Want some coverage of the Origins Game Fair, happening right now in Columbus, OH? Look at this great coverage of Monte Cook’s seminar on better GMing, which just happened this week at Origins. It’s excellent — wise, frank, and low on the secret tricks but high on the common sense restated for our own encouragement. Monte Cook demystifies the art of the GM in a wonderful way, and Critical Hits’ coverage gets that across wonderfully.
A friendly reminder: Jeff is there right now at the Adventure Retail/Atlas Games/Steve Jackson/Fantasy Flight Games booth, and I’ll be wandering Columbus, sans computer and sans plan, much of Saturday afternoon. If you recognize me, say hello. Otherwise, I’ll see you back here on the Internet on Sunday.
[via CriticalHits.com]
Great stuff. Here in Tucson we are about to have the first ever Gamemaster’s Conference. I think this is far, far overdue. Other than a few seminars/panels at conventions, where the GM stuff is surrounded by the opportunity to go and actually be playing, and a few texts, there hasn’t been any kind of concerted effort to help GMs become better over the years – no mentoring programs, no training, no assistance of any kind. It’s a wonder GMs like me even know which way up the book should be.
I have been a part of three serious initiatives to create GM-making seminars and convention programs, none of which have ever actually come to fruition.
The trouble is that few companies have been shown that investing in GMs improves sales (I have my theories why this is), and individual GMs often (believe they) have little reason to work to improve.
If the conference is a success here, we will be launching a mentoring program. I think every GM has something to learn from each other. We’re not 16 anymore, we’re a lot stupider now than we used to be.
Here’s the meetup for the conference. It is going to be star-studded:
http://www.meetup.com/TucsonRPG/calendar/10486141/
Something similar was tried by the RPGA in the early aughts, and they experienced significant resistance. RPGA training and certification was seen by many as impugning their current DM prowess.
Perhaps voluntary involvement would have helped that medicine go down. I also like the psychological judo Jason uses that you’d have to be silly to not want to improve.
For sure, Jason’s got a great angle on it. The approach I’ve always taken is that GMing is a skill, which means you can get good at it, you can get rusty, and you can always be better. We get better at it by sharing notes and coming into contact with the largest number of players.
Good GMs, traditionally, don’t do the hobby a lot of good, though. Crazy, but here’s why: they don’t turn over players that often. Which is good, in that they’re not driving people away, but I think a huge portion of good DMs/GMs/Storytellers keep the same players for years and years, because why would they leave that game? Such groups may stick with the same RPG or campaign for years, never getting curious about other games or GMs. And that great GM may only service ten players in a decade, let’s say. That’s a small number to be exposed to the value of a good GM. That GM is, if you will, going to waste.
What we need is to give good GMs good reason to run games for new players. Nothing beats seeing a new player delight in an RPG with a great GM.
I think you mean “industry” when you say “hobby”, Will…forty to fifty man-years of happy gaming experience per group is more than I can hope to ever give to RPGing. The industry probably desires more crappy GMs sending out waves of gloomy players into stores to buy the game that THIS TIME will be fun, but such madness – or is it marketing? – but I repeat myself – is beyond my ken.
RPGA certification, as I recall it back in the dim depths of my memory, was gauged towards the needs of that organization for uniform play rather than towards the development and dissemination of successful techniques and how to decide when and whether to apply them. I think it was also very one-way. You studied a booklet/PDF and took a multiple choice test, unless you happened to be at a con or two. Hardly any kind of organized “training”. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with uniform, RPGA-ish play if that’s what you’re into. Me, I would rather bellyflop a few times while trying something new.
I know I’ve confused hobby and industry, as I’ve done a few times before while making this argument, but I didn’t that time.
The point is — and I think it’s a good one, rarely made — that good GMs are potentially bad for business, but I’m not sure they’re good for the hobby either. Those GMs who play the same game with the same 5 people for ten years, they’re not making new players, whether or not they’re making new customers. Also, that GM is learning how to GM wonderfully for those five players — but what could she learn from GMing for other players?
