Being a good GM, the FAQ

[Princess]

But you sit down and ask them, and they want a challenge, they want a story, they want adversity to overcome, they want a feeling of risk and a sense that (even if ULTIMATELY it isn't there) that there is some sort of potential for some sort of failure.

Soo what? Players enjoying ruining games wont say you "I have fun via stabbing fellow PC'. And by the same reason no one will tell you "I want to crush everything effortlessly to up my self-esteem". Asking such sort of questions makes you receive right answer, not true answer.

About player rehab, it is assumed that you play with this guy all this year. But still it is very hard to persuade him that you really don't want to fuck him up silently lying in ambush and talking to him to let his guard down. Hell, this guy quite possibly had 5 years of suckball gaming experience, and some of dick masters surely told him that he have no need to play paranoid orphan - just to fuck him up.

And another one. You tell that player's don't want to autowin? Well, in general no, but it's not hard to find ones who actually does. Again, they just won't tell you about that. In my experience I had two players who done almost nothing on game (not mentioning scrying on party member. Party member was offended, by the way), and when they failed a quest there were lots of drama, but they gave me no answer how do they supposed to solve the problem. I don't count "waiting for dm's loco" as an answer.

Btw, about one of these players. I was called shitty DM because her Favoured Soul 6 cannot make everybody lick her feets and vagina just by reason of being divine caster. She even mentioned that Church were great in middle ages and Pope was above the kings.. Yeah, but she were just a priest, and actually not a catholic priest in medieval. So she left to her old DM who railroads, makes TPK with falling bricks or CR 50 monsters (it's "detailed" world, the one where if you go anywhere instead of quest location you meet overpowered mobs who are supposed to live here), and yes while they play lvl 15 still nobody licks her feet, instead using party as "go-there-do-this" boys.
I stayed with rest of party who actually were quite happy she left us.

[FatR]

The case where I said that? True. They will likely always believe it, largely because everyone has issues with something, and their issues are with players and regular D&D, both things they think PF helps them with.

Maybe I need to clarify, that this was just an example of player bias that cannot be defeated by logic or reason. Not an example of situation where a solution cannot be found (by circumventing it).

[FatR]

But you know, don't let that prevent you from blaming every imaginary player stereotype in existence for your acrimonious GMing failures

Big news, dude - in our dimension divinations do not work, so stop pretending you know anything about my games, and how I rate my RPG experience.

or prevent you from your ridiculous insistence on dismissing such "insane advice" as "talk to your players" or "stop being a stupid dick".

Fuck your strawman. And advice like "talk to your players" or "stop being a stupid dick" (which is not what I called insane advice, therefore strawman), is about as profound and useful as "be a good man".

EDIT: Princess noted above that the players with problems will tell you what you want to hear, not what the problems are. This tend to apply to the players who have issues with the way the game is run as well. Any comments beyond "that was a good/OK session" often must be pulled with pliers from any players who are not your good friends, particularly if the issues are not big enough to seriously consider quitting the game.

[PhoneLobster]

Precisely WHAT are you disagreeing with here FatR, I'm seeing a lot of defensive venom and NO real content, just endless "Nuh Ahs!"

Telling people to talk to their player and not take all their stuff they like and things like that may seem obvious, but it IS needed advice and especially handy advice for the inexperienced because without it people seriously DO do this stuff.

Which we know YOU do because you are VERY defensive about SOMETHING, we just don't know the details yet because you don't make any fucking sense.

[PhoneLobster]

In my experience I had two players who done almost nothing on game (not mentioning scrying on party member. Party member was offended, by the way), and when they failed a quest there were lots of drama, but they gave me no answer how do they supposed to solve the problem. I don't count "waiting for dm's loco" as an answer.

That sounds more like you were having trouble engaging their interest or they were having trouble understanding how to interact with your story or come up with ideas of their own.

