What kind of advice should DM/GM guides give?

[Krusk]

If a GM has a custom world and custom plot then it is very unlikely that you can replace the GM without significantly altering the gameworld and the plot. You can pretend that you continue the same game but effectively you have started a new one, which is somewhat similar to the earlier game (and hopefully much better). I suppose that the distinction is academic for some groups. However, the distinction in fundamental for most groups I have played with. In these games the story/campaign is very much about discovering the plot/motivations of NPCs step by step. In such games replacing the GM is not an option.

DMG should provide advice that is not specific for certain play style. I do not think that the advice "Replace the GM and continue with the game" is good universal advice.

Well no shit its going to have some differences. I don't know all his twists and turns that he had planned, but since it sucked and those sucked I'm ok with that. I think most people would be too.

**Fixed my quote tags

[Kuri Näkk]

It's not like the content generated by the MC is entirely dependent on the actions of the players. /../ No, that would be silly.

It is silly to put it mildly. Firstly, some of the content is generated between the sessions when the players do not ‘act’. Good GMs try to guess player interest and generate the content accordingly but this is very far from "being entirely dependent on player actions". You are fool if you do not give a shit what happens 'off-screen' because it defines what you can interact with in the game. You cannot refuse to go to a mission if you are not offered one. Secondly, in game, the GM responds to player action but only a fraction of the content depends on players’ actions. A player may ask: "Do I find something of value in the chest?" and the GM responds but whether and what the player actually finds is not dependent on the player's decision to search the chest.

It's not like the characters use the same rules as the MC to accomplish tasks.

Surprise! The rules only partly cover NPC actions. Seems like you have never been a GM. Besides, the GM determines conditions for actions, which directly impact the likelihood of accomplishing the tasks. A player cannot do this.

GM's position is unique. Stop being ludicrous.

EDIT: Deleted the note about posts appearing weird. It is no longer a problem.

[Kaelik]

If a GM has a custom world and custom plot then it is very unlikely that you can replace the GM without significantly altering the gameworld and the plot. You can pretend that you continue the same game but effectively you have started a new one, which is somewhat similar to the earlier game (and hopefully much better). I suppose that the distinction is academic for some groups. However, the distinction in fundamental for most groups I have played with. In these games the story/campaign is very much about discovering the plot/motivations of NPCs step by step. In such games replacing the GM is not an option.

You have a very stupid definition of what constitutes a campaign. Here let's try an example:

The DM Robert Jordan wants to write a series run a campaign. Because he dies is a shitty DM, a new writer DM takes control named Brandon Sanderson. Now to the audience players they only know the things that they were already told, and not what Robert Jordan planned. But the new guy, he finishes the series campaign.

Is Tower of Midnight not the real end to Wheel of Time?

DMG should provide advice that is not specific for certain play style. I do not think that the advice "Replace the GM and continue with the game" is good universal advice.

I think the advice, "If the DM thinks he is your boss, fuck him in the eye with a sharp dildo" is essential to all games.

[Kuri Näkk]

You have a very stupid definition of what constitutes a campaign. Here let's try an example:

You miss the point. If you tell the GM to get lost a lot of information goes with him. In that sense the GM is irreplaceable. If you do not care about the information and are happy to generate your own - good for you! However, in the games I play the loss of information is considered important enough that “continuing” the story seems like too much work – it would be easier to start from the scratch.

[Kaelik]

You have a very stupid definition of what constitutes a campaign. Here let's try an example:

You miss the point. If you tell the GM to get lost a lot of information goes with him. In that sense the GM is irreplaceable. If you do not care about the information and are happy to generate your own - good for you! However, in the games I play the loss of information is considered important enough that “continuing” the story seems like too much work – it would be easier to start from the scratch.

Branden Sanderson writes great books on his own. But the information lost by the departure of Robert Jordan doesn't matter. The Silmarillion, Wheel of Time, and the finish to ASOIAF are all just as inherently finishes to those series even when not written by the author who started them. The starting information that is all the audience had is known to the new control, and the control builds off the established characters and setting.

