Do you know you're a bad GM?

[Vayden]

I think my biggest weakness is not prepping enough. My 2nd biggest weakness would be boring NPCs, then catering a bit too much to my own style as a player (lots of combat), then not getting enough information about the world out to my players. And finally, I get bored and want to DM a new and different story way too frequently.

On the other hand, I've only been DMing for 4-5 years, and I'm still learning all the time. I know I'm pretty good at keeping up with things and generating adventure on the fly when the game goes off the rails (since half the time I don't have any rails). I know I'm fair and balanced with rules judgements - I don't let people break the game ridiculously, but I very rarely say no and I'm always willing to roll with something creative. I ran a small adventure that I made up for our last 3.5 campaign (4-5 sessions), and pretty much everyone agrees that was one of the best adventures our group's ever done.



Here are my latest plans for improving my next game:
1) Give people more advance notice of what we're going to be doing (campaign hand-out etc)
2) Hand out a list of questions about their character and make each player answer them before we start, to get more background and depth to the characters, as well as hopefully generating some plot hooks I can use
3) Not going to try and plan a campaign, just an adventure - if it goes well and we're all still interested, I'll plan another adventure for the same characters after we're done.
4) I'm going to use a published campaign setting, to give a little more depth to the world, and I'm going to make sure the players all have access to the setting and can read up on it before we get started (made the mistake when I ran a Ptolus game of not passing around the book to the players - to most of them it ended up just being another big generic city).

 

[Nebulous]

yes, i'm a bad dm, and i know it.

just don't tell my g/f, cos she's a newbie player and doesn't realize how bad i am.

messy

Just out of curiosity, what do you consider so "bad"? And is it something you can get better at through practice?

 

[Frostmarrow]

My name is Jonas and I'm a bad DM. I set the stage and hand it over to the players but as soon there is but a brief pause in their deliberations I kick start the action. Even though, as a player, I think player deliberations is the best part of the game.

 

[Rel]

And one person's gratuitous sex and gore is another's delightful afternoon.

Why is your avatar looking at ME when you type that?!

 

[Fifth Element]

I think it depends so much on the player group, whether your styles meshes with theirs. One player's good DM is another player's bad DM.

That being said, one of the good traits a DM can have is the ability to modify his or her style to the players' preferences, and I'm pretty good at that I think.

I'm not very good at coming up with little details on the spot. I can improvise broadly, but little things will get skipped over. My NPC characterizations aren't good, only a few important ones ever have really distinctive personalities.

On a scale of 1 to 10 Rels, I'd give myself a B-.

 

[Ambrus]

While reading over some replies I started thinking that it might be a good idea to start a Bad GM support group on these boards. Then it occurred to me that that may in fact be what ENworld is at its base; a support group for bad GMs who hope to improve.

Hi. My name is Ambrus, and I'm a bad GM.

 

[S'mon]

I tend to be a Viking-hatted GM.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't have any trouble saying that I'm really good--within my rather niche comfort zone: Large group of players, long running campaign, heroic fantasy or sword and sorcerery, with a ruleset that I enjoy and have had a little time to use. Even my undenialable weaknesses don't matter in that framework. No great shakes at voice characterization, mannerisms, or the like? It doesn't matter when you can set up scene after scene where the players--who are good at it, get to roleplay with each other.

Change any of those parameters, and ability starts to sink fast. At a con game, even if I'm fully rested and enthusiastic, the best I can be is average.

I think you reach a certain point where you simply have to accept that you have a certain style, and strengths and weaknesses to go with it--and work within those limits. Some of those weaknesses aren't getting any better, but you might find a way to work around them. Sure, if you rip me out of niche permanently somehow, I'll make the best of it, and maybe get better. But the niche is so much better than anything else, and the group prefers it, so why not spend my improvement efforts at making that kind of game even better?

 

[Weregrognard]

I've GMd RPGs for 17 years now and I still feel like a bumbling novice. That said, I make no illusions that my campaigns are going to be epic sagas worthy of literature. They are what they are.
I've only had one player ever walk out on a game of mine, but in the words of the other players, he was an A-hole.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I have my bad points as a DM certainly. I try to railroad the party too much sometimes a little too obviously and they resent feeling forced that way. I'm horrible with giving people equal time when there is a party split, because I always go with the stuff I expected them to do first and do the players that split off later and faster...

On the other hand I'm good with gaming systems, usually can get a good handle on what constitutes an exciting or tense encounter, can do fairly decent NPC's I think and I'm pretty good thinking of some interesting plots to spring on the players...

I usually try to work on my problems by preparing for them. Try to work more options into the campaign so it doesn't always go one way and stuff. It's the first thing that gets sacrificed if I don't have much time to prepare though...