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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6308798" data-attributes="member: 17106">I don't see it that way at all. A more structured plot-driven game can be written explicitly to set up meaningful choice points for players. With a more sandbox-y game, the DM has to make a lot of stuff up on the spot. The more off the beaten path the players go, what changes is that they're tapping into the DM in real time vs in advance.The amount of influence the players have on the actual course of events is completely separate.I've seen it where intricately pre-plotted games are built off of the PC backstories and driven by their choices, and I've seen it where open-ended improvisation leaves the players completely out of things.It does. However, I think that to be a good DM, you first have to learn how to do it without any rules whatsoever.I recall one game where we met for the first session, the DM began laying down some narration about Greyhawk, and within a minute, someone was riffing off it and stepping in with interlude like "and the most common bird in Greyhawk is...". Things went downhill from there.I suspect it's underrated here because most of us are already DMs who have some level of competence, but the first bar you have to get over is you have to be able to do improvised freeform narration. You have to be the only one talking, you have to be the voice of authority, and you have to make stuff up, and that stuff (gulp) becomes the substance of the game. For non-DM's that's really hard!To me, adding in the rules is advanced DMing. First getting an idea of how they were built and the general principles, and eventually getting to the point of understanding how to use them. What the number should be, when to ask for a roll, how to manage player expectations.All of which is true, and which, to my way of thinking is why it's important for the DM to take responsibility and not hide behind rules. If a PC dies, the DM is responsible, regardless of whether the character was felled by a lucky crit, the apocryphal falling rocks of DM dictation, or the player's own foolishness. Because the DM is responsible for everything. The sooner everyone understands this, the sooner he can be held accountable.</blockquote>

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