When I first ploughed into RPGs – the first game I ever ran
was an absolutely awful venture into the Clone Wars using the Star Wars d20 revised
rules the year Attack of the Clones came out – I was convinced that you could
sit back and the system would work itself out. I didn’t know anybody else who played
RPGs, but I knew that with enough effort I could round up a group of people. I
decided that I wanted the party to be a mix of Jedi and their Padawans; it was
the Clone Wars after all, right? So, looking through the Jedi class rules, I
decided that I should set out character creation rules to include two players
at level 15, and two players at level 3. It was a new planet, so I created my
own ‘super-cool’ unique alien race to inhabit it, and a new piece of technology
they used that could replicate other tech it came into contact with.
As I am sure every person reading this is now groaning and
screaming in their heads, I will stop there, and ensure you that it was indeed
the travesty you are imagining. Now, some of this is just down to the poor
narrative choices made by an overexcited boy (Indeed, I ran the main plotline –
minus the ‘super cool’ natives, their tech, and the weird starting set up many
years later and it hangs together quite nicely). But, part of this was also due
to my lack of reading a good ‘How to GM’ section.
The problem with this is systemic in the industry. I’ve
looked back through RPGs over the years and the first book that really gave me
an idea of what to actually do as a
GM was Feng Shui, which holds a very special place in my heart partially
because of that (and also partially because of high kicking Hong Kong action).
Some more recent games seem to have a handle on it too. Vincent Baker’s
sections in Apocalypse World (the guidelines introduced therein spread across
the *W games) and Dogs in the Vineyard seem to show a definite idea of role and
technique. But in many games, even now, it is almost assumed that the GM knows
what they are doing and will suss it out for themselves. On the contrary, when
games are very prescriptive about what GMs should and shouldn’t do, like in the
above, they often become the target of criticism from folks who ‘don’t like
being told what to do’, or indeed feel they are being told that their personal
style of GMing is ‘wrong’.
So, why is this?
I think the reasoning lies in that early inability of RPGs
to actually define what to do in them, what they are, and what the GM’s goal
should be. Practise has clearly formed many good GMs; but it is certainly not a
solid method for doing so - evidence for this can be found in the ubiquity of
the ‘Bad GM’ stereotype: speak to anyone who has played with more than about 5
groups in their time and they will likely have at least one story to share,
sadly. Most good GMs I know picked up traits from others, both good and bad,
and have developed skills through a mix of experience and pseudo-apprenticeship.
It has formed a culture around this system that is perhaps somewhat resistant
to change. In this culture, the new ones picking up an RPG for the first time
will learn from another they know, or from searching the internet for specific
guides, rather than from that first book. That extra effort might turn off
some, or not occur to others (Indeed, I quake in terror every time I ponder
somebody’s first game being not unlike my own attempt, and a group of players
once more being subjected to such a thing). Similarly, the boogeyman of the bad
GM can be blown away by properly training and teaching a GM to be good at what
they do with this particular game: many make honest mistakes and can benefit
from good advice. I am sure I do and have myself on many occasions.
A clear, well-written, well thought out GMing section in a
core book as a function of design can make the game substantially better. For
starters, a designer that is able to write one can form a much better idea of
what their game is about and their design goals. That leads into and informs choices
made in other sections of the piece. In addition, not every game is the same,
especially these days, where the RPG market has exploded. Whilst I may steal
techniques from both games to use in the other, it is generally not a good idea
to attempt to run, say, Psi*Run as if it were Dungeons and Dragons. Both are
enjoyable games in their own right, but both require a different approach,
structure, and directorial angle from the GM.
Some games, especially more recent indie press titles, warp,
alter or share the role traditionally taken by a GM figure, and these require not
only greater understanding and communication on the part of the author (by assuming
that the audience will be individuals unfamiliar with your construction,
whether or not they are familiar with RPGs in general as a medium), but also a
different angle of approach from all players at the table.
What was difficult for me to learn, and certainly a hurdle
to cross that resulted in becoming a better gamer, is that different games
warrant different styles of GM. With that comes an acceptance that some games
you may love to play you may not have a handle on running yet. Tonally, for
example, I can’t bring myself to run anything in the 40K universe without
overly focusing on its roots in parody, whereas the enjoyment of the universe
for players largely stems from being aware of the joke, but their characters
not being in on it. When it comes to game design, I find it very difficult to
run Exalted, to pick a good example, as the number of moving parts within the
game severely affects my enjoyment of it as a GM. Despite this, I can greatly
enjoy taking part in such games as a player, and might at some point work out
quite how I could run those games to a decent proficiency.
So, a good GM section should be:
-
Accessible for a new player
-
Convey the designer’s plans and concepts not
just for the game’s world and their design goals in writing the game, but how a
normal session should run.
-
Introduce or suggest techniques that reinforce
the second point within a game session.
-
Be consistent with the mechanics of the game.
