Quote from: Bren;1030215I think of learning to GM as being like learning to read & write, learning to do elementary school arithmetic, or learning to play a sport like basketball or tennis in a casual and noncompetitive setting. Can the overwhelming majority of adult humans learn to do those things? Yes. Is it easier because of ability for some people to learn than to do those things than for others? Yes. Does it take some effort and practice (an amount that varies based on ability) to learn to do those sorts of things. Yes.

Learning to GM for your buddies so they can have some fun is like learning those things.

I think the difference is in the sheer number of different skills in which a budding GM needs to have some mild ability.  Multiple social abilities, multiple organizational abilities, an interest in the game's subject matter, an interest and comfort with basic math (done rapidly, in public), some passing acquaintance with probability effects (or at least able to fake it), a "fair referee" mentality that can be turned on and off at will as needed, a sense of pacing and flow, etc.  And that doesn't even cover the "nice to have" abilities that some people think are necessary, such as dramatic voices or narrative plotting.  

It's less like playing amateur tennis or softball, and more like being the YMCA "coach" that can get a game going of anything happening, from swimming to tennis to softball to made up dodge ball variants.  No one expects you to be earth-shaking, but the guy doing it wants to be mildly competent at the full range.  

Of course, that's back to the basic problem:  The only way you get to be mildly competent at the full range is to simply jump in and get some experience.  So the first necessary ability is the willingness to risk making a fool of yourself in front of your friends while you develop the other skills.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1030246I think the difference is in the sheer number of different skills in which a budding GM needs to have some mild ability.

Yes you need a collection of skills. If you are trying to be a passable GM for every possible player than you need all those skills. But being a good or even passable GM for every possible player isn't the task.

The task is to be a passable GM for the group of players you have at hand or can fairly easily find. To be a passable GM you don't actually need to be even average at all of those skills. It helps if you are passable or better yet good at all those things, but I've seen plenty of passable GMs who just weren't good at some aspect of the GM's art. Sometimes one or more players picked up some of the slack, e.g. the player who good at math can do much of the math stuff, the player who is good at calendaring can organize and maintain the social calendar, the player who really enjoys rules stuff can be the expert or the lookup for obscure rule stuff during play. There are lots of ways to handle these things in a manner that should be acceptable to a casual group of buddies trying to have some fun of an evening.

QuoteOf course, that's back to the basic problem:  The only way you get to be mildly competent at the full range is to simply jump in and get some experience.  So the first necessary ability is the willingness to risk making a fool of yourself in front of your friends while you develop the other skills.

People having what I think are unrealistically high expectations for a new GM don't help people take that risk.

Quote from: Bren;1030309People having what I think are unrealistically high expectations for a new GM don't help people take that risk.

Nope.  It's the fear of making yourself into a fool in front of people.  It's a VERY powerful fear, even in front of people you consider friends.  And given that a lot of socially awkward types used to and still do, gravitate to this hobby, it can get quite crippling in some cases.

It wasn't hard for me because my humour tends to be self-depreciating so I'm OK with making an ass out of myself in front of a crowd.  I do that just by looking at people

I can make fun of myself because I know I can take it. Making fun of someone else?  Not so much.

Because I developed an extensive vocabulary early, from mostly reading instead of talking, I often mispronounce words, often with unintended comic effect.  Despite a huge interest in running a game and already developed skills in all the other things I listed, unless I had been willing to make a fool of myself early, I'd have never run.  And it was worse around my buddies than anyone else, because they had no reservations about letting me have it every time I said something wrong.  It was a running gag in our early games.  

I didn't say expert.  I said "mild ability" in those areas.  But you've got to have the confidence that mild is good enough.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1030330Nope.

Of course the level of your fear is related to the level of expectation for your performance. It it wasn't you would be cripplingly afraid of ever doing anything at all in front of other people. But you aren't cripplingly afraid of doing absolutely everything in front of other people, right? So if you (and your players) can lower the level of expectation for the performance of a new GM your fear will be less. Now maybe your fear is still too high to ever even try to GM, but that level of fear is not a problem related to the degree of difficulty with being a GM nor is it likely to be fixed or even helped by people nattering on a forum or providing "how to be a GM advice."

