I want to be the best DM...

[Delgar]

I just want to be about 1/16th as good as Piratecat is at DMing.

Then I can die happy.

 

[Mallus]

But, I understand that "being good" depends on the players you have. Players from one group will say that their DM is really good, the best even. And other players will say that same DM is the worst DM they've ever had. So it's hard for me to tell if I'm am really good or not.

I'm in the same boat. One of my players thinks I'm a terrific DM, one of the best he's ever gamed with. Another thinks I'm good but with ample room for improvement. I'm sure quite a few ENWorlder's would respond to my DM'ing style (and skills) with heckling and cries of "you call this D&D??!!?".

Which is why I think we should talk about being good at running D&D in terms of relationships. Most people wouldn't make the statement "I'm good at relationships". They'd say something more like "I've had successful relationships" or perhaps "I have good qualities". Ditto for me and DM'ing... all I can really say is that I'm run some good games in the past and I have a few good qualities (one of which is an awful quality if you happen to dislike puns).

This isn't to dismiss some of the excellent advice in this thread. But I believe we should put the focus on forging the kinds of relationships with the other people at the table which are the foundations of great campaigns.

Of course, 'forging great relationships with other people' is tricky business. If I had the secret to that, I'd be writing extremely popular self-help books and living on a yacht.

I suppose if I had to offer advice to that end it would be: start off by trusting everyone at the table. Trust freely given is often reciprocated (and telling someone they need to earn your trust is a great way of earning their resentment). It's not like you're going into business with these people. You're gaming w/them. You've got nothing to lose by trusting them.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I am not sure if I'd dare to claim that I want to be the best DM, but I definitely strive to get better. I think EN World helped a lot.

In my group, everyone DMs. It is, essentially, expected of everyone. But I've got the feeling that one player really doesn't like it, nor is he striving to be a better DM. And I think it definitely hurts the game. There is the upside of being able to play more different characters (since an extra campaign is running), but the downside is that I feel the whole game could just be a lot better, and good modules are basically wasted. :/

 

[Rel]

I think I'm a very good GM. Partly that's true and partly that's the attitude I bring with me to a game because I think confidence is projected to your players and thinking you're a good GM helps make you a good GM.

However I strongly feel that being a player makes you a better GM. I would encourage anybody who wants to be a good GM to play as often as you can, preferably with the best GMs you can find. I've been very fortunate because these types are thick on the ground at the NC Game Day, the DC Game Day and among the ENWorlders who attend GenCon.

The reason I think this is important is because it makes one aware of the number one contributor to good gaming (IMHO): Style Awareness.

The way you play will almost always be reflected in the way you GM. Being aware of that style is a very important piece of information. It lets you know where your strength lies and also where you're likely to have blinders.

I also benefit from playing under other GMs within my regular group because it allows me to observe how the other players engage with the game being presented. I'm reasonably good at reading the group while I'm GMing but I'm juggling so much stuff in my head that I have a hard time picking up the same level of detail that I can while I'm playing. When playing I spend the time "waiting for my turn" paying attention to what the other players are doing, which parts of the game do they "turn on" to and which parts they "turn off" to. That is tremendously valuable information.

And I think it is also good to have frank discussion sometimes about whether your perceptions are accurate. Noticing that a player seems to really come alive when combat starts and the dice start rolling is one thing. Having them say directly, "Yes. The battles and strategy are my favorite part of the game." is priceless feedback. So take some time before or after the game to have discussions like that.

 

[Jdvn1]

I'd like to point out that some people have advised that you play under good GMs (to learn from them), and some advised that you play under bad GMs (to learn what not to do). Which leads me to say that this:

The better you are at non-DMing, the better a DM you will become.

... is probably severely underrated advice.

 

[Heathen72]

Which is why I think we should talk about being good at running D&D in terms of relationships.

Well said, and I was thinking the same thing myself recently. Being the "best GM you can be" is like being the 'best husband you can be". Sure, people can give you advice about what worked in their marriages, and some of it will be good and bad, but ultimately it's all comes down to what works well for you and your wife! And what works for you might not work for another couple (so be careful when handing out the advice!)

Sometimes people make it seem like you have to be a huge pushover in order to be a good DM.

Yeah, but sometimes people make it seem like you have to be a huge pushover to be a husband! Generally, though, a marriage is a partnership where both members have their own passions, their own ideas, etc, and the marriage is made great by what both partners bring to it. Despite what some people think, a wife doesn't want a husband who just says "Yes, Dear" all the time*

Not that I am any sort of marriage counsellor. I am just saying that the same goes for a gaming group. You don't have to utterly sacrifice yourself, your ideas and your passions to make a game for the players enjoyment alone. it's a partnership - you create the game together.

