The role of the GM in context of relation to the players.


Advice


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So this comes up every now and again about what role the GM holds and what role the players hold in a game.

There are healthy relationships where the players feel empowered with their own volition while also subject to the emotions the GM is attempting to tease out of them with the content provided. This is also considered the cooperative GMing style.

There are unhealthy relationships where the players are disempowered and feel like they are at the whims of the GM and his power fantasies. This is also considered the antagonistic GMing style.

What are your experiences, opinions and/or thoughts on identifying what types of GMs people are playing with and what their course of action should be in relation to playing with these GMs?

Feel free to elaborate on any connected topics as well, as hopefully wayward players or GMs will come and find this topic and learn from your posts.


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I think the healthiest relationships I've had have been after I picked up a Kingmaker campaign after the GM quit due to class load. I just allowed people to make new chars if they wanted to and basically rebuild everything back to where they were in the campaign. They absolutely loved how they felt as though they had boundless power to direct and influence what exactly happened in game. I was the GM.

As a player the healthiest relationship I've had with a group was when we were playing through a GM's custom campaign. It was a sandbox of sorts and the GM loved epic stuff. Fights were fantastic, stories were deep and adaptive to our choices—we befriended the first two villains and turned them good. It felt like the GM set the stage, and we were the heroes, sometimes the villains, in a play that was larger than life.

The worst relationship I had was with a GM that subscribed to the idea of negation of characters. Running into golems with DR 10 was commonplace even though the ranged characters, the primary DPS, could not exceed that save on a crit. When I made a blaster fire-mage everything, including the doors, became fire immune. The table was antagonistic and stressful, and in the end that tore the game apart as the GM wanted everyone's characters to be castrated by each and every encounter.

The worst GMing experience I had was with a player who pointed went out of his way to subvert the party and campaign at large. The campaign devolved from a story about heroes doing heroic things to heroes going completely against their previous goals and desires to please one player, to the players voting to kick the player so the game could get back on track. We tried, we really did, but he was using the game as his personal psychopathic outlet much to the chagrin of everyone but him.


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As GM I see myself as facilitator for a fun time with my friends, their characters are the heroes and ultimately there to succeed. My aim is to tell an interesting story with the players as the main characters.

Lots more to it but that's just the jist of it.


Even worse than the antagonistic GM can be the controlling GM and the immersion-breaking GM.

DO NOT tell me what emotions my character is feeling, DO NOT tell me what actions my character is taking unless you ask me about it first.

DO NOT give away the ending of an adventure at the beginning, DO NOT tell the party when they should or shouldn't buff or sleep, DO NOT tell me whether something is a good or bad idea.


RumpinRufus wrote:
DO NOT tell me what emotions my character is feeling

* Unless you just failed a save against an Enchantment spell.


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Fair 'nuff.


I have also been on both sides of the GM screen many times. As a GM I strive to empower players to try any solution to problems they find. I am sometimes surprised by their successes or failures, which I like even though it often means extra work. They have fun because their choices, in and out of combat, matter.

As a player I hate losing control of my character. I accept when this happens because of magic or affliction or my own mistake but having my characters actions narrated to the group by the GM makes me question why I came. I also hate long game sessions without reward. When no gold, xp or even plot advancement comes after hours of play I get demoralized.


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There's also the "Apparently you want me to be your adventure-bot-whipping-boy GM" where you get pushy me-me-me players that want the GM to spend all their time catering to how obviously awesome the Players and by nature their Player-Characters are.

Bad player-gm relations are not always the GMs fault :)


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As GM, I set up the bad guys and scenario, strictly according to the rules we're playing by, and I run them as impartially as possible. Very occasionally I might get called on to resolve a rules issue, but that's pretty rare during play -- my players are usually very exprienced and highly rules-savvy.

What I don't do is force my storyline onto the players, or artificially give them breaks, or artificially blunt their successes. Sometimes the adventure goes in a totally different direction than I expected -- in fact, when it does so is when I find DMing to be the most rewarding. Sometimes a BBEG will go down like a chump because the PCs legitimately outmaneuver him, or just get lucky. I applaud them when this happens. Sometimes they get in over their heads and the whole party gets wiped out. I urge them to roll up new characters.

Sometimes they'll disagree with a rule. Before the next session begins, I ask them to discuss it and vote on it -- and I abstain except in the case of a tie.


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I like to think that the game master is just another player in the group, albeit with a slightly different role and set of tools at their disposal.

The first rule for me, when I GM, is to preserve player agency as far as possible. I'm training myself to avoid saying "no, you can't do that", and instead going "sure, but then". Always asking questions about what a character is doing in the process of performing an action, asking the player to describe how they succeed (or fail) in a task.

"So, yeah, I got like a... a 5 on my Diplomacy, here," says the Player.
"That's fine. Tell me how your character goes about unintentionally insulting the satrap of Katheer?" The GM looks expectantly at the Player.
"I tell him his turban looks flaccid!"

Involving players in the scene is the best form of GM-Player cooperation, I feel. Yes, the GM's role is to adjudicate the success of tasks and populate the world with people and events for the characters to interact with, as it is the players' role to engage their characters in those things.

I also believe in the difference between a Story and a Plot. The story could be about the various events surrounding two countries at the brink of war, whereas the plot would be the acts of a corrupt baron who tries to provoke an open conflict by implicating either royal houses in various scandals. The characters are there to *experience* the story, but to *interact* with the plot.

In the end, though, everyone is there to have fun - and it's everyone's job to make sure that happens. It's equally the players' as the GM's responsibility.

Well, at least that's how I like to play.


