To what standard do you expect GMs to live up to?

[Liz Courts]

Removed a few posts and their responses, along with off-topic posts. Please be civil, thank you!

[hasteroth]

Tacticslion wrote:

Quote:

To what standard do you expect GMs to live up to?

I expect them to be relatively nice people to spend time with, and, hopefully, have a basic idea of a game and/or rules.

So long as they're pleasant people, the game time can be pleasant - maybe not because of the game itself, but because of the person running it.

I'd prefer for them to have a basic idea of the game and/or rules in order to make basic decisions and have the general concept of the flow of things. This can manifest as "knowing the rules" well (including citations) or "knowing the gist well" (having a basic understanding of how abilities flow and interact) or "knowing the variable storylines well" (having a basic idea of the general flow of how the game could go under a few different circumstances) or "know the world well" (have a solid understanding of the world at-large and/or the people in it) or "have a broad competence" (have a broad and basic grasp of many of those things, even if a deep one isn't achieved in any given one of them).

I've found, in the past, that any of those could well create a solid gaming experience, but none of them necessarily equate to creating a solid gaming experience.

So long as a GM is willing to be with their group and learn how to play with their group, that group will benefit from having a GM. And, honestly, there might be other ways to have a decent GM; I dunno, I just created that list off the top of my head based off of techniques I've seen in action.

I like to game. I'm grateful when someone is willing to run. Just because they're willing to run does not entitle gratitude; but presupposing they aren't actively unpleasant does entitle someone to gratitude for paying money, and putting in effort to help everyone be happy and have a good time.

I agree entirely. You can have a GM with perfect eidetic recollection of every rule... who is no fun to play with because he's generally unpleasant. The GM's ability to make the game fun should always be placed first and foremost before their ability to interpret the rules.

Example I can cite would be the VERY first time a friend of mine ran Pathfinder. She went full homebrew story, evil campaign, and more... and even though she constantly mixed up rules because she had only been playing Pathfinder for about 6 months, it was still pretty fun to play. Didn't last long unfortunately as schedule problems and growing anxiety on her part led to her cancelling it.

[Grey Lensman]

When it comes to knowing the rules, I expect the GM to know enough to not slow down the game. I also expect them to not make the same mistake constantly (like, say, a 5E GM who keeps assigning static numbers rather than advantage, or a GM in the new Star Wars system who keeps upping the base difficulty rather than adding complications despite a player whose 'expertise' involves overcoming those never appearing complications).

I expect any restrictions as to what I can't play to be explained with something more than 'Because I'm the GM and if you don't like it the door is over there.' This doesn't mean a long discussion, it could mean 'I'm not allowing that because of plot reasons to be revealed later', so long as that reveal actually happens. It could be as simple as 'I really, really don't like the flavor of X', or, 'I have trouble balancing that out due to it being yet another subsystem/overly complex given the time I have.'

I expect the rails to not be overly visible.

I expect there to not be unavoidable deaths, even at the end of the campaign (no death screams that will take a full HP party member past death even on a successful save!). A chance of death is expected, but a targeted certainty of it is crap.

I expect to have a decent chance to participate in any given session, and a GM competent enough to forcibly remove the spotlight from anyone who tries to monopolize it.

Of course, all of those things play into one big overall expectation.

I expect to have fun at the game. It's why I show up, after all.

[Tacticslion]

Liz Courts wrote:

Removed a few posts and their responses, along with off-topic posts. Please be civil, thank you!

Sorry! Thought I was!

EDIT: Though it may be that it was simply quote-capture delete... which, if that's the case, sorry for the quotes!

Very, very mildly off-topic:

Harleequin! Hello!:

- 1) Welcome to the forums! Glad you're here!
- 2) You currently seem to have some misconceptions about the nature of Aliases, and how they're used here! Which is fine - I didn't understand them until someone explained them either! Unlike in other forums, aliases are not secretive sock-puppets or used for deceptive reasons - here they are publicly part of the same Poster with the full information of their relationship to the original creator freely displayed to all, and fulfill a variety of uses from being unique characters in Play-by-Post games (like having a character sheet in such games), to being joke characters (either running gags or similar), to being a subtle form of communication based on tone and topic (whether irony, or because formal or jokey tones don't work in a certain venue ala Code Switching), to being homages (to various things you like), to being convenient places for storing all of a given kind of post, to a host of other reasons. If you have any questions about them, please feel free to PM me. To do that, click my name (Tacticslion), and up at the top of the page it takes you to is "Send Private Message" - that'll let us talk via PMs. If you'd rather it be more public or get a general consensus on the things (which could be an interesting topic of conversation), feel free to start a new thread titled, "What's the deal with Aliases?" or something similar, and I'll be happy to post there about them, or any other topic you'd like. To be clear, you don't have sign in to anything other than the one, main account - there's just a bar you can select which of the names you've created for yourself that you want to post as at the bottom of every post made.
- 3) I hope you're gaming is good, and your day is great! Peace, and God bless you! :D

Hope that helps!

~ TL

[Redbeard the Scruffy]

9 posts on page 3 - that was a LOT of deletions...

[captain yesterday]

Oh! Oh! Pick me!

[KenderKin]

Redbeard the Scruffy wrote:

9 posts on page 3 - that was a LOT of deletions...

Apparently a fine line exists between keeping a thread on topic and just killing it completely.....

[captain yesterday]

No one cares anymore. They're trying to see how much hot air fits in a Jingasa.