Any extrapolated secrets are just as real coming from person two as whatever person one would have had.

[Krusk]

You miss the point. If you tell the GM to get lost a lot of information goes with him. In that sense the GM is irreplaceable. If you do not care about the information and are happy to generate your own - good for you!

By default you don't care about this because we just decided that the GM is a bag of shit and wasn't worth keeping around.

Who cares if you don't get the same info that GM would give, you have already decided that GM had shitty ideas.

[Kuri Näkk]

I personally find most ‘endings’ to unfinished fiction stories terrible. However, this is beside the point. Our disagreement seems to be about the issue whether it is good idea to replace the GM and try to continue with the story. Apparently our experiences differ. In my experience it is either this:

Who cares if you don't get the same info that GM would give, you have already decided that GM had shitty ideas.

A jackass GM with shitty ideas. And shitty custom world and plot. No-one cares to continue.

Or this:

The starting information that is all the audience had is known to the new control, and the control builds off the established characters and setting.

A GM with great imagination but even greater ego. The campaign was absorbing before it turned sour. No-one is eager to step into the shoes of the GM because they are rather large. More fundamentally, it would be very much work to establish what the setting was. It is RPG not a book. It is not written down. As a player you did not pay that much attention when the GM had a dialogue with another player. Chances are you were not even present because the game was often a series of mini-games where each player was given a piece of the puzzle. Some players do not want to discuss the setting as a group because they have dark secrets or some shit, which they prefer other players to not know about in case the campaign continues. In short, it is too much trouble to try to establish what the setting was. It is much easier to just start a new campaign.

[Omegonthesane]

You have a very stupid definition of what constitutes a campaign. Here let's try an example:

You miss the point. If you tell the GM to get lost a lot of information goes with him. In that sense the GM is irreplaceable. If you do not care about the information and are happy to generate your own - good for you! However, in the games I play the loss of information is considered important enough that “continuing” the story seems like too much work – it would be easier to start from the scratch.

Branden Sanderson writes great books on his own. But the information lost by the departure of Robert Jordan doesn't matter. The Silmarillion, Wheel of Time, and the finish to ASOIAF are all just as inherently finishes to those series even when not written by the author who started them. The starting information that is all the audience had is known to the new control, and the control builds off the established characters and setting.

Any extrapolated secrets are just as real coming from person two as whatever person one would have had.

As Kuri went on to allude to, albeit from a different direction, the finishes to the Silmarillion and Wheel of Time were done from the equivalent of the GM's notes, which don't necessarily exist either at all or in an accessible place if you've just deposed the shit GM.

George RR Martin is on record as saying he wants ASOIAF to be unfinished forever if he dies with the task incomplete, rather than have "some hack" finish the job, so the third example isn't entirely valid.

[erik]

I've played campaigns where my group of friends shared the same campaign world over multiple DMs. Whenever there was DM burnout or a player just really wanted to DM we'd have their PCs tag off and change DMs in the same world. We had our own little portions of it, but we shared things too.

Another more obvious refutation to the notion that interchangeable DMs is impossibru would be RPGA and other Living Campaigns.

[shadzar]

I've played campaigns where my group of friends shared the same campaign world over multiple DMs. Whenever there was DM burnout or a player just really wanted to DM we'd have their PCs tag off and change DMs in the same world. We had our own little portions of it, but we shared things too.

