How did you learn to GM?

[Dragonbait]

Through trial and error. Started GMing a Palladium game with my friend over the phone for a while, then joined a D&D group. I SUCKED at the beginning, and slowly started working my way up. I think I made almost every GMing mistake in the book at one time or another - except for the one where the PCs fail the adventure, no matter what.

I didn't read the other posts till now. It's good to see that I'm not alone in the self-taught category.

 

[Templetroll]

I started gaming in '79 with a group at Temple University (Hence Temple Trolls as the group name, and thus, my handle). There were about 15 pretty steady players and at least 8 DMs with none using published material. There wasn't a lot around then and everyone had their own ideas on how a world should be.

It was in the Fall of 79 that I think someone suggested that I run a campaign; the one DM with the strongest personality told me I had two weeks. First thing I did was draw a map of a world, then chose a section and named it and the surrounding areas. My first adventuring area was a small island with a village and a dungeon.

I had a basic outline of the history, with some odd things like common phrases "As steady as the Pole Star" or the derogatory "As stubborn as the Pole Star" which was a bright star in the sky that was used for navigation as it didn't move like other stars seemed to. Players found out why years later. Another phrase was "Where the Boney Horseman rides is death." He was an ill omen, in game terms it was a Death Knight on a Nightmare so it really fit the phrase. I also made a point of resolving some problems I had with D&D worlds - why there was so much magic scattered all over the place and the Common language. I did that by following bits in the DMG about there once having been 10+ level spells and that now there was 'only' 9th level. I set up the ancient empire based on great magic equipped armies that spread throughout the world; then the 'Decline of Magic' occurred. This mystic event cause magic to drop in power across the world and made most of the magic equipment of the armies fail. This allowed the conquered peoples ot rise up and free themselves. Along the way the few still magic items got into various hands or were lost in the wilderness; heavily fortified defense installations suddenly became lost dungeons.

When I had first gotten the three tan books I followed the directions for designing a dungeon and had a massive multi-level thing outlined... with a lich on the first level. When it finally came time to actually be a DM I realised how bad that was, then decided to still use it. I set up a lower level wizard, 3rd level I think, with a wand of conjuration, that could mimic a high level spell (PRismatic Wall) and he told the nearby kobolds that he was a lich. They didn't know any better, just that he could apparently kill them and it helped keep them safe to have a lich to serve who didn't ask for much.

The party had a nice fight with kobolds, didn't want to try to take on the entire tribe, found the entrance to the 'lich lair' and one of them died to explosive runes reading a 'guest book' in the anteroom. They decided that the lich was at least smart enough to have set that up so they left that dungeon and decided to explore the world. Suddenly, I had to create the rest of the land.

I outlined the types of terrain and used the random encounters tables in the 1e DMG to populate it, then expanded on the various encounters later. It ended up making for a nice little world. I've run several groups over the years and I'm still working on fleshing it out as new things show up in the game.

 

[Nyaricus]

Largely self-taught, although here's my life story for those who are interested

Story:

I started playing D&D in the summer or fall of '99. I was 11 years old, and in grade 6. We stared with AD&D, in it's last year from a set of inherited books from my best friend/DMs neighbors older son who had moved out. My DM was my "best friend" who was quite nutso (he later got into Cocaine and other hard drugs, and is/was very irresponsible about it all, just so you get the idea here) and had campaign ADD not to mention a mean streak. He got off from killing PCs . I think in the 4 or 5 years I gamed with him we must've played in 20-30 different games. And those were the ones that lasted at least two sessions . In any case, I definitly learned what not to do from these games, although they were fun at the time (especially when he actually was my friend and wasn't into drugs and all that crap). Those were the days, as they say

I had been reading fantasy since... oh, I don't even know. Grade 3, 4 maybe? Definitly grade 5. So I had a long history of that in my blood. D&D only magnifyed that, to the point where I plan to become a history prof In any case, That grou fell apart due to the people in it changing drastically (drugs, et al) so I was gameless for a little more than a year.

