What are the odds of getting a good GM at Gencon?

[Pyske]

I make no claims to being a great GM, but I do put a lot of effort into it.

Interestingly enough, either my standards are lower, or I have had exceptionally good luck both years I've attended GenCon.

Leo did a great job: we weren't aiming for high drama, and his silliness got us all in the mood for a good romp.

Almost all of my games were good, and even the less than perfect ones were fun. I had one GM who could use a little more maturity (first time I've heard "roll Endurance for your sexual performance" in many years), and there were a couple tables where PCs were out of play early and the player didn't have much to do for the rest of the session.

On the other hand, everyone was very patient, went out of their way to help newbies learn, managed the pacing and spotlight time well, and generally seemed to know what they were doing.

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[Drew]

Here are my recent GenCon experiances:

We played in the D&D Open, which was my first experiance with the event. Our DM was a guy named Nathan Christen, who was an excellent DM. He didn't know all the rules of the game, but he was happy to let us look up what he didn't. He was fair, he was nice, and he made an effort to create interesting roleplaying experiances.

I don't think he frequents these boards, but if anyone knows him tell him that he did a fantastic job. Nate, incidently, won the award for best DM at the open. He wasn't there for us to congratulate, but he deserved that award!

Our next DM was mediocre. I don't want to bash the guy, he was really nice, but he made a few rules errors that really sort of screwed us over. On the other hand, he seemed to have every OTHER rule in book memorized, so I'm sure it was just an honest mistake.

The damn guy running the Dungeon Delve...well, he sucked. I'm sorry, but I think this may have been his first experiance running D&D, let alone the delve. He had to look everything up and had no real concept of the rules. It was just the Delve, so I didn't want to press the issue. Still, come on!

So...we had one really great experiance, one mediocre, and one really crappy. It honestly make me feel good to know that I'm a better DM than some of the WotC employees. I rule!
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On a related note, the D&D Open was a terrible adventure! Part two involved us fighting our way through regular zombies (we were a party of 8 9th-11th level characters) and regular skeletons (there were something like 40 of them). A large part of the adventure was spent in a large empty mansion. It was designed to suck up game time (since the open rounds are timed) until we figured to leave the stupid place across a graveyard.

It was the most boring thing I've done in D&D. The DM was mapping out all these long, empty corridors that lead to empty rooms and meaningless staircases. Then we fought skeletons. I was nearly asleep!

 

[Zjelani]

I wasn't able to get into any games this year, but I was hoping to next year. I was also thinking of running one or two next year as well.

What exactly made these DMs so bad? If I do DM next time, I hope to avoid giving such a bad impression. I try to do a decent job and be mindful of how much fun the players are having, but I realize I am far from perfect.

 

[Kugar]

OK some views from the other side of the screen:

This was my first first year running a an Open judge, and it took some gettng used to. Here are my impressions on what the Open is or isn't.

1) The open is a fair competition: NUMER ONE GOAL. Every DM reads the players the same boxed text, everyone gets briefed on the modual before hand. This year was rough becuse an explination of the game was not given out. Of the four groups I played with I had two tornement style team and two mixed teams. The tornement teams had more fun because I could GM to the group pretty well, they all wanted the same thing.

2) Mixed groups: In any social group some people are going to be more vocal and outgoing than others. It takes a good DM to bring everyone out of the shell and participating. It takes a great DM to be able to do this and be fair. This is something I need to work on (My first round I got high marks from half the table and really low marks from one or two players)

3) Adventures: Mixed bag. The open tries to aviod a lot of Role-playing intensive encounters because they can really eat up time, are hard to keep consistant from DM to DM and cause a whole lot of problems. I have to agree that some of the adventures read like a tactical training manual, and some of the fights were off challenge. BTW: I'm pretty sure the person who wrote the open did it for the love of the game, not compensation.

4) Groups: Like it or not the fun you have at the table is not dictated to you by your DM. It involves your ability to enjoy the game and your ability to play with others. I had mixed groups where the party wants different things which is to be expected, but there are some oil and water combinations. The heavy wargamer playing with a parent and children, etc.

5) Know thyself! Roleplayers play CoC, Paranioia, etc in addition to the normal games you play. The DnD games will not be like it is at home, it is different. Slightly different, but it does take some people out of thier "comfy" zone. Take yourself out of your own "comfy" zone on purpose, but but yourself in a situation you are likely to enjoy.

This has gotten long and rambly but I'm sure that there are some worthwhile thoughts up there.

Kugar

 

[icebreaker]

Quote:"What exactly made these DMs so bad?"

Thats what I would like to know !

