Have you looked at GM 101 and GM 201 for PFS? They're quite good. Also, playing under very good GMs at cons can help you improve a great deal.
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Read the Alexandrian Blog.
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I hate to say it but the people at Paizo don't really have the philosophical horsepower to do this. There are a lot of blogs and forums where ancient sage DM's lurk and argue about the one true way for years and years that do. People who have the critical thinking skills to break things down to their fundamental principle level and argue based on first principles...not on an issue by issue basis, and independent of any particular ruleset that may be used in the system.
Most of what makes a really good DM is actually independent of any particular system. The ruleset that is applied comes after the understanding of the axioms at work.
Every single system I have ever played in has about a half a dozen rules that run counter to the best practices a DM could apply. Rules that literally run counter to and interfere with the best approaches found in other models of game theory involving social cooperation. Once those rules are removed or modified most groups I have seen run much smoother. Especially in groups with personality conflicts.
I'd be very uneasy with the idea of Paizo trying to put out a comprehensive "how to" set on being a DM. 1. I know they would muck it up (I love all of Paizos products by the way, but I can tell they wouldn't be the best fit for this) and 2. We would then see a flood of new DM's who blindly accepted whatever they read in a book even to the detriment of their games, because paizo said so.
Discussion and debate is a better approach. A lot of people simply lack the ability to question 'the rules' if it is written down in something that appears authoritative, regardless of how nuts they are.
Read the Alexandrian Blog.
Most of his ideas are fairly good. I've raised issue with him a few times on the old "Whats a DM to do" forum at WOTC back before that forum pretty much died.
There were a lot of good DM's on that board, and some with horrible ideas. That board was very loosely moderated so people would argue the same topic for months, often producing some really fascinating conclusions (once you sorted them out from the insults).
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A few things:
1. Everyone is not cut out to DM. Period.
2. Everyone is definitely not cut out to DM in every style.
3. A good DM plays to their strengths.
If you're past the hurdle of 1, make sure you are careful about 2, and paying close attention to 3. Maybe big battles just aren't your style. I know that prepared adventures are not mine. So I don't. I prep my own way and wing most of it and I do well. Even when running large Con games, I take the prepared material, find out what's important - and what I can improvise - and throw away the rest. If big epic battles aren't your thing, find another way to create a satisfying conclusion.
The final thing to consider is every game session is not going to be perfect. Sometimes the players are tired - or the DM is worn out. So everything could go perfect, and player engagement is low 'just because'.
Because of 2, it is very difficult to have an intensive, one-size-fits-all approach to "DM Training". There is lots of fairly low level advice spread throughout the Paizo library to get someone who has what it takes to DM up to snuff. The larger Internet DM advice consortium covers literally every other issue a DM could ever have. The best DM advice usually comes across laterally, from other DMs - not from above.
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Captain Marsh, part of the issue with encouraging Paizo to do this is that they likely have substantially LESS experience DMing than large swaths of the community.
I'd be willing to wager that I and a great many DM's on here have a lot more time running games than most of the writers and content creators at Paizo. Because they are spending their time creating content, not running games. Sort of how Bungie created halo but when I had the opportunity to play the devs in Reach I steamrolled them. Sure they were better than your average player, but compared to their dedicated fans they were terrible. I'm quite certain the situation is similar with Paizo. Sure they are some of the best writers and content creators out there, and they are probably better than the average DM, but compared to the vast number of very experienced and highly intelligent, observant, adaptive DM's out there they are novices-and it shows. The Gamemastery guide was full of goofy misgivings about the best way to run a game and didn't provide a shred of insight into the fundamental principles at work in a game.
A community project might be a better alternative.
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I can understand that view, just to clarify I'm certainly not against an effort to improve the quality of DM's, I'm just thinking Paizo might not be the people to lead that charge, but as you say, so long as they are aware of that and go looking for the right people it might turn out fine.
I think for me, it would have to be a collaborative effort, and I believe a lot of the reason that hasn't worked so far is because of the massive amount of resistance from DM's who...don't know they suck, vehemently refuse to believe it, will defend their terrible methods to the death, and seek to propogate and expand their ignorance to everyone else. I just don't want paizo to hire that guy.