That's almost a whole question on it's own and one I don't think I or anyone else in this thread has had a go at yet, maybe later? It's actually a moderately hard one. I know, I've been there too.

Btw, about one of these players. I was called shitty DM because her Favoured Soul 6 cannot make everybody lick her feets and vagina just by reason of being divine caster.

... I'm not sure I follow the details of this story and which bits are stuff that happened and which bits are just flavorful insults of the player's behavior.

At a guess it sounds like she wanted a lot of "screen time", a religious order of her liking/design in the game world to be part of and possibly a level of sexual domination fantasy that you weren't comfortable with.

"Screen time" is hard to determine who is at fault, or how much it was part of the problem, it's very subjective.

The inserting a religious order of her design or liking into the game world was certainly totally doable and EXACTLY the sort of thing I would advise you do.

The possibly over the line licking fetishes or whatever the hell was going on there falls somewhat into prior advice but also somewhat outside of the realm of stuff you can fix. You CAN ask her to stop it or tone it down a little, many players are capable of doing that, I don't know how many "I wanna do the barmaids!" players I've managed to steer into the acceptable edges of non-porny group role play and away from graphic wank fantasies in front of the group, but it's been a fair few.

Still when you start getting a LOT of problems like that sometimes if you just fix SOME of them the others vanish or become less important. Players can simmer and things can pile up and all become a mountain of anger out of a pile of mole hills of frustration.

Since you could have inserted her apparently authoritarian/groupy-gathering/tongue based religious cult or whatever it was you could have started with whatever was acceptable from that and seen if it helped.

Or maybe it was all a big blow up from other problems you missed.

Mind you a lot of this just suggests to me you are maybe playing with a lot of young and/or inexperienced players? If so then the bad news there being that even though some simple advice from experience might help you a bit it won't help you nearly as much as with older players. Younger people are more hot headed and less experienced in communicating and compromising in social situations.

Conflict resolution and prevention is still possible but a heck of a lot HARDER. You know what they say, "Teenagers".

[FatR]

Precisely WHAT are you disagreeing with here FatR, I'm seeing a lot of defensive venom and NO real content, just endless "Nuh Ahs!"

Fuck your strawman. And fuck you too. You know with exactly what I'm disagreeing - with your statement that GM is obliged to put the fun of players before his own; and with its various corollaries. Also, with occasional pieces of idiocy, like the assertion that the players who feel that the GM should bend the universe in their favor, rules be damned, because, the narrative, are somehow rare.

Telling people to talk to their player and not take all their stuff they like and things like that may seem obvious, but it IS needed advice and especially handy advice for the inexperienced because without it people seriously DO do this stuff.

Fuck your strawman again. That's not what I object to.

Which we know YOU do because you are VERY defensive about SOMETHING, we just don't know the details yet because you don't make any fucking sense.

Says a man who is completely incapable of arguing his position without presenting people who disagree as eeeeevil control freaks who crave oral sex with poor oppressed players. Also, are you a king of someting in your alternate dimension?

[Koumei]

Also, are you a king of someting in your alternate dimension?

Don't be silly, he's a prince and it says so to the left. I, on the other hand, am a king... THE KING OF KINGS!

[PhoneLobster]

[quote="FatR"']Fuck your strawman again. That's not what I object to. [/quote]
...except the bit a moment ago where you objected to it being utterly unnecessary and useless advice...

...you know... right here...

And advice like "talk to your players" or "stop being a stupid dick" (which is not what I called insane advice, therefore strawman), is about as profound and useful as "be a good man".

But you know, don't let that stop you from contradicting yourself and looking like an idiot.

I'm disagreeing - with your statement that GM is obliged to put the fun of players before his own; and with its various corollaries.

Like the "corollary" that the GM has over 50% of the screen time and decision making anyway one way or another and has so much potential for fun that really there is utterly no reason why he should give a damn about stealing spotlight and decision time fun from the players who have significantly less of it to start with?

