As many of you know, I’ve spent most of the last week preparing a 2 day MS-Outlook 2007/Time Management course that I’ll be teaching Tuesday and Wednesday of this week for a local College.
While I was prepping for it, building an outline for each topics I decided to cover, I realized just how similar my course prep was to prepping a D&D game. In fact, the methods I use are so similar it’s almost eerie. While discussing this with my friend Dave yesterday, he argued that prepping for and teaching this course would likely make me a better GM. I responded that having been a GM for so long enabled me to better prepare the course and would most likely prove invaluable for teaching it.
This discussion made me realize that my skills as a GM are in fact so ingrained that I now harness them in other spheres of my life! In fact, it reminds me of a chapter from Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers (an excellent book that debunks many myths behind gifted and/or successful people). Gladwell argues that to be considered an expert in a given field, a person needs to work/practice his craft for about 10 000 hours. All top sports, music and Silicon Valley legends have had years and years of practice to buildup a skill set that made them who they are now.
The key here though is that these 10 000 hours must be spent doing increasingly complex/challenging tasks to increase skills.
I’m sure that applies to GMing. It’s one of the reasons why I always try to tackle new techniques and move away from my comfort zone.
Let’s see. If I average out my GMing to about one 5 hour game a week for my first 20 years (50 weeks per year) and if I prepared/read for about 5 hours per game I get exactly 10 000 hours. In practice, I likely gamed/prepped less than that, but in the last 6 years, especially with the blog, I clocked in a hell of a LOT of RPG-related time. Most of them specifically to become better at the craft. I’m sure I busted the 10K point some time ago.
I guess that explains why my GM skill bleeds out so easily in the other professional aspects of my life.
Inversely, I would argue that top performing teachers and managers, those that have spent 10 000 hours trying to get better, would make excellent GMs within a short time frame.
After having been a GM, a teacher (High School, College) and a manager (QA, Project), it’s obvious to me that common skills exists to help one be successful at all three.
Organization
The ability to plan what you will do in the near future is paramount to all three “professions”. Finding a way to order all the info about a given adventure/topic/project into a simple clear outline made of manageable associated chunks is a fundamental skill to achieve success.
I was lucky to have had teachers who showed me to write short, concise outlines that contain core idea around which I can build upon. I’ve kept that technique since then. For example, were I to create an adventure outline :
Lair of the Skull King
- Scene 1: Heroes Wanted!
- Local Duke’s son kidnapped
- Ranger finds son’s ring in swamp
- PCs hired to recover son
- Old hermit spews gibberish about crowning of the Skull King
- Kenku Assassins Strike at Midnight!
- They wear Skull rings!
- Local Duke’s son kidnapped
- Scene 2: Lost in the Swamp
- Malicious Cowardly Dragon tries to swindle PC
- Skill challenge/Combat?
- Terrorizes nearby Gully Dwarf village
- Gully Dwarf village
- Looking for sacrifice for Dragon and Swamp Queen
- Try to convince PCs to be sacrifice
- Know where castle and Dragon’s lair is
- Villains can’t fathom that they could be a threat
- Malicious Cowardly Dragon tries to swindle PC
- Scene 3: Keep of the Swamp Queen
- Guards Guards!
- Swamp Obstacle Course (Skill Challenge/Trap run)
- Wedding Crashers
- Duke’s son to marry Swamp Queen and be crowned Skull King!
- Maybe he wants to be!
- Final confrontation!
- Duke’s son to marry Swamp Queen and be crowned Skull King!
There we are! Then I would revise/expand each line into a scene. I’d then add stats and treasure and I would end with an adventure for my Friday game.
I do the same thing when I plan a course (each line is a topic/sub-topic/exercise). In Management, I plan projects in similar ways, lining interdependent tasks that map a project from beginning to end into a Gantt chart (which is a fancy outline anyway).
Communication Skills
Being successful at all three occupations is all about understanding the powers of communication. Understanding and mastering three core skills: Public speaking, Listening and Empathy are crucial for GMs, teachers and Managers.
Aside: The D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master Guide II has an absolutely amazing essay on communication skills. Seriously, if you don’t own it, get it or take your friend’s copy. You don’t play D&D? I don’t care! Get it! I don’t think any other GMing guide address this as well as Robin Laws does in this one.
Successful GM/teachers/managers can speak in an energetic tone, avoiding mono-tonal droning. They know the difference between what’s important and non-essential when speaking and focus on the former. They know how to listen, paying close attention to what people tell them and even catching what is said between people near them. Using what others say/ask to shape what they present is always very appreciated.
Finally they learn to read non-verbal signs in people, are able to imagine what other feel like and can act on it. This is often what differentiate a person we dislike from one we like because the empathic person makes us truly believe that he/she cares about what we say or think.
Think about the best GMs/teachers/Bosses you’ve had, and they probably were star communicators.
Assertiveness
This is the cornerstone skill that builds respect in all 3 arenas. Assertiveness is that social ability that helps you deal with jerks, angry clients, selfish players, pushy bosses, stressed colleagues, etc. Whenever a social conflict pops up, the assertive person will not let emotions sway his/her judgment and will always say the truth about what matters.
