Conventions and Gamemasters

[Balsamic Dragon]

I put this in a different thread from the "GenCon Needs GMs" thread, because I don't want to discourage folks from signing up. However, this kind of last-ditch effort to get DMs for games that players have already registered for makes me pause.

I have played in some great convention games and I have also played in some truly horrible ones. And it all comes down to the whether there is a good gamemaster or not. It seems to me that conventions have a hard time getting GMs at all, and therefor they will take anyone who is willing to give it a shot. Gencon is case-in-point. This is a HUGE convention, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, gaming convention. They plan over a year in advance. They have a large draw and a devoted fan following. And they admit that they cannot get enough GMs. More disturbing, they are willing to allow anyone to GM their events with no more qualification than signing up for free RPGA membership. They are even willing to pay these sight-unseen GMs in room and board reimbursements.

Even if, for argument's sake, there are more good GMs than poor ones, these people will have one week to prepare their adventure, assuming that they receive the materials that soon. They will be running modules, RPGA written events, that, from my experience, often need a lot of tweaking. And they will be seriously hindered in making any changes to the module that they might see as necessary or desireable in order to make the game more enjoyable for their players. RPGA seems to be of the opinion that if you have an arguably well-written module, even a poor GM will be able to produce a decent game from it. Notwithstanding the fact that many of their modules are poorly written, in my mind it is just the opposite: a good GM can make a poor module enjoyable, but not the other way around.

This all comes down to one point: do people go to conventions to play in games? Or is it more important to meet new people, buy new stuff, get autographs, attend panels? I think all of these are important, but most important are the games themselves! If I play in a great session with a new system, I will buy that system. If get to play in a great world I haven't tried before, I will buy the sourcebook. If I play in a great game with a great GM who is making the best of a poor world/system/module, I feel good that I haven't wasted my time buying the product, plus I get to play in a great game! But if I go to a convention where the focus is more on the printed material than the flesh and blood people who make that material come alive, then in my view the focus is in the wrong place. The RPGA wants new members and game companies want to sell their products and conventions want to sell more membership. What these groups need to understand is that they need to appeal to gamemasters, get them interested, get them to want to go to conventions. Come up with some sort of training process. Come up with a rating system that works. One based on actual skill, not the number of cons that one attends each year.

GenCon has lots of players now, but how many of these players will stick around if there is no one to run for? How many will want to GM when all of the rewards seem aimed at the players, not the gamemaster? How many will bother learning how to be a better GM when GenCon will take anyone who is breathing and has an RPGA membership?

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Piratecat]

I think three components make up a Con game: the GM, the players, and the adventure. You need any two of them to be good in order to have lots of fun, and game master trumps. (In other words, a horrible GM can ruin a good table with good players, or make a bad module with quiet players still be lots of fun.)

Balsamic Dragon, I think you're laboring under a misimpression that this year is different than any other year. It's not.* GenCon has always trusted its members to volunteer to judge if they think they're up to the challenge. Some aren't; many more are, and do a good-to-fantastic job. I've been attending cons for more than ten years, and that has always been the case. Allowing "anyone to GM their events" means asking US - you, me, that woman over there who's been GMing for 15 years, and that guy over there who's been GMing for two. I'm okay with that.

You do bring up some excellent points; RPGA has struggled with the concept of GM training for as long as I've been a member, and Ryan Dancy is attacking the problem with Organized Play. I noticed that there is a 20 question test on the RPGA web site that at least weeds out people who don't have rules knowledge. It's not perfect, though, and I'm not sure that there is any way to train GMs when you have limited manpower and volunteers.

So, how many will want to GM when all of the rewards seem aimed at the players, not the gamemaster? Probably as many as have all these years or as many as want to help (I agree that more rewards for GMs would be great! But I'm prejudiced in this department.) How many will bother learning how to be a better GM when GenCon will take anyone who is breathing and has an RPGA membership? I'm guessing as many as have some small degree of pride in their performance. And yeah, I know that sounds all pretentious and optimistic, but I really believe it to be the case. Go figure.

- Piratecat

* Minor rant: Well, it's a little bit different. GM signup for GenCon this year was IMO an unmitigated disgrace, unlike past years where highly talented volunteers like Don Weatherbee were in charge of organization. Recently someone highly competent stepped in to pick up the pieces, but the people originally hired to organize it did a shameful job. I have complained; hopefully, this won't happen again in the future.

 

[Zappo]

Since the RPGA test can be repeated until you pass it, and the questions are few and soon start to be repeated, and you've got all the time in the world to do it (including the time to look at the manuals)... I'd say it's about useless.

 

[Piratecat]

Not quite. I actually learned a rule or two. But yeah, other than teaching you to look stuff up, it's not terribly useful other than a screening tool to eliminate people who are really afraid of rules. I found it especially irritating that it isn't appropriate for people who want to download non-D&D games such as CoC.

 

[Black Omega]

Hmm...to bad I'm not in the RPGA so I can't DM but I'm looking forward to learning some new tricks to help my GMing. And now with the authors of some excellent storyhours there I have some games to try and sneak into and take notes on when they run games.

