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Author Topic: What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?  (Read 4566 times)

The Butcher

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #60 on: April 14, 2017, 03:34:43 PM »
I tell them what they need to know about the campaign; it's a sandbox, or a mission-based game where everyone works for X, or whatever I deem necessary. But generally speaking I'm a show-don't-tell kind of guy.

Black Vulmea

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #61 on: April 14, 2017, 05:23:38 PM »
Quote from: Chainsaw;957280
Pretty much I start with...
Not bad, Chains, but you and me and everyone else still stand in the Shadow of the Master.
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Ashakyre

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #62 on: April 14, 2017, 05:53:40 PM »
Quote from: Black Vulmea;957303
Not bad, Chains, but you and me and everyone else still stand in the Shadow of the Master.

That really made my day

S'mon

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #63 on: April 14, 2017, 06:31:19 PM »
Quote from: Baeraad;957270
Come to think of it, a related question might be: what do you not tell your players of your GMing style ahead of time (possibly because you don't even think of it as part of your GMing style), that they invariably figure out on their own?


"Things are generally as they appear. I appreciate it's hard grokking a campaign world through the limited bandwidth of me talking, so I try to keep everything as straightforward and comprehensible as possible. This is so that you have the chance to understand what's going on and act on that knowledge. Eg if you're going to get doublecrossed, it's probably by that treacherous dwarf slaver you just released when he promised to take you out in the wilderness to the lair of his old buddies... No, I am not actually going to tell you when you are about to be doublecrossed, unless you take some minimal action such as requesting an Insight check. I would like you to be paying enough attention you can work it out for yourself."

That's what I don't tell them. :)

nDervish

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #64 on: April 15, 2017, 07:26:25 AM »
Quote from: Baeraad;957270
Come to think of it, a related question might be: what do you not tell your players of your GMing style ahead of time (possibly because you don't even think of it as part of your GMing style), that they invariably figure out on their own?


Two things come to mind.

The first didn't really surprise me at all.  It was a mid-session comment that "nDervish has a random table for everything."  (Maybe not quite everything, but I do try.)

The other was a total surprise.  A new player joined, someone mostly experienced with D&D3/PF, and promptly grabbed his dice, told me what he rolled, and asked what he saw.  Before I could answer, one of my veteran players turned to him and said, "Don't roll for Perception unless nDervish tells you to, otherwise he'll make up something for you to see, and it probably won't be good."  (I don't consciously do that, and I don't like the idea that I do that, but... yeah... I do hate to see a good Perception roll get wasted on a simple "you don't see anything"...)

Necrozius

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #65 on: April 15, 2017, 08:07:04 AM »
Quote from: Black Vulmea;957303
Not bad, Chains, but you and me and everyone else still stand in the Shadow of the Master.

That was glorious. Especially:

Quote
I can just see him now, holding up the book with his Cheetos-stained hands, spitting out the last syllable of "no thuch thpellth available to thhamanth" so that little flecks of saliva and popcorn land on my blazer as he engages in some twisted power-play for status as alpha geek. If that's what was going on, I'm not surprised that the DM got so pissed off he engaged in some massive screwage. The DM doesn't design games so you can slap your dick on the table trying to contradict him.

Chainsaw

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #66 on: April 15, 2017, 08:28:02 AM »
Quote from: Black Vulmea;957303
Not bad, Chains, but you and me and everyone else still stand in the Shadow of the Master.

Haha! Great read. Thanks for sharing.

Baeraad

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #67 on: April 16, 2017, 02:22:20 AM »
Like I mentioned earlier, I try to play by the rules as written because I think that helps in establishing a coherent world, and therefore aiding in immersion... but I'm with the GM on this one. When I say that the game world runs according to the rules as written, that carries the unspoken rider "to the extent that I know and understand them." Pointing out rules to me that I have missed in particular cases is fine, but if my planned scenario hinges on an assumption that's contradicted in some obscure paragraph in the middle of a disjointed, poorly indexed mass of text that I hadn't noticed because my eyes had glazed over by the time I got to that point? Oh, you'd better believe that I'm overruling that one! :p
Add me to the ranks of people who have stopped posting here because they can't stand the RPGPundit. It's not even his actual opinions, though I strongly disagree with just about all of them. It's the psychotic frothing rage with which he holds them. If he ever goes postal and beats someone to death with a dice bag, I don't want to be listed among his known associates, is what I'm saying.

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What, if anything, do you tell prospective players of your GMing style?
« Reply #68 on: April 20, 2017, 03:41:42 AM »
Quote from: AsenRG;957080
What would you say if they asked you to describe your style?


If I could, I'd probably point them to one of my actual play blogs.
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