I have to admit my GMing has been choppy at times. I think I had some bad habits when I first started that I clung onto for years until someone would bring each one to my attention. Now I am comfortable as a GM but its always useful for me to hear from players who are not happy with how I am running a game because it really helps me improve and gain confidence.

So this thread is about sharing the best critique you received from a player that may have hurt at the time but ended up being constructive.

I think for me the best criticism I had was from a player in my Ravenloft game back in 9th or 10th grade. I started off with a very successful adventure using the House of Lament but as the campaign went on, I think the quality went down. One of the players, who was the type of person to speak his mind, said mid game 'this sucks guys, the game hasn't been any fun since Mara's House (I.E. the house of lament ). That is the last thing you want to hear from a player and I strongly resisted the criticism initially. But over the years it has become a very important measure for me when I run a game. I use it to remind myself not to get overconfident in my abilities  because one session or adventure goes well, and I always ask myself if things have sucked since Mara's house. Over the years other criticisms that helped me get better at GMing stand out in mind as well. But that one is probably the best because still keeps me on my toes.

I actually favored a player during a campaign when we were teenagers and the players, including the one being favored, made me realize I was doing it around a bunch of brews one night. It was a learning experience, and one I never forgot. I'm still very thankful for the players to have actually stepped forward to talk to me frankly about what was happening. I was completely blind to it.

The best critic I ever had was myself. I was running a GURPS fantasy campaign and had been burning out for awhile but wouldn't admit it.  The last several adventures had been less than stellar and I simply called the game a short while into the session that I knew would be filled with suck.

I apologized to the group and took a break from running for a while.

I'm very cautious about enthusiasm levels and early signs of burnout nowadays. I won't even consider running a game that I'm less than thrilled about just to be running something. I would rather run far fewer games of quality than a ton of schlock.

Players in my Dark Heresy game gave me this tidbit after the campaign concluded:

"You think too much for us.  Your mysteries were hidden too well, and things were kind of obtuse.  Nobody knew or had an idea of what the fuck was going on for real the entire time."

To which I replied:

"Good."

I like crime dramas, police procedurals and the like.  I'm not going to write anything resembling one of those stories unless I think it out way ahead and the story provides me with some sort of gratification, and I feel the mystery can be solved with old fashioned detective work.  I told my players they should think about Dark Heresy as an episode of Criminal Intent or Lie to Me, instead of thinking of it as a grimdark version of SmashTV.

Many years ago, a semi-professional actor in my group pulled me to side one evening and said that I should become a writer. That I'd probably be a good one. I didn't get it until the next day when the alcohol had worn off and I had realized that I was no longer acting as a Dungeon Master but as a Director. The co-DM took over the next session and I learned a great lesson. Keep writing and gaming separate. The corollary to that is only write what matters to the players and let them tell the story.

"Your descriptions of travel and landscapes are really cool. But, uh, maybe we don't need quite so much of it sometimes."

Duly noted. I liked to give a feeling of a long distance and changing geography when I described travel. I've since learned to keep it tight.

Early on, when I was a kid, I made the mistake of having a tough NPC ally save the group a few times. After a while, the guys told me that they hated him because of this. I make sure I never do that anymore.

Honestly, I can't remember getting any--I solicit feedback, and players just say "It was good." I wish they WOULD give me feedback. Really, that is why I started asking, not to get ego stroking, but so I could fix anything that might suck.

I was told a few months ago that I am good at making things up on the fly but bad at remembering exactly what I said so things could some times be a bit inconsistent. I now do just a bit more prep work and keep a legal pad on hand just for jotting down enough of whatever bullshit I make up to jog my memory.

Not any direct criticism.  I came to the realization that not being the DM is better than being the DM.

I just got sick and tired of being the "babysitter in chief", whenever I was the DM.  :banghead:

Long ago when I gave a Magic the Gathering premise and had in mind a level of civilization (magitech!) greater than our own. A player reminded me that assumptions should be cleared up from the start. What I thought was logical interpretation was a bait and switch to them.

Lesson: pre-game talk is crucial to get everyone on the same page; leave next to nothing to implied assumptions before the first die is rolled, even chargen.

Silverlion

"Honestly, I can't remember getting any--I solicit feedback, and players just say "It was good." I wish they WOULD give me feedback. Really, that is why I started asking, not to get ego stroking, but so I could fix anything that might suck. "

Just a piece of advice.

I use to do the same and mentioned it on another board and got advice about how to ask.

