D&D General The mentality of being a DM

[Stormonu]

I feel like my job is gamekeeper. I’m keeping track of the campaign world, the setting and the passage of time. I am the one who sets the scene before the players and then decide how the environment reacts to their presence to the best of my ability. If how something will turn in is in doubt, I reach for the dice to help determine which way things go.

The dice are a tool to neutrally determine the outcome of the character’s actions and interactions so it isn’t me unfairly choosing. However, sometimes they simply produce stupid results, and I may need to change, rethink or otherwise alter their results.

I’m not the friend of the players when I DM, but I’m not their enemy either. If I realize I’ve misconveyed information, I may provide additional clarification to rectify my mistake, or remind them of information their characters may know (often information from previous sessions).

I don’t hold back on character death - if a combat or other situation progresses to the point a character dies, sorry, but them‘s the breaks. Time to make a new one or save up the gold to find a way to bring them back if you care about them that much (most of the time, players have just moved on to a new character).

However, I’m not much of a clinical person. If during play players come up with an interesting idea or action, I’m not against changing the state of the game to inject a bit of fun into the game - whether it’s a player’s misread of two unrelated facts, a bit of untoherefore known piece of lore or something otherwise interesting, I just might add it to the game.

 

[S'mon]

In recent years I think my DMing has evolved a lot by virtue of developing a willingness to let go of the reins and let the game play itself when appropriate. As a result many amazing moments have happened that would have been missed had I over-curated the story to “make sure it went right.”

I generally try as far as possible to be a 'neutral arbiter' with the aim of creating an immersive fantasy world where PCs have the opportunity to become heroes (or villains), do great deeds and have a lasting impact. I'm not responsible for the players having fun, but I'm responsible for creating an environment conducive to their fun and mine. I aim to be fair to the players without removing challenge - and fear, especially at low level. The experience of being low level buffeted by events and having to flee makes reaching high level and pushing back against the world much sweeter.

I try to avoid having a pre-set 'story', so I tend to avoid running APs which have something resembling a pre-written plot; I like sandboxy campaigns with an emergent story.
Some things I emphasise include geography & NPC characterisation. I don't use traps much, and I actively dislike puzzles so will avoid those. Whereas navigating a web of political intrigue or strategising over the war map is right up my alley. I'm good with hack & slash too, so heavy roleplay types, combat-as-war strategists, and hack-n-slashers all tend to enjoy my games. Problem solvers may enjoy dealing with the interpersonal/political stuff. Players who don't like talking with NPCs and who get bored when others do, probably won't enjoy my game. Players who want every encounter to be balanced & winnable tend to grumble.

 

[S'mon]

Of course you should play according to what's most fun for you and your group.

As a counterpoint, though, I would say that I am currently in a campaign (as a player) that has four players who each put a lot of thought and heart into backstories, personal goals, etc and were really invested. In session three, one character, due to resource exhaustion and a string of hideously bad rolls on the part of the whole party, was killed during a not-random, but very much not-climatic or "key" encounter - a fight with four skeletons in a totally avoidable dead-end room in a dungeon.

My initial reaction was "this completely sucks that this player lost this character he really cared about in this pretty arbitrary way simply because we should have maybe rested one encounter sooner, and everyone just plain rolled badly (including the player himself failing three death saves in a row while the rest of us were blowing medicine checks right and left)." However, the aftermath of this "lame" death ended up being a huge character moment for the party and in some ways an unexpectedly pivotal early turning point in the campaign. That would never have happened had the DM prevented the character from dying in an "unsatisfying" way.

Yes, this happened to me when a ghast killed a PC early on - the coolest most developed most active PC in the group. It was a shocking moment but I think it was good overall, and the player came back with another really cool PC. The player said she knew I'd kill her eventually - I'm a pretty tough GM by modern standards, but mind you I'd been GMing her for 10 years (we met Feb 2011) and this was her first permanent PC death so I don't think I'm that bad.

Edit: I don't have any trouble finishing off downed PCs if I think that's what the monster would do. Most undead IMCs will finish off the fallen, part of what makes them so scary, where beasts may try to drag/carry one victim away for later consumption. Intelligent humanoids will probably ignore the fallen initially, but if they see them being healed and re-entering battle they will then start finishing them off.
I allow Gentle Repose to work with Revivify so a level 3+ party ought to have the resources to save a 'mostly dead' PC.

 

[Imaculata]

As a DM I see it not only as my responsibility to facilitate 'fun', because fun is a very subjective thing, and merely the intended goal. What I do to achieve fun is far more important:

I craft a believable evocative world, inhabited with interesting, memorable characters. And I give them the freedom to explore that world freely, with very few boundaries.

I craft a story filled with adventure, suspense, surprise and humor, that responds to the actions taken by the players.

I give my players the freedom to play their characters the way they want, and facilitate the type of gameplay they enjoy.

I challenge them strategically, with combat encounters that have plenty of tactical opportunities, and with diverse opponents.