Another more obvious refutation to the notion that interchangeable DMs is impossibru would be RPGA and other Living Campaigns.

you are really trying to use a giant rialroad as your example why multiple DMs one world works? well it doesnt.

those RPGA things are giant railroads and only slight difference can be done with a DM running them in order for you to be able to move on to the next one. they aren't really "living" campaigns but worldwide clusterfucks. people that most players have never met are jsut writing out the next chapter of a book and you pay through it. it is one reason that DL didnt translate well into the DLCs because they are jsut giant railroads.

on advantage of D&D is being able to go off the rials of a story and do something different from the character you have already read about.

in the case of multiple DMs one world, you don't have a living world, not evne a stable one, you have pocket dimensions withint he world, a mishmash of nonsense to many people. you might as well be playing one-shots and just call the planet whatever the name is in all the one shots.

as with GRRM, only the person that begins the story can finish it correctly. someone else might get close or do something good, but will NOT be able to complete the story as it was started.

ergo a guide should tell DMs NOT to do that sort of DMing, but rather have the DM take a break, let a new DM step up for a one shot, or jsut play multiple games at once. it goes back to the what Gary said:

game first
campaign next
players last

the game CAN continue with a new DM, but the campaign cannot, so just play a new game with a new DM for a while then come back, this allows parts 1 and 3 to go seamlessly without someone else fucking it up.

the ONLY way this multiple DM one world thing works is if EVERYONE n the group is so like minded to begin with, and that can be boring and counter to what kind of game many people want to play if everyone is of the same mind for everything. you need diversity in player ideas as much as you do in class abilities and party make up in order to fill all the needed gaps.

[fectin]

Yes, Gary said a lot of things. And RPGs wouldn't exist without him. But even so.
Every description of Gary's settings I have ever heard was trite and childish.
Every piece of GM advice I have ever heard from Gary was bad and selfish.
Every story I have ever heard of Gary's table was tiresome and arrogant.

Why would I value his opinion on anything?

[Kuri Näkk]

I've played campaigns where my group of friends shared the same campaign world over multiple DMs. /../ Another more obvious refutation to the notion that interchangeable DMs is impossibru would be RPGA and other Living Campaigns.

I do not think it is relevant to the question whether you can continue the same story after players have told the GM to get lost. I believe that this will not work for many groups. It definitely has never worked for the groups I have played with.

Whenever there was DM burnout or a player just really wanted to DM we'd have their PCs tag off and change DMs in the same world. We had our own little portions of it, but we shared things too.

I wonder, why is it necessary for each GM to have his/her little portion if GMs are so interchangeable?

[erik]

Whenever there was DM burnout or a player just really wanted to DM we'd have their PCs tag off and change DMs in the same world. We had our own little portions of it, but we shared things too.

I wonder, why is it necessary for each GM to have his/her little portion if GMs are so interchangeable?

Because sometimes we didn't feel like returning to various locations, especially if they were dungeons/modules that we'd pretty much wrapped up. You don't return to the quaint hobgoblin keep/dungeon that you cut your adventuring teeth on.

[edit: TAGGGGGGG]

[Koumei]

So apparently the DMG should just show a photo of shadzar, and a list of his various posts, and big red "DON'T BE LIKE HIM" writing across it.

[Aryxbez]

I think the advice on anti-shadzar would just confuse most people what to avoid, as they'd be unable to get through one of his pointless spiels. Though it would be great to see the priceless things he's said, like how he's Mike Mearl's Palpatine (giving him ideas to sow discord).

For added discussion, there's what I brought up earlier in this thread. To clarify, what is the appeal of being a DM, especially for the posters here? I think a strong case toward that incentive, and rules to making that easy as possible could bring in more DM's. As well the social contract, what questions/queries should it all contain specifically? May sound obvious, but it seems to me RPG groups find the aspect of being on the same page, and communication before the fact of playing, rather anathema in their minds.

I imagine those two things could be threads unto their own, but figured it'd belong here. Otherwise I'll just make a thread.

[wotmaniac]

TheFlatline's "if you talk during combat at all, your characters literally say what you say unless you state otherwise!" is one of the funniest house rules I've ever heard. I've never heard anyone be such a nazi about it.

You'd like to think that, but I played with a lot of DMs that would assume that. The "lenient" ones would at least ask "Is your character really saying that?" or some such, and allow you to redact or reword it.