Actually a broader question in everyones opinions
What Makes a good GM?And what Makes a Bad GM?
Now obviously theres the ones thats play style conflict with your own so much that you couldn't enjoy it if you tried..

I'm not asking what where the worst extremes..but in some detail whats good and whats bad?

DnD players seem to have such diverse tastes as to what kinda game they enjoy I wonder is it just a conflict of playstyles?


My personal experiance is limited.. I use to play in my youth(16 years ago) and recently picked up the 3rd edition core books and really enjoy them so far as a rule system.
I really don't have any friends locally that enjoy DnD or have interest in trying, so I've gathered some online friends that are in the same position as me

We've started playing online using Kloogewerks and overall everyone seemed to be enjoying it.I'm in the dubious position of DMing heh..

But its very much a newbie(not a bad thing) game at this point since all three are getting use to the new rules and were all getting use to the program that we're using to let us play.

So I'm really curious as to how to do better in general..what people like in a dm and what they don't..

 

[Kugar]

Ultimately there can be only 2 criteria for good/bad DM.

1. Did you have fun?

2. Did you have fun?

A good DM takes all the restriction put on him, walks in front of 8 complete strangers, and runs a fun game for ALL involved. Some people like to throw rules knowledge in there as number two, but rules knowledge is just the ability to make the game fun without the rules getting in the way.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

On a related note, the D&D Open was a terrible adventure!

The DM for our home game judges at GenCon every year. Last year, he judged almost every round of the D&D Open.

This year, he got the modules about a week before GenCon. He read them. They were soooooooo bad, he declined to judge The Open this year.

Our home group had play-tested one of the modules (round 1), and it was bad. Apparently, he thought the rest got even worse.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

This is a UK perspective...

In the past two years I've been to GenConUK once and Dragonmeet twice. Each time I've played in a couple of games at least. So far - I haven't had a bad experience.

First Dragonmeet - WFRP at high speed, lots of manic dwarves running around enjoying themselves, just enough combat, plenty of character interaction and a DM (and assistant) that really knew what they were doing. Also a game of Pantheon which was hilarious, if occasionally baffling.

GenConUK - Several games, all of which were extremely enjoyable in different ways. All of them were new games, but the DMs allowed us to just get on with what we wanted to try, irrespective of whether or not it was in the style of the game. I caught one DM almost putting her hands over her face in terms of 'what the heck are you guys doing to my game!' but we were allowed to carry on because hey, it's a convention, relax.

Second Dragonmeet I was co-DMing D&D 3E The Weakest Link. I would be interested to know what some of the players who went out early thought, because frankly some of their decisions were dreadful. (I am the Barbarian. When attacked by Goblins I...hide in the doorway and use my bow. Wonder why he got voted off?) But the players who got all the way through really enjoyed themselves, because they were good players in a good game.

So sometimes I think the experience you get depends as much on whether you have a good game as it does the quality of the DM, or even the quality of the module. My advice is to just throw yourself into the game, don't worry if it's not in your usual style, and remember you never have to play this character again!

 

[Drew]

But it is up to the DM to ensure, or at least help, ensure that you are having fun. Especially in a competitive situation where part of the fun is trying to win. If you mess up rules and that ends up in the party getting screwed, then you are hurting their fun. If you are trying your hardest and the only thing that keeps you from advancing is a bad DM call, wouldn't that tick you off?

I'm not bitching about the second DM. He was a nice guy, and seemed to have really good rules knowledge. Its just that he kind of screwed us a little. Not on purpose, but it was frustrating. The main problem had to do with the adventure which, in fact, sucked rocks. So, nothing against the second guy. He was alright, just stuck with a bad adventure and a bad rules call. He did try to make up for it in the end.

It would have made it better if he had dressed things up a bit. If I'm going to fight ordinary skeletons with my 9th level character at least try to make them sound kind of scary. None of this "it misses, you hit, it misses" nonsense. Again, he didn't suck, its just that he didn't do anything to enliven the adventure. He was a mediocre DM, and that combined with a bad adventure made for a crappy session.

The guy at the Dungeon Delve was a moron. No two ways about it.

 

[CaptainCalico]

I played w/ 4 different GMs this Gen Con and they all ranged from good to excellent. Reasons: Well-prepared adventures combined w/ the willingness and ability to wing it if the players take things in an unforeseen direction. Made sure that every player was given the opportunity to contribute to the game. Good NPC characterizations. Looked like they were having fun themselves.

Except for the Chaosium run game they were all independent GMs and one was running a home rules game. My only advice is to read the little blurbs describing the game and pick ones that show some creativity and are clear about the tone of the game. It’s not a 100% guarantee but I have not been disappointed yet.