Just asking how is it seldom gets you any useful info, either ask about specific things or what I do is they must make a list of at least 3 things they like, 3 things they don't what they want to accomplish in the game as players or as characters.

I do this at least once per campaign and usually 1-2 a year. I know after having the same players for a while now some of the answers are a little stale/the same but that's cause we know each other well. Most importantly it opens dialogue in the group and having them say good makes them feel a iltle better about complaining or going negative.


Now to the OP. Mostly I am a much harsher critique of myself than the players but mine are mostly honest a bad session can just be a bad session, sometimes it just doesn't gel. We all accept that. Hell right now I am running 2 games I could just end tomorrow And would be okay with but my players are having fun.  I don't hate the games but just don't get excited about them. Meanwhile I tool around with my own rules and stuff to keep up my imaginative energies.

Most advice I get that helps focus or refocus me is keeping track of things. But I put some of that back on the players, especially names, Suck at them in real world suck at them in Game. couldn't remember some NPC's name if my life depended on it. I keep track of NPC names when I have to but tell the players if they are important to the character they gotta keep track, cause once I have the name I can usually remember who they are. I have a good memory for situations on history but not details.

I try to use another technique I read about is pick one thing your bad at, while GMing and work to improve it when you do, move on to another. Don't try to be fix all your faults or missteps at once. Get better at the one thing and tuck that skill under your belt and go for the next.

Just my thoughts!

Quote from: Benoist;668553I actually favored a player during a campaign when we were teenagers and the players, including the one being favored, made me realize I was doing it around a bunch of brews one night. It was a learning experience, and one I never forgot. I'm still very thankful for the players to have actually stepped forward to talk to me frankly about what was happening. I was completely blind to it.

Mine was similar. Not a player but a play style that some players used.
I love the visual stuff and I love the clever stuff. When players do clever stuff or stuff that looks visually great I give them a lot more leeway.
I realised that I was doing this and some players as a result got huge benefits because that was how they played.
I always try to be fairer now and not to overly favour those type of players compared to the more thoughful low key ones.
Also I used to have NPCs that exhibited these features and they were a bit (read a lot) Mary Sue. Now I only add them as an in joke and they usually die pretty quick (usually as a warning about inherrent danger).

Also when I started adlibbing everything after a few years of it I realised I was creating the trap of no real choice for the characters. Think of it like the Lady and the Tiger. Behind one door is the Lady and the other a Tiger you have to decide before the players open any doors.
So if I wait for you to take route A and then decide what is down route A I am guilty of illusionism. You think you have a choice but as I just created it it could have been the same encounter down each path.
Now I still adlib but I make clear choices before the choice comes up. Down path A is a dragon down path B there is a bandit prince. If they choose to do neither A or B they will meet neither foe unless they come back to a path.

I haven't explained it very well but its basically about
i) being pepared to scrap an idea no matter how appealing
ii) giving the players real choices
iii) maintaining the world in motion

It took me another year to get it down but now 12 years later I am pretty comfortable with it.

Both of these were self criticisms.

The biggest critism my players have given me is that I forget to draw doors on the map In days of yore when I still drew maps in advance I would sketch out the room but miss out the doors only to remember after round 4 of combat or after the Pcs had spent 3 rounds searching (all the time timing in my head why don't they check the door on the north wall). This became an in joke.

Mine was during season three of Orpheus. At the start of the season, I pitched to a player that this was the season where her PC would hit rock bottom but endure to become strong enough to deal with the trials of thelast two seasons. She was really excited by the idea.

I then spent most of the season putting the PC through the ringer, based on her enthusiasm. Toward the end of the season the player seemed annoyed. When I asked why, I found that the player thought that what I had said was that the rock bottom was at the start of the season and she had been trying to show the PC's turn around but was constantly prevented from doing so. I had assumed that the player understood my pitch as being that the rock bottom was at the end of the season and so I had been pushing hard.

Given I had thought we had discussed and agreed the general idea previously, I was kind of annoyed at the time. But I learnt that even direct OOC communication is never 100% clear (and, in fact, is more often fraught with misunderstanding).

These days, I try and communicate more regularly and look for ways of testing that communication both in and out of play when I can. This increased regularity involved finding ways of making such communication less intrusive yet more informative.

I started playing RPGs by being the GM, and I can safely say that in 30 years I acted as the GM 80% of the time. Thus the best criticisms I ever got came from... being a player! More than one time I noted how "When I'm the GM I do the same thing and now I see that it sucks".