Weem's "Grade your DM-skills" Challenge...

[firesnakearies]

Hey, cool thread idea, weem.


Here's my personal grading:



A

Refereeing, Encounter Building, Running Tactical Combats, Humor, Trustworthiness, Flexibility, Fairness, Rules Mastery, Rewards, Egolessness

I run a tight ship and I'm a rock-solid arbiter of the mechanics and systems of the game. I know the rules well, I create interesting, unique, and highly challenging tactical encounters, and I'm fair and impartial. I use the monsters and terrain to their fullest, I make my players earn their victories. But I don't try to quash them, neither their creativity nor their own mastery of the game. I'm not an adversarial DM, I don't get upset when my players win, in fact I am very much rooting for them. I give out lots of incentives, both in-game and out-of-game, rewarding players for good play, tactics, strategies, role-playing, and adding to the game. My players trust me to make good rulings, to craft awesome encounters, to not screw them over, and to be a skilled referee in general. I'm also very funny, and fun-minded, and know when to bend the rules or make a joke to enhance the enjoyment of the table.



B

Managing the Game and Players, Out-of-Game "Rules" Creativity, Preparation, Effort, Investment, Performance, NPCs, Characterization, Voices

I am good at being in charge, setting up a campaign, organizing the group and directing the players. I'm good at saying "this is how it's going to be" and convincing players that my ideas are good. I come up with (or seek out and then apply) interesting house rules and optional metagame systems to layer onto the game. I work very hard at my game, spending LOTS of time preparing, reading, writing, custom-designing monsters and settings and items and NPCs. I roleplay the creatures and NPCs well, making them memorable characters, with effort put into the voice acting and into populating my world and my encounters with complex, three-dimensional characters that are more than just bags of hit points for the players to slay or static quest-givers with exclamation points over their heads.



C

In-Game "Fluff" Creativity, World Building, Description, Narration

I'm not exactly rocking anyone's world with my amazing and innovative ideas when it comes to the in-game setting and story. I don't often come up with crazy adventures or locations that no one's ever seen before. I try to describe things and narrate events well, but I'm no authorial or oratorical genius. I think that I might be slightly above average in this department most of the time, but not enough to warrant a "B" grade. I feel that my stage-setting and "fluff" design is pretty middle-of-the-road, run of the mill sort of stuff. Nothing that's going to make people go, "Whoa!"



D

Plot, Intrigue, Drama, Storytelling, Improvisation, Mood, Mystery, Organization

When it comes to all of the clever, sophisticated "arthouse" techniques of crafting a compelling story and really drawing in the players emotionally, I'm not very good at all. I don't have people crying at the table, or shivering with dread, or running home to write soulful in-character journals about this rich and nuanced tale that they're so immersed in. I'm pretty boring and straightforward when it comes to the overall "plot" of my games. I try to make it interesting, but I just don't have much in the way of the genius needed to weave complex intrigues and touching drama in my game stories. I'm also rather disorganized. I prepare a LOT, I work on tons of stuff, but it's pretty much all over the place, I don't manage my workspace or my information very efficiently. I can't improvise well at ALL. If I didn't think about it some beforehand, I'm probably going to be a bit lost, and come up with something stupid.



F

Pacing, Understanding and Catering to Players' Desires, Sympathy, Facilitating Other Concepts of Fun

I run the game I want to run, and it's not always the kind of game that other people might want. I don't do well at tailoring the gameplay style to particular players, or even grasping what it is that they might hope for from the game. I suck at pacing, and hardly even know what it means. I tend to view players' frustrations at failure or difficulty with pretty short shrift. Try harder, play smarter, think outside the box, don't whine because I didn't spoonfeed you -- that tends to be my feeling about players having a hard time. I'm very nice to my players outwardly, and like I said, I'm not adversarial, I want them to win. But really, I don't have much empathy for them inside. My game is fair, but it ain't easy, and I really don't consider going soft just because people are having trouble. I try to always be the DM that I want to play under as a player myself. That's my standard, and if other players don't like that style, I pretty much think of that as their problem, not something I should change.

 

[Sgt_Shock]

A: Encounter Design
I love roleplaying. I love immersion. However, my strongest point definitely has to be encounter design. Creating a unique fight with tactical options is second nature to me. I prefer that my fights have a theme, and always avoid just throwing the PC's in a 30x30 room with orcs.

