I just discovered tonight that people offer paid GMing lessons on Roll20.  So apparently everyone is capable of becoming a GM if they pay enough.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1023589You can keep all the powergamers. Those clowns are a waste of space.

All your "Serious Gamer" stories sound like escapees from a mental hospital or champions of the asshole brigade.

I'd agree with that; I first ran into this kind of gaming in the summer of '75, and I still think that they are, as you say, "a waste of space" and the biggest single reason why I don't go to game conventions. One powergamer can totally ruin the best-planned and-built game, both for me and the other players.

I like your point, and I think it's accurate. I don't think they're escaped patients, but I do think they're assholes. Which is why I avoid them, and then they get cranked when I don't run games for them or play in theirs - they simply can't get their heads around it. After forty years, I'm tired of this kind of thing, and I don;t want to waste any more of my life and energy on that kind of gaming.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1023104Anybody can, with practice, learn to be a "pretty good" referee.

Maybe to be "great" you need a certain inborn talent, or a lot more work, or whatever.  But anybody can learn to run a fun game.  Period.

If by anybody you mean anybody who has the ability to learn to play an RPG, than certainly anybody can GM one. Whether they want to and whether they are interested in doing the work to become reasonably good at GMing are different questions. GMing is skill like many others. On the degree of difficulty scale it is hardly rocket science or brain surgery nor does being an adequate GM require the level of effort and native ability that is required to become a world class athlete.

And I agree with those who mentioned dungeon crawling. I think the original focus of D&D on dungeons provided an easy porint for new DMs/GMs to learn and the encounter tables and other rules provided a semi-automated process to facilitate the DM creating that initial setting.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1023656The main RPG page has a thread about Can Anyone GM? and your thoughts on how AW helps new GMs would be interesting.

I don't think everyone has the ability to become a good GM. Slow thinkers will slow down play in most games where the GM is the bottleneck. People with a weak theory of mind who have a hard time seeing the world from the perspective of various NPCs won't produce compelling conflicts and will either let NPCs take unreasonable courses of action or let them act on information they don't have.

But, something that is often forgotten is that GMing is a skill that can be taught and trained. And just as with any skill just doing it over and over won't produce the same results as directed training and learning specific techniques. I had GMd various systems and freeform scenarios for about a decade when I ran into Apocalypse World and the process of GMing that game let me do a massive leap in GMing ability. Apocalypse World fundamentally does two things to help the GM:

A. it sets up rules to follow. Instead of providing rules just for conflict resolution, or the physics of the world, it gives the GM three overarching rules:
1. Make Apocalypse World Seem Real.
2. Makes the PCs lives not boring.
3. Play to find out what happens.

Important stuff that the GM can fall back on whenever they are unsure what to do. If they don't know how to resolve a situation, make the outcome realistic. If they don't know what to throw at the players, make something exciting happen (note: it does not say make the players have fun). Play to find out what happens stops the GM from destroying the game removing player agency.

B. Freeing up GM brainspace. The GM has a list of moves. Whenever a PC fails a roll, or when the table goes quiet, the GM makes a move. The list basically boil down to either foreshadowing or setting up a situation. The brilliant part of having a list is that it frees up mental resources and provides constraint to be creative in. The most often used move is "Announce future badness." this gives the players something to react to, and if they don't react, something bad is likely to happen. The apocalypse setting directs the GMs brain to typical bad stuff, the distant war cries of cannibals, the water reserve is almost empty etc. Another favorite of mine is "Separate them", someone has wandered off on their own and might have to deal with a situation their character is not good at, someone might be presented with treasure and have the opportunity to be selfish about it etc.

Putting all rolls in the hands of the players. The GM does not need to simulate the actions of his NPCs by rolling for them, he simply makes the world seem real by letting them do reasonable things. There is no need to roll an opposed strength check to see if a mutant brute can beat the malnourished midget in arm-wrestling, it simply happens, there is no need to see if the sniper can blow the head off a PC, you simply announce they see the distant glint of a scope and if they stand around they are shot.

