Quote from: Black Vulmea;681482That's very good advice.

I think its the best advice out of his list. I know that if I try to run something I'm not personally into, I have zero excitement, my brain goes into hibernation and no one will have fun.

Investment is a big thing as a GM. You have to CARE about the game you are running.

Quote from: Warthur;681216My sniping in the other thread aside, whilst I don't find doing full-blown different voices important (or even desirable, laughing at comedy accents tends to derail moments when a more sober atmosphere is desired), I've found being able to change my tone of voice actually really helps, and have observed this in other DMs too. Keeping in mind the general mannerisms, word choice, mode of speech, level of formality and so on of different NPCs gives much better results than simply wheeling out a different voice for each one.

This.  I personally can't do accents - I never have, I don't even know how to start, and any attempt would disrupt more than immerse.  But within that limitation, I can still do tone and body language, and, ideally, portray distinct npcs.

Well ... to rebut some of your rebuttals ...

Quote from: Exploderwizard;681243Bah. Bantha fodder. Know your players and what types of adventures they enjoy most. Worrying about specific things characters can do leads to the preparation of "fuck the PC" scenarios and begins pointless arms races. Besides that, if your players each have several characters and you don't know the exact composition of the party until they decide who is going, this is next to impossible anyway.

I imagine it would be next to impossible, if that's the bizarre way a GM wants to function.  I have never, in 36 years of gaming -- other than one-shot convention runs -- ever seen a campaign where players could decide on the spot between one of several characters on an ongoing basis.

As far as "fuck the PC" and arms races go, well, it sounds like you play in far more adversarial circles than I do, where GMs and players don't trust one another worth a damn.  Since this is a "What makes a good GM?" thread, I don't figure we need advice here on how to keep Enemy GMs from screwing you.

QuoteConsistency is far more important than realism. I'm not going to bother with "knowing my shit" as it applies to the land of make believe. The very idea of HARD DATA about making up some shit you think will be fun is laughable.

It's only laughable if your gaming circle wants some Hollywoodesque cardboard cutout world, where anachronisms don't dent suspension of disbelief, and after all the world only exists as a place to stand until you get to the next dungeon.

There are a lot of gaming circles that don't swing that way.  (Come to that, there are game systems that don't swing that way.  Quite a honking lot of them.)  Speaking of the "gritty" style you cite below, they find 20-shot revolvers, sailing ships that can do 30 mph, ten-story low-tech buildings to be laughable, and indicating that the GM either doesn't know his shit or doesn't give a damn ... and might that not be the only area in which he doesn't know his shit or give a damn?

QuoteThis is HIGHLY game/genre dependent. In a TOON game thats precisely how I would roll. In a gritty fantasy Vietnam dungeoncrawl that might actually piss off the players. Remember #5?

The same #5 for which you said "Bah. Bantha fodder" ... ?

That aside, any player who was pissed off that another player came up with a neat idea that actually worked?  I don't want that choad around.

Quote from: Ravenswing;681617As far as "fuck the PC" and arms races go, well, it sounds like you play in far more adversarial circles than I do, where GMs and players don't trust one another worth a damn.  Since this is a "What makes a good GM?" thread, I don't figure we need advice here on how to keep Enemy GMs from screwing you.

Adversarial play isn't a problem. Thats why I don't need to worry about character specific abilities when designing scenarios.

 NPCs are gonna go about their business as usual. Until they gain specific knowledge about the abilities of certain individuals, this information won't be factored into their plans.

 

Quote from: Ravenswing;681617It's only laughable if your gaming circle wants some Hollywoodesque cardboard cutout world, where anachronisms don't dent suspension of disbelief, and after all the world only exists as a place to stand until you get to the next dungeon.

There are a lot of gaming circles that don't swing that way.  (Come to that, there are game systems that don't swing that way.  Quite a honking lot of them.)  Speaking of the "gritty" style you cite below, they find 20-shot revolvers, sailing ships that can do 30 mph, ten-story low-tech buildings to be laughable, and indicating that the GM either doesn't know his shit or doesn't give a damn ... and might that not be the only area in which he doesn't know his shit or give a damn?

When running an actual historical game, I do my research.  In fantasy games the concept of anachronisms is baffling.

It would never occur to me to try and research the way "real" magical bolts manifested themselves or get an accurate accounting of what "real" dragons ate for breakfast. YMMV.

If I am running a game that features a monster that was based on a little plastic dinosaur toy, then I can only take accusations of not knowing my shit, only so seriously.  

 

Quote from: Ravenswing;681617That aside, any player who was pissed off that another player came up with a neat idea that actually worked?  I don't want that choad around.[/COLOR]

If you are not storygaming then the coolness of an idea is unrelated to its effectiveness.  It CAN be both and those are the moments that are truly epic and memorable.

How does one reconcile knowing your shit and the rule of cool anyway? Isn't all that research and study to make sure your game is realistic kind of useless if the laws of physics  get chucked out because somebody did something kewl?

Quote from: Ravenswing;681617I imagine it would be next to impossible, if that's the bizarre way a GM wants to function.  I have never, in 36 years of gaming -- other than one-shot convention runs -- ever seen a campaign where players could decide on the spot between one of several characters on an ongoing basis.

And strangely enough, it used to be a somewhat common campaign style.  Different experiences, I guess, eh?  Maybe it's not as bizarre as you think.

