Quote from: Tod13 on August 11, 2023, 04:28:52 PM

Quote from: tenbones on August 11, 2023, 03:19:58 PM
GMing concerns to be mastered? Are these interesting discussion points?

Time saving
Prep techniques
Staging - how to set the structure of your sandbox
Unlearning Linear GMing basics - Deconditioning railroading impulses, and giving maximal agency to players and their PC's.
Scaling and Pacing - letting your games go from zero to hero and not losing control of things.
System mastery - using the right system for the right setting.
Conflict creation - how to leverage all conflict as content in-game.
Immersion techniques

Thoughts?

#1 should be some variant of: setting/determining player expectations. Seems to be the biggest problem in general.

Thanks! Yeah I have my own private list and that's one of them. So we're on the right wavelength.

As for where this is going - yes, I'm going to be producing something for GMing. It's not just going to be a book, but I'm trying to synthesize something for everyone at every level of experience. I know there is a *tremendous* amount of ego involved in what we think of as "high-skill" GMing... including a lot of GM's that aren't as high-skilled as they believe, but are conditioned to believe so because they play with the same crew. This isn't a BAD thing, but the idea is to develop some developmental tools at different stages of development where GM's can sit comfortably there as long as they want, but have options to raise their own bar if they choose to.

The caveat here is *I* don't believe all games are equal, and not all GMs are equal - there is definitely a path of development that I'm very sure many of you that have been GMing passionately for years already intuitively understand - you guys are the ones I want to lean on for things I may have missed. I am equally sure that no one person has all the answers, but collectively there certainly are fundamental best practices for each "stage" of development.

I see that the direction of D&D as a brand is about to dry-gulch a *lot* of players that will probably be dissatisfied (or will become dissatisfied) with linear play in their digital environment. Consequently I also think D&D (WotC) has done a shit-poor job of advocating for GMing because ultimately they're trying to sell shitty products to people that simply don't know better because very few GM's run more expansive content because within D&D there is very little guidance or incentive to do so.

Outside of D&D there is a WEALTH of older and experienced GM's that have been pushed aside into our respective corners playing different systems (or even D&D in various forms) that can bring that experience to those younger folks that are hungry for higher quality gaming. That requires more people getting into the GM saddle. And collectively *we* should be the ones showing them what we've learned through our experiences.

I'm not interested in being system-specific - but understanding ones chosen system(s) does matter. I'm in the process of formulating everything now, and it will likely be a Rumble/YouTube channel at first. I'm working with a producer in getting all the details set up now. And yes this will culminate into much more, but the GMing stuff is going to be free, and something I intend to support deeply as a I think we need to get more GM's to step up without having to go through all the shit we did from the Holmes era... hehe.

So yeah, RPGsite is going to be part of the epicenter of my endeavours, there is a tremendous amount of experience here. And while we may not agree on everything - that experience definitely matters. We need GM's. They are the heart of our hobby. We need to expand the our *individual community* with standards we can agree on. I want to do my part to keep the hobby healthy and ready to blossom when WotC moves on off-planet with their digital endeavors. And of course there is no better group of bad ass mofos on the internet than you guys to help out. No more sitting around complaining about the damage that WotC has done to our hobby - we're gonna retake it teaching people how to GM with uncommon-sense quality.

At least that's the initial goal. What happens after will be announced in the proper time.

I love to GM.

Much more than playing actually.

Tenbones, what will your book have that other GM guides do not?

There have been 2 big KS campaigns for "How to" books that I know of, probably a bunch that I don't know about. No idea if any of those books are any good, but they certainly made a lot of money from backers so I expect they are "influencers" on social media.

I GM.

Quote from: tenbones on August 11, 2023, 10:11:21 AM
Another corollary -

Of all of you that are active GM's, how many of you do it, now, because *you actually love it*? I don't mean "It's okay, but I do it because no one else will".

You GM because you're actually passionate about it? Do you like talking with other GM's about techniques, methods etc. to improve your skillset? Or does it bore you to tears?