Here are some good places to go if you are looking to improve:
http://dungeonmastery.blogspot.com/2014/10/dungeon-master-101.html
http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threa ds/4167196
http://www.thoughtcrimegames.net/structure-first-story-last/
http://inky.org/rpg/no-myth.html
I know of a lot of others...but this might get you started in the right direction.
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Detox-
Maybe so. I'm open to the idea of a community effort.
On the other hand, if the folks at Paizo thought this through they might say, "Huh. We're trying to market a game that requires on a good table experience and word of mouth to build fan base and the primary portal for that is great DMing. We better help make sure we have awesome DMs out there."
They might then say, "Look, the truth is, we don't have the right people on staff right now to lead this effort. We need one person in our organized play department who is a) interested in elevating the art of DMing to a consistent good level, b) is a good teacher with a strong ability to use the message boards and other tools, and c) is a well-known talented DM with a reputation for wowing people at the table."
Seems like that would be a good hire to make.
Marsh
There is sort of a problem with the entire premise of organized dm training. The same attributes wont be positive in every group. Gaming is very much a case of different strokes for different folks. Depending on your style and preferences, different traits or behaviors will have different impacts on a group. You cant teach 'good dming' because there is no universal thing for good gming.
The only thing you can do is be prepared, pay attention, learn how the game works and establish open communication with your players on what produces a fun time and what doesnt.
In order to teach waht a good dm is, you have to define what a good dm is. And baring, knowing the rules, being prepared and being enthusiastic about what he is running, I doubt you are going to get any kind of universal agreement on what behaviors/traits make for a 'great' dm.
It sort of falls back to why so much discussion on the boards is mechanical instead of on flavor/roleplay things. We dont have a universal experience on such things. We can give advice on how to handle the mechanical side of things, because we share that. But much of what makes a 'great' gm is intangible things.
For some that might be funny voices, props and elaborate maps/3d terrain for encounters. Other people might find one or all of those things obnoxious and immersion breaking. Some people want the gm to be an enabler, fascilitating a player guided story, where the truely fun moments come from players creativity as opposed to an in depth pre-planned story, others want a detailed focused story that tells like a grand epic novel, with the players acting as characters in, as opposed to drivers of, the plot.
Alot of it is probably natural charisma and speaking/acting skills, the ability to improvise, and the ability to tell a good story. You cant really teach those things outside of something like formal acting classes.
I DM'd the latest installment of my Slumbering Tsar campaign last Saturday and I found myself feeling sort of bummed that it didn't go super well. I mean, it was fine. But this was the big, climactic battle against Malerix outside the Black Gate. It should have been awesome. And it wasn't.
What specific problems did you have?
What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses?
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One thing I suggest if you want to get better is to play under different GM's, and play with more groups. The exposure will allow you to see various ways to play the game. The best way to get better is to keep GM'ing however.
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When I started GMing years ago, I was doing things that I would consider big red flags these days. PFS has been fantastic in being able to see how other GMs run the game, and adopting their strengths and overcoming their weaknesses to create my own style.
What I've adopted:
- Read descriptions/walls of text super slowly, because it is incredibly easy to miss that detail or just be unable to process it, especially if you're a noisy environment or if people in the game have a different natural accent and may not be able to understand yours as easily. You generally speak faster than you realise, so go as slow as you're comfortable with, and then slow down even further than that.
- Decide on a persona for your NPCs (and PCs), and roleplay them. For me, the easiest thing for me is to try and put on accent (even badly). Once I surprised myself with putting on a scottish accent for a dwarf at the last minute, and one of my favourite NPCs that had to improvise some chatter with the party felt old and hopeless, so it was comical to start up on saying "very... depressing." to which the PCs agreed, and repeated it, and she repeated it using the same overly-depressed tone. Tiny little things like that make games fun, hilarious and memorable.
