How well do you have to know a game to run it?

[juampa81]

I usually feel uneasy running a game without knowing the common and uncommon rules. By knowing the rules (an example adventure would work great) the GM can better plan and run the adventure.

I agree that "game rules knowledge" and "GMing knowledge" are different things, but that doesn't mean that any GM can direct any game system.

 

[Piratecat]

I run games all the time that I don't know the rules to. My main rules:

- Know more than the players
- If you don't know more than the players, use them as a rules resource
- Be fair and consistent
- Don't spend a lot of time looking up rules (boring!)
- Run a game that is story-dependent, not gritty rules dependent

 

[Staffan]

Along similar lines, I think that core books without adventures included should never rate higher than a B (4/5, 80%) even if the rest of the game is perfect. The whole point of introductory adventures is to help the game master as much as the players. No intro adventure and you are essentally telling the game master "This game is so great, if you have problems running it, then you are the moron, not me".

While I think it's a good idea in principle, I would prefer if the intro adventure stuff appeared online, and the rule book had a reference to it in the GMing chapter, along the lines of "And for an example of how to put these issues together, see the adventure in our downloads section at www.oursite.com." That way, new GMs get an intro adventure, but it doesn't occupy valuable space in the book.

 

[Goblyn]

I ran a couple of shadowrun 2e and I still can't figure out combat, nevermind spellcasting and decking. No one played a rigger so I dodged that bullet too.

 

[AIM-54]

It depends on a lot of factors. You can get away with more if your players are new to the game as well. You need to know it well enough to run the basics fairly well, while the uncommon stuff doesn't need to be known cold. You have books for a reason, but know when to adjudicate on the fly, so you don't waste too much time flipping through books.

If one had to know everything cold, I don't think too many new gamers would get into the game. I ran my first 2E game with just the PHB and a lot of imagination. I also don't think I've run the Shadowrun 3E magic rules the same way the last three games I've run. But all the players had fun and I ran it consistently, so I don't consider it to have been problematic. I generally have to run something regularly before I can work all the kinks out and get a handle on all the rules myself.

 

[palleomortis]

Like already said. It depends. With D&D, you need to know stuff, not all of it, but you need to know the basics. With some others you can fake it and learn to play as the players do. With d&d, I would say you need to know enoughe to keep the players in line. Then your good to go.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Well I agree with know as much as you can but if your players know more then use them also.

I think I know most rules well, only things that don't happen often (ie grapple, psionics in my experience) I am fuzzy on.

I have had a player tell me after a session that he thought a particular rule worked another way and I will go back and study it.

 

[palleomortis]

Somtimes I will get desparet and have to play with my brother. Let's just say that he dosn't wait for the end of the sessioin to blurt that "YOUR DOING IT WRONG, I SHOULD HAVE HIT HIM!!!! WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT WRIGHT!!!" And I prove him wrong every time, and it HAPPENS every time. It's the worst part of DM'ing I have EVER know. I just want to smash his little...hold on, let me roll*D20 rolled in background*YES, Ok, so I smash his little FACE in. BWAHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!.

 

[NewJeffCT]

To be honest, I think you need to know at least a minimal amount of rules as a GM/DM. While I love 3E/3.5, I honestly have not had a lot of time to play the game since it came out - first, I got a new job that required me to work sweatshop-like hours, and then I got married... and, as soon as I had gotten around to finding a job with more reasonable hours, my wife had to go give birth to our first child. Then, when that settles down and gets to be somewhat regular, the DM of my old group goes down & has to have major surgery, and we also moved from a 35 minute drive from him house to about a 60 minute drive.

So, I seemed destined to not be able to play 3E.

I was later approached by some guys looking for a DM (their old DM married & then moved) and I was intrigued, even though I hadn't DM'd regularly since 2E days. While that ended up falling through, I would have gone into the game as not having actually played 3E/3.5 much at all and with zero XP as a 3E/3.5 DM. I told them up front that I would strongly suggest that we stick to the main 3 books - PHB, MM & DMG., which was fine with them, as that is what they normally did, anyways. But, I would have had to have relied on their rules expertise when it came to running combats, spell effects, etc, at least until I got more up to speed.

 

[Arnwyn]

For me personally, to actually run a game, I'd have to know almost everything except for the rare, complex stuff.