- “I know you are angry about that dice roll but you are disrupting the game, we can take a 5 minute break so we all calm down”
- “That’s a fascinating story, but we need to get back in the game, you can tell us more after!”
- “We’ve discussed many times how your table behavior made others uncomfortable, you haven’t changed it so you leave me no choice but to drop you from the game so our campaign doesn’t crash, I’m sorry”
- “Please stop talking, you are preventing other students from following the course”
- “Mr Vice President, I please turn your Cell phone off. We all agreed to do it for this crucial meeting”
People often try to be too nice to each other and let others transgress the established social order. Assertive people step in whenever the line is crossed and politely but firmly use their authority to resolve the situation.
In fact as I re-read that last sentence, I believe that the the true authority of the GM/Teacher/Manager is the one yielded only to restore any situations back within the established social norms of the gaming group/class/work group.
There you go, my review of the common skills of successful GMs/teachers and managers and how I think being good at one helps you in the other 2.
Are there any other careers where GMing/Playing skills bleed into and vice-versa? For instance, I wonder if someone like Wil Wheaton would say that his acting/writing career have made him a better GM? What skill sets would bleed?
Have a nice week and wish me luck for my training.
Writing stories, particularly show-don’t-tell and dealing with self-motivated characters, and GMing. That’s how I started my blog in the first place.
Gaming in general and anything that involves problem solving or improvisation. When you find yourself having to deal with players who can foil your plans using a hamster, this morning’s breakfast and one seemingly useless magic item, you get used to thinking about things from the standpoint of “What is this and what could they do with it?” Conversely, being a player can be absurdly good for training “What do I want, and what do I have that can help me get it?”
GMing and psychology. Full stop. I’ve only taken one class of psych, but it doesn’t keep me from spending almost as much time studying and extrapolating from the PCs as coming up with big shiny things for them to do next. Then there’s the characterization of the NPCs–and did I mention using tricks like priming to try to get the characters thinking a certain way before I put them near a thing to be reacted to or a decision point? (Somewhere in my notes I have an entire post on ways neuromarketing can be applied to running RPGs. It’s an interesting concept.)
Then again, I live for skill synergy, so I’ve even found ways to use biology in my gaming. And have explained to a friend why a class on ancient architecture was not, in fact, a waste of time as far as improving his GMing was concerned. It’s all in how you look at it.
.-= Ravyn´s last blog ..The Generic Villain on Being a Deal-Maker =-.
Very Interesting, just other day I posted some musings about the parallels between Software Development and Dungeon Mastering.
.-= Norman Harman´s last blog ..DM and SD Parrellels =-.
@Ravyn: Hey glad to hear from you! I admire how you seek skill synergies in all the things you do. You remind me that I should seek to play more to push my understanding of ‘the other side’ of the screen.
Neuromarketing? You have to write that post and let me know about it! That sounds really interesting!
@Norman: Thanks I’m going to have a look just now!
Reading your post about the correlation between GMing and leadership skills (which is what they are, obvious it seems now) was very eye opening. I will have to keep my GMing skills fresh in mind for everyday life now!
As an aside, did you happen to read the other exerpts from the book? The one about the “Culture of Honor” was particularly interesting.
You are right, these are all skills I associate with leaders.
In fact if you add Charisma, Vision and Integrity (Character traits more than skills) you would have a good definition of what good leadership is.
So yes, the best teachers, managers and GMs are also excellent leaders.
I’m still at the ‘The trouble with Genius Part 2’ chapter… Outliers is my nightstand book 🙂
This is one of the reasons I take the time to come here, despite a currently impossible schedule.
Great post. I have always believed that while anyone can GM, the same skillsets that make one succesful and fulfilled in the workplace aplly 99.9% to the task of GMing. I have the added advantage of watching many of my players over 20+ years (a few for 30+), and so I have a longitudinal view of how their skills and accomplishments bear out the reasons I picked them out as players back in those halcyon days of coke and allnight (and all weekend) gaming sessions.
And Ravyn’s comment about psychology is right on (that being my field of study in the university days). I remember reading a few books on emotional intelligence that dealt heavily with Self and Social awareness, and realizing that leadership (both explicit and socially awarded) skills are hard to quanitfy and are often very subtle.
Very thought provoking and cross disciplinary. You’re so darn cutting edge it hurts.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Cult of the Telekonese Prophesies-Amerer =-.
@LordVreeg: Gee thanks! My current boss calls this level of Cutting Edge “Bleeding Edge”. 🙂
Well with each post i read here i think more about moving you from my RPG folder in Google reader to my thinkers folder. You keep challenging me to think when I come here which is good. I need to learn how to apply my gm skills to other aspects of my life. I think part of the problem for me is that with out the passion I have for gaming I don’t put the same level of effort in to every aspects of my life. So now i will be asking my self how would i approach this if it was game prep or a problem at the table.
.-= Quinn´s last blog ..What I have been staring at this week =-.
@Quinn: The upshot of developing Organization and Assertiveness skills as a GM is that you can start organizing your day job to work on stuff that matters to your position anf face off people and bosses who give you tasks that aren’t related to your objectives (or what you are supposed to be paid for).