- With ambiguous rules you have to make a call on, err on the side of the player. Especially when you're aware the rule has the Pathfinder community split down the middle and hasn't gotten a FAQ. The game is more fun for the players when it works they way they want it to. Unless it's really outrageously unreasonable, or you're really very very sure of the intent swinging against the player's interpretation, rule in their favour. They'll be grateful and have more fun, and that's what you want from them.
- Put yourself in the shoes of the players to feel out how difficult it is for them. Often downing a character in an encounter is enough for them to feel like they're being challenged. If more than one goes down, the encounter is getting extremely rough. If nobody's gone down or close to seriously wounded, you can then probably attempt to go a little harder on them. Once someone's down, ease off, because it's harder than you think it is.
What I've done away with:
- Making balancing rules on the fly. Unless this is really going to utterly break the game, you shouldn't make changes to the rules you've already set when players start taking advantage of them. The only time you should really get away with doing this is if you're sure they'll agree with you doing it.
- Strict interpretations of rules. Even in Pathfinder Society, you're meant to be creating a fun environment. Creative Solutions allows a lot of flexibility over Run as Written. Err in favour of the players.
- Don't play hard mode unless the players enjoy that kind of thing. Generally players who like easier playstyles don't speak up about it. It's often a really intimidating thing to talk about openly. Some players are there for the challenge, and don't mind being hit while on the ground dying and helpless. Others are there for the story and would much prefer you figure out any story-based solution that the bad guys won't be as heinously evil as the players might be to the bad guys. The party is supposed to win, so unless they believe they deserved to die, ask yourself what you can do to help them. Or disregard this if they think you're running a cakewalk.
The basic thing for being a succesfull DM is being emphatic with your players, and understanding what is that really tickles them. Everything else is secondary.
You're right Marsha, GMing is an art form. Part improv, part storyteller, part comedy or drama as the scene calls for and tons of memorization. And that's just running the game; if you're homebreweing there's so many other technical skillsets its ri-donkulous.
In all of this lots of GMs forget enthusiasm, engagement. If you're not felling what you're running, your players won't. Also the engagement of your players is infectious; if they're into it chances are it'll encourage you to do the same.
There's tons of resources and learning. Raging Swan Press is 100% GM prep; lots of random tables to spark some aspect of a scene. There's blogs like the Alexandrian or others that compile articles and advice. There's seminars, videos; hell, I won't be surprised if some GM at one point does a TED talk.
But the thing is all of these sources are unwittingly reinforcing that need for enthusiasm and engagement by virtue of the folks making them. You never see some cranky GM writing advice: "You should kill the entire party at least once/session and always speak in monotone, preferably from behind screens... now get off my lawn" in a blog or in print. Sure there's a few GMs like that in these forums but we're a community so there's bound to be a few curmudgeons now and again.
No, instead you see a lot of positive, enthusiastic advice being laid out by folks who are genuinely interested at some level in the fun being had in this hobby.
So if the final fight didn't go well or if your games are feeling flat, it may be that you're just not that into it right now. That's ok El Kapytan. Everyone hits a rough patch where they'd rather be entertained by someone else running than put a game on the table.
Give yourself a break. Go buy a module for first level and don't even read it. Hand it to one of your players next session and go "You're running this starting at our NEXT session, so start reading." Then make up a character; hell, make five. Remind yourself what it was to be first level and also NOT the GM. You have few skills or spells, barely any gear and absolutely no idea what's ahead. You only know your one feat, a couple combat options and you pray for luck.
After a few sessions as a player you can take that energy and put it into running. Give yourself credit M-dawg; you GMd all the way to the end of Tsar. In short, weekly sessions if I can make it to the end of the original Keep on the Borderlands I'd take myself out to dinner to celebrate!
Relax, breathe, and refresh. You got this.
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The basic thing for being a succesfull DM is being emphatic with your players, and understanding what is that really tickles them. Everything else is secondary.
I think you meant "empathetic". I've never had much luck with Strongly. Stating. Everything.
GMing is a lot like teaching, I've found, and one difficult thing about teaching is that what works for another teacher may not work for you: Your own personality and style are a major part of who you are as a GM.
