I'll add my own GMing style. It's no argument based on reason or logic, just an argument from evidence - this is what I do and this is the effect.

Firstly, I have said on these forums before that I treat my players like whipped dogs and that they like it. That's a mild exaggeration but it's not uncommonly the case that I sit down across from their anxious faces, grin like a desert jinn and promise them a session filled with pain and murder. And don't they relish it! I recall on one occasion saying these exact words to a player: "I will find a way to kill you."

And of course as GM, I could. Those ever-orbiting cows are ready to plunge mooing earthwards at my whim. But I still haven't managed to kill that bloody PC, despite trying. The reason being is that it's a well-built character fighting plausible opposition and using sensible tactics. I am fair and I am realistic. I also try very hard to do two things. Firstly, I aim to be consistent. If a PC mage has to worry about an awkward spirit perverting their orders, then a favourite NPC mage has to worry about the same. Secondly, it's very important to admit when you're wrong and listen to what you're told. Last session, it was pointed out to me that I'd forgotten some penalties a few gangers should be subject to. Quick thanks and apology and resume with correct modifiers. If you don't do that, then you lose trust and that's critical.

I also said on these forums once that I try to kill a PC off near the start of the campaign just so no-one tries to rely on my mercy to spare them from idiocy. That comment didn't half rile up some people here. I haven't actually been able to do that this time, because people seem to have been surviving too well. Plus it doesn't seem to be needed this time. My reputation seems to have reached the point where my sheer presence provokes tactical thinking. ; )

Do I consider my word to be law in a game session. Yes, more or less. Do I consider myself to be more important than the players. Kind of, in the sense that the game can't happen without me. Do I consider myself more entitled to say what happens in the game - to some extent. I spend hours preparing an adventure and longer putting together a framework for a campaign. That entitles me to set the tone and content of a game. Essentially, it's a deal between me and the players. I offer them a game and they approve or disapprove it. Of course I tailor it to what they want, but if I don't want a a game centred around killing dragons, then I'm not obliged to provide it.

Is everybody having fun? Yes. Aside from being slightly rusty at juggling large combats, which I think I'm now back into, I think the game I run is fun and have been thanked by my players.

Can you have fun playing a game without a GM figure? Yes, I'm sure you can. Could it also get bogged down and be dull and go nowhere? Yes, that could also happen. Can you have fun playing a game where a GM's word is law? Yes - I have first hand evidence of that. Could it go wrong and be restrictive and punitive? Yes, that could also happen.

There are many ways to play. I like the friendly bastard approach and it works for my group. Others like a different approach. That is also cool. What is wrong is to talk in absolutes. Examples: "The GM vs. Players mentality is bad." Often it is, but we have a nice little frisson in our group of "I'm gonna get you, no you ain't." Don't throw out tension from your games in your striving for neutrality. "GM in charge is bad." It depends what your GM is like. Don't remove someone's ability to keep things moving and consistent in the name of democracy.

GM is a defined role that is useful. RPGs started off as tactical wargames. The GM role was created so that players could play against a wider world, not just each other. That shouldn't be forgotten because it's a fun way to play.

My thoughts,

Khadim.

I agree with knasser. I think my GMing style isn't far from his.



I don't exactly try to kill a PC at the start of a campaign, but I warn the players that if the rules say their characters are dead, they are. They nearly all died in the second game, when a helicopter blew up their hovercraft and left them floating in the North Sea.

I'm not too far neither. I've taken the habit to use the screen to hide the scenario, but rolls are usually rolled in front of the players.

(However, I had fun either with other GM styles, like less tactical games with entertaining actions)

As was stated...in game the GM decides the rules questions and sets the stage, between sessions it is ALL by committee and has worked like a charm for more than two decades without one tenth of the arguing that I see going on in the very calmest and sanest of the dictatorial games.


Isshia

I have an incredibly quick and easy way that I do most NPC's in my game. Categorize the NPC as: Inferior, Equal, or Superior to the players. Assume the NPC has attributes, skills, and equipment roughly equal to their PC equivalent (if this is a "gun guy" NPC, then compare to the group Sam), then apply a universal modifier. For Inferior NPC's reduce all ratings by 50-25% (generally -1 to -3), for Equal keep everything the same, and for Superior add 25%-50% to all ratings. This system by its nature scales with the PC's as well.

