I want to be the best DM...

[Stormrazor2000]

I certainly understand the desire to be the best DM. However as others have pointed out, that title is very subjective. The relationship you have or establish with your group of players, your style, your strengths and weaknesses all play a part in it.

I think that striving to become a good DM is somewhat like striving to be a good writer. The first thing you have to get good at is the basic mechanics of your trade. A good writer knows the language he is writing well. Understands the rules of grammar and when it is ok to break them. Is organized and focused. She knows how to craft an engaging plot. She understands her audience and what buttons to push to draw them in.

Being a DM requires those same basic skills. You need to know the rules everyone is playing by. You need to know when it is ok to break those rules. You need to be able to craft an engaging plot. You have to be organized, consistent and understand your players/audience.

To me those basics divide good DMs from bad DMs. But like authors, being the BEST can only be determined by the subjective likes and dislikes of your audience.

I have run my style of campaign for one group and have had them talking about it 10 years after it wrapped up saying how wonderful it was and what a great DM I was. I have had the opposite where I ran my style of DMing with a group who wanted a more comic book feel to the game. Needless to say they probably thought I was just an average GM.

 

[Piratecat]

I work my ass off to be as good as possible, but I still know a ton of people who are better than I am. It's definitely a sliding scale. For me, the secret to getting better has been to play with as many different GMs as possible and then blatantly learn from everything they're better at.

I also think practice with many different players and games can help. Running RPGA and D&D Encounters helps show me my weak spots.

 

[RangerWickett]

My advice is, "Let the players shine."

Not their characters. The players.

I have a batsh** crazy player who once upon a time I might have seen as disruptive. But once I learned to run with his flashes of mad genius, I got things like Vampire King Arthur who looks like Bruce Campbell.

I have a player who writes for Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. Once upon a time I got upset when the players disrespected important NPCs. Now I relish it, because this player makes it so damned funny. Defeating a foe in 'physical combat' (i.e., rolling dice and subtracting HP) is not nearly as satisfying as winning a moral victory through degradation and mockery. This led to me once having a villain who took the same approach, and the final combat was defined more by trash talk than actual fighting.

(And I realized I suck at trash talk. Almost as much as Piratecat sucks at having his PCs become famous.)

Basically, I have a bunch of smart, creative players. The best thing I've learned to do is harness their creativity.