RumpinRufus wrote:

Even worse than the antagonistic GM can be the controlling GM and the immersion-breaking GM.

DO NOT tell me what emotions my character is feeling, DO NOT tell me what actions my character is taking unless you ask me about it first.

DO NOT give away the ending of an adventure at the beginning, DO NOT tell the party when they should or shouldn't buff or sleep, DO NOT tell me whether something is a good or bad idea.

I disagree somewhat with the bad idea comment. You never have as much context as your character does, so there are many things which your character would know is a bad idea that you are unaware of.


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I am definitely keeping an eye on this thread.

Knowing what the problem is is one thing.

Knowing how to FIX it is another, some good ideas mentioned here. :D


thorin001 wrote:
RumpinRufus wrote:

Even worse than the antagonistic GM can be the controlling GM and the immersion-breaking GM.

DO NOT tell me what emotions my character is feeling, DO NOT tell me what actions my character is taking unless you ask me about it first.

DO NOT give away the ending of an adventure at the beginning, DO NOT tell the party when they should or shouldn't buff or sleep, DO NOT tell me whether something is a good or bad idea.

I disagree somewhat with the bad idea comment. You never have as much context as your character does, so there are many things which your character would know is a bad idea that you are unaware of.

TWF, thrown weapon rogue with 10 strength. There's no way for you to be a good GM and not level with your player that they will never hit anything for any damage.


Westphalian_Musketeer wrote:
thorin001 wrote:
RumpinRufus wrote:

Even worse than the antagonistic GM can be the controlling GM and the immersion-breaking GM.

DO NOT tell me what emotions my character is feeling, DO NOT tell me what actions my character is taking unless you ask me about it first.

DO NOT give away the ending of an adventure at the beginning, DO NOT tell the party when they should or shouldn't buff or sleep, DO NOT tell me whether something is a good or bad idea.

I disagree somewhat with the bad idea comment. You never have as much context as your character does, so there are many things which your character would know is a bad idea that you are unaware of.
TWF, thrown weapon rogue with 10 strength. There's no way for you to be a good GM and not level with your player that they will never hit anything for any damage.

Buuuuuut my Shurikens do 1+1d6 damage at level 1. Isn't that good? <<Only if you're sneak attacking, otherwise they do 1 damage on hit.>> Oh.

I had a player who played nothing but rogues for an entire year since he believed it was the "Batman" class. I felt so bad for him being outclassed by more or less everyone at the table and occasionally the villain NPCs that were not even built to be optimized.


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I try to be impartial when running. I try to be inclusive, giving opportunities for the PCs to interact with the world. I try to be engaging and urge the players forward or incentivize their characters to act.

The emphasis here is on the word "try."

Sometimes I had a stressful couple weeks, have little in the tank and suddenly realize my players will be here in an hour. Other times I lay out a couple plot hooks, look across the table and my players are literally just staring, not saying anything; when I ask for their actions they just kind of shrug.

Every once in a while I'm just fed up. Yeah, I'm gonna say it. Sometimes I get mad at myself for making such a convoluted plot that even I can't follow or my players are running like this is a game of Talisman. When these things happen I'm a crap GM.

I'm the first to admit I'm a crap GM too. When I look around and realize I've just dumped the game into a ditch I apologize to my players. Then its a matter of picking up the broken pieces of whatever plotline is happening and try to repair the damage.

My players tell me I'm good at improv. I don't know if I believe them; it's like a 50/50 crap shoot every time I ad lib a scene. Regardless I basically spend most of my "prep" time between games just making up random set pieces, weird NPCs and variant monsters while surrounding myself with as many random generators as I can.

I make stuff up a lot. Worse, I don't take notes. My last couple games have revolved around a wight animated with the heart of a saint. I named said saint in the opening 5 minutes of the session a month ago; I didn't write the guy's name down or anything. Now it just so happens that player decisions are driving the next plot point RIGHT AT the origins of this dude.

I'm ill-prepared.

Despite all of the above my players keep showing up. I think its because they like their characters, they like hanging out together and they think I'm doing a decent job. I HOPE that's what it is anyway.

I guess my only advice and the only thing I've learned over the years of running games is to be honest. Be honest with your players and yourself that you're only human; you'll make mistakes, forget stuff in your game, and sometimes you won't have anything for tonight's session. Be honest about your villains/monsters: roll on the table, where people can see it. If you, say, have a pinnacle cairn wight animated by the corrupted heart of a saint wielding an awesome Death Scythe you made up and you roll a 1, then an 8, followed by a 7 in three rounds of combat, own it.

And, finally, a note to players everywhere: help a brother out. If your GM has told you he wants to run an immersive world then sets you in a Large City after an adventure and says "ok, you've all got some downtime. What do you do?" Play along. Don't go deer-in-the-headlights; look at your guy, look at his skills and review the past few adventures, then take a specific action based on that info.

Maybe you've got Profession: Innkeeper as a bonus skill from your backstory. You don't feel like there's anything more to do on the previous plot points, so maybe you go to the bar. However don't be passive about it: "I drink at the bar." Be as immersive as your GM is trying to be.

"I go to the bar to get a drink. While there I ask the inkeeper how's business, try to gauge what kind of place this is. Also I'll use my skill to size up the joint; maybe if we need extra muscle on the next adventure this would be a good place to look."

Suddenly the GM knows: you're thinking ahead, you're interacting with the game world and you're willing to RP. Now said GM can ad lib a hulking barbarian... halfling. His nam is Barleykorn and he wants to arm wrestle you; he smells like rancid cheese.

Be honest. Be immersive. Be specific. Everything else is probably in the CRB, Bestiary or the GMG... if I can just FIND them...

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