Would you like perhaps to point out which specific fun conflicts you are talking about here. Which specific things do you as a GM demand to do for your "fun" that your players hate. Which things exactly are you defending here?

Because the examples that I provided of those sorts of conflicts that you should back down in favor of the players on across the span of this advice ARE the sort of stupid "suck my cock" stuff you are now claiming to be a straw man.

If you have a reasonable claim go ahead and make it, all I still see is vague screaming and whining about your 'entitlement' as a GM to fuck over your players in some non-specific manner that you feel you need to for unexplained reasons.

Also, with occasional pieces of idiocy, like the assertion that the players who feel that the GM should bend the universe in their favor, rules be damned, because, the narrative, are somehow rare.

The vast majority of players will be happy with a binding open agreement that creates a universe functionally in their favor and that supports an ongoing narrative with some elements of their own preference or design.

You know, binding open agreement as in an agreed upon rules set and setting. Because if they get what they want from the rules and setting why the fuck would they want to play "mother may I" and "roshambo" with you?

[PhoneLobster]

Don't be silly, he's a prince and it says so to the left.

I may only be a prince but I've been here longer than you and you will respect my Authoritaaaaay.

Or you know, not or whatever.

[8headeddragon]

Q: What if the DM is a restaurant that can kick out customers for no reason, like some sort of RPG Soup Nazi?

Soup Nazi implies that the soup is just that awesome and totally worth it.

No but really? We should treat GMing like running a restaurant that reserves the right to kick out anyone for no reason (AKA the right to kick out black people). That's a model you WANT to emulate?

Who said there'd be no reason? But the GM decides the setting, the house rules, what does or doesn't come into the game, and any free stuff or restrictions. The DM might not want to let a new player in right away because the party's at the final session before the end of a long arc, and a new one will start right after. If a wise-ass came in and followed your rules but decided to be the biggest douche within their confines, would you let him stay at annoy you/the players, or would you get rid of him?

The DM makes all the calls on how everything is going to go down, but he gets that authority so the game will be fun. And a good one has (or seeks out) some insight into what his players like.

[PhoneLobster]

The specific example of Exclusive Restaurant DM was one in which the GM reserved (and deserved) the right to kick people out without any requirement for a reason.

Telling someone "Sorry man, we are kinda full right now" or something is not the same at all in any number of ways.

If a wise-ass came in and followed your rules but decided to be the biggest douche within their confines, would you let him stay at annoy you/the players, or would you get rid of him?

Presumably within the confines of your rules means by definition of being within the confines of what is acceptable. I mean, why would you lay out rules about how to behave and allow people to do things you don't want them to do within the rules?

But if it was a problem, and really, seriously man it hardly ever is, you do this.
1) Try and solve it
2) Talk to people and try and stop it, change the rules if need be
3) If all else fails, ask the player to leave or just don't invite them or whatever.

And all of this is stuff which the GM may well initiate, but which you must remember is done on behalf of and with the authority of the entire group.

And should you end up at the level of social trauma of actually needing to ask someone to leave the group that means you MUST re-affirm that authority through the group, and that means talking TO the group and having them agree. Because if you do something as VERY major as kick a player WITHOUT re-affirming, asking or even notifying the group they will be shocked and generally displeased.

It is simply beyond your authority to ruthless prune your social group. Because that is just not how functional social groups work. And if you attempt to exercise that authority you MIGHT just find you don't have it and you've just caused a major fracture or fragmenting of the entire group. Even if they wanted that one guy out some players may rebel against you in that sort of circumstance.

Remember kids, ostracizing is a cooperative GROUP activity.

[8headeddragon]

So much exaggerating. No soup for you!

Nowhere in that example was anything about DMs not needing a reason, but the analogy might not be as clear as I thought. The underlying idea was that the DM gets the final word on any decisions, but it's for the sake of the game and the good of the players.