Quote from: Ravenswing;681617Speaking of the "gritty" style you cite below, they find 20-shot revolvers, sailing ships that can do 30 mph, ten-story low-tech buildings to be laughable, and indicating that the GM either doesn't know his shit or doesn't give a damn ... and might that not be the only area in which he doesn't know his shit or give a damn?

Clearly it's binary, and the only choices are knowing exactly how many grains of what exact type of gunpowder were used in specific revolvers, and having 20 shot revolvers.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;681689When running an actual historical game, I do my research.  In fantasy games the concept of anachronisms is baffling.

It would never occur to me to try and research the way "real" magical bolts manifested themselves or get an accurate accounting of what "real" dragons ate for breakfast. YMMV.

Well, no, of course there's no real basis for magical bolts or dragons.  That's an absurd analogy to attempt to draw.

But that fantasy campaign takes place in a world which -- unless you're running, say, an Eberron or a Wonderland campaign -- has mostly nothing to do with "fantasy."  Your bog-standard "fantasy" campaign takes place in a medieval setting that, for the most part, would be perfectly understandable to a medieval-times dweller.  People don't eat food magically whisked from the air; campaigns and published settings depict agricultural milieus that any Burgundian villein would recognize.  Warriors don't fight with wheezimithuzits or whacknoodle disks gifted by faeries; they go to war with swords and armor, forged by blacksmiths, that look pretty much like the swords and armor out of the history books.  They travel on ships looking pretty much like they did in the Age of Sail, working with Age of Sail tech.  They wear tunics and cloaks that look pretty much like medieval tunics and cloaks, crafted pretty much the same way you'd expect.

The "it's fantasy so who cares about realism?" line is one of the hoarier in this type of debate, and is more or less bankrupt. We care a lot, almost every one of us. Your fantasy world characters use swords rather than Vorpal Wacky Noodles that decapitate on a touch, don't they? Those characters can't just absent superpowers leap 50' to the tops of battlements, can they? They neither eat vapor they pull from clouds, nor drink rock, nor use their urine as acid in melees. They don't run a hundred miles an hour, and so not have to bother with horses. They tend not to conjure diamonds from mid-air, or go a dozen weeks without sleep.

And if you were running a low-tech campaign where the players claimed to be able to do those things, because "The world's fantasy, ain't it?" you'd think they were whack jobs, wouldn't you?  That there was a threshold of verisimilitude underneath which you just find it too weird to encompass?

And that's the rub -- some of us prefer more verisimilitude than others, and some of us prefer that the realistic elements we eschew are because we just don't want to go there (as with infection or necessary bodily functions) than out of cluelessness or laziness.

Quote from: Ravenswing;681899Well, no, of course there's no real basis for magical bolts or dragons.  That's an absurd analogy to attempt to draw.

But that fantasy campaign takes place in a world which -- unless you're running, say, an Eberron or a Wonderland campaign -- has mostly nothing to do with "fantasy."  Your bog-standard "fantasy" campaign takes place in a medieval setting that, for the most part, would be perfectly understandable to a medieval-times dweller.  People don't eat food magically whisked from the air; campaigns and published settings depict agricultural milieus that any Burgundian villein would recognize.  Warriors don't fight with or whacknoodle disks gifted by faeries; they go to war with swords and armor, forged by blacksmiths, that look pretty much like the swords and armor out of the history books.  They travel on ships looking pretty much like they did in the Age of Sail, working with Age of Sail tech.  They wear tunics and cloaks that look pretty much like medieval tunics and cloaks, crafted pretty much the same way you'd expect.

The "it's fantasy so who cares about realism?" line is one of the hoarier in this type of debate, and is more or less bankrupt. We care a lot, almost every one of us. Your fantasy world characters use swords rather than Vorpal Wacky Noodles that decapitate on a touch, don't they? Those characters can't just absent superpowers leap 50' to the tops of battlements, can they? They neither eat vapor they pull from clouds, nor drink rock, nor use their urine as acid in melees. They don't run a hundred miles an hour, and so not have to bother with horses. They tend not to conjure diamonds from mid-air, or go a dozen weeks without sleep.

And if you were running a low-tech campaign where the players claimed to be able to do those things, because "The world's fantasy, ain't it?" you'd think they were whack jobs, wouldn't you?  That there was a threshold of verisimilitude underneath which you just find it too weird to encompass?

And that's the rub -- some of us prefer more verisimilitude than others, and some of us prefer that the realistic elements we eschew are because we just don't want to go there (as with infection or necessary bodily functions) than out of cluelessness or laziness.

If one were to take magic and monsters out of the equation then things would be a bit closer to what you're talking about.

Leaving them aside, there is a lot of space between worlds of
wheezimithuzits and hardcore historical simulation. Why are there age of sail ships off the coast of that dark age era kingdom? Why haven't these ancient Greeks picked up any technological advancements from their Italian renaissance neighbors?

The bog-standard fantasy world is filled with anachronisms and all kinds of historical "wrongness" already, THEN you add in the monsters and magic. Most GMs know what level of verismilitude is appropriate for the campaign they want to run, and those that know their shit also when to just shrug and realize its fantasy.

Quote from: Ravenswing;681899The "it's fantasy so who cares about realism?" line is one of the hoarier in this type of debate, and is more or less bankrupt. We care a lot, almost every one of us.

I think unless it's a particularly jarring anachronism from what we were expecting most people aren't bothered if the GM hasn't researched the right kind of iron that was used in horseshoes, but putting in the extra effort is almost always appreciated by players I find so can be a valuable string in the bow of a good GM.