How did you learn to GM?

[Henry]

Like I'm guessing 99% of the respondents, I'm self-taught, and the further education continues.

I started in 1981, buying the Moldvay box set and leading my cousins through our first adventure (level 1 characters through the White Plume Mountain --- WHHEEEE! ) Afeterwards, I DM'ed one best friend through about 3 years of modules and improvised adventures that looked nothing like the rules (I was about 13 or so before I actually learned how to use all those funky dice!) and then didn't game, just collected and read, for about five years. My first experience as a player came 7 YEARS after my experience as DM!

From there, I've learned to DM by reading and re-reading, by watching other DM's, and trying to broaden my horizons with all sorts of other inputs (non-genre stuff, non-fiction, history, etc.) My second-biggest learning curve in my life was being introduced to DMs like Piratecat, Rel, der Kluge, Old One, etc. through ENWorld, which has increased my proficiency by leaps and bounds, I believe.

 

[Allandaros]

I learned by imitation. I was in elementary school (sometime around '95 or '96), and I had just joined up with a D&D game being played on the bus back from school*. After that, I poked around and found one guy running AD&D (a fifth-grader version, mind you) and one guy running TOON.

I watched them, read some Tolkien, and attempted to imitate. Worked out OK.

*It worked out well until my wizard was killed by falling into an acid bath. When I wasn't there.

 

[megamania]

Self taught.

My background includes the following-

rich imagination
reads 1000's of comicbooks and adventure novels
Kept 1st and 2nd ed. stuff to draw from
Listen to the players to learn what I am doing right and wrong.

Time.

 

[Garnfellow]

It's interesting to see how many DMs in this thread were self taught -- I wonder how refective this is on the industry? Much of the hand-wringing over the death of the F-and-not-so-F-LGS hangs on the notion that those stores are vital to recruiting and retaining new players. If the game stores are extinct, how will the tabletop games survive? I've always been a little skeptical of this claim, particularly in an internet age, where's it relatively easy for even someone in the boondocks to link up with other gamers. Are game stores the primary point of entry for most pen and paper gamers? Have they ever been?

 

[Henry]

Much of the hand-wringing over the death of the F-and-not-so-F-LGS hangs on the notion that those stores are vital to recruiting and retaining new players. If the game stores are extinct, how will the tabletop games survive?

Quite frankly, when I learned D&D, the nearest Local Game store was 90 miles away, buying mine from a Toy Store in a mall. All my friends learned about it through college, near no local game stores, either. It may be part of why I've always treated claims of "the game will die without the local stores" a bit skeptically, myself, because they played almost NO part in my coming to the game. Now, they definitely played a part in my STAYING with the game, because without them, I wouldn't have had access to so many supplements (my friends and I would go Saturdays on road trips to the game store and pick up "cool stuff") Nowadays, the Internet and chain bookstores and their proliferation of material mean that that danger of losing gamers due to lack of cool new stuff isn't as dire.

 

[Lanefan]

I had the luxury of having a very good DM to learn from. That, and 20 years of blundering trial and error, has got me where I am now. Wherever that is.

Lanefan

 

[GwydapLlew]

I slowly pieced it together through trial and error (just like everyone else!)

I was fortunate enough to have a twin brother, and we are both gaming geeks. It makes it much easier to learn how to game when you've got learning right along with you. I was almost always the DM in the games that I played with my friends and eventually evolved into the creature that I am today.

 

[noffham]

Self-taught.

November, 1974. My brother brought home the three little booklets that seemed to expand on the Chainmail miniature rules we had been using for wargames. He ran one game that was meh. I decided to take over the DM post.

Taught myself as I went along. Figured as long as the players enjoyed it, I was doing something right. It's almost 32 years now and I still DM about 98% of the time. The players still seem to be enjoying it so, again, I must be doing something right.

Always watch other DMs in stores, game days, conventions, whatever. After a while, you get a feel for what works and what doesn't FOR YOU. Then read everything you can, watch everything you can and steal ideas with both hands! (Eventually, the system really doesn't matter much).

 

[Aeric]

I ran my first game around 1983-1984. Red box D&D. My parents, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins were the players. I ran Palace of the Silver Princess for them.

As for how I learned, I just read the book and followed directions. Self taught. And I'm still learning to this day.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I was a player 1978-1980, and I had a damn good DM. When he died in 1980 I started to run my own campaign, copying him.

Now, approximately ten million DM-ing mistakes later, I like to think of myself as having passed basic training. I'm in the CPD stage.