I challenge them also through non-combat encounters, by throwing them into situations that demand resourcefulness and roleplaying.

At the end of the day, I want my players to remember names, events and places. I want to give them stories to tell.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I feel like my job is gamekeeper. I’m keeping track of the campaign world, the setting and the passage of time. I am the one who sets the scene before the players and then decide how the environment reacts to their presence to the best of my ability. If how something will turn in is in doubt, I reach for the dice to help determine which way things go.

The dice are a tool to neutrally determine the outcome of the character’s actions and interactions so it isn’t me unfairly choosing. However, sometimes they simply produce stupid results, and I may need to change, rethink or otherwise alter their results.

I’m not the friend of the players when I DM, but I’m not their enemy either. If I realize I’ve misconveyed information, I may provide additional clarification to rectify my mistake, or remind them of information their characters may know (often information from previous sessions).

I don’t hold back on character death - if a combat or other situation progresses to the point a character dies, sorry, but them‘s the breaks. Time to make a new one or save up the gold to find a way to bring them back if you care about them that much (most of the time, players have just moved on to a new character).

However, I’m not much of a clinical person. If during play players come up with an interesting idea or action, I’m not against changing the state of the game to inject a bit of fun into the game - whether it’s a player’s misread of two unrelated facts, a bit of untoherefore known piece of lore or something otherwise interesting, I just might add it to the game.

Pretty much this, in a nutshell.

I'm "everything that isn't the PC's"...and because of that it is not my place to "help them" or "harm them". I am the uncaring 'reality' that their PC's find themselves in.

It's my job to maintain internal campaign consistency. This includes all those "niggly little bits n' bobs" that soooo many modern-day DM's think is "boring" or "pointless" (ex: weather, seasons, time keeping, and how much an unlaidened sparrow can carry...both European AND African, etc). But I also get to maintain the "campaign world story"...from how the cobblers daughter is secretly seeing the mayor's son against their parents wishes, to the machinations of the kings of two warring countries, to the grand schemes of gods, goddesses, demons and devils. Of course, much of that the PC's will never discover or know about....but it's there, in the background, unfolding as appropriate to the meddling's (or lack thereof) of the PC's.

That's the grand overview. Well, plus what @Stormonu said!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Personally, I view myself as a "Warden of Fun." If you have taken on the responsibility of running a game, you have made yourself responsible for others having a good time. Now, I'm not saying that you are responsible for EVERYTHING that happens (you can't control what other players do), but you at least should create a situation for your players to play characters they enjoy and be part of a story where THEY are the main characters. It's the story of THEIR heroism, and it should make them feel special.
/snip

I used to feel this way. Now, not so much. I find that if I'm the "Warden of Fun", then the players become passive consumers, simply waiting for me to roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them the next bit of the adventure. I did that for far too frustratingly long and I find I can't do it anymore. I insist that the players be wardens of their own fun. I'll provide a situation, get the ball rolling as it were, but, I want everyone at the table contributing to rolling that ball in different directions. I am not there to dance for the players. I am not there to satisfy their whims.

Players, for me to enjoy the game, must contribute and contribute all the time. They are just as responsible for everyone at the table having a good time as I am. And, once you get players who understand that, the game practically runs itself. Virtually every problem at any gaming table is due to players forgetting that they are just as responsible for everyone having a good time as everyone else is. A DM who comes to the table, and is practically completely unresponsive, answers only in mono-syllables and refuses to engage is a terrible DM. Well, guess what, players who do that are terrible players. Show me that you're willing to expend a bit of effort and I'll move the world to accommodate you. Sit there like a lump, waiting for the next combat encounter so you throw a bunch of dice? Bugger that. Let's break out the Battletech or Warhammer if that's what you want.

 

[TheSword]

It’s easier to write this as a list. There’s a lot of stuff...

• Pitch a campaign that I think will entertain the table. Including the boundaries of that campaign.
• Describe the game world in vivid colours.
• Set up the online system and make the props, maps, handouts, art etc to support this.
• Bring the NPCs to life in a memorable and entertaining way.
• Create a plausible setting that maintains internal consistency.
• Provide interesting events and NPCs with plots and plans that will bring them into conflict with the players.
• Try to run with the ball when a player throws it to you rather than shutting it down. Within the bounds of the campaign.
• Maintain balance between players by acting as a curator of game options. Deciding what is in and what is out.
• Maintain balance in encounters by pushing the buttons needed to make the game challenging but fun.
• Reward success with advancement and treasure.
• Never adversarial, I write encounters to give people chances to show what they can do, not stop them being able to do it.

I appreciate lots of people will do things differently but that’s just how I find it works.

 

[MGibster]

As a DM I see it not only as my responsibility to facilitate 'fun', because fun is a very subjective thing, and merely the intended goal. What I do to achieve fun is far more important:

That's not entirely unfair. There have been many occasions where a player has actively worked against me trying to give their character the spotlight or otherwise try to engage them.