Flash-foward to my 17th birthday, I got together a group of about 7 or 8 of my closer friends, and introduced them to my campaign setting Maelstrom (later re-named Ascension: Paths of Power). That campaign started on February 2nd and ended later that year in the fall, although it was an incomplete go of it. However, I was always getting some (if not a lot) of feedback from my players, and I kept trudging through it all.

That group mostly fell apart (though I pride myself on introducing ~15 people to the game during that time) and I currently, via the internet, have a new group which is starting out my biggest endevor yet: a campaign which should take the PCs from 3rd to 18 or even 20th level. I have big plans, and hopefully will be able to keep up to par with it all

EN World has become an amazing resource. I find that only if you are really, truely interested in the hobby will you come to a forum like this, and take the time to look around, so given that I've looked and learned tons during my stay here. EN World has broadened my horizons and has (and is still) making my games better and better. I can created cohereant, realistic games with some great themes going through it. I try to ask players for feedback, and I try to keep everything flowing. Some of the little tips from EN World have been life-savers (like, if the game is stagnant, throw in a fight!) or just enhancers (like simplle help for rules that I'm unsure of and/or need help understanding.

And that's the story

cheers,
--N

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I learned by doing. Skipping lunch to buy copies of Dragon at Waldenbooks at Downtown Crossing in Boston. Putting my friends through module after module without using half the rules. Drawing my own maps. Going to college for a baptism of fire amongst the Strategy Games club of UMass Amherst where a truly fine bunch of gamers got together.

Somewhere along the way my penchant for imitating voices and convoluting plots to extremes pulled the wool over many people's eyes because they come back for more. Now I have the joys of the Internet where I get to read everyone else's best ideas and pretend that they are mine.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The Hard Way

I learned to DM the hard way. I just bought the books (2nd edition) and read them, got some idea of what the (expletive) I was doing, and fumbled around. First attempts consisted of rolling up 1st level chars and having them go 1 on 1 until one died, playing with my younger brother. Once I had the DMG, PHB, and MM, I started running some very crude adventures.

Most people managed to have friends on hand who at least taught them the basics. I learned it cold.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Woas]

Like Nike says

Just Do It.

Or whatever that Cult of the Gamers saying is, "Go Play".
Practice makes perfect. The more you can play (even as a player, not a DM) the more rules you get exposed to and learn by heart. The better you learn the system all together so you can run NPCs and their stats on the fly without needing a lot of notes.

True, you'll probably suck at first. But if your learnign to play a sport or a musical instrument the first thing you do isn't join a major league team or the London Symphany Orchestra. Get some friends and run a light-heared game. Practice first. Then get serious.

 

[RFisher]

I'm still learning.

Yep. Something like 25 years, & I'm still learning. I think it will be a bad sign if I ever think I'm done learning.

Besides imitation and trial & error, I read a lot.

 

[Harmon]

Self taught and lots of watching others do it.

It is something I dread doing.

 

[Hussar]

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?

I'll come back to the quote in a sec.

Also self taught. Started sharing DMing with my friends in elementary school. Around 1980 or so. The first module I remember DMing was the Lost City. Great times, although I'm sure they were humouring me more than anything. I've been a DM almost all the time since. Y'know what they say, if you want something done half arsed...

As far as gaming stores go, well, I lived in a tiny town in bunnyfart Canada. The nearest gaming store was about 30 km's away, and no buses. So, we played with friends and when someone bought a book we'd pass it around like a crack pipe. It wasn't until I finished uni that I started hanging out in a gaming store.

In my 25 years of gaming or so, I think maybe 4 of it was done with people from an FLGS, so, I personally don't think the death of FLGS stores will spell the end to gaming.

But, then again, that's just my personal experience. I never did conventions, barely read Dragon (although the few issues I did own I read a million times) and played with friends.

In all honesty, I think the internet has done more to improve my game than anything. I can finally talk to other gamers about the game.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Trial and error here too! With a lot of trial and a lot of error along the way (and, hopefully, a lot more to come too )