B: Improvisation
I may not be the quickest, but I find my ability to change a dungeon, town, or encounter at the last second incredibly useful. I've DM'd entire sessions with nothing more but vague ideas as preparation. I have told my players more than once, "If you knew how much stuff I made up on the spot, you'd either gape in awe or just throw things at me."

C: Mood-setting
Mood and immersion is my favorite part about DnD, but I'm simply alright at it. Maybe its our group's attitude and the amount of jokes and references we constantly make. Either way, I try to use description to the best of my ability, and cater to the player's mind's eye as often as I can.

D: Storyline
I've had compliments on my plots, but I am under no delusion how hard it is for me to come up with a coherent and interesting story. I'm giving myself a 'D' here because of the IMMENSE amount of time it takes me to form even a basic plot for my adventures.

F: Not enough PK's
I've never been told this, but I don't think I kill my players enough. I like to think this is because I fine-tune my encounters so much. However, history shows that players just don't die often enough in my campaigns. This is probably because of my reluctance to exclude one player by making him reroll his character he had so much emotional investment or get raised with less experience than the rest of the party and fall behind. However, my playgroup's recent switch to 4th (and its much more benevolent death system) has given me some leeway to be a bit more lethal with my adventures.

 

[Kafen]

A: Story Content
Story Content, I write a bare bones back story for most of my adventures. The group starts off with a strong narrative and ends with the plot hook NPC interacting with the group. On some levels, it invites meta-gaming. However, the overall effect of giving the players a large scale theme to assist in role playing is well worth the effort. It starts players off with more information than a long Q and A session, too. So, the players have a strong point of reference for most aspects of the game without long break periods.

B: Character Envelopment
I draw the characters into the 'lives' of the NPCs if possible. It brings the PCs into a position to role play the little things. The practical limits include romance and such odd moments, but players find themselves with families, children, and friends to care about. It's plays a very important role in online games. Players literally look forward to sitting down in character for a few years - enough time to watch their kids grow up a few years. For instance, one player role plays 'daughter' stealing stuff at the tender age of eight years old. It makes for fun moments in a game. Plus, it lets me advance the overall world in terms of years for 'epic' plot lines as the party gets into high levels.

C: Mechanics
I use them - most of the time. I try to balance things and keep things legit. But hey, I want to role play. Roll playing fans tend to cringe when I delightfully ignore their uber mechanical monster that some people call power builds. Most of the roll players do not stay long because I do not place a high priority on the rules.

D: Patience
I don't wait for turns and posts in online games very well. Let's face it, most online games die young because you are waiting for posts. Most table top games have similar issues with players that take forever. I push things. Move it!

F: Harming PCs
I hate killing my PCs. They are the heroes. So, they get slack unless they do something extremely stupid. I share that trait with the previous poster.

 

[Pig Champion]

A. World Building - I spend a lot of my creative time world building and it's one of the things I like to do most, so it reflects during game play.

B. Improv - Running entire adventures off of the top of my head is something I've had to get right because if my kryptonite, preparation.

C. Plots - I wouldn't say my plots are bad but I wouldn't say they are amazingly original or unique either.

D. Prep - I find it hard to sit down and prepare anything due to time constraints. Whenever I do have free time it's usually relaxing by world building or running/playing a game.

F. Confidence - I put too much pressure on myself to deliver a quality session and too much expectations on my players reactions. I get bummed fairly easily which makes me loose interest quicker than most.

 

[Scotley]

Great Thread!

A
World Building--This is one of my favorite things. I love to do it. I spend a lot of time thinking up settings that leave plenty of room for exploration, plot hooks and wheels within wheels. I like to use campaign notebooks and wikis. The problem here is that I lack the time to do as much as I would like.

B
Rules Knowledge--This one comes with a caveat. I'm pretty well versed in 3.5. However, I still have a lot to learn about pathfinder and even more to learn when it comes to 4e. I'm trying and I hope my 4e game will be a learning experience. Since most of my games are still 3.5, I can still claim a 'B'. With a little luck and persistence I hope to maintain this as I play other systems more frequently.

C
Encounter Building--I only rated this one an average grade because there is a flaw in my encounter design. I build challenging encounters with interesting and often memorable monsters and terrain. The flaw comes when the players don't always get to shine. I have a bad habit of building encounters that limit the value of some of their coolest powers and abilities. I'm going to try hard to do better here with my next game. I hope that 4e will help me with this problem.