If the players aren't enjoying the experience there is nothing stopping them from bailing, but that relationship is a two way street-- one in which the DM isn't in a position to bail out without screwing everyone else involved. Obviously anyone with a little maturity is going to try and discuss or solve a conflict first, but what happens when the same old same old crops up, or the two players just aren't getting along no matter how much arguing precedes it? If two players won't stop fighting or if a player and the DM won't stop fighting, I'd rather see the guy in charge of the game make a call like "neither of you play until you work this out or step outside and duel to the death" or something than go "That's it, now I'm upset-- session canceled!"

Analogies like "cop" or "judge" or "director" just don't have the same level of thoughtfulness or consideration a DM needs, you know?

[PhoneLobster]

Nowhere in that example was anything about DMs not needing a reason

hm... lets see...

...has a "WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE ANYONE" sign in its own window.

Or do you just not know a thing about those signs?

Also this...

The DM has full control over where you sit, how many freebies you get, and the option of throwing your butt out if you stress him out.

Was just hilarious. I mean really "full control over where you sit".

Uh huh.

Yeeeeaaaah...

But anyway your basic idea is moderately sound, you just aren't expressing it very well.

DM's earn their authority, what little there really is, by providing a service to the group. The group gives the GM their authority in certain matters in return for a service. Some people declare this to be "player entitlement" and demand that the DM have all that authority without providing the service.

It has many parallels to "The Social Contract". Which is an interesting idea you should learn about.

Also.

or step outside and duel to the death

Not a handy suggestion there. That won't end well. No one wants the cops to be called to break up what remains of your D&D session as it riots through the front yard and street. I mean do we need a link to that stupid video?

[fectin]

It has many parallels to "The Social Contract". Which is an interesting idea you should learn about.

I kept thinking that the player vs. GM arguments were startlingly reminiscent of Hobbes' Individual vs. State. Did anyone else catch that (hopefully someone more familiar with Hobbes than I am)?

[Avoraciopoctules]

Necro! Phonelobster linked this thread in another post, and I read through it again. Thanks, it's been helpful!

Does anyone have tips on specifically being a good online GM?

[shadzar]

couldn't you just have gone and beat-off PL quietly in a corner rather than making a scene about it?

being a good GM works the same online and off, and is NOT entirely what PL thinks it is.

hings to consider are starting times if a live game, response times if a PbP game, RNG to use, use more handouts where you can no matter how badly drawn they are because it doesn't cost to print an image to put it online you can get them hosted free everywhere these days.

also being online, have access to the character sheets publicly for what you have, if your players all want their sheet public. this way if you award XP, need to make a change to a character either adding something or removing it, they can check even not during the game time to be prepared.

to go with that, has a synopsis of what happened recently, at least, so players can refresh their memories to the event leading up to where they are now. so many blog sites and whatever, not only will your player like being able to review things that happened, but other people might like to see also, and being in type, there will be no question if you said the characters needed to talk to "Wilbur" or "Wilford" or any other miscommunication since it can be read again next time.

[PhoneLobster]

being a good GM works the same online and off, and is NOT entirely what PL thinks it is.

blah blah preperation and notes and logs and gurble burble wurgle wheee!

Q: Aside from knowledge and competency, how should I best prepare for running games?
The more familiar you are with the rules and your players and the more experience you have the less you will NEED to prepare.

However preparation is always still a GOOD thing. And you should do it.

Just remember you don't have to prepare EVERYTHING for EVERY eventuality. Try and prepare for predictable actions by your players, the unpredictable simply HAS to be dealt with as it unpredictably crops up, it is NOT a good idea to try to account for it in advance, by definition you CAN'T predict the unpredictable and all you will end up doing is producing a lot of wasted preparation on options or events that are unlikely to be used.

Centre your preparation on things like places, NPCs, Enemies and interesting ideas. The most important part of all that probably being some nice prepared NPCs or Enemies of appropriate level ranges.

