Back in January 2008, I purchased a PDF called Robin Laws’ of Good Game Mastering over at the Steve Jackson Games’ PDF store. I had heard of that book from many GMs and I had seen it at my favorite game store.
More importantly however, I had recently read (and been blown away by) his work about player motivations in the Dungeon Master Guide II. I was so impressed that I made player types and motivations one of my nerd projects of last year (Tropes in RPGs was another major one).
From January 2008 to July of 2009, at very infrequent intervals, I posted articles about each of the 8 chapters of Laws’ book where I revisited what he wrote back in 1999 and discussed it in the light of how I saw DMing 10 years later.
Well the series comes to an end with Robin’s parting words and mine.
A Question of Compromise
In the book, Laws mentions that whenever he participated in GMing seminars, most of the questions he would get were about issues that pitted GMs and players with widely disparate tastes and expectations in regards to RPGs.
This is quite similar to issues I’ve seen come up in my Friday Chat series (here and here). For examples, storytelling GMs would explain how uninteresting it was to them to cater to a bunch of Butt Kickers or how such players would gleefully derail carefully crafted plots.
The advice that Robin gives, as well as many of my DMing advice posts, can help GMs with such issues. I think the key lessons can be summarized as:
- What you think is fun/important in a game is not necessarily what your players are looking for.
- You need to learn what your players are looking for in a RPG and deliver it to them on a regular basis.
- You need to choose a game based on your preference and those of your players.
- You create your campaigns and adventures based (once again) on your player’s tastes.
- Spontaneity and Improvisation are skills you can learn as a GM.
- When you run a game, you must keep an eye on the group’s mood, you control focus and make sure everyone (including you) has fun.
So really it’s about finding a compromise and going forward. If you are a Storytelling DM and you play with power gaming butt kickers, make sure to have the beat up on opponents, but feel free to make these opponents matter in the story and leave strange notes on them and have dire prophecies linked the the PCs’ ennemies. I mean, you’re allowed your fun too.
However, even with all these lessons, there’s a chance that your campaigns will crash and burn. It’s possible that you won’t be able to meet your players halfway (or they won’t be willing to).
In that case, there’s usually only 2 solutions. You can invest yourself and acquire some negotiating skills and talk it out with your players so that a compromise gets reached and put in the group’s Social Contract. Otherwise, you can seek out new players that share your tastes or are willing to compromise.
10 years of Robins’ Law
So how does the book hold up after 10 years? I’d say it has aged gracefully. While the strong storytelling current that was prevalent in 1999 seems to have abated (I hear about Savage Worlds more than I hear about World of Darkness now), the book introduced Common Sense advice that remain valid to this day. I’m happy to have read it ans I’ve taken several lessons to heart.
However, the book relies way too much on player types. To the extent that some of the examples in the later chapters felt constrained by those types. I’ve preferred describing what motivates a player rather than saying a player was of so and so type.
Still, a great ressources and a must read for all DMs.
Well that’s it for this series, it finally comes to a close.
But fear not dear reader for I have asked Tracy Hickman for a copy of his X-treme Dungeon Mastery book. This will be an interesting read I’m sure and I’ll gladly share my thoughts in it.
Until then, have a great game and make sure everyone has fun in your games, including the GM.
Ever read Gygax’s Role-Playing Mastery book? It’s ridiculous, of course; Gygax was a wargamer from an early age and never really saw the potential of the medium. Interesting reading though.
.-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..The Hurt Locker. =-.
For some great GM advice and scenario design you should read HeroQuest Core Rules, the second edition of HeroQuest by Robin Laws. A RPG that focuses on helping GMs.
Might be worth a look?
http://www.glorantha.com/
.-= Darran Sims´s last blog ..Reaching Moon Missionaries – HeroQuest Demo Team =-.
@Wax: I have not read that book. In fact, my readings on Game mastering have mostly been found in various ‘how to GM’ chapters of Game books, including most editions of D&D’s Dungeon Master Guides (except Second, I think I never opened the 2e DMG). I am however of the opinion, that like Herbert and Tolkien, Gygax and Arneson barely touched the potential of what they created.
I’ll stop now before die hard grognards/Tolkien and Dune fans throw rocks at me.
@Darran: That one is totally news to me. Maybe I should try to get a review copy. I’ll inquire.
The end of a really nice serie, on a well deserving GMing tool.
The Internet has spoiled me. If I was a Storytelling DM (I kinda am, but I’m also a kick in the door and open fire DM, and a “what is this I don’t even” DM) I would just kill my own campaign if I ended up with a bunch of players who only wanted to kill stuff, and I’d go look for some more. If you’re playing online, players’ disposibility is inversely proportional to the how closely their style matches yours, so no DM would ever stand for having to DM the polar opposite style of game that he wants to.
