Role-playing Rants: So you want to be a Gamemaster...

I couldn't help myself and decided to start yet another category on my blog, focusing on role-playing games. I've been into RPG's for more than 20 years now, and during that time I've learned a lot about PnP's. Why not share some of that knowledge with others?

Bear in mind that this articles will be long and rant-like so prepare yourself for some heavy reading. I hope you'll find my opinions both entertaining and usefull, should you ever decide yourself to try some good old fashioned PnP.

One of the things I love the most about RPG's is being the Gamemaster, or GM as we are sometimes called. This mainly stems from the opportunity to create your own world, where you can do whatever the hell you like. Also I suck at playing. No really, I'm a terrible player whose every character is basically the same, no matter what system I end up in, and in the end I tend to do goofy stuff like headbutting important officials or ripping rat's throats.

Also I think it is easier to be a GM. I mean sure, you have to preapare an adventure, which sometimes means that you have to write it yourself. Then there are balance issues and you end up thinking "should I send that Red Dragon against my level 1 PC's or not?". Finally there's the organizing the actual game and making sure that all your players will be present during the final, climactic battle. Tough stuff, but for me it was always easier and more fun than thinking about my Beef McStrong's siblings and/or life aspirations, other than caving skulls of course. Beef was always awesome in that particular thing.

So what can one do to be a good Gamemaster? What should be avoided and what encouraged in the never-ending quest for GM'ing perfection? I'll try to answer this question in depth.

A good question

1. Don't abuse your power

Now I'll be first to say that yes, being a GM gives you a feeling of having "teh powah!" over your players. Whether this is good or bad really depends on Gamemaster in question. With my group, which has been active for more than five years now, we regualry joke about me being a vengefull tyrant. My players know that I can be kinda harsh and hardassed, but in the end I'm always fair or at least can acknowledge my failings, which fortunately are not common for quite some time now.

The bottom line is: you are an arbiter. A good GM does not go to war with his players if they defy him, or somehow derail his hard-written campaign. He won't use his position to take revenge for something, his player said about him earlier. He should only, and I repeat: ONLY, describe the world and make it work according to his player's actions. That's all. Yes this can, and in fact is, tricky and requires both a lot of work and a lot of self-control, especially when your guys do something that irk you on a personal level. I'll give you an example.

Some time ago I've GM'ed a "Hunter: the Reckoning" campaign in which my players were rp'ing federal agents. During this campaign they've captured a man that was suspected of espionage and stealing secrets from their agency. Also he was a foreigner and they knew that he worked for an outside agency. Now is where it gets nasty. They've tortured him. They've straped him to a chair and started torturing him. In fact this action took several hours, most of our game time and was really, really disturbing for me. It was true that they were doing this on the behest of their superior who ordered them to squeeze information from their prisoner in any way nescessary, but still: it was dark! I was both disturbed and very displeased with my players for practically jumping on the torture wagon on the first, given opportunity, especially since there were other possibilities. The game was set in modern Warsaw, their superior was simply higher in hierarchy than they were, but still... torture? That's just cruel man.

I wanted to punish them. Yeah. I wanted to send a kill squad after each of them and subject them to the same thing that guiy went through, but... I didn't. First of all it would not solve anything. What was done was done, and I could not reverse that. Another major thing that made me stay my "God hand" was the fact that one of my PC's decided to shoot himself, when  he found out that their victim was innocent. Yeah, trust me. it was one of the darker and more intense sessions in my life as GM. Altough I wouldn't consider it one of my better ones. I didn't really like the excessive cruelty and my reaction to it was also something I'd wish to not feel again. Actually after that session we've dropped H:TR and returned to WFRP some time later.

However my point is: don't act like a venegfull God if your players do something you don't like. As a GM you should be 100% neutral and fair. If they kill your favorite parrot then you can drink a beer in its memory later on. If they insult your GMPC then shrug it off and carry on. You don't want to fight them. Sure you'll win, the GM always wins, but you can be sure as hell to have a group of disgruntled people on your hands and you do not want that at all, trust me.

Did I?

2. Always be prepared. ALWAYS!

See above. If you're willing to organize a game, be sure to prepare it beforehand. There are very few Gamemasters out there who are confident or skillfull enough to run an adventure (not to mention a whole campaign!) on the go. I've been improvising myself lately and I can guarantee that it is no easy task. Not only do you need to have a synopsis, or skeleton, of your story, you also cannot forget about seemingly trivial things, such as main characters names and motivations, the general feel of your intended game and of course, the main goal, altough that generally falls under the synopsis part.

Another crucial part about being prepared is the "expect the unexpected" rule. Let's say that one of your players catches a cold or your party of murderhobos kill that one guy they were not supposed to touch, or even better the entire party stumbles upon a lair of Skaven Assassins, which was explicitly stated to be almost unacessible by the PC's (yeah, it happened to me and my group). In that kind of situation you need to flexible and decide how your players should be treated. Word of advice, don't punish them. Even if they kill  that Mayor and his entire house retinue, it is better to take away their money, flog them and throw them into a dungeon from which they can escape, than to kill them and squander your hard-prepared adventure. Just sayin'.

Oh and one more word of advice: don't leave everything to the last moment. It is literally the worst thing you can actually do and your game will suffer for it. Trust me, I know this from experience.