The reason I think this is important is because it makes one aware of the number one contributor to good gaming (IMHO): Style Awareness.

I know that in my gaming group we developed what we considered a very good way to game. We even referred it to it as our 'style' of gaming' and to be honest I think we got a bit smug about how good we thought it was.

Then we played with someone from another group who we thought of as a good player. He was was very much into staying in character with as little OOC chat as possible, and he found our style of play very frustrating.

We agreed with him that we would keep the game-talk in character as much as we could, but it never quite worked out that way - at least not to his satisfaction. The habits formed over years of gaming were very hard to break. Looking at our games through his eyes, we realised how meta-gamey parts of our gamestyle had become, and that although the decisions we made were very much character driven, we actually spent very little time discussing things in character. Having him there was a bit of an eye-opener. It was like we were doing the gaming equivalent of Wifeswap!

While we learned a lot from the experience, and try to incorporate elements of our friend's ideas, we continue to play in much the same way as we did before, because we really enjoy it! However, we know now that ours is a somewhat idiosyncratic gaming style which is probably no better or worse than anyone else's. Except to say that we all have a great time together, so within our group, at least, we are all the best players, and the best GM's.

Yes, this is generalisation. I acknowledge that there are indeed henpecked husbands out there. If you are one, I apologise.

 

[Piratecat]

At the end of a game I often ask myself "Did I have fun? Did I have more or less fun than the players?"

Balancing things for everyone is tricky. One of the real challenges is drawing quieter players into the story by finding something that engages them. I also like to plan adventures that work well with the PCs' specific powers; as someone once told me, "a really cool power or spell you never get to use is even worse than not having it in the first place. You still don't get to use it, but it takes up space on your character sheet." Sadly, in the last game that meant trying to chop off body parts when the cleric picked up regeneration...

So if I have clerics, I like to use undead. If I have lots of defenders, monsters that move around a lot make sense. That means I'm a crappy simulationist/sandbox DM, but I figure I'm okay as long as the group is still being challenged.

 

[firesnakearies]

...at least the best that any of my players have played with.

Yes. Very much so! I want to be the best DM that my players know. I want them to be telling people, years from now, "Man, I had this one DM once, he ran the most awesome game I've ever played..." I do want to be the best DM. I'm far from it right now, but I'm striving to become more and more so all the time.

I wasn't always this way. I used to just DM very casually and occasionally, going years without gaming at all, and sort of drifting into whatever game popped up that someone else was running. I ran a few fairly brief campaigns over the years, but never really cared much about being a "great DM".

When 4E came out, I hadn't been playing for a couple of years, but then I got excited about the new edition of D&D, and wanted to try it. I decided that my best bet for getting groups together would be to DM, and I figured that I could just use published adventures, and it would be easy.

And it was easy. But then I started thinking about how I could improve the adventures, and I started re-doing the maps, and tweaking the encounters, and fleshing out the story a bit. I'd started DMing LFR, which was my first experience with organized play. The LFR adventures started to seem very weak and unsatisfying to me, as written, so I became more and more liberal in making them my own.

My attitude began to shift when the people in my local LFR community started to praise my DMing a lot, and I'd hear them telling new people, "Get into Josiah's table if you can, he's the best DM here." I was pretty amazed by this. People were showing up to LFR game days and specifically asking to play at my table, out of several DMs (all of whom had a lot more experience at DMing organized play than I did). It was pretty cool, and it made me want to try harder, to make my game even more awesome than everyone else's.

So then I decided to DM at the big annual local convention. I'd never DMed at a convention before, in fact I'd never even attended a gaming convention before. But I signed up to run 10 sessions of LFR, and set to preparing. It was a blast, I met tons of new people, got to DM for brand new players, and kids, and old veterans, all sorts of folks. I liked it a lot.

There was a form that the players were asked to fill out after each session that they played (of any RPG at the con), with a bunch of categories that they'd rate the DM from 1-10 on, and an overall score from 1-10, too. At the end of the convention, they had an awards ceremony.

I was stunned when they announced that every single player at every single table (60 players total, 6 per table and 10 sessions) I'd run had given me perfect 10 in every single category. I won the award for Best DM of the convention. My first convention ever! It was really a "Whoa, seriously?" moment for me.

So that kind of opened my eyes, and made me want to be an even better DM. I got sick of LFR, and stopped participating in it, but I ran some home games, and the guys I DMed for seemed to really like my style. So my quest to be the best DM had begun in earnest!