Too many of us lose sight of what it is we are supposed to do at work.. and let me tell you, unless you are an administrative assistant or a helpdesk, you aren’t paid to answer emails and attend meetings all day.
Somewhere in the jobs we hate are little pieces of significance we can re-build our new jobs around. And if not… finding a new job is always an option (not always easy, but always out there).
I work as a Network Administrator/Engineer and have found that my DM prep skills have really helped when I troubleshoot issues at work. When I have to work backwards from the problem and track it back to the source, I use the same methodology as when I create an adventure or story. I create the problem and make my way backwards from there.
I have to often undertake the disheartening, laborious task of doing an undergraduate presentation to a gaggle of undergraduates who all have smartphones with twitter and GPAs greatly buffered against failure (so they don’t have to listen to me) and T.A.’s who only have one more semester to go before getting “real jobs” (so they don’t have to listen to me).
In such occasions I found that GMing has taught me a showmanship and an acknowledge of people’s limited attention spans (or at least the lowest common denominator of what constitutes “people”) and given me psychological advantage in presenting for them. They probably still don’t listen to me, but my voice and mannerisms do great harm to their unstoppable twitter addictions, drawing them momentarily away from those 140 characters. And I think that’s good enough.
Anti-spam word: Bacon.
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When I started my training to become a teacher, I was amazed how useful all those hours I spent DMing turned out to be! Writing a player-centered, memorable, and engaging D&D session is not much different from writing a student-centered, memorable, and engaging lesson plan.
When I DM a session, I try to make it look like the players are directing the course of play and I’m just reacting to what they’re doing, even though I’ve got it all planned out. Likewise, when I’m teaching a class, I try to design lessons that allow students to feel like they are discovering this information on their own. The good DM shouldn’t be the hardest-working person at the table; the players should be. The teacher shouldn’t be the hardest-working person in the classroom; the students should be. Both lessons and gaming sessions have clear beginnings, middles, and ends; the beginnings review and build off of earlier sessions, and the ends close some threads but open up many more.
Kind of a rambling post, but yeah…gaming has actually prepared me to be a better teacher. Too bad I can’t put that on a resume!
I wonder if it would be worth my time to look at lesson plan templates and see how well it can palette swap into a session plan for RPGs
Great post, thank you.
As much as i want to add something of more relevance i can’t fathom a comment or question in response to that post. Very informative and helpful.
Hopefully without coming across as a fanboy i think there are GM’s out there who follow the creed of WWCD! (what would chatty do!)
Scott
@Doomdreamer: That’s fascinating… Root cause analysis is also great at the table when you need to unravel a glitch in the game and no players willingly say what is wrong.
As for lessons plan template, I encourage you to look at Writing Outlines or extracting one from a text. I know that it makes all my prep so much easier to build when I go from Idea, to possibility-tree to fully fleshed adventure.
@Wyatt: Oh man, keeping the Twitter obsessed involved in training/oral presentations and game table is a challenge of all times. I often fight the urge to grab all those fancy schmancy smartphones and chuck them at the nearest concrete wall. 🙂
@John: You’re right that DMing doesn’t fit on a non-gamer CV… but the skills discussed in this post should be in the “skills” section of your CV.
@Scott: Oh man, thanks. You are the first person to quote this… We should make t-shirts (kidding!).
I agree with John. Writing a fantastic story that drips with drama, intrigue, romance and action is one thing (and requires a whole set of skills). Being able to make the players believe that they are the ones writing it piece by piece is the art. This is definitely how I try teaching my undergrads. Focusing on the “co-production” of knowledge puts the responsibility on them: I’m not teaching you information; we are together producing knowledge. I see this as directly analogous to gaming: I’m not leading you along a story; we are together producing narrative/drama/fun.
I think making the players feel like driving forces in the story, actual agents, is more important than the plot you follow. They could follow a plot by reading a book or by (heaven forbid!) playing a video game RPG. Every player has a creative side they want to explore (GN or S), and I think a good DM tickles that with every hook and twist.
Chatty, I’m glad I am not the only one who has noticed this! I’m a pre-service teacher, was one before I was a gamer and GM, and noticed at how similar the two are.
In both teaching and GMing, it’s not about me, it’s about everyone else there. I can bring what ever I like to the students/players but if I don’t respond to their needs/wants it simply doesn’t work. I also need to make whatever I bring engaging for them as well as letting them discover things for themselves and trying to surprise me. I also can’t assume anything, instead test the waters with something new and see how they react.
I need to be hyperaware of my players/students and be ready to load Schrondiger’s Gun at a moment’s notice. Be receptive to questions I had no idea that I would get and at moments where I am explaining something rather complicated and it throws me off my train of thought.
Negative actions need to have consequences and if the students/players can find a way to exploit or manipulate something I put in front of them…they will.
However, the most important thing to bring to the game table/classroom is one’s sense of humour. Students/players love to laugh, especially at my expense.
There’s also the management side, contacting people/getting permission slips. Honestly, sometimes I feel like someone’s mother and that’s how the kids in class treat you anyway!
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..Gaming and the Expanded Universe (Part 2): Picking up the pieces =-.