Of course, this was 15 year ago, back when I was still playing 2E. There was an entire culture centered around DMs being complete assholes back then, and on how this was a good thing for the game. It mostly centered on some misguided notion about this being the DM's game and a passive-aggressive attempt from the DM to cut down on chatter during the game (How dare you have fun OOC?! Get out of my basement!).

I think that our experiences have been different in this matter. That's not to say that such an SOP can't be abused by misguided/malicious DMs -- sure, I've seen those DMs that take every single word that comes out of your mouth as an excuse to fuck over PCs ("no no no -- I specifically heard you tell the king that you wanted to recreate that scene from The Accused on his daughter; don't even bother rolling initiative, you just wake up in a prison cell") ..... but I've only seen that as the exception.

Once you get use to it, it starts to become reflexive ... letting you have all the OOC fun you want without worry.
The goal is to encourage player immersion. By contrast, I've also seen many a game, absent any sort of IC/OOC mechanism, devolve in to nothing more than a chit-chat gathering ("um, did we even have a game going on?")
Douchebags are gonna douchebag -- blaming it on a given mechanism just seems a bit fallacious/misguided.

Side note: our group's OOC gesture has become so reflexive for me, that I actually have to consciously have to stop myself from doing it in normal conversation (usually happens when I'm either making an aside to a single person in a group or when generally using a parenthetical).

Another more obvious refutation to the notion that interchangeable DMs is impossibru would be RPGA and other Living Campaigns.

1) RPGA is shit. Nifty idea; but still shit.
2) What you've just done is simply describe a specific example where there is access to "DM notes", so to speak.
--- point being, that without access to the former DM's notes, carrying on is indeed playing a different game, irrespective of whether or not you happen to be continuing the same "campaing", per se.

[Artless]

It's not like the content generated by the MC is entirely dependent on the actions of the players. /../ No, that would be silly.

It is silly to put it mildly. Firstly, some of the content is generated between the sessions when the players do not ‘act’. Good GMs try to guess player interest and generate the content accordingly but this is very far from "being entirely dependent on player actions".

Offscreen content is not relevant to the game until the MC's prompted to present it by the players and indeed, does not matter one iota in the event they don't.

You are fool if you do not give a shit what happens 'off-screen' because it defines what you can interact with in the game. You cannot refuse to go to a mission if you are not offered one.

And you're a sycophant if you think I'm required to ride a roller coaster just because someone put it there.

Secondly, in game, the GM responds to player action but only a fraction of the content depends on players’ actions. A player may ask: "Do I find something of value in the chest?" and the GM responds but whether and what the player actually finds is not dependent on the player's decision to search the chest.

One hundred percent of the content depends on the players, including the MC, interacting with it. The MC populates the world with whatever stuff they want. The characters are under no obligation to interact with any particular part of it.
To whit: The MC puts a door in the supernatural nightclub with a big lock on it, but the players ignore it and instead chat up drunk patrons, eventually leaving to go find a sleazier club. What was in the door?
Answer: it'd doesn't matter. It will never matter because the players did not deign to find out.

It's not like the characters use the same rules as the MC to accomplish tasks.

Surprise! The rules only partly cover NPC actions.

Those not included as actions in the game are tantamount to flavor text, which the MC does not have a monopoly on.

Besides, the GM determines conditions for actions, which directly impact the likelihood of accomplishing the tasks. A player cannot do this.

The MC determines difficulty according to the rules in the same way players decide whether they've bought armor or if they cast Grease on a slope. Everyone is capable of altering the conditions under which a character conducts a test using the things spelled out in the rules.

This is the argument we're having.

If you're suggesting that the MC is special because they can heap on modifiers supplied in the rules to alter a task's difficulty, all you're saying is they're capable of abiding by the ruleset the entire table is using to do stuff. And even then, the players don't have to interact yadda yadda yadda. If instead you're saying they are special because they can arbitrarily alter a task's difficulty just because, then what you're really saying is the MC is special because they are dicks who think their made up nonsense is more important than everyone else's made up nonsense.