So, look at other GMs. Find videos on the net. Take the time to go to conventions. Look at what they do and try it. If it doesn't work, abandon it. If it does, roll with it. Get feedback from your players and figure out who you are as a GM.
I don't know that it is Paizo's responsibility to train GMs. And there are plenty of resources out there for people who want to get better.
AND: you may have discovered a nice niche for yourself to create a "GM bootcamp" training organization!
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Um, in my opinion the best overall resource for learning to be a "better" DM is your players.
Hear me out. Different players want different things. They're your most useful go-to to learn what you did "wrong" and what you didn't do "right". They can tell you what they want more of, what they want less of, and why a game isn't as good as it should be.
You can read all the blogs in world telling you what so-called masters of the trade have done, and still run a game your players don't like. Sure, amongst my circle a number of us DMs conspire and share tips, hints, advice, but it all comes down to knowing your players.
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While DMing styles may vary greatly there are a few basics that every DM should adopt that will improve their game and ensure cohesion at the table. Most of these are out of game and don't impact anyone's particular method of storytelling.
These are the basics, there are some more advanced ones I will leave off for now.
Methodology guidelines:
1. Ask for and listen to feedback from your players at least once a month.
2. Have a session 0. This means that you sit down with your players before launching into the campaign, have a discussion about everyones expectations, lay out the houserules or any rules modifications appropriate for the campaign and openly address any concerns the players have. This includes explaining the style or approach you will take to running the upcoming game and ensuring the players fully understand what they are agreeing too.
3. Clearly communicate your intent. If you want the players to know something, or understand something, tell them. Dropping hints or clues or calling for perception checks for them to notice clearly visible things is just dumb. Just tell them what you want them to know and stop wasting time. I see DM's do this all the time and then wonder why their games fell flat. As Mark Hoover put it, be specific, not general. If the room will fill with acid in 4 rounds, say that, not "the room is filling with acid" or some other general description that doesn't give them enough information to determine what risks/rewards they have opportunity for.
4. Ask the players what they want to do next week at the end of every session. Don't waste time blindly creating dozens of hooks to reel in your players. Just ask them what they want to do, then go home and prep your next session based on their answers. My story hooks NEVER fall flat, PERIOD. Incorporate the players wants into the game.
5. No dead hooks. If you spend time describing something in detail, don't waste precious game time with it being a dead hook. For example, a friend of mine ran a game a few months back and we had 9 dead hooks in one session. He took great care to describe a run down hovel off the road, so I went and kicked down the door, it was empty and of absolutely no significance. When the players swallow a hook, you better make something interesting happen.
6. No blocking. This applies more to the players than the GM, but the GM has to make sure it is enforced. No blocking means the players cannot tell each other no. If the fighter says "I charge!" and then the Monk says "I jump in the way to stop him" the next sentence out of my mouth is "The fighter runs right through you and charges." Blocking isn't fun, its another waste of time that breeds resentment at the table.
7. Include an epic setpiece. Every session. Period. Remember all the walking in LOTR? Thats not epic. Skip that crap and get to the adventure unless something awesome is going to happen along the way, in that case, skip to that part. Make the encounters multi-layered, dynamic sandboxes with multiple moving parts. Provide problems with no set solutions and let the players figure it out. More on this if anyone is interested in how to do this.
8. Use the d*** dice! Don't ad hoc failures/successes, let the dice determine the outcome. NEVER AUTOFAIL ANYONE. Give the players a chance to succeed.
9. The game is about the PC's, not an opportunity for you to force a story they don't care about down their throats. Remember that.
10. When in doubt, err on the side of the players.
Also make sure to actually play the game sometimes. When you sit on one side of the screen to long you can forget what it is like to be a player.
For what it's worth, I just signed up for this four-hour session on GMing PFS, offered by a great FLGS in Oakland, CA. I don't know a thing about it, except that I got the last spot and I'm curious to check it out. But it does suggest that others agree this is a good idea.
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Seriously, someone should set up an online course. Or series of courses.
