My Introduction to Being a GM: You're Doing it Wrong, Idiot
One of the goals of this blog is not to tell you how you're running your, but to offer insight into RPGs and GM-ing that I've picked up from an embarrassingly large amount of time I've spent playing, watching, reading, and thinking about RPGs.
Like most GMs, my first time was scary, confusing, messy, and filled with name calling afterwards. I had the position thrust upon me as the owner of the rule books and supplements for the system. Never mind that I'd gotten them as gifts I hadn't asked for (although I treasured them), hadn't actually read all of any of the books, and no one had every explained what actually running a game entailed; I owned the books so I ran the game. Having spent years as a player in countless half completed campaigns that my group always lost interest in, so when someone suggested I run a game I naturally thought: how hard could it be? Little did I know at the time that RPG game publishers have a nasty and dangerous habit of not giving you the fully scope of what to expect in a game.
I read through the adventure I was going to run a dozen or so times and knew how it was supposed to play out. I knew what the right choices were and what the wrong choices were. I knew how to make rolls and figure out difficulty. I knew what parts of the adventure I was supposed to read aloud to the players and what parts they weren't meant to see. I knew how it was all supposed to end. I really just needed to have my friends make characters and they could be done with the whole thing in an hour or two.
Naturally 5 minutes into my first game when the players wanted to make an incorrect-with-clear-and-dangerous-consequences left instead of a correct-and-necessary-to-furthering-the-plot right, one of the supposed-to-be helpless NPCs that the party was rescuing suggested strongly that the group should go the other direction with no clear follow up reasoning other than they should. This resulted in an argument from the players. Names were called, dice were thrown, character sheets torn up, and we never found out what happened down the left or right pathway.
Like most GMs, my first time was scary, confusing, messy, and filled with name calling afterwards. I had the position thrust upon me as the owner of the rule books and supplements for the system. Never mind that I'd gotten them as gifts I hadn't asked for (although I treasured them), hadn't actually read all of any of the books, and no one had every explained what actually running a game entailed; I owned the books so I ran the game. Having spent years as a player in countless half completed campaigns that my group always lost interest in, so when someone suggested I run a game I naturally thought: how hard could it be? Little did I know at the time that RPG game publishers have a nasty and dangerous habit of not giving you the fully scope of what to expect in a game.
I read through the adventure I was going to run a dozen or so times and knew how it was supposed to play out. I knew what the right choices were and what the wrong choices were. I knew how to make rolls and figure out difficulty. I knew what parts of the adventure I was supposed to read aloud to the players and what parts they weren't meant to see. I knew how it was all supposed to end. I really just needed to have my friends make characters and they could be done with the whole thing in an hour or two.
Naturally 5 minutes into my first game when the players wanted to make an incorrect-with-clear-and-dangerous-consequences left instead of a correct-and-necessary-to-furthering-the-plot right, one of the supposed-to-be helpless NPCs that the party was rescuing suggested strongly that the group should go the other direction with no clear follow up reasoning other than they should. This resulted in an argument from the players. Names were called, dice were thrown, character sheets torn up, and we never found out what happened down the left or right pathway.
Now clever readers will be thinking: "WTF Our Hero the GM? Why not just switch the directions the book said and continue the game like they'd chosen the right path anyway?" Honestly the thought never occurred to me. I was young and inexperienced and I had read all the GM information for the game so I had just assumed I was doing it the right way.
I've since come to understand that the problem wasn't me. The problem lies in all core-books ever written. Absolutely none of them cover the most important concept that every GM needs to understand to the very core of their being if they want to be successful: players will always find a way to screw up a plan. There will always be someone at the table who considers the situation in a way you didn't prepare for no matter what you think you have done to make the adventure you wrote player-proof.
This is inevitable when you play RPGs with a group. It is also what makes playing RPGs fun. If they didn't have the unpredictability of a story being told by several people at once, then it would be an elaborate choose your own adventure books without any replay value. That is what makes it so strange that core-books gloss over the fact that this stuff comes up with simple lines like: Remember to have fun! I suppose it is important to remember to have fun, but if the book never really clarifies how you keep the game fun it renders the phrase meaningless.
So the moral of this story is: it's not your fault if your game isn't good or fell apart, chances are the book never told you how to make the game good or not fall apart. Learn from what went wrong and make the next game better.
I've since come to understand that the problem wasn't me. The problem lies in all core-books ever written. Absolutely none of them cover the most important concept that every GM needs to understand to the very core of their being if they want to be successful: players will always find a way to screw up a plan. There will always be someone at the table who considers the situation in a way you didn't prepare for no matter what you think you have done to make the adventure you wrote player-proof.
This is inevitable when you play RPGs with a group. It is also what makes playing RPGs fun. If they didn't have the unpredictability of a story being told by several people at once, then it would be an elaborate choose your own adventure books without any replay value. That is what makes it so strange that core-books gloss over the fact that this stuff comes up with simple lines like: Remember to have fun! I suppose it is important to remember to have fun, but if the book never really clarifies how you keep the game fun it renders the phrase meaningless.
So the moral of this story is: it's not your fault if your game isn't good or fell apart, chances are the book never told you how to make the game good or not fall apart. Learn from what went wrong and make the next game better.
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