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1030338Because I developed an extensive vocabulary early, from mostly reading instead of talking, I often mispronounce words, often with unintended comic effect.

Oh yeah. I recall mispronouncing the word "tunic" as ton-ik. I came across the word while reading the Odyssey. I figured out the meaning from context, but got the pronunciation completely wrong. Thereafter I made a greater effort to look up the pronunciation of words I didn't know in the dictionary.

If your first halting efforts at running a game are met by an excessive level of shit from your friends, you need new friends.

"You dickweeds want to play?  Then help me learn how to run this fucking game, you bunch of buttnuggets."

Yes, my friends and I do address each other like this.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1030199Exactly.  Exactly!  See, I'm really sick of the "I can't GM because I'm not a Chosen One!" wailing.  With some effort, any normally functional person can at least provide fun for their buddies and themselves.

Yeah, there's definitely no 'chosen one'.  There ARE people who have some more natural talents that would make them predisposed to potentially being a great GM. However, to get to great GM status still requires effort.
I was always a good GM, but I became a great GM by doing it a lot and working on doing it better each campaign.

What's good is subjective.

Since the GM runs the game world, the personality, thinking, humor, logic, tastes, values, interests and so on all impact what the GM's worlds, characters, game situations and sessions are like.

Different GMs are more or less compatible with different players in various ways.

What's good is rarely entirely subjective.

And you can certainly place several objective benchmarks on what defines being a 'good GM'.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031311And you can certainly place several objective benchmarks on what defines being a 'good GM'.

Like what? Would you mind giving a few examples?

Quote from: jeff37923;1031336Like what? Would you mind giving a few examples?

1) A GM that is inconsistent in the application of their ruleset might still provide an enjoyable experience, but invariably will run into issues down the road with the ability to being fairly arbitrary or even non-judicious in their application of those rules. They might be called a "good GM". A better GM can adhere to the rules, and be flexible with the group if something happens according to the rules that "doesn't jive" and make calls with the group and not let it detract from the experience. OR they can make a hard call that adheres to the rules and still make their players feel that it was a good call even at their expense.

2) A Good GM can run a module. A Great GM can run a sandbox campaign that has the module in it, re-worked for the purposes of their campaign within an entire world, seamlessly allowing options both good and bad to present themselves, and allow the actions of the PC's to naturally create content and further options (some might close/open based on those choices) and present an experience of far greater personalized nature that transcends what the Railroad GM might have envisioned. To do the latter takes much more skill, and more work.

There's two good examples. I can provide more.

Quote from: tenbones;1031423There's two good examples. I can provide more.

Please do. I find this to be a very worthwhile line of inquiry.

Obviously these are generalities and can be expanded upon.


A Good GM can be prepared to execute a set series of encounters as a Game Session. A Great GM can let encounters be totally emergent or random and tie it in organically to the larger world.

A Good GM can let you make PC's of any kind of background and make you happy. A Great GM can work with you to create a PC in context with the campaign that makes you excited to play something other than your surface assumptions that have nothing to do with your unicorn freakshow. Including allowing you to play a unicorn freakshow but put into context of the campaign with special considerations and expectations that matter.

A Good GM can hand-wave details in doing mundane things in order to keep the adventure flowing. A Great GM can make literally anything important or potentially important.

A Good GM can allude to a larger setting without really engaging in the world and still have a good game. A Great GM can make your players *want* to go explore beyond the boundaries of their assumed adventurespace.

A Good GM can run a genre or system with good proficiency. A Great GM can run anything and make it at bare minimum, "good".

A Good GM can incorporate new material into a game well. A Great GM can create new material of their own devising and make it seamless to the sandbox at large.

A Good GM can pull off an good session of moderate complexity with little prep. A Great GM can pull off a good session of moderate complexity with relative ease and little to no prep. They can pull off the occasional great session with good complexity out of their ass with little prep.

A Good GM will create consistent fun in their games. A Great GM will create moments that those players will talk about for decades.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1030338Because I developed an extensive vocabulary early, from mostly reading instead of talking, I often mispronounce words, often with unintended comic effect.

I avoided running dungeons with any "bas-relief" features for years ...

Mostly agreeing with Tenbones.