GM Merit Badges

[Desdichado]

I haven't really been around all that much lately, but I couldn't find any hint anywhere that this has been posted here. That seems odd since it's been all over the RPG blogosphere. GM Merit badges. You pick the ones that best describe your GMing style, or at least what you aspire for your game to be like, and then presto! you've got a handy visualization of what your gaming style is like. Great shorthand when looking for online gamers, I'd imagine, and like I said, it's been fun for folks all over the blogosphere to pick the ones that they like.

The link posted above has most of them, but he added two more to his cafe press store.

Here's mine:

Story. I prefer that my games tell an interesting story. This isn't a pre-written story, by any means, but I greatly prefer an interesting story to be the product of the game. Otherwise, I'm keenly disappointed.

Scary. I don't really run traditional fantasy, but rather a hybrid of fantasy and horror, with a strong emphasis on the mood and tone of horror.

Player vs. Player. While I don't necessarily encourage this, I certainly do not discourage it either. In fact, I think a lot of inter-party suspicion is crucial to developing and maintaining the horror ambiance.

Mirror. I'm perfectly happy taking player ideas and integrating them into the game. Especially if, as is often the case, their ideas are better than mine anyway. Be careful what you speculate about amongst yourselves at the table; you may find you worst case scenario speculations coming back to haunt you.

GM is in charge. Rule zero all the way, baby. If something isn't working right, I'll fix it on the fly. If I don't have a rule handy, I'll making a ruling on the fly and move on. By the book is for computer RPGs. Having a human adjudicator in the GM's seat is the primary advantage of an old fashioned "analog" RPG.

Improvisation. I'm a strong believer in underplanning and working with what comes to the table. I don't literally make the whole game up on the fly of course (unless the players do something so totally unexpected that I have to) but the game clearly will morph around what the players bring, where they want to go and what they want to do.

Cloak & Dagger. Intrigue, espionage, organized crime, skullduggery--all strong elements of all my games. By default every urban location in my setting is a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy.

Dice in the Open. I don't literally roll all dice out in the open, but I usually do, and I don't really like fudging dice rolls.

Disturbing Content. You've been warned. My games are maybe not quite rated R, but they skirt that line routinely--they're definitely at least a "hard PG-13" and I don't recommend them for children or the sensitive.

Characters and Drama. Every good story is the story of people. The PC's are at the heart of every good game. While PC's may die, and unexpected things may happen to them, I also don't expect my PCs to be disposible. The game is, after all, centered around them, their backgrounds, their goals and their personalities.

Run Away! In my campaigns, you may routinely come across encounters that you are not meant to win. Act accordingly.

Tinker. I tinker with the rules. A lot. It's a defining feature of my gaming that it's heavily house-ruled.

 

[Umbran]

As a Boy Scout of old, I find the "merit badge" does not fit the concept described.

Merit badges are what you get when you prove to some appropriately knowledgeable person that you can in fact do something. If you assign them to yourself, there's no indication of actual merit. If your players decided to award you badges based on your performance, then they might be reasonably called "merit badges".

Word to the wise: if you attempt to co-opt someone else's concept, and do it poorly, folks are going to point out your flaws before they worry about whether or not what you're actually trying to get at is worthwhile.

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, Umbran, the only reason they call them merit badges was because the graphics they created kinda looked like them. I believe it says as much on the link I posted, although I may have read that on some of the other blogs where I've seen this.

Eagle Scout myself, back in the day.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) folks are going to point out your flaws (. . .)

Some will do it so often, you'd think they were trying to earn some sort of recognition, an ornamental patch of some kind, perhaps.

 

[nedjer]

merit badges for players and GMs - for doing stuff:

journeys
quests
missions

shade-in ones are HERE and PDF 'booklets' print or save off each page. The badges right click save individually or simply save the whole web page and go to the images folder.

The badges are good for non-commercial use as merit badges linked to whatever scale/ stuff or other RPG uses, e.g. pretty up a campaign website or tokens.

 

[nedjer]

Some will do it so often, you'd think they were trying to earn some sort of recognition, an ornamental patch of some kind, perhaps.

the badges for Renegade are meant to inform and tell a whole lot that's positive about a DM or a player. Inevitable I'd consider that but not think of selling pin-on badges. I need a product manager like yesterday.

 

[Desdichado]

Although we're a bit light on replies to start making any conclusions or observations (not that the poll is scientific, although I'm not sure that I can think of an obvious endogeneity problem with it either, unless it's something inherent in ENWorld itself) I do think it's curious that I've seen this mostly in the RPG blogosphere, which seems to lean much more heavily towards OSR themed folks (also not a scientifically quantified observation.) And the responses on this poll and the responses on the blogs I've read show a few surprising differences.

I'm especially surprised that a tactical focus is trending so low, even if it's early. Almost every blog post I read had that one included. And By the Book rules was another common one in the blogosphere which seems to be almost nonexistent here.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Osr?

 

[Mark CMG]

Osr?

Old School Renaissance. Old School Roleplaying. Old School Revival. Old School Revolution. Old School Rules. I've seen all of these variations, though Old School Renaissance most often.

 

[MINI]

Having run an online gaming community for several years now, I think its a good idea to have some kind of poll as a baseline to evaluate GMs. GMs are neither good nor bad when it comes to it, but players look for different qualities. Do they want a killer DM who offers a challenging game that may very well result in character death unless those characters are played by the most able and knowledgeable players possible? Does the player look for fast progression so they can build their character like they so enjoy? Is the game all about the story and not being too linear? Does a player hate to be railroaded?

A poll like this can really help connect like minded players and GMs provided the GMs answering the questions are honest about it.

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