way you foresee is the one right way for things to happen. Allow what happens to happen knowing that not every encounter is going to be or needs to be exciting. It's OK if the players just win sometimes. Likewise, players will find their own ways to struggle or lose without you planning for it.
d) One of your hats is referee, be a neutral enforcer of the rules as much as possible.
e) I tend to pursue a "naturalism" agenda, by which I mean simulate the setting as richly as I can. Make the setting feel lived in and real. My players tend to speak of this in terms of "the side quests", but really to me it is just that things that aren't central to the main quest or "the plot" are still going to be happening. The NPCs have problems and agendas of their own and there are all these other stories playing out alongside the players' stories, that the players have the option to engage with them or not. This also mean that one of the first things I do when planning a campaign is set up some demographics for what average NPC's look like and how they live their lives and what communities would do to defend themselves and what the prevailing social order is like and so forth, so that I have a baseline for extemporaneous play when the players invariably zig where I expected them to zag.
f) Related to the naturalism agenda is that the world doesn't specifically hate or love the PC's by default. I have a particular pet peeve against "All NPCs are useless and exist only to serve as foils of the PCs, even when doing so would be against the NPC's self-interest". I detest "The GM is Satan" gameplay and agendas, where the GM thinks they exist to foil the player's plans and be their adversary.

 

[Professor Murder]

They could be called that, but "morals" has some pretty hefty connotations that are apt to intrude into the discussion.

I'd think "guiding precepts" or "concepts" might help keep that intrusion at bay somewhat.



I don't run just one type of game, so I don't have a single set of precepts to inform play.

The connotations are purposeful. It is part of my contention that people viewing these as morals rather than preferences is part of what blinds some GMs to other perspectives.