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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 6858239" data-attributes="member: 67">Lesson 29: Make mistakes.This lesson will assert some things that I feel are universally true, but are especially relevant to the low-prep style of play, due to its high reliance on improvisation. The following should all be filtered through that lens:Nobody starts out as a great DM, nor even as a good one. If you want to hone your craft and become a good DM, yourself, you must accept a fundamental truth - you must first spend some time as a bad one. Stories of nightmare-DMs abound, recounting tales of poor communication, tyranny, ignorance, incompetence, and, of course, the dreaded permissive DM who allows badwrongfun to occur. Some people are so deathly afraid of these things, they seek out (or design) games with rules of sufficient rigid complexity that the mere possibility of making these mistakes (if they even are mistakes) is eliminated. There are many good reasons why folk find that style of game enjoyable (although it generally runs counter to the principals of a streamlined sandbox). As a vehicle for ensuring good DMing, however, they are problematic. In the first place, the ideal of a system that doesn't allow for DM error is impossible to achieve, because no set of role-playing rules can be so comprehensive as to encompass every conceivable situation that will come up in play. And those that try inevitably create layers of complexity, in which numerous unforeseen loopholes thrive. It is within these gaps that the intent is defeated. Establishing an expectation that the rules will dictate decision-making places undue strain on the players (especially the one running the game) in situations where the rules fail to do so adequately. Impracticality is only part of the problem, though. The greater problem is that a game that expects the worst behavior out of its players does so at the expense of supporting the best of what players can achieve. This is not to say that such games do not allow for excellence to emerge in play - only that such excellence transcends their expectations.Trust and experience are the two missing ingredients. I'll talk about experience, first. Becoming a good DM is a trial-and-error process - and no matter how good you are, you can always be better. All the theorycraft in the world can only help to point you in the right direction (no matter what direction that might be). To truly understand what makes a game worth playing, you've got to know what it feels like to juggle the different variables involved and find the balance that equals fun for everybody. That requires a constant awareness of what the players are enjoying and at what points - and why - you start to lose them, so you can adjust on the fly. In the process of developing that awareness, you're going to make mistakes - sometimes big ones. Learn from those mistakes and move on. That's where trust comes in. All of this will be easier in the long run if the system you are using trusts you to become better by making mistakes, particularly because you also must learn to trust yourself to be able to do the same. No matter the system, though, you will need to establish and maintain the trust of your players; they need to be able to trust that you are constantly striving to be fair and to foster a fun experience for everyone. If you've got that, you've got everything you need. If you make the trust of your players a priority and consciously work toward maintaining it, you will be a good DM. And every mistake will serve to make you better.</blockquote>

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