 

[Balsamic Dragon]

So what would be a good way to train/test GMs? I will agree to disagree on what the ratio of good GMs to bad ones is. A lot of that may be personal taste in any case. I am much less picky about players than I am about GMs. When I play in a game, I expect the GM to have put some actual thought into how its going to go and how to run it so that the players enjoy themselves and have the opportunity to roleplay. It's not so much lack of skill or experience that I have a problem with, it's lack of caring and preparation.

Personally, this is what I would like to see:

For each game, either a module or a GM created game, a questionaire should be sent out and the answers reviewed by the convention staff. Questions could be along the lines of:

Rules based: Considering the spells and resources that will be available to the player characters, what type of preparation will you expect them to do for this adventure? If they use Scry or Divination, how much information will they be able to obtain? How will this alter the adventure?

Plot based: Suppose the players get some really lucky dice rolls and kill the major villian in the first encounter when they are supposed to survive to be a threat later on. What are your contingency plans?

Roleplaying based: It is important for this adventure to show the animosity between the two rival merchants. What ideas do you have for this?

These questions would not only demonstrate how prepared a GM was, they would actually encourage them to prepare simply to answer the questions? Plus, once they have sent their answers it, you send them a document which contains some of the best answers that you have received from past GMs on the same module, so they can draw ideas from that as well!

Balsamic Dragon

 

[Piratecat]

Hmm...to bad I'm not in the RPGA so I can't DM but I'm looking forward to learning some new tricks to help my GMing. And now with the authors of some excellent storyhours there I have some games to try and sneak into and take notes on when they run games.

Free to join!! See the announcement thread for who to email if you want to volunteer.

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Balsamic Dragon, that's an interesting idea that I think would be simply unworkable. Not only would it require a tremendous amount of manpower, I would find it insulting as a GM. I don't want someone at HQ second-guessing me if they happen to disagree with what I've done to "fix" the module. If they trust me to volunteer, then they trust me to do a good job, and I don't want to be micromanaged until it becomes clear that I'm *not* doing a good job.

A better technique may be to only require this sort of response from people to receive consistently low judge scores. Anyone flagged could be required to answer these sorts of questions until their scores rise. Still unwieldy, I'm afraid, but a little bit more logistically possible. In this sort of system, low-rated judges would probably be discouraged by the paperwork and remove themselves from the pool, thus making the pool of available judges slightly smaller but of higher quality.

 

[Ashtal]

I'm all for experienced GMs (heavens know that a bad GM can be worse than root canal), but I think having questionaires/responses may add a level of administrative complexity that would be hard to manage and fairly subjective.

Now, I haven't been to too many Cons, but I get the feeling that administrative smoothness isn't necessarily a priority, or even practical (please, if this is competely eroneous, someone tell me so!).

I mean, they try their best, but these are fans, they are here to have fun, and running a Con is a HUGE job as it is. Huge, vast, galactic. There is so much to do. Adding more administration to something already hard enough to manage may be a burden - and it may scare off perfectly good GMs who are intimidated by being tested.

Edit: Serves me writing my reply without reading PCs. Duh and Duh again on my part. D'oh!

 

[Barcode]

Wow, BD. Just let me know when you are running a convention and I will be there! Unfortunately, I think you would find your idealistic world view shattered by the crushing logistical realities.

No doubt that an individual game at a convention is hit or miss when it comes to GM, adventure and players. Even the smallest conventions struggle to come up with quality GM's to run quality games, and even if they could meet your exacting standards, you never know if you will be stuck at a table of duds for players for four hours. For something the size of Gencon, the organizational problems increase exponentially.

A convention is about trying new games and meeting new people. There is some risk involved with any relatively blind committment of time, and it's probably exceedingly rare for someone to walk away from an event the size of Gencon having loved every experience. It's got a lot to do with keeping your expectations realistic, and I don't think it is possible to meet yours with a convention of any appreciable size.

In defense of RPGA (and I have been a vocal critic in the past myself), I have a good time more often than not, at least 2 to 1. That is better than the hit ratio of non-RPGA roleplaying events, where in my experience it is even money.

If enough people volunteer that the organizers can pick and choose the best of the lot, so much the better.

 

[Gospog]

Each one teach one

This is in response to Blasamic Dragons' question about how to train GMs.

The short answer is...just do it. I think everyone defended conventions adequately, I want to address a different point.

We are the ones who train new DMs. Not GenCon, not small Cons, not WotC. If you don't like the quality of GMs you meet at Cons, the best thing you can do is take a young and eager gamer under your wing and teach them "the right way" (which will vary for everyone to some degree).

I started doing this five years ago and it has paid off in spades. I "trained up" two 12-year-olds, and now, five years later, one of them is a fantastic GM. Even the less talented of the two (GM-wise) has improved tremendously.

I'm happy to say that whoever meets these two at a convention (as players or GMs) will be pleasantly surprised at thier skill and maturity. (two things I tried to impart to them, or at least encourage)

My proudest moment was watching my "prize pupil " run a game at a Con recently (as a spectator for the end of the game). He did fantastic! Every time I felt the urge to jump in and interject, I held my toungue (obviously, I'm not rude or a jerk) and he handled each situation admirably, and in his own way (but clearly influenced by my tutelage).

But enough about my success. Go get some of your own! If you're unhappy with the state of GMs in the gaming community, start making your own.

I hope that helps. Have fun at GenCon! I wish I could attend.