D
Consistency, Reliability and Practice--I only get DM in front of a live player maybe once or twice a year if I'm lucky. Even with my play by post games, it is not uncommon for real life distract my from the games for days at a time. Sometimes even when I have time to post I'm distracted and forget important details or plans. I do plan to run the best damn games at the retirement home someday, but for the next half dozen years or so, until my youngest gets old enough to entertain himself or become an avid player I don't expect to have time to do much more.

F
Acting--I flat out suck. I don't do voices or gestures or facial expressions worth a damn, or on those rare occasions when I do it right I often have trouble remembering to do it consistently. I mostly play by post these days and that covers this flaw a little, but even then I find myself writing dialogue that doesn't really do justice to the npc in question. It is hard for me as both a player and a DM not to sound like myself.

My players are welcome to PM me with different opinions. I'm always interested in getting better. Indeed that would make a nice bonus category. I'm always trying to do better, reading, watching others, getting feedback and looking at what I've done.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A: Creative campaign & adventure plotlines- I have yet to fail at delivering interesting plotlines for the players to explore.

B: Rules Knowledge- I've played a lot of systems, and while I do have some gaps and misunderstandings, the systems I play the most I've got locked down pretty well. At one point, I could design a HERO PC without the book, accurate to within 5% of its actual point total. A few sessions ago, a player asked the table in general about where a rule could be located, and I gave him the page number & book. When he went looking, it wasn't there...and then I told him that was the 3.5 page, and in the 3Ed book (in which he was looking) it was page ______, which was correct. (It was a rule I used a lot for my PCs.)

C: Improv- I do it a lot, and I'm better than several guys in the group who also GM, but I know I could do better.

D: Pacing- sometimes I don't push the players fast enough and I let the narrative bog down.

F: Recognizing burnout- I usually don't recognize when I need to take a break from being behind the screen. Its killed a couple of my campaigns from players feeling the game was being poorly run. In one, I didn't realize exactly how I'd sapped the life out of a good plotline until after the story arc concluded, and I realized I'd built my own HR critters with a flawed mechanic that didn't match their fluff, making them too easy to defeat. Had I been at the top of my game, I doubt I'd have made that mistake.

 

[MortonStromgal]

A - Improv, Plot, Pacing, NPC Creation

B - Voices,

C - Energy , Knowing the Rules

D - Tactics, Preparation

F - Longevity,

 

[Ycore Rixle]

A - Adaptability and Improv; Focus on the Fun. I ask my players what kind of characters they want to play before I start any world-building; I want the game to adapt to their desires. The same mind-set applies to every session: I go with the flow, reading my players, their moods, their goals for their characters, and I try to make the fun match. Usually I enter a session with a list of three to five events per character, tailored to that character's history and that player's tastes. I also enter the session with about three to five events for the group - presenting them with many different options (and of course letting them strike out in a different direction if they wish).

A - World-building, including memorable NPCS; story arcs; encounter design; and campaign longevity. I've never had a campaign that ended for any other reason than that I moved, so I think the long-term interest/thrill/accomplishment/satisfaction factor is there.

B - Rules knowledge; Acting. I know the rules of the games I GM, but except for SK, I'm not an all-out rules lawyer. As far as acting - I play a pretty good NPC, maybe a B+/A-, but with the exception noted in F below.

C - Tactics. There are plenty of times that I forget cool tricks that monsters could have used, or that I play the monsters a little too zergy.

C - Voices. I'm ok. I can do a few well, a lot so-so, and many not at all.

D - Prep. I just don't do it like I should. I don't update campaign websites often enough, I don't respond to player email fast enough, and I rely on my improv a tad too much.

F - Serious seriousness. There's a certain type of game - I think of Ron Edwards and Sorcerer here - that's supposed to be all angsty. I can't do it. I like seriousness, and I'm closer to that than slapstick. But all of my campaigns always have some humor or uplift or a bit of silliness here and there, so I just can't do the dark-dark. I run My Life with Master more like an adventure story than an almost-certain tragedy, for instance.

 

[weem]

So, it's been a year since I first posted this.

There were a few posts on twitter today about how you can determine whether you are a good DM/GM or not and it reminded me of this thread. There were a lot of great responses here and I though, hey, why not resurrect this and see if we can't get some more!

I'm going to look at my response again and see if anything has changed for me over the last year. If you have already posted here, it would be great to hear if anything has changed for you as well!

 

[nedjer]

A - recruiting lady players
B - resisting the temptation to kill PCs for doing dumb stuff
C - gving rules lawyers a hard time
D - too much creativity
E - prep, what prep