I love reading the threads on EN World, and various DM blogs, and listening to all of the podcasts I can find, because I learn so much from DMs who are so much more experienced and brilliant and creative than I am. Some of the ideas and stories from people's campaigns here just amaze me. I think, "Wow, these guys are geniuses. Why didn't I think of that? These games sound SO much more awesome than anything I've ever run!"

It's sort of intimidating or depressing sometimes, even. I feel really sort of amateurish and crude compared to the amazing DMs I read about here (and around the internet). I really want to be that kind of DM, though.

I'm working on it. I want to blow my players away. I want them to talk about my games for years. So I'm really glad that I've got a place like EN World to get so much inspiration and advice. Posters like weem and threads like this one make me even more excited to DM and to become better at it.

So thanks!

 

[Ant]

I am the Best DM Ever.

How do I know this?

Because my players bought me a shirt that says so and it therefore must be true.

 

[Jack7]

What about you DM's out there...

...is DM-ing something you strive to be very good at? The best at?

Or is it something you do for the enjoyment of it (of which there is plenty)

I'd say personally that up to this point these statements aren't mutually exclusive in any way. Chances are they're more related than not.

Particularly the fact that I love DM-ing and, if required to,I would never actually "PLAY" (as a non-DM) again if it meant I could continue DM-ing. I was asking myself, "what makes you devote so much time to a game that you technically don't 'play' in yourself."

Weem, I hope you don't think I'm being argumentative. Cause I'm not. But to me DMing is playing the game (among other things), just from a different perspective.

As a player you play from the First Person point of view (most of the time). When DMing you are, at elates to a degree, playing the game as God, from the Omniscient point of view. I'm not saying you're "playing God," in the typical pop culture idea of "controlling all things tightly, or even controlling things you shouldn't interfere with," but rather you are playing the God point of view. Much as the author who takes the Omniscient point of view can look upon a work or series of events and know things others cannot, or do not. The DM does not try to (or should not anyways) control the players, but he is omniscient as far as the world goes, and he does control the NPCs, the base and milieu of the game. In that way he plays Omniscient. I like playing omniscient, I fully admit that.

However that being said, I am also often very pleased when my players do something I did not anticipate or develop a solution or response to a problem or situation superior to what I had anticipated. (Sometimes I'm pleased when they just develop something totally unanticipated or unpredicted, superior or inferior to my anticipations.) In either case my play as DM then becomes "qualified omniscient," and that is very gratifying to me. It reminds me both as a person and as a "creator" (of my world, milieu, game, adventure, etc.) that I am at best a "qualified God of fiction," that I can experience the joy and satisfaction of being surprised, and that my vision is limited. There is in any role play game I think a necessary tension between the way things "should go, or seem they must go," (and this is the creative impulse of the DM, the structurer of things as they are or should be, and that is for the DM to play), and the way they will actually go (or will go as no-one could have predicted, and that is for the player or players to play). The DM sets the play level of "being," (the baseline) and the player sets the play level of "what they will actually become." I am often happy though to see my baseline of play shattered, especially when that baseline is exceeded. It is a sort of an unconscious desire in the back of my mind, for my players to exceed me and my ideas of play and world-being as a DM. (In this way it is roughly analogous to my joy of seeing my children exceed me and my capabilities, in themselves and in their own capabilities.) So I like playing omniscient not because it allows me to control everything (though sometimes i almost can), but because it allows me a vantage point from which to watch others break or exceed the built in limitations of my own preconceived assumptions. About players, about the world.

That is a good form of play to me. It reminds me that being a DM is not separate in essential nature from being a player, but separate in degree from being a player. That my point of view (as DM or GM), no matter how large and encompassing, cannot really be that of God, but is actually more like that of a General to a Enlisted Man.

I wouldn't say being a DM is not different from being a player. It is very different. But neither is it is alien to being a player. To me a DM is a kind of player. Writ large, with very different concerns, with a qualified Omniscient point of view, but still he is in and of the "play of the game."

Now, all of that being said I still desire to do the best job it is possible for me to do.
I very, very rarely play, but when I do I desire to be the best player. In that way not only will I enjoy the game but hope to help the other players enjoy the game, and hope to help them achieve their own ends as well.

As a DM I hope to be the best DM because that will help me enjoy what I have created better and hopefully it will better help the players achieve whatever it is they are hoping to achieve.

I've enjoyed the thread by the way.
You usually have very good threads with interesting ideas and proposals.