Bad GMs are still bad for everyone, because they drive people away from the games. If your first experience is with a shitty DM, you may think that ire and antagonism is how D&D is meant to be played, and go off for WoW’s graphics and quests as a better DM.
The industry/hobby divide remains illusory, though, as hobbyist publishers continue to publish and breathe life into the hobby — for discussion, for new ideas that can be ported over into other games, etc. — even while they are counted as part of the industry. That the industry’s goals are different from the hobby’s is, alas, true, but they overlap a lot more than they don’t.
That individual years-long campaign isn’t a part of the hobby, either, though. It’s a closed set, only a home game, possibly contributing to the industry by buying 1-5 books however often it does, but that’s it. (There’s the home game, the hobby, and the industry. The home game is part of the hobby’s atomic structure, but the fact that the home game can survive the local death of the hobby is evidence that they are different, separately sustainable or losable things.) But they’re not contributing to the hobby, by default, either. Now, should that great DM start a blog that shares her know-how, or write and listen about the campaign in an Actual Play thread, that group is starting to contribute to the hobby, but not the industry.
That’s fine. Wonderful, in fact. If the hobbyists were to network a little more, see GMing as a skill and take some public pride in being good at it (how many of us know great GMs who are otherwise quiet about being gamers at all?) and being interested in being even better at it, the hobby would strengthen itself by comparing notes. Not every GM would have to learn the same lessons themselves — we could learn from your spectacular belly flops. (And I certainly agree with you there — I’m for GMs striving to improve our average, not for becoming more average.)
Obviously, some of this already happens now in a way it didn’t in the 1980s, with blogs and forums giving the network new tools. We can maximize it, though.
As for the industry — if the player network is strong, and people aren’t so timid about joining new groups or sitting in with strange GMs, the industry’s in a better place, too. It’ll take care of itself if the hobby is well.
I shouldn’t go putting this into comments, though, ’cause I write these too fast and I get parsed for syntax over meaning. I don’t want to give away the value in the larger article, when I finally find time to say it right. I appreciate you putting the argument through its paces, though.
Here’s some thoughtful and thought-provoking writing on the subject from the inestimable Matt Colville: The Lost Art of Adventure Writing & The Death of the Hobby
Just wanted to pop back on over here and say that the GM’s Conference was a phenomenal crazy success. We had 32 attendees in Tucson, a relatively small city, and everyone walked out with high energy, big smiles on their faces and lots of new info and techniques. We’re going to have to switch to a bigger venue for the next one. It’s INSANE how much people want this.
Were the attendees mostly local, or did some come from further afield?
We did have some drive from Phoenix and Bisbee (2-3 hours away). This is a stunning number of people for the size of the town we’re talking about.
In a fit of synchronicity, the population of Tucson actually came up in the Unknown Armies game I ran last week. That’s where the PCs have found themselves, looking for [REDACTED].
That’s fantastic, Jason! I’d love to hear more about it. Is there a wrap up or coverage of it online somewhere?
We just recorded a couple of Pulp Gamer podcasts about it, they’ll be released over the next few weeks. Also, Ron Blessing brought a microphone and recorded it as best he could with just a single pickup, so I’ll post when that goes up too!
When I come back from Gen Con, I’d love to ask you a few questions about the event for a post here at the site, if you’re game.
Absolutely, drop me a line at my e-mail address.
We are working on the mentoring program now. It’s a bit more complicated/involved.
Great pscadot gentlemen… How I miss Lou’s games at the Dragon’s Den. I really appreciate the way you all encourage a more free-form approach, adaptive, and extremely player friendly approach as a GMing style with both the interviews. My cardinal sin is that I get too attached to my homebrew as a GM and I get too agitated when the PCs go in an entirely unanticpated direction. But without the players the game is nothing. To be able to work your homebrew entirely around the player’s decisions and actions is something every GM should strive for, myself included. I really liked Jaime’s attention to how the PCs developed their characters and then molded the entire adventure around their thoughts, concepts and ideas… Lou did exactly with that with his round table discussion with his players before he started GMing. Thanks for the honorable mention Rone, I am honored and humbled. Cheers guys! Keep up the good work and good gaming.