The loop of setting up situations, putting the players in the situation to react and then following through with the to you most obvious outcome (or if they have a move that determines the outcome you don't even need to do that) takes up very few resources in your brain and is not incidentally the fundamental loop of improv theatre. You set something up, someone reacts and you do the most obvious thing next. What seems obvious to you will seem real to the others and sometimes, if its something they didn't consider, they will be surprised and delighted. Playing NPCs is also helped with a list, each NPC is assigned a type and a primary drive. Through this you can easily determine their next action, the added bonus is the players will notice that this character is consistent. An example would be a warlord: collector. Warlords have their own list of moves (example: buying out an ally) and collectors have a specific drive (to own people).

So my thought process as GM might go:
Alright, the PCs a trekking through the territory of this warlord. It's a collector so it will want to own people. A warlord move is "encircle someone". I tell the PCs they have been surrounded by warriors, their demands are they enter the service of their warlord.

The problem with most AW-hacks is they don't understand this loop and how carefully the different NPC types and GM moves are curated to both create interesting play and to gel with the setting. An AW-hack in a different setting would require different NPCs and different GM moves. The basic loop is brilliant through, and after GMing Apocalypse World and learning this loop I use it in all other games, only stepping away from it when that game makes specific demands.

To my mind no other game has explicitly taught its gameplay loop to the GM, at least not one which is this open and can produce a "true" roleplaying experience. Another game that creates an explicit loop but fails as a roleplaying game is 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars. There is an explicit loop of missions, levelling up and the campaign escalating as the threats increase and the orders given to higher ranking PCs become contradictory. The problem is that it's a very constrained loop that does not include the limitlessness that is the strength of tapletop roleplaying. It does not provide help when covering situations that are not related to the missions while the gameplay loop of Apocalypse World is all encompassing.

Everyone does not like Apocalypse World but it's my firm belief that anyone who GMs it will become better at their craft. I believe it's possible to write a manual for completely fresh GMs that can take them step by step and teach them the ropes without having to spend hundreds of hours doing trial and error or watching someone else do it. There is an endless sea of bad GM practices that are often laid bare in various discussions but I believe there is a much smaller set of good GM practices could possibly be compiled into a manual that could help even people of mediocre intelligence, empathy and charisma to entertain a full table for hours.

Note: GMs in Apocalypse World are called MCs, so you don't get confused reading another discussion about it.



Now, I'd love to see if someone disagrees with anything I've said or if they can offer another game which accomplished the same thing earlier.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1023589Just people??? WTF. Players are pawns for our ego gratification! What hobby are you in?

I'm in the 'Sunshine and Rainbow Dream Wish Fulfillment Chapter' of our hobby! I may gore you with my horned viking helmet, but it's mostly boffer NERF -- no critical injuries or lasting damage.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1023104Anybody can, with practice, learn to be a "pretty good" referee.

Maybe to be "great" you need a certain inborn talent, or a lot more work, or whatever.  But anybody can learn to run a fun game.  Period.

Never underestimate the ability of stupid people to prove us wrong.

I can guarantee you that there are people who if they GMed or reffed a game would suck every atom of enjoyment from it somehow.

Quote from: Omega;1023767I can guarantee you that there are people who if they GMed or reffed a game would suck every atom of enjoyment from it somehow.

I've met several of those people. Some of them are even convinced that they are good GMs. I'm not sure, however, that with forgiving players, appropriate feedback* and other opportunity to learn from mistakes, etc., that they would be incapable of improving.
*mentioned specifically because I suspect that many of these people are Florence Foster Jenkins-style cases, where too many people are 'in-on-the-joke' or otherwise invested in the status quo, and not enough people are offering constructive criticism.

QuoteNever underestimate the ability of stupid people to prove us wrong.