001 Beginner Box Bash
002 How to Play the Game
101 Intro to GMing
105 Running a Module
106 Running an AP
205 Map-making for Fun and Profit
207 Campaign Journals and PvP
208 Pathfinder Society
301 Build a World
302 Adventure Design
311 Lights, Sound, Action
312 Create a Monster
313 Dastardly villains and the Minions who Love Them
314 Roleplaying, Funny Accents, and NPC Quirks
331 Advanced Rules and Subsystems
332 RPG Math, simple Algebra, and Min/Maxing
341 Gen Con Boot Camp
401 GM Theory
402 Giving Players What They Need, Not What They Ask For
403 Gygax and the History of Tabletop RPGs
411 Drinking All the Milk and Other Advanced Player Problems
421 Everything I Need to Know About Life I Learned Playing RPGs in my Parents' Basement and Other Applications
The two lessons that I've learned arE what makes my game table work.
Be permissive, if the players want to attempt something let them try so long as the can come up with a reason that it might work. Make sure you give them a real chance to succeed.
Improvise, it is a skill, and you need to practice it a lot to get good at it. If players are good at one thing it is screwing up your carefully planned story. Instead of planning everything out have a good sense of what is going on, and just kinda make stuff up as you go and roll with the punches. Your job is not to tell a carefully planned story, but to provide an evening of entertainment for everyone at the table, yourself included. When your players ruin your plot in the first 5 minutes just roll with it, the players will never know if you don't let them know so just make it up.
The bottom line is that DMing is a blast and a really vital part of gaming, but it's also far less easy and intuitive than a lot of people think. A lot of tables are winding up with a sub-par experience because this one pivotal player in our shared experience just hasn't been exposed to the best ideas and resources.
I think Paizo should spend some of its growing gaming heft to change that.
I agree - I'd love to see a "Strategy Guide equivalent" for DMing. There's a few decent articles around in print but they're generally part of a bigger book rather than a specific "improve your DMing" manual. I think such a book would be terrific.
Having played with some of the best GMs, here is what I think I learned.
1) It is all about the story. Your players should feel like they are in the Lord of the Rings, Belgariad, or Robert Jordan's opus. Picking a good premade adventure is the best way to do this for starting GMs.
2) The challenge is important. Know when to dial it up or dial it down, but your players shouldn't feel overwhelmed or doing a cake-walk. Paizo has the CR system, and it is fairly accurate. Use it carefully until you get a better feel for what can challenge your characters. Many DMs mistakenly allow the players to bring 6 aasimars, drow, and tieflings built on 25 points into an AP designed for 4 15point core race characters.
3) Creativity and out of the box thinking should be rewarded. If a player has a great idea, and there is no reason it shouldn't work, it should be given a decent chance. What would have happened if the DM had not allowed the Storming of the Castle scene in Princess Bride? As long as they had a wheelbarrow of course. And who would let a the threat of a duel to the pain not be intimidating?
4) Tempo is important. Know when to push things along and when to linger to savor the good parts of the story.
5) Sometimes the little details are important. If you are having trouble with epic descriptions, give the NPC a colored scarf, a distinctive tattoo or scar, etc.
6) Work with the lower levels before you work at the higher end. Yes, we all want to fight Balrogs. But GM lower level adventures first where the system mastery is not as important.
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You can't really train a GM. You can give someone advice, perhaps supervise them during sessions, but ultimately everyone has their own style and not all styles work or work well. A mismatch between GM and group can make for a miserable experience as well. That said, it's not hard, per se, to be a GM though that doesn't mean it doesn't take a fair amount of effort. If you find yourself doing it, then it's easy enough to take to. Everything else is a matter of perspective and experience. Paizo holding bona fide training sessions would, in fact, be endorsing a "one true way" style of GMing. I know people who run the GM 101/201 courses upthread in my city. It's basically a more polished presentation of the GameMastery Guide that's already published as well as practical advice on preparation, problem players, and so on. There's nothing there that you couldn't find on your own. However, it is nice to be around other aspirants and even seasoned individuals trying to be better. Regardless of what you do, don't be afraid to challenge yourself, your own assumptions, and just be able to be honest with yourself about the kind of game you want to run and what you need to do to be able to do that.