Very good series Chatty.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Might of Eden: Scholar General =-.
@Yan: Gee man, thanks! I hope the next series are as fun to write as this one was.
@Wyatt: One of the subtext of the last chapter is that if the number of potential players is high, you can afford to pick and choose. If you are in a low density area, having to compromise might be the only way gamers can get a full group. Thanks for the kudos man!
@Wyatt: It’s not as hard as it seems. (if you’re with non selfish people willing to compromise) You just have give something that cater to each player at least for a part of the game. For butt kicker you need to have at least one fight per session and they are happy. For storyteller you have to build the encounter so that it move the story forward and make sense in the story. For instigator give them something that reward their curiosity. etc…
You can still make a game mostly about your preference while including something for the other to have a good time. More then one type can be satisfied by a scene just by presenting it with a few subtle change.
@Yan: So true! I can’t wait to see what you’ll put in your game to cater to MY needs 🙂 I can’t wait to play my Goliath Barbarian! Weeee!
@ChattyDm Humm…. A psychodramatist/Instigator with a god complex… Put in a button in the middle of nowhere let him press it and make the roof fall on him… :p
@Yan: Ohhhh Shiny! And I do not have a God complex… I am one! 🙂
hehe! even better would a button with a tag on it saying “Only the chosen one may press”. Instant instigator/psychodramatist trap. It caters to both aspect of the personality.
It would be a nice experiment to design an adventure where a significant part of the treasures, and some cool, but non-essential, story elements are hidden behind elements that only instigators would be likely to use.
Things like ‘do not pull this lever’ and ‘this way to certain death’
“I am however of the opinion, that like Herbert and Tolkien, Gygax and Arneson barely touched the potential of what they created. I’ll stop now before die hard grognards/Tolkien and Dune fans throw rocks at me.”
Guilty to some extent on all counts. I will, however, try to refrain from hurling rocks. 😛
In fairness to him, what the Professor wrote was more like mythology than fantasy – 99% of his imitators ended up doing something else entirely. I’ll grant you Dune, though. That world was amazing, and it’s a shame that the sequels never really measured up to the first book’s potential. (IMHO YMMV OMGBBQ!)
I think Gygax and Arneson are a murkier case, though. They knew they were onto *something* big from the get-go, even if they didn’t know exactly what – it shows pretty clearly in the (extremely excited) prose in the early rulebooks. As role-playing games matured, though, it would be tough to argue that they didn’t start to see the potential of the medium.
Dave was never really in the public eye as much as Gary, so there’s less to say about him; but judging by some of the essays and things Gary penned, I think it wasn’t so much that he didn’t see the potential of role-playing. It was more that there was a large part of that potential he had absolutely no interest in whatsoever. I remember a couple essays in Dragon where he propounded “role assumption” – making choices for your character – over “role playing” – making choices based on what your character would do. He saw that kind of role playing as a cop-out, as acting out a preset script instead of intelligently playing the game. He definitely realized pretty clearly what other people were doing with the game – he just wasn’t really a fan. Trying to play a Storyteller game or a LARP would probably have made him twitch a little inside.
Honestly, I think that while you can’t and shouldn’t enforce it on other people, his point of view is a valid way to look at role-playing. That basic premise is the same reason I hate playing unintelligent characters, and one of several reasons I don’t give out role-playing XP anymore. It also explains a lot about things like the infamous Tomb of Horrors. Then again, I also think Gary, like myself and a lot of old-school types, are what Mr Laws would call Thinkers. When the choices are all made for me, either by the DM or by my character’s existing personality, where is there a game left?
@McSM: Sorry for not answering earlier, real life intruded a bit. I really like your insight in Gary’s way of seeing the game he created. I know he disliked the later versions of D&D, I read his forum posts.
I always though that Tomb of Horror was such a meat grinder because, like his invention of the ear seeker, he tired of people always asking him to play them through a ‘tougher dungeon’ or something like that.
Yes, it is about compromise. I imagine that if I didn’t work with the players and try and work out a way to accomodate the interests of most people (you can’t please everyone) I would not only have unhappy players but we’d have a much poorer story.
Who am I to say that as the GM only my ideas count? I love it when the players are creative and try to encourage it more withoput going too far off the plot rails.
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..There’s one at every table… =-.
You would be surprised to see just how many GM don’t think it’s important to cater to player needs. Many are of the ‘my why or the highway’ sort, others believe that they are good enough GMs to make the game fun for everyone regardless of taste. Lastly some DMs lack empathy and don’t actually know that there are other ways to enjoy RPGs than the way they do it.