Try not to let your prepared material go to waste, a lot of it can be used in a different context to the original intent. So they don't fight the kings private guard? So what, your level 4 halberd NPC warriors you whipped up could easily be of use some other time, maybe even in another campaign.

As for supporting story and narrative and such fun fluffy things, take notes on prior player actions and adventures, who they met, what they were like, how they interacted, just bits and pieces will do “Bard got on surprisingly well with cheerfully reckless Orcish Gun Merchant named Beauregard”. Then use that later to bring Beauregard back and say “hi buddy! Want some more boom sticks?”. This also helps you maintain continuity so you don't forget important characters and have the PCs complain that “hey wasn't the gun merchant in this town some other guy last week?”

Take notes of things that are important to story that happened “off screen”. If there is a complex web of alliances between cultural groups, you need that mapped out so you remember it and can answer player questions (or just plain hand it over). Similarly timelines of important events (ESPECIALLY for any form of “mystery” game) are useful, and also help maintain continuity and prevent contradictions.

Take notes of things that are PROBABLY going to happen, extend your timeline notes into the future. Be prepared to change them according to player interaction, but still if the bank robbery by the player's nemesis is probably going ahead at noon tomorrow, you want to know so you can mention it in a timely manner and not remember half way through the session that you failed to present or even mention an important encounter or event.

Hm... it's almost like shadzar is unable to actually read or formulate posts other than irrelevant gibberish, who could have guessed until now?

[Wiseman]

Thanks, this thread has been helpful and informative. I admit i skimmed a few parts that weren't relevant to what I wanted to know, but now I'm wondering. Any advice on how to deal with players who want to be chaotic neutral/evil/stupid?

[Koumei]

Ask them not to. If they do it anyway or complain, ask them specifically why they want to play a character in a stupid way. If they can't give a reason, tell them "then you have no reason, so none of that. Don't be a dick". If that resumes, inform them that their services are no longer needed, "best wishes for all future endeavours".

If they do give you some reason, see if it boils down to "My fun is being disruptive" (see solution above) or if there's actually something you can work with. It might be that you're running a boring game and they are going to spice it up come hell or high waters, or you're running a decent game if not for those railroads, so they intend on derailing it.

Or it could be that they're a dick, and you really have to just tell them to leave.

[JonSetanta]

Thanks, this thread has been helpful and informative. I admit i skimmed a few parts that weren't relevant to what I wanted to know, but now I'm wondering. Any advice on how to deal with players who want to be chaotic neutral/evil/stupid?

Remove moral absolutism from the game.

Disruptive players tend to flock to "Chaotic Neutral" because it gives them an in-game excuse to be a dick.
Remove that excuse and it's just them being a dick rather than roleplaying a dick.

[PhoneLobster]

Well lets see already have something up about players doing crazy unpleasant things...

Q: What if 'that' is just plain wrong?
Yes indeed, what IF a player pulls a "I sex it up with my familiar, let me enumerate the ways..." "I ask the bar maid if I can pee on her in public" or even the all too alarmingly common "I slaughter the innocent orc child in front of her screaming family and wear her severed blinking head as a hat".

What DO you do when such moments occur?

I mean that shit is sorta just wrong, and even if no one else at the table is finding themselves thinking '...urk...' it seems that YOU at least noticed...

Well it's a challenge you should try to...

1) Quietly discourage it using you know WORDS, yeah talk a little to your players and say things like "Do you REALLY think Dragnar the noble hero of the orphans would do that to an orcish girl child?", try throwing the whole "too much information" talk out there. But don't push it too hard because the back up plan is...

2) ... and we shall never speak of this again. Only you will speak of it, by means of saying "...and we shall never speak of this again...". Try not to make too big a deal of it, or it will become a "classic story" which is the last thing you want, but you CAN quitely and firmly note, as many times as required, "... and we shall never speak of this again..." Do it just right and the players might just get the hint and learn their lesson.

