Quote from: Old Geezer;776466Um.

It's a dumbass game about sitting around a table with friends, drinking beer, and talking about pretending to be an elf or a Jedi Knight.

Who are you NOT to run a game?  It's like asking "who the fuck am I to run a game of spoons."

I guess I occasionally get overwhelmed by the hype that's out there. To some (or even many), gaming is srs bsns. :-) In some forums, there are pecking orders of who's considered fit to be a DM and who isn't.

I'm just arrogant and foolhardy enough to run games anyway, even if there are people convinced I'm doing it wrong. And yes, there have been a few who made it clear that they thought I fit every negative stereotype of a female DM, which I guess meant they believed my games were all about shopping and talking and having feelings. Heh. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Bill;776545Played with a gm that had his pet cleric villain cast hold person on the characters, and I made my save just barely, due to a wisdom bonus vs mental spells. The gm was pissed I saved, so said "You fail because hold person is not a mental spell in my world"

I *hate* when people do this. If the PCs win, so be it. I'll just have to come up with smarter, tougher villains.

Quote from: cranebump;776554Think he was thinking B/X? I mean, it just lists "Sword." (or perhaps he was just bein' a douche)

I think he just did not want to be wrong.

It was 1E dnd.

Quote from: Dana;776565I *hate* when people do this. If the PCs win, so be it. I'll just have to come up with smarter, tougher villains.

Very much agree, and I would not have minded at all if there were, say, a pack of clerics hold personing the pc's into oblivion.

But don't rob a player of a victory 'just because.'

Quote from: Opaopajr;775790In Summary:

"Your medieval motley crew comes upon the orc camp"

"I activate my orbital satellite laser to vaporize them!"

"Yes, but you didn't invent your orbital satellite laser yet, so it is currently not operational. Perhaps an illusory remote device with a shiny red button?"

"Or you could've said 'no' already, fucker."
---------------

Relearning the GM's power of 'NO'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Quote from: Bill;776545Ran into a gm once that said my longsword did a d6 and I said "I thought it was a d8" and he insisted it was a d6.

I almost never make mistakes like this because this is the kind of shit my brain remembers easily. But what is so fucking hard about "I'm sure it's a d6, but hey why don't you look it up in this rule book here while I see what Marley Cat's character is going to do?" Or if the GM has the rulebook at hand, point to where it says "longsword d6." Or on the occassion when you actually misremembered the rule, "Hey you were right. Thanks for pointing that out. D8 it is then."

Maybe I don't find someone questioning a rule interpretation or consulting the rules to be a big deal because I played board games/war games before playing D&D and other RPGs and we always had rules questions on obscure rules that we just looked up in the book. Yeesh!

QuotePlayed with a gm that had his pet cleric villain cast hold person on the characters, and I made my save just barely, due to a wisdom bonus vs mental spells. The gm was pissed I saved, so said "You fail because hold person is not a mental spell in my world"

To quote a song, "I won't do that." That's an asshole move.

QuoteI am far, far, far from a rules lawyer, and I like the gm to be in complete control of the game.

In my experience there is a profound difference between actually wanting to use the rule so you spend a minute looking shit up every now and then and someone who chooses to argue about the rules as their way of breaking the play experience. Just don't play with the latter folks. They are acting like assholes.

QuoteBut as a gm, if you screw up, freakin' admit it and move on.

I really don't understand why this should even be considered a difficult thing to do. Humans make mistakes. You are human. The conclusion is left to the reader.

EDIT: Oh and Dana - keep on being the GM!

Quote from: Omega;776045For you and me. Yes. I find DMing absurdly easy. I LIKE DMing.

For some other person. No. Some people just do not click to DMing in certain ways. Its a chore, or they just cannot think on the fly. One of the reasons modules sell.

I think there's an argument to be made that some folks have "the touch" and others don't, but in the end most anybody can run at least a middlin' game with the right rule set and a little prep.* And there's no substitute for a GM who can really make a game sing, but I'm down for "mediocre D&D with great people" any day.


*Most everybody. There are definitely some folks who should just put down the screen and walk away.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;776634I think there's an argument to be made that some folks have "the touch" and others don't, but in the end most anybody can run at least a middlin' game with the right rule set and a little prep.* And there's no substitute for a GM who can really make a game sing, but I'm down for "mediocre D&D with great people" any day.


*Most everybody. There are definitely some folks who should just put down the screen and walk away.

I think if you give most anyone say Keep on the Borderlands that they can run that with little difficulty as its a really usefull DM primer module with lots of pointers.

But only if the person wants to.

If I say "Hey? Want to DM some time?" and they say "No." then thats that. I might ask for details. I might ask again a few sessions later if they start showing an interest. Otherwise no.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;776580http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

Fight fire with fire. Sometimes the only language some people understand.

PS: Also, this topic shouldn't exist in a logical, rational world. The world and its people are not logical or rational on the whole.