I used to feel this way. Now, not so much. I find that if I'm the "Warden of Fun", then the players become passive consumers, simply waiting for me to roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them the next bit of the adventure. I did that for far too frustratingly long and I find I can't do it anymore.

I gave up on scenarios with mysteries for a while after giving my players written in-game documentation highlighting all the important key words and phrases and they failed to follow up on any of them.

Players, for me to enjoy the game, must contribute and contribute all the time. They are just as responsible for everyone at the table having a good time as I am.

And this is important. Let's not forget that the DM needs to have fun too and I can't have fun if players aren't engaged. (And it's entirely possible that at any given time I've failed to engage the players but they need to try to meet me halfway at least.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I used to feel this way. Now, not so much. I find that if I'm the "Warden of Fun", then the players become passive consumers, simply waiting for me to roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them the next bit of the adventure. I did that for far too frustratingly long and I find I can't do it anymore. I insist that the players be wardens of their own fun. I'll provide a situation, get the ball rolling as it were, but, I want everyone at the table contributing to rolling that ball in different directions. I am not there to dance for the players. I am not there to satisfy their whims.

Players, for me to enjoy the game, must contribute and contribute all the time. They are just as responsible for everyone at the table having a good time as I am. And, once you get players who understand that, the game practically runs itself. Virtually every problem at any gaming table is due to players forgetting that they are just as responsible for everyone having a good time as everyone else is. A DM who comes to the table, and is practically completely unresponsive, answers only in mono-syllables and refuses to engage is a terrible DM. Well, guess what, players who do that are terrible players. Show me that you're willing to expend a bit of effort and I'll move the world to accommodate you. Sit there like a lump, waiting for the next combat encounter so you throw a bunch of dice? Bugger that. Let's break out the Battletech or Warhammer if that's what you want.

I've come across the behaviour you're describing from players, but here's the thing, I've had the same main group of players for 30+ years right, so they're not really a variable. They're a constant. The same for me, I'm pretty much a constant. Maybe I've got better at DMing, maybe I haven't, who knows, but still, pretty much a constant. I've also been a player with other DMs in the group, so that's a variable, and I can see the results of it.

So when I've seen this behaviour - "roll up the plot wagon" - and I have, I've noted three things:

1) It tends to happen much more with certain systems than other systems. 3.XE/PF and Shadowrun (all editions I've played, but esp. 2E/3E) were the systems I saw that were worst for this, and I tend to think I know why. I think it's because both systems robbed the players of confidence, due in large part to the complexity of the systems, combined with the apparent unreliability of getting good results, especially out of combat (as you note, combat isn't really where this manifests). Systems where the players did feel confident, where they understood how non-combat stuff worked and could reliably expect good results without huge investment, tend not to have this happen. With 3.XE I think the high failure chance of a lot of stuff (as well as more explicit and often harsher consequences for failure) made some players extremely risk-averse and suddenly the wild plans of 2E or other systems started to dry up.

2) Adventures which don't fail forwards and are finickity in design definitely help to cause this, as do adventures which railroad hard in certain parts and then stop railroading suddenly. This is mostly stuff found in pre-written adventures, but I've seen DMs who weren't me do it too. I've even seen a DM quit a campaign because the adventure required us to do some specific finickity thing and we literally couldn't work it out. The worst offenders are Shadowrun adventures, again, some of which make quite wild assumptions about what players know to do (esp. 1990s ones), and some of Pathfinder's APs - some of these latter are fine, but some have this whole railroad for weeks, then suddenly stop deal, and if players get used to getting railroaded and/or lead by the nose, it tends to deprotagonize them, so when it's time for them to step up, they don't. I've also seen it with CoC adventures which relied on finding some particular item or bit of info to go forwards, rather than failing forwards. That can leave players standing around thumbs-in-arses.

3) DMs can have an impact too. I tend not to run pre-gens and I dislike running the systems mentioned, so this hasn't happened to me a whole lot (but when it has, it's been with those systems). When I've seen it player-side (and I have), it usually breaks down to either really inexperienced DMs who don't know how to get the players moving, or how to inject failing forward into stuff that doesn't have it, or DMs who have a very specific idea on how the campaign is going to run, and when it isn't going that way, kind of "cease cooperating", which can lead to a sort of mutual impasse which again, certainly looks akin to players sitting around doing nowt.

I've also seen DMs successfully fix this, simply by warming the players up - i.e. the players are being a bit useless, the DM breaks down some of the obvious options they have, they take one, things start happening, and before you know it, the players have a "just crazy enough to work" plan involving posing as wine merchants or something. Sometimes they just need a shove, esp. if they've not played for a while.

EDIT - What I think I forgot to mention is that whilst I've seen individual players be "bumps on a log" as you describe Hussar, sometimes even most of them, I've never seen it happen to every single player in a group (of at least 4 people) unless at least one (usually multiple) of the above factors was also in play.

 

[Maxperson]

hehe I agree in 5e, i feel like I work hard to try to kill my players, and they always get out of it!

If it wasn't for those meddling kids!