No wonder their system was running so well

3. Play fair or don't play at all

Yup. That's the general geist. Don't think that since you're playing God, it entitles you to cheating. Game's only fun as long as all peeps involved know that top cheat is a major no-no. A good Gamemaster should always be watchfull of his "subjects", altough not to the point of paranoia, but he himself must also obey the rules of the game. Your group's Halfling killed that big, bad Daemon with his sling, in one shot no less? It happened, deal with it. Remember that your players are always on a disadvantage when it comes to actual game. Their characters have only one life (with some exceptions, like WFRP's Fate Point system, but still) while you have a literal limitless resource of mooks at your disposal. Your players will ALWAYS be on the losing side so there is no need to rub it on them some more. Of course, if you catch them cheating, you can always dispose a little punishment in dice-fumble, yourself. That, or simply deal with it directly, which usually is a better option. Just remember that it is not worth it to go to war with your group. Sure, you'll win, as any GM always does, but you can suddendly find yourself without any players. Ask yourself if that is really worth it. I think not.

Cheating: Not Even Once

4. Have an open mind and learn to listen to others

I know that it sounds trivial, but the longer you GM, the less open you can become to various pleas and ideas by your players. Remember that you are here to bring fun and entertainment to those people, not to act like "I know what's best for you all". Of course this works to a certain degree. You should not allow the group to force you doing their bidding. It's about finding the perfect solution really. One of your players wants his character to know something he normally wouldn't have any chance knowing? Speak with him or her about this, learn their motives and witness their point of view. If it's sound and coherent let them. Modify your adventure if you have to, but let them. If it's not then tell them calmly why that is not a good idea, but maybe they'd propose something different? Always be open to suggestiuons, but learn to say "no". Aftera all, your players would do anything to prolong the lives/advance status/etc. of their PC's, so they can (and will!) do anything to convince you that "they have this awesome idea". Who knows, maybe it will be awesome, or maybe it'll be crap. One day I will write about my group's most crazy/outrageous ideas and propositions, but that is story for another post.

The above advice also reffers to game systems. When running an RPG group, there is a big chance that not all of you will want to play the same system. One player will opt for something modern, while another one tends to be a Fantasy enthusiast. As a GM there is a big chance that you will also have a preffered game system. Again, in this case diplomacy and and level headedness are keys to ensuring that both you and your group will be satisfied. Try to go for a bit of a compromise. Most of your players want a Space Opera kind of game? No problem, but make a deal with them that after, let's say half a year, you'll change systems to D&D or something other. Being a good GM is as much about diplomacy and the ability to listen, as it is about making gameplay decisions and running dynamic combat encounters.

Pictured: a closed minded GM (or a meth addict, you decide)

5. Seasons don't fear the Reaper, but your players do, so don't push it!

Learn to stay your hand. When I started GM'ing, I was still a player in my first RPG group. Our Gamemaster was, let us say, quite harsh when it came to fatalities ratio in our games. We were mainly an WFRP group, and while Warhammer Fantasy is a harsh system in itself, with our then-GM it was 100% lethal. People were dying left and right, and not to a Dragon or a Daemon, but some nameless mook with pitchfork or a rusty axe. While it made our games true to their source material, it also made them (at least for me) somewhat frustrating. So what did I do when I started to GM myself? I've made sure to inform my players that they will all die like little bitches and I kept that promise. To this day I still have a portfolio with every single one of my group's WFRP characters that died in the line of duty and glorious plunder and there are at least 50 if not more character sheets there. Back then I thought that it was the one and only way to run my games: make sure that my characters will have to fight for their lives on every single ocassion. Looking back I see that it was not right, but sometimes it is very hard for a Gamemaster to stay his hand, especially when he'll get anxious of his players becoming stronger then they should be (I was a victim of this mindset during my early years as a GM). Usually it is also the case, when a Gamemaster really likes to stick to his rulebook's rules and is not willing to improvise. A good example would be the game of Dark Heresy which I was running a few years ago. My players were on an agri-planet which was quickly heading into Daemon World territory. Rains of blood, whispers on the wind, people turning mad etc. When the Accolytes finally reached the source of the disturbance, they've spotted a huge corn harvester on the field. One of them, a Techpriest, declared that he wanted to climb to top of the huge machine as to have a better view and a decent vantage point. Of course it was raining heavily, and it was raining BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, so I've made him do a very hard (-30) agility check. Which he failed. Repeatedly. At one point all of my players tried to convince me that with enough time, patience and carefull movement, every one of them could reach the top (Techpriest even used his mechadendrites to help himslef) but I was adamant. Either you make the test or you fall. Which of course he did fail time after time, almost losing a Fate Point a couple of times. To this day my group remembers the "Ladder of Khorne".

The above example is a perfect lesson on how NOT to GM. Today, after I've learned a thing or two and discovered that RPG's are more about dramatic narrating and creative ideas rather than rules and dice rolls, I would never repeat a mistake like that. Because it was a mistake, and I warn all of you who are Gamemasters yourselves or wish to be at some point, don't repeat it. Don't be a hardass and don't kill your players indiscriminately. Sure, a TPK (Total Party Kill for those uninitiated) can be a source of cool stories from time to time, but generally it's not worth it. Things that are worth duing a game, are mutual fun, satisfaction and excellent atmosphere. Remember that.

May Gods have mercy on their souls

So that is all for this post, the first one in a series of my, more or less, random RPG stories, tales, rants and advices. Coming up next is another End Times post, since "The End Times: Khaine" was released a while ago and I still haven't reviewed the Glottkin book. Sigmar preserve me...

Until next time!

Xathrodox86

Oh and one more thing. I do realize that when it comes to talking about a person who runs a game, a more popular term among RPG enthusiasts is probably "DM" or "Dungeonmaster". While I do acknowledge it, I also think that it should be chiefly used when talking about a person who runs a Dungeons and Dragons game. Now I have nothing against D&D, but I've never really gotten into it myself, and so will always describe a game-narrator as a Gamemaster, or simply a GM. The only exception will be made, when talking about World of Darkness games, as their GM's are known as Narrators.

Oh, and I know that the first picture in this post was from that D&D cartoon from the 80's. Bite me.