The basic thing for being a succesfull DM is being emphatic with your players, and understanding what is that really tickles them. Everything else is secondary.I think you meant "empathetic". I've never had much luck with Strongly. Stating. Everything.
You are OFC right. I got tricked by the fact that "emphatic" is omophone with my mother language tanslation of "emphatetic".
BTW, i think a solid learning experience would be reading the DM of The Rings
There are such online courses by Johnn Four at http://www.roleplayingtips.com. I never took any though i did subscribe to his free GMing Tips newsletter.
Marsh,
I strongly agree with the premise of your last post. Over the years that I have been both player and DM I have found that a great deal good DMing is actually largely independent of story telling, acting, improv, planning, and even your proficiency with the art itself.
I've seen plenty of incredible story tellers and improv masters have their games fall flat.
What they and most DM's I have seen are missing is dispute resolution skills, and more importantly, the knowledge of how to prevent disputes from arising in the first place. This is generally from a lack of communication skills. Thats why I say things like clearly communicating your intent, no blocking, and session 0 are critical to the success of a game. Sure you can go without them, but your success is more a matter of luck, less a matter of surety. I'd rather KNOW that my game is going to succeed than just hope. Thats the purpose of the methodology I outline above.
Now, there are much more advanced concepts I would include, but the above are simple enough most people should be able to grasp and apply them immediately.
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A lot of posters on this thread make very good points, but we all have to remember that the GM is taking one for the team, very often.
I've sat at tables where some of the players would be much better GMs than the current GM, both because they have more skill or time to do so, but they consciously and actively shirk the mantle of GM for various reason, life/work being one of them, but "laziness" being very common as well. How fair is it that the guy running the game is always the guy with wife and 2-3 kids, a 50-hour a week professional career, etc. while some of the unemployed single soda guzzling dudes insist on being just players (while in the same breath complain about the GM's skills or rulings?)
I could use more practical tips actually. Because my biggest problem is lack of organisation I suppose. Not preparation, but where did my dice just go? Where did the NPC sheet go that I just had in my hand? The adventure open to the right page a minute ago, now not. The note made on a specific skill (or spell or feat) disappeared somewhere. And I do try - I do sort them, check everything before starting as far as possible, but it feels like I have gremlins that hide things as soon as I put them down. So how do people keep stuff organised whilst actually playing?
There are quite a few practical tips in the GameMastery Guide, and a bunch of meta-level stuff in Kobold Guide to Game Design.
I could use more practical tips actually. Because my biggest problem is lack of organisation I suppose. Not preparation, but where did my dice just go? Where did the NPC sheet go that I just had in my hand? The adventure open to the right page a minute ago, now not. The note made on a specific skill (or spell or feat) disappeared somewhere. And I do try - I do sort them, check everything before starting as far as possible, but it feels like I have gremlins that hide things as soon as I put them down. So how do people keep stuff organised whilst actually playing?
Back in the day, my friends and I used to joke about a cantrip called "Find Book" which was something any player could cast at will. The verbal component was "Where's the book?" and the somatic component was to check the book you were leaning on. Never failed.
In these heady days of 21st Century technology, though, all my notes are on my computer. Before that... well, let's just say that I have a lot of paper in my house, some of it 20+ years old (including my first ever BECMI character sheet from the mid 1980s), some in folders, most loose in boxes, and I was never particularly organised as a GM.
First look at our track record as a hobby. There are SO MANY mediocre DMs out there. I've gamed all over the world with dozens of DMs. Lovely people, earnest, trying really hard, eager to have fun and have a great experience, but generally just not at all versed in how to run a table. So...if it were "easy" why do things go bad so often?
I didn't say it was easy. I said it's not hard. There is a difference in those statements. Plus, as a hobby, it might be approached with enthusiasm, but it's a far cry from most people's profession. Cue the Spartan call...
Second, why would DMing be different than any other entertainment skill or art, where people learn their craft from others, often in a structured way, and then they go and express their own style? Why would learning your craft as a DM preclude inidivudal styles or expression?