I have always looked at "yes, and" like a mental jujitsu match.  Want to kill the king?  Watch how I make you rue the day.  But I dip into illusionist techniques that many here would avoid.

So in that way I rather prefer player input, even DMing.  Hell I have been known to hand the whole job off for a night or three from time to time.  It isn't hard to clean up the mess, typically.  Your evil cleric you killed yesterday has a rival you didn't know about, yes seriously, and he is WAY worse.

It's when I can't tell what they're planning that I start to worry.

Besides it isn't like I am writing a novel or turning in an assignment for a grade or something.   It'It's a game.   If you don't like it we can always change it up.

Quote from: Bill;776545Ran into a gm once that said my longsword did a d6 and I said "I thought it was a d8" and he insisted it was a d6.

Played with a gm that had his pet cleric villain cast hold person on the characters, and I made my save just barely, due to a wisdom bonus vs mental spells. The gm was pissed I saved, so said "You fail because hold person is not a mental spell in my world"

As it says in my sig, the rules can't fix asshole.

Quote from: Dana;776565And yes, there have been a few who made it clear that they thought I fit every negative stereotype of a female DM, which I guess meant they believed my games were all about shopping and talking and having feelings.

The only correct response to this is kick them in the nadgers so hard they go deaf.

Quote from: Dana;776565I guess I occasionally get overwhelmed by the hype that's out there. To some (or even many), gaming is srs bsns. :-) In some forums, there are pecking orders of who's considered fit to be a DM and who isn't.

I'm just arrogant and foolhardy enough to run games anyway, even if there are people convinced I'm doing it wrong. And yes, there have been a few who made it clear that they thought I fit every negative stereotype of a female DM, which I guess meant they believed my games were all about shopping and talking and having feelings. Heh. :rolleyes:

Well ... for some time now, I've thought we've been buffaloed by the Truth As Proclaimed By Online Forums.  Take the "GM Is The Players' Slave" riff.  Never mind what people blather about in various forums: how many of you have seen with your own eyes gaming circles that operate off of that paradigm?  I never have.  No gamer who I've ever talked to face-to-face ever has.  Is this really as ubiquitous as TBP would have us believe, or is a lot of this wish-fulfillment from those angry players who had a GM be mean to them once and decided that they were permanently traumatized in consequence?

In any event, I figure I'm going to do this hobby to please myself.  Obviously I like blathering around on forums, but my gameplay isn't dependent in the smallest fraction on the opinions of strangers I've never met and likely will never meet.  My Way is the only way, and the only opinions that matter are those of the players sitting around my table.

(scritches his head)  Come to that, what's wrong with games involving shopping, talking and feelings?  My players love shopping -- quite aside from bumping into colorful and useful NPCs, that's dealing with the logistics train!

Quote from: Ravenswing;777025Well ... for some time now, I've thought we've been buffaloed by the Truth As Proclaimed By Online Forums.  Take the "GM Is The Players' Slave" riff.  Never mind what people blather about in various forums: how many of you have seen with your own eyes gaming circles that operate off of that paradigm?  I never have.  No gamer who I've ever talked to face-to-face ever has.  Is this really as ubiquitous as TBP would have us believe, or is a lot of this wish-fulfillment from those angry players who had a GM be mean to them once and decided that they were permanently traumatized in consequence?

I have. Else I wouldnt comment on it. So yes. It is going on. Just like forced GMing is going on. etc. Just some of you are fortunate not to run into it. Same as theres some oddball behavior that I've never seen in a gaming group.

I've seen it too. It is very real. And across times, areas, and groups.

And for a very simple reason: social dynamics. A lot of that Geek Social Fallacy stuff from ages ago is just "stop being the asshole; stop letting assholes ruin your day" advice. However, how conscious is humanity on a moment-by-moment basis of the social games we all play? (Actually, might as well ask how conscious is humanity on a moment-by-moment basis, period.)

Throw in low to poor early socialization on average in the community -- by outright member confession -- and you're going to get tolerated bad behavior that should have been nipped in the bud earlier.

But at least intoxication-induced problems, unwanted STDs & pregnancy, and the like, are not par for the course. Talked-out fantasies are quite the low risk behavior.

Quote from: mcbobbo;776792I have always looked at "yes, and" like a mental jujitsu match.  Want to kill the king?  Watch how I make you rue the day.  But I dip into illusionist techniques that many here would avoid.

So in that way I rather prefer player input, even DMing.  Hell I have been known to hand the whole job off for a night or three from time to time.  It isn't hard to clean up the mess, typically.  Your evil cleric you killed yesterday has a rival you didn't know about, yes seriously, and he is WAY worse.

It's when I can't tell what they're planning that I start to worry.

Besides it isn't like I am writing a novel or turning in an assignment for a grade or something.   It'It's a game.   If you don't like it we can always change it up.

And I assume by 'rue the day' you mean, logical cause and effect, and not 'punish because they killed the king'