I use an auto-roller on my laptop. I also have all the combat maps I'm using on there, which are then projected onto the wall, so the screen's always facing me. While there's no visual accountability between myself and my players they trust me enough to know I'm not going to cheat them. And they're not idiots. They also know I accept suggestions and that I admit when I'm wrong. But when it's a fuzzy gray area where any position could be argued they accept my judgment call. I'm not so much a Game Master as a Game Judge. It's not a judge's job to boss people around, it's to take all the relevant facts, take the preponderance of evidence and make a fair and reasonable determination. Because, in the end, someone needs to be the penultimate decision maker of the game.

Ahhh...it warms my heart to see a kindred spirit on these boards. You remind me most heartily of my good friend Evil Dan. And yes, I have been known to utilize the odd Sacred Fucking Cow falling from the heavens (never just a Fucking Cow, or a Sacred Cow, it's ALWAYS a Sacred Fucking Cow) to slap down problem players and/or PCs when it's called for.

Great post and I hope to see more of your stuff,
Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )

Sounds like you play very similar to myself. I also use a die roller. I love it because its quick, and I can either a) roll without the PC's knowing I'm rolling something (great for Perception checks), or b) make a big fuss that I'm making clicks on my die roller, then smile evilly and continue.

I also heartily agree on your description of the role of the GM. Listen to your players, take into account their perspective, then make a judgement. In the end, your word is law. Another good description for the roll of a GM would be "referee." Keep the game fair, take into account the rules and the situation, then make a judgement and stick to it.

Wait, someone needs to be the penultimate (second-to-last?) decision maker? Who's the last decision maker then?

To add to Wes' comment about being the judge of GMing the game, I don't think it's the GM's responsibility to get characters motivated to act. As a shadowrunner, I can influence or motivate fellow players, however it's not the GM's job to get a certain tall, elf whose saavy with weapons to make up his mind which weapon he should use or what actions he should make in game. The GM's job is to be sure the rules are being played fairly and correctly, that no-one player is being ignored or railroaded and provide the backstory and setting for each job. Just my thoughts. And I can't help it, he knows his stuff and is an excellent GMer!

IMO (as all of this that follows is only IMO, which is worth no more or less than anyone elses), this is fine except fro the "stick to it" part. Sometimes, best intentions and best judgment at the time or not, the GM makes mistakes. When he does he should have the guts to admit that it was a bad call, when it was, and make adjustments. What is past is past. Mistakes DO get made. It is part of the game, but be flexible for pity sake AFTERWARDS. If because of a mistake YOU as GM made, that you now see as a mistake after discussing it, be forthright enough to find a way of re- compensation. Hey, if you as GM screw up and give out too much loot, do you not usually find a way to rectify the situation? why should rectifying a mistake in the Players favor be ANY different.


Isshia

Sure, Cantankerous, the GM should be willing to admit he made a mistake and possibly re-evaluate things, after the adventure is done. For the sake of keeping the story moving during an adventure, the GM should make a ruling and all the players should go with it.

Ironically I'm getting less frustrated with SR4. Mostly because I can now quantify what mechanically is bugging me and patch it. I patched SR1, 2, & 3 may as well do 4. Honestly I feel there is less to patch in 4 but most of the patching is at the core of the rules rather than subsystems.

As for the metaplot, I haven't liked it since Big D died so I've had years to get over it and I can still play in 2050.

Ultimate! ULTIMATE! Dammit! This stupid word-of-the-day calendar is messing with my head!

I 102% agree with this. And when I screw up on a decision I will offer up some compensation to the player in the form of loot or karma for their trouble. And sometimes the player won't even take it, he just wants to make sure the error doesn't happen again.

I've said precisely that from the start.


Isshia

Yep, I get this on those RARE (Oh, I hope none of my Players are looking ) occasions I screw something up too.


Isshia

This thread really blossomed, so forgive me if I missed a few points.

Having played a lot of cooperative games in the past year, I can say that they were all fun. I've yet to see a game bog down in committee. But what I have seen is a bundle of "GM is god" games bog down in arguments and rules-lawyering, because something the player wanted to do didn't fit with what the GM wanted him to do. Heck, the other week, I was in a D&D game like that-- no matter how high I rolled, I could not hit the unarmored orcs, because the DM was saving them for a plot device.

If you're truly "fair" as a GM, you're already headed in the direction of a cooperative game. If you're fair, you'll actively solicit player opinions, try and build consensus, and make a ruling that makes everyone happy. To go fully cooperative, you just need to go one step further-- take the GM out of the equasion, and do all that as a group.

The GM does not need to be the rules arbiter. Sometimes, you can find a player who can do that. Figure out which player you have that you trust, and has a good grasp of the rules, and make him the rules judge. That can lead to even better stories, as the GM is now free to concentrate on the story, and not on mechanics. Like I said before, I'd rather have a GM who can tell a fun story but doesn't understand the rules, than have someone who understands the rules but can't tell a good story.