[Fuchs]

To clarify, what is the appeal of being a DM, especially for the posters here? I think a strong case toward that incentive, and rules to making that easy as possible could bring in more DM's. As well the social contract, what questions/queries should it all contain specifically? May sound obvious, but it seems to me RPG groups find the aspect of being on the same page, and communication before the fact of playing, rather anathema in their minds.

When we started, back in 1991, the biggest incentive to be the GM in our group was that someone had to be the GM so we could play at all.

[wotmaniac]

To clarify, what is the appeal of being a DM, especially for the posters here? I think a strong case toward that incentive, and rules to making that easy as possible could bring in more DM's. As well the social contract, what questions/queries should it all contain specifically? May sound obvious, but it seems to me RPG groups find the aspect of being on the same page, and communication before the fact of playing, rather anathema in their minds.

When we started, back in 1991, the biggest incentive to be the GM in our group was that someone had to be the GM so we could play at all.

Yep -- same here .... well, at least to start.
My incentive for continuing to DM as a preference is a proactive refusal to sit under a stereotypically-shitty DM.

[TheFlatline]

The hilarious PhoneLobster vs TheFlatline debate raises a question about when the players are talking as characters or as themselves. Which is actually sort of interesting. Generally it seems to be a pretty intuitive thing. If a Player 1 says to Player 2 "I am going to fly over the regiment of Doom Warriors and hit the Doom General with my death ray!", I think most DM's would assume that is a player-to-player act of speech. But it could easily be something Character 1 says to Character 2 at the same time.

TheFlatline's "if you talk during combat at all, your characters literally say what you say unless you state otherwise!" is one of the funniest house rules I've ever heard. I've never heard anyone be such a nazi about it.

A DM could apply this funny rule to all parts of the game as well. During an important diplomatic event, the players might say, "What should we tell this totally smokin' princess for the ideal outcome, preferably involving penetration omg lol" Should the DM assume that is said "in character in a language everyone understands"? That would probably make almost all the cool storytelling possibilities fall apart.

You could totally have a rule in a game that said all player talk about the stuff in the game is assumed to be in-character unless stated otherwise. It would probably make a really fucked up game in most cases.

Most LARPs generally have a caveat that unless you show you're talking out of character, you're in character. And you know what? It doesn't fuck the game up. The opposite in fact, it makes players focus on the game. Sure you may fuck up because you aren't perfect or could think of the perfect solution in a 5 minute break, but fucking up is what makes the game fun, that's why we have dice, that's why our PCs can *fail* at things. Otherwise it's just masturbatory theater. On one hand, yes there is a divide between what the PC knows and what he doesn't know, and on the other, a total disconnect between any in-game pressure and your cool, calm, deliberated, and sometimes decided on by committee bon mot is kind of bullshit.

I'm not a nazi about the rule either (I only invoke it in combat when things are getting out of hand), but it's there for two main reasons: One is to get people who might be bulldozed by a quarterbacker using some basic in-game logic. The other is to get away from a single combat taking three fucking hours because everyone counts every square seven times and then votes by committee what each character does. It's bullshit and boring and if it drags the game down damn right I'm going to look at ways to increase the tempo.

I am surprised that a single fucking skill point in D&D 3.x is such a terrible price to ask for the in-character justification to metagame your heart out.

Actually, from the other responses, it looks like people think I'm stating that OOC chat is actually IC. I'm not. When someone says "where should I dump this fireball?" followed by a round of square counting, discussing who probably will take the most damage, who can stand to take a fireball in the PC party, etc etc... All I'm saying is that the NPCs have a chance to figure out the players' tactics, either by *listening* to them "I'll dump a fireball so it doesn't hit doug" "I can take it nevermind!" or by actually paying attention to what the players are doing.

But maybe you're right, maybe they should all be braindead NPCs so that the PCs can meta to their hearts content. I'm sure that's a BIG improvement in game quality.

