How did you learn to GM?

[Garnfellow]

Self taught, with much trial and error. Fortunately my first ruleset was the beloved Moldvay red cover edition, which at the time was light years easier than any other version to learn.

I was much helped by many, many Dragon magazine articles as well as a curious little paperback called "What Is Dungeons and Dragons." Sort of like a "Complete Idiots Guide" -- very helpful, though I have never seen another copy nor have I ever heard of anyone else using it.

 

[Brakkart]

I played in a couple campaigns run first by a friend and then by my brother and I thought "I could do this only better" so I swapped my brothers D&D books off him (Basic, Expert & Companion sets plus the Orcs of Thar Gazeteer) for my Advanced Heroquest set (a bargain I thought) and proceeded to do just that. Jumped right in and learned as I went along. 17 years later I'm still learning something new each session.

 

[Piratecat]

I bought and read as many modules as I could get my hands on. I remember sitting in my Mom's office waiting for her to get out of work, and reading Tomb of Horrors with kind of a sick grin on my face... Finally, I decided to take the plunge and run a game for friends.

They walked out.

So, back to the drawing board. I got competent within the next year, and my friends started having fun. My real epiphany came when I started plaing and running RPGA games at cons. That was when people rated the judge, and I thrived on the suggestions and feedback; I stole good ideas from everyone I gamed with, and learned everything I could to be a better player and DM. It was a fun way to learn!

 

[Bardsandsages]

I learned by watching a very, very bad DM and learned all the things NOT to do. I caught on to the rules pretty quickly, and I'm naturally good at making up things off the top of my head,so it was just a natural progression. One day the DM got tired of me questioning things ("Um, exactly why are there hundreds of Rhemorahs in these desert ruins, but no obvious food source to sustain them?") and he said "Would you like to run the game instead?" I said, OK, give me two weeks to prep, and then I ran my first game.

I swear to this day I believe the real reason my ex and I broke up was that I upstaged him as a DM in front of all his long-time gaming friends Many of them still prefer to game with me than him!

 

[buzz]

Holy thread necromancy, Batman!

 

[wmasters]

I played in a game when I was 15 (so I guess it was 1994/5) which ran for a year (I still remember playing a half-elf multiclass ranger-druid, because the AD&D PHB said it was an allowable combination but you couldn't be any alignment).

At the end of that, my friend who had DM'd it turned around and said 'you can DM now' and we made new characters. I ran what I would now consider a truly awful dungeon crawl, but that's how it all started, and I gradually learnt some of the things I'd done wrong and put them right. I've never really looked back.

 

[sckeener]

I was able to play in a group that featured two very good, but very different DM's. One was a master at weaving a story, the other a magician with the rules.

I have to say I have a similiar experience. I was already DMing and had been since the 3rd grade (admittedly not very well.) I was always more of a rules DM. It wasn't until I started playing regularly when I was 18 with a group that was heavy into RP that I realized how much I was missing from the game. Since then I've had 3 great DMs. I learned a lot from them. Mostly just having a detailed setting that seems old and telling a good story.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I watched two other guys DM for about 10 years then just did it.

The first DM I played under was learning the game even as I was. I know that he initially enjoyed it more for the power trip and always has. Not that he's actually ever been a bad DM, but he does lean fairly somewhat to preferences of seeing PC's struggle for every inch against overwhelming foes (leaving him in the natural position of being highly controlling of the course of plots and player actions.)

He became a player under the second DM and then eventually allowed his own campaign to be entirely subsumed under that campaign. This second DM ran a very long-running campaign with a large group of players for 10+ hours every Saturday for the better part of 10 years. Eventually in this campaign I actually took an interest in some of the behind-the-scenes magic that was being performed. I started reading the rules and noting that the house rules we played under were REALLY odd. I began to question many of the rules and pitch for moving things closer to RAW. Eventually, I just volunteered myself to run a session or two and not too long after that started an entirely new campaign (which I think coincided with the DM there becoming quite burned out on the job.) I have no illusions that I was NOT the finest DM at the outset, but I always questioned how I ran things and was MUCH more interested in player feedback on what they liked/disliked about the game and tried to address their concerns. Quite different from the DM's I had learned from who largely ran the game the way they'd always run it and while they didn't rebuff player feedback they didn't seek it either.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

I've been DMing on and off since 95 (back when no one wanted to DM but everyone wanted to play), but those were all one shots. I didn't actually start running campaigns until 2003. I played a lot between 99 and 03, and spent a lot of time thinking about the things I liked about gaming and the stories that I wanted to tell. I've learned that I like a game where my PCs actions affet the world at large and I try to offer that to my players. I've also learned that I like tough, on the edge of your seat, OMYGAWDWE'REGONNADIE battles, and that I offer those up to my players way to often. So I guess that I'm still learning how to be a better DM.

 

[waterdhavian]

I officially started when 3.0 came out. I had dabbled in it before with 2nd edition but never quite got the hang of it. A friend who introduced the game to me in 2nd edition was our DM and I learned alot through playing in the game. I was the first to get my hands on 3E so I declared I would run it, though it could have been partially forced on me aswell. After that I just read the books, made lots of characters to test myself and mostly ran pre-pub adventures, which I mostly used for stats and incorporated them into my campaign world. I've learned alot since then, but really havent DM'd much past my first campaign, lasting nearly 2 years.