I want to say I only GM because I have to. But I have to be honest with myself. It's mostly down to me not liking the style of GMing I see from other people and not being able to enjoy their games in spite of this.  I recently played 5E as a player. And I didn't like it. I was bored and frustrated by all the tedious bookkeeping you have to do with 5E compared to BECMI. I didn't like how there were rigid mechanical answers to every single problem that didn't require any roleplay whatsoever and completely removed any danger from any situation. And the DM was a nice enough guy but he just didn't run the kind of game I like. Which isn't his fault.  I have a feeling I wouldn't like any other GM's style than my own at this point. I want things as a player that most GMs just don't want to provide. I want a kind of game with the right amount of challenge in a sandbox campaign where player choice is paramount and the rules are a harmony of mechanics serving roleplaying and vice versa. Along with the game being primarily theatre of the mind without a reliance on clients like Roll 20 or Foundry to make things more rigid and static. Without as much imagination.  And I realize this is a failing of myself in being too picky. But I don't enjoy other games and don't want to force myself on other games that aren't my style.  So I just have to run games myself. Which I do enjoy. And others in my group seem to enjoy enough to pay me to do it. But not enough that it inspires them to GM a game in a similar style to me. That's no one's fault either though. It is how it is. I'm making my own game that I intend to distribute and use to encourage the style of TTRPGs I like. So we shall see what happens in the future.

My hope is as Large Language Models get more advanced there is some kind of AI GM LLM that you can get to GM any game you want in whatever style you want. So I can play TTRPGs and have fun.

As a GM, there's something really important about the relationship you have with your players - and that is the expectations that you have towards your players: your demands towards them even.

I have seen my share of tables where the GM is attempting something which can be clear in his own eyes, but that he forgets to communicate clearly to his players, and then the play at the table is just passable - when it could be terrific if the players were hip to what the GM is proposing.

What I'm trying to say is that a book about GMing and progressing to become a better GM could benefit from exploring/discussing a GM's ambition relative to his table and his players.

Quote from: Lychee of the Exchequer on August 13, 2023, 05:47:23 PM
What I'm trying to say is that a book about GMing and progressing to become a better GM could benefit from exploring/discussing a GM's ambition relative to his table and his players.

https://www.amazon.com/Master-Game-Gary-Gygax-1989-07-24/dp/B019NELG5G

Quote from: Spinachcat on August 12, 2023, 06:50:10 PM
Tenbones, what will your book have that other GM guides do not?

There have been 2 big KS campaigns for "How to" books that I know of, probably a bunch that I don't know about. No idea if any of those books are any good, but they certainly made a lot of money from backers so I expect they are "influencers" on social media.

I'm not going to do a "How To GM" book. I'm going to create a platform for GMing development - for free. Its only one part of the platform, and there is a reason for it. Its not that I'm not interested in money - that comes later. It's that I believe what the hobby needs is to develop more GM's. And I'm intending on creating (with others) a developmental process about GMing fundamentals that leads from knowing nothing, to running one-shots, to creating plot-point driven games which leads to small sandbox play, which leads to large sandbox play. The idea is that there are skills that are nested within different modes of play that increase in complexity that simply are opaque to many GM's regardless of the level of skill they think they're at.

The GMing portion of the bigger plan is intended to be free to everyone that wants to learn or improve on their GMing skills. Very often people don't even know the right questions to ask - and inevitably it ends up with multiple people dickering about minutiae and missing the forest for the particular tree. While I agree it could be lucrative to make a "book" about GMing... my goals are much larger, but I believe the hobby has done a great disservice being led by a corporation that has largely absconded with nurturing the hobby for the purpose of milking a brand and marketing it to successive generations for short-term game. It *could* be bigger and better for everyone.

But the heart of the real hobby - are the GMs. In whatever stripe they may come in. I plan for some core principles to be discussed at length, system-neutral, that will form the heart of this GMing toolbox. It needs to guide noobs to level of GMing they want to have the most fun at - while giving them options for deeper play at their own discretion. It's not about *what* kind of game you run is *better*, I think that's a misrepresentation. It's about nested values - where running one-shots, and modules are fine, you *can* run those in Sandbox environments. But the skills for running a gigantic Sandbox require more attention and understanding to pull off successfully - there is NO point in trying to give a new GM that kind of advice right off the bat.

With WotC leaving the field... this is our chance to get those that fall out of the brand, or perhaps woo them over, to staying in our hobby, while offering a solid foundation for GM's of all experience levels to learn some best practices and standards from one another. And yes, there is a lot of stuff I have planned beyond just the GMing portion of this. But I don't want to speak about all that yet.