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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6307008" data-attributes="member: 17106">One salient piece of advice from the 3e DMGII:I think it's important because so many people on these boards are either very negative about individual DMs, or about the idea of a DM, or both.This piece is an important reminder of two things. First, that DMing is a big job, it carries more authority and more importance than the roles of the other people at the table; "center stage" is inherently a tough place to be in. Second, that the DM does not always have to be perfect in order to be a DM.A nice bit from the original DMG:DM cheating is a big deal. The section goes on to provide some other interesting thoughts on the subject, and notes that it's okay to hew strictly to the rules, or to bend them if you want. It then notes:This is interesting to me in how strong a paternalistic stance the core books adopt. They're expecting you as a DM to manipulate and outright lie to the players (albeit in a way that makes sense dramatically) in order to get them to think what you want them to.***Of non-D&D sources, I've always thought that CoC offers some of the best advice for running a game, regardless of genre:Since I got started in the hobby by storytelling, this speaks to me.Which is really the whole game right there, articulated better in any form than I recall seeing it elsewhere. This is why we have rpgs: to set up a set of rules that show you how an imaginary world works as a starting point, which we then expound upon, with the DM/GM leading the way.Really, the whole book is very good and has several chapters on GMing.***Probably one of the most important non-D&D sources I used to develop a DMing philosophy was the behind-the-scenes commentary in various forms that Ron Moore delivered on the new (2004) Battlestar Galactica. A representative mission statement:Which is very much how I've always looked at D&D. If the players are expecting certain things, goals, world elements, NPC behaviors, basic facts of reality, the way to really engage them is to target some salient expectations of theirs and purposefully and profoundly violate them.And to sprinkle this variation about in different ways. An entirely conventional plot might unfold over an unconventional timeframe. A seemingly insincere NPC might turn out to be an ally. A treasure hunt might turn into an existential conflict. But each time, not only is an expectation being violated, but the nature of the targeted expectation is completely different. The players then genuinely cannot predict what is coming, and hopefully are freed of any predispositions they might have had.Another big lesson I got from his commentary was to try to use the meta-level constraints (time and practical considerations) to create an in-world experience. This speaks very loudly to roleplaying in my view. If the characters stand to lose something, it helps if the players do too (which is why I stopped letting them make new characters without penalty; now they actually lose something when they lose a character).</blockquote>

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