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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jim pinto" data-source="post: 2690593" data-attributes="member: 17619">modesty, they name is villaini've been dming since 1986, for years i was a chart-nazii hated making decisions on the fly and i made charts for everything... even name generation, beard color, and tavern patrons.it was stupid.to some degree i still use these, but now just as tools, not as rules.(see AEG's toolbox for more on this)then, in college i played a game called torg and bought a game called "psychosis: ship of fools" and my concept of what gaming could be extrapolated. i went to game conventions and played with bad players and even worse DMs and i saw that i could be better.i wrote new stories for every convention, running numerous adventures. i started to learn that dming wasn't just about running the game, but also ADMINISTERING the game... reining in obnoxious players and making sure the quiet ones get to do something. about changing things on the fly based on a good idea at the table, with no fear of losing control of the game.over time i just got better and better at it... wanting to write the perfect session, the perfect campaign.i learned that all great DMs suffer from this need for MORE, because we alone cannot run the perfect game... we need excellent players, who show up with the right frame of mind to play, and who realize that "winning" isn't the ultimate point of a session.good DMing is about balance... its about knowing when to do the voices for the "pets" and when to back off... when to make the orcs easy to kill and when to add an ogre sergeant... its about short-lived victories that link to the next adventure, so that PCs aren't hoping back to the tavern to meet another "mysterious stranger"... good DMing is about challenging the PCs lowests stats, not their highest... about letting someone shine and giving someone else the trafgic subplot... about good ideas excectued well and bad ideas embellished into full-blown epics... and knowing where the two meet.... its about the charm of a small fishing village as the contrast to a coven of witches across the lake... about the cultist renegades with a map of capital's sewers.good DMing is about setting goals, not accepting that bad gaming happens sometimes.and its why good DMs never think they are as good as they are.i am not the best DM there is, but i know i'm in the top 5%... i just need to game with the top 5% of players...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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