Because of its freeform nature. Unless you want formalized institutions around it such as actual colleges, it's not going to be anywhere near the uniformity (albeit unique in expression) as other arts and skills.
Let me say that I think part of the problem here is that DMing has all too often been conflated with adventure design. Guys spend weeks creating an awesome adventure, full of really well designed encounters, detailed stat blocks, cool monsters. Then they spend very, very little time thinking about how to present this in colorful, dynamic, engaging, interactive ways.
I don't think you're wrong. There's a lot of truth in that.
They think, as you suggest, that that part of the gaming experience should be 'easy' or 'intuitive.' And when things go wrong, they blame the group dynamic or their players, or they just shrug and say, "That's what RPGs are sometimes like." And sure, sometimes that's true.
Caution lest you put your foot in your mouth. I never said it was easy. Also, if you think intuition is synonymous with easy, then you've got something wrong there. Well-honed intuition takes time and experience.
But since I've been actively trying to learn the craft in a more deliberate way (all the advice and suggestions above are awesome, btw), I've found that in many instances I'm far more able to salvage and improve my games. And I'm far more conscious of why games are going wrong when they do go wrong.
So you've taken the time to train your own intuition. Good for you. Not everyone possesses this dedication. Also, not everyone has the self introspection required to be able to know they keep zigging when they should zag.
I'm not looking for ideal games. But if half of Pathfinder DMs could be better equipped with behind-the-screen skills, that would change and improve the gaming experience for a lot of the community.
Did I say this wasn't the case? I said many people can't trained. Meaning, for whatever reason, they don't have the time, skill, or insight necessary to put into a hobby like you have. You are not the measure of the average GM.
Also, if you want to ask me about things in my posts, you should do so. Nowhere did you quote or highlight things I said outside of strawman statements. This shows me you were trying to make a statement rather than seek clarification. Next time, do better. ;)
First, it is difficult to be a great DM just as it is difficult to be good actor. Yes, I think running a great premade adventure means you don't have to be a good playwright, but it means you are THE #1 way the story will be told and interpreted. You are more than an actor, you are acting more than half the parts.
But, I can say I have met many 'natural' DMs that took only the big black book called the DMs guide from the old days and made their own epic campaigns. Teaching one of these DMs would be the same as teaching Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali to paint a traditional picture. When sitting at their table you enjoy the ride. After the adventure is over, I have had the players have that awesome moment of completing an amazing task, and the GM has that moment of knowing he pulled it all together.
So, having not done Slumbering Tsar, I still know the feeling the OP was going for and missed. But this feeling has happened for me when a friend ran a low power campaign where we all a poor farming village could hire to protect from bandits, sort of a Seven Samurai theme in fantasy terms.
Buri -
Guilty as charged. I asked my question in all good faith, then got caught up in my argument. I really was curious about your perspective, so thanks for answering fully, despite my tone.
I will say that compared with a lot of folks in the RPG world, I'm not putting a ton of time into the game. I'm maybe just shifting more of my time away from stuff I used to do (creating worlds, cooking up adventures, grinding through stat blocks) and focusing it instead on this part.
Part of that is that I've become more and more comfortable running published adventures. I love home-grown campaigns and adventures, but this is one cool aspect of buying stuff - you can focus a bit more on getting ready for the performance at the table rather than all the writing.
(I do rewrite my purchased campaigns a lot -- even Slumbering Tsar, which is a masterpiece as written, was fun to homebrew a bit.)
One final-final thought: I've really come to love DMing. A couple of people have noted in this conversation that it's kind of a burden and 'taking a bullet for the team' to play from behind the screen. I hadn't thought of that.
That's maybe the most important thing that we should be talking about. As we try to make DMing better for PF players, how can we also make it funner and more rewarding for the DMs?
--Marsh
http://dungeonsmaster.com/2012/09/collaborative-dungeon-design/
Collaborative design in all elements of the game vastly reduces the DM workload, increases player investment in the game, and improves the game for everyone by incorparating more ideas than any one person could have.