I don't think anyone disagrees that there is someone somewhere that is simply too stupid (inattentive, inarticulate, etc.) to ever learn to GM passably well. I just think it is really rare, and those people would have to be really limited-- the same kind of people who would never be able to speak in public or ride a bike or work a VCR/smart phone/etc.

The intellectual baseline to run an RPG isn't high. If you can play, you can GM.

The real barrier for a lot of people, though, is temperamental. Having a very passive or indecisive temperament can be just as limiting as a cognitive deficiency. Some people are simply incapable of taking any kind of leadership or decisive actions in a social environment. They're spectators in life. Sometimes passive participants. Never initiators, organisers, or leaders. Putting a book in front of them and telling them to run an adventure, even after they've seen it done for years as a player, is as daunting to them as telling someone who hates water to row a boat out to an island half a mile off shore. It's just not going to happen.

Just wanted to echo the 'if I can do it anyone can'.  It's a specific skill set, and some will be better than others at certain parts.  But anyone can run a fun game with the right amount of work put into it.

"Everyone can learn to be an effective public speaker".

Both true and not really true.

Quote from: EOTB;1023802"Everyone can learn to be an effective public speaker".

Both true and not really true.

No, but that's the approximate threshold, and that's why I used it, ride a bike, or operate a VCR (or smart phone) as kind of a guideline. If someone were to make the statement 'anyone can learn to ride a bike,' we'd all know that they really meant 'almost anyone can ride a bike, and those who can't have some really shitty life-events going on probably more important that the bike riding.' Same with the others.

Anyone can be a game-master it's just that not all will be good at it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1023810No, but that's the approximate threshold, and that's why I used it, ride a bike, or operate a VCR (or smart phone) as kind of a guideline. If someone were to make the statement 'anyone can learn to ride a bike,' we'd all know that they really meant 'almost anyone can ride a bike, and those who can't have some really shitty life-events going on probably more important that the bike riding.' Same with the others.

These things don't tap into deep subconscious fears though.  They're technical in nature.

Game mastering requires people conquer: 1) laziness 2) being the center of attention and 3) possess the "it" factor.   To be done well.  

It's like saying "everyone can be healthy".  Well, yes.  And yet only a tiny minority of people will ever be healthy, because it's work and giving up other pleasures.  And then on top of that it, the process must unfold in front of people whose esteem is valued.

I think it's more like playing basketball:  Almost anyone can do it, exceptions being those with certain physical, mental, or emotional disabilities.  Even that bar is fairly low, if the candidate is interested enough.  But "playing basketball" covers everything from playing in the backyard with a bunch of equally talentless hacks all the way up to peak contests that start with a height minimum and only get tougher on the restrictions from there.  If you bounce the ball off your foot half the time you try to dribble, can barely even attempt a layup, and are a little vague on the rules--you and the others might still have a great deal of fun and learn something along the way.  

How well does the prospective GM insist on performing, how much effort will they expend, how much natural talent do they have, and when do they expect to reach that minimum threshold that will satisfy them?  Only then can I tell you whether they can GM in a way that will satisfy them or not.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1023834I think it's more like playing basketball:  Almost anyone can do it, exceptions being those with certain physical, mental, or emotional disabilities.  Even that bar is fairly low, if the candidate is interested enough.  But "playing basketball" covers everything from playing in the backyard with a bunch of equally talentless hacks all the way up to peak contests that start with a height minimum and only get tougher on the restrictions from there.  If you bounce the ball off your foot half the time you try to dribble, can barely even attempt a layup, and are a little vague on the rules--you and the others might still have a great deal of fun and learn something along the way.  

How well does the prospective GM insist on performing, how much effort will they expend, how much natural talent do they have, and when do they expect to reach that minimum threshold that will satisfy them?  Only then can I tell you whether they can GM in a way that will satisfy them or not.

Well, that raises the question of whether there is "objectively good GMing" with certain kinds of practices or games, or if all that matters is "are people having fun."