What you absolutely should NOT do...
1) Hit the player in the head with a brick.
2) Disown your otherwise seemingly sane friend.
3) Silently feel uncomfortable as the game spirals into FATAL
4) Rocks Fall You All Die
5) Dick waving level nine million morality police attack!

Worst comes to worst you can try the dreaded and challenging strategy I'll describe later for dealing with interplayer conflicts and "Stupid Evil" characters/parties, which I might talk about later with some of those other points...

And already have something up about dealing with "Stupid Evil" parties...

Q: Oh No! My player characters are Stupid Evil alignment The Horror!
And it CAN be horrific. Players will often play even 'good' aligned characters as a bunch of antisocial psychotic killer jerks, they stick evil on their character sheet and some goth make up on their character and BAM anything suddenly goes.

Well. There are several things at play here.

1) 'Alignment systems' (whichever one you are using) are typically stupid as all hell and feed in really stupid character decision making. Have a talk with your players about how dumb alignments are and how really it should be a sort of vague "Team Chaos" badge sort of thing that your are born with but maybe doesn't influence your character's behavior as much as being a Druid or growing up in a certain culture or being you know the cool exciting hero of the story. Talking down and generally down playing alignment rules IN GENERAL is a good idea, not just for the Stupid Evil situation.

2) Stupid Evil sounds like totally cool fun. And this is a challenging one because it DOES sound like a bit of a riot doesn't it? The problem is it rarely does turn out to be fun. So you have the simple option here. Let them give it a go, and find out it isn't fun. Of course... that means spending time not having fun so you could instead try and MAKE it fun by having a bit of a talk about making things slightly more "Sensible Evil" and maybe having some gentlemens agreement where by their brotherhood of evil has some ground rules to prevent unpleasant party implosions and excessively graphic "OH MY GOD WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY YOUR CHARACTER DID!!!!???" moments.

And then also something on what do do when PCs get into fights, which is where stupid evil/stupid chaos tends to end up...

Q: Help! My player characters are fighting each other!
Yeah this can happen, especially with stupid evil parties or alignment disputes. And also with the whole "Thief" character class and confusion over how to handle THAT well.

It can also happen as a sign of dissatisfaction among the players, if they hate your game, or if they hate each other, they may well set their characters at each other's throats.

If it IS a sign of dissatisfaction I am afraid you must resort to talking it out.

But if it is just alignment and confused ideas about how they should be role playing interaction with each other and so forth then there are ways to deal with it.

1) Talk it out, tell the players it is cool if you as a group hand wave a few disputes to facilitate party co-operation. Not every stupid little alignment difference or imagined slight has to escalate to a duel to the death, maybe they can just make snappy remarks at each other occasionally for the good of the party?

2) Let them fight.

Yes. Let them fight is a real option. Traditional (and bad) advice commonly is the reverse, prevent it from happening, use Rocks Fall you all die, throw in level 9 million dick waving NPC police, boot players from the game etc...

But seriously you CAN JUST LET THEM FIGHT. This may have some short term bad results. Like say lost characters or hurt feelings. But if done right (and I admit it can be hard to do right) it can have real benefits.

1) Players actually often expect a Rocks Fall or some such thing to prevent PC vs PC combat. Make it clear that the only thing preventing it are their own decisions and players often suddenly become a lot more responsible and co-operative.

2) Players will be impressed by how easy going and free you are with their choices of action, I mean hey you let them fight to the death with Joe's character... that's a pretty big deal...

3) Maybe if they cause enough trouble they will realize just how much trouble they are causing AND NOT DO IT AGAIN. Sometimes lessons just have to be learned through failure.

Of course it never hurts to present the option as "Well you could do that but are you sure it's a good idea? Do you realize that the consequences will be... etc..."

There is probably more I could say about those things, and also things you could talk about to do with campaign flavor and how to set up stories, enemies and conflict for evil campaigns and so on.

[Ikeren]

Page 1-2 of this thread are good, page 3-4-5 end up a really dumb argument with some Fatr guy.