[Omegonthesane]

I'm not a nazi about the rule either (I only invoke it in combat when things are getting out of hand), but it's there for two main reasons: One is to get people who might be bulldozed by a quarterbacker using some basic in-game logic. The other is to get away from a single combat taking three fucking hours because everyone counts every square seven times and then votes by committee what each character does. It's bullshit and boring and if it drags the game down damn right I'm going to look at ways to increase the tempo.

Having not seen a combat get that bogged down by OOC teamwork ever in the last 4 years of gaming, I have to wonder about your group - but that's not the relevant point.

I am surprised that a single fucking skill point in D&D 3.x is such a terrible price to ask for the in-character justification to metagame your heart out.

You shouldn't be. It isn't the magnitude of the cost that's offensive - it's the existence of the cost. Allow or don't allow metagame tactics, full stop - allowing people to spend a skill point, or a feat, or a level, or a blowjob, to get it just means everyone has one less skill point/feat/level/fellatio and the problem is completely unresolved.

Actually, from the other responses, it looks like people think I'm stating that OOC chat is actually IC. I'm not. When someone says "where should I dump this fireball?" followed by a round of square counting, discussing who probably will take the most damage, who can stand to take a fireball in the PC party, etc etc... All I'm saying is that the NPCs have a chance to figure out the players' tactics, either by *listening* to them "I'll dump a fireball so it doesn't hit doug" "I can take it nevermind!" or by actually paying attention to what the players are doing.

But maybe you're right, maybe they should all be braindead NPCs so that the PCs can meta to their hearts content. I'm sure that's a BIG improvement in game quality.

I doubt anyone's seriously argued that latter strawman - if nothing else TGD in general is fond of monsters actually using their abilities tactically. Recall the abortive Bone Devil VS Grognard Party battle when we last got entangled with theRPGsite.

[PhoneLobster]

allowing people to spend a skill point, or a feat, or a level, or a blowjob, to get it just means everyone has one less skill point/feat/level/fellatio and the problem is completely unresolved.

And that is exactly the problem.

Actual rules/measures to prevent the dreaded "quarter backing" would be "ask them to stop doing that" or "tell bossy bob to shut the hell up".

Actual rules/measures to prevent "bogging down" or taking too long planning, which again is a severe rarity as a serious problem in combat (planning time blow outs tend to happen at much more abstract out of combat decision points in my experience, like deciding when and where to fight rather than what to do once a fight starts), would instead look like "OK I've had enough of this I'm putting a timer on your turns like speed chess".

Saying "go ahead and keep doing it but I demand skill points!" is very stupid bullshit that gets nothing done other than ass.

[Bihlbo]

Seems like the agreed-upon element that aught to be included in a GM's guide is "quarterbacking is bad, here are methods to make it stop."

[Kaelik]

Seems like the agreed-upon element that aught to be included in a GM's guide is "quarterbacking is bad, here are methods to make it stop."

I don't think that is even remotely agreed upon. I certainly don't agree. Even if one player actually making all the decisions for others was bad, which I'm not sure it is, as some people legitimately do not mind, I would still be against including in any GM guide.

The bottom line is that to the extent that one player decision making is a problem, it looks a lot like communication, and if you start suggesting that DMs try to take control of how the players make decisions, you are fucking yourself hard.

[MGuy]

To clarify, what is the appeal of being a DM, especially for the posters here? I think a strong case toward that incentive, and rules to making that easy as possible could bring in more DM's. As well the social contract, what questions/queries should it all contain specifically? May sound obvious, but it seems to me RPG groups find the aspect of being on the same page, and communication before the fact of playing, rather anathema in their minds.

When we started, back in 1991, the biggest incentive to be the GM in our group was that someone had to be the GM so we could play at all.

Yep -- same here .... well, at least to start.
My incentive for continuing to DM as a preference is a proactive refusal to sit under a stereotypically-shitty DM.

Line by line this is my response.