Basically, what I'm saying is this: You can have an extremely fun game when the GM isn't The Final Word. In fact, if you think about it, how often do you have to hand down pronouncements from the pulpit in your games? If the answer is "seldom to never", then you don't need that authority, do you?

Well all I know is that we run a cooperative game and it works well for us. If someone questions a GMs decision it is looked up (generally by the player who made the question.) Sometimes a GM might forget and throw in an extra IP for a materialized spirit and a player will call him on it. Rarely do we need to have to go to the books for a certain ruling. Generally there is a go to person on what should be done a certain way. Generally so far we have one person who is good with the magic rules, one who has great memory retention and is called on to keep track of everything, and the other two cover the rest of the spread. There is some crossover, but our system allows for cooperative game play which adds to the story and suspense since we generally do not have to consult the tables. Since we are a cooperative group the problem SR4 gives us is when we all are unsure of a rule and we try to look it up in the BBB or any other book that might make a ruling we find that there generally is nothing there.

For instance there are no guidelines for setting demolition thresholds, or time scale, or anything. You just "Demo skill" at something. This is what can be time consuming, but in the end we had to leave it up to whoever is GMing at the time as there are 0 guidelines for anything pertaining to a skill that should have well structured guidelines. Blowing stuff up in games should have guidelines, since grenades have guidelines why not demo? The matrix and astral combat can be somewhat annoying as there is very little granularity. You combat at something or you dodge (or throw a spell if you can.) There is no actual infiltration skill on the astral so if you are a spirit or a meta/human astral projecting you just get picked up if you don't have masking. As a group we had to deal with some of these aspects together to make the game better (like making infiltration actually doable.) However when we had to deal with a problem like the matrix w/ it's lack of interpretation, rules, granularity, long boring combat, and script kiddies we had to throw that into the pile of "do not touch on pain of pain!" So it gets passed on to the 'technomancer or hacker NPCs.' Thats not a good thing as it can take quite a bit of punk out of the SR cyber punk (or at least the k out of punk if anything.)

Yet when you also have people who go to the books collectively as much as we had to do in the beginning of our gaming there are just some large glaring oversights to someone who wants to play the game "by the book." I mean emoto-toys? Seriously what were they thinking when they wrote that, and I can't believe that it didn't get sorted out in "playtesting" and if it was it seems like no one listened or wanted to it.



Personally I think the different play styles when you are GMing is better or worse depending on the maturity of the players sitting around the table. I found that the less mature a group is the better the "my word is law" GMing approach is. If you have to make a pickup game this style is generally more suited to a group of people you don't really know. For instance when I am sitting down at a table before the game starts and there is a guy who wants to tell you about how in his last D&D game how he made the game extremely unproductive and how awesome that was I then hope to high hell that the GMs has the my word is law strategy and that he/she will reign in this total fool. However if everyone at your table is mature, wants an awesome story, and they all have actually looked at the rules for more then character creation then group gaming is actually fun. If there is one bad egg (and this is generally sadly the case) in your group however cooperative gaming just doesn't work. For myself I think we have an awesome group of people at our table, and this has led to the best table top gaming in my life. I remember walking away after one session and almost had a tear in my eye as what just happened was everything I had always hoped in a RPG but never had. We have an amazing story with amazing plot hooks, character development, RP, suspense, and everything I had always wanted table top gaming. I mean 95% of the time we are having a blast, so both sides of the fence work. However in the end the problem our group has with SR is the rules and some glaring oversights that we either have to build into a workable shape or just throw out completely. This is not fun, and for how we play this is what we have to do instead of those of you who can just ignore and make up some rules on the fly. When you work cooperatively as a group you will then see how the SR4 rules were really built.

Read the post. Final decisions in game rest with the GM. How much more clearly can that be stated? After the session it gets discussed. Discussion is simple or should be, among adults. The GM and the Players come to a conscensus which can include the GM changing HIS position as easily as the Players being asked to change theirs. No revolution needed. Just a GM who's not an egotistical jackass.


Isshia

Since I'm a mostly on the fly GM I find it difficult to tell my players that I'm setting out to kill them because that'd be way to easy. 12 Steel Lynxs with flash-paks, ruthenium polymer paint jobs, and MMG's and mortars? That's like mugging D&D players with a room full of owl bears because I simply don't like them.

Before a game starts I tell players that I don't really want to kill their PCs. I don't get off on the idea of spanking players up and down the street with a heavy leaded stick. I do tell them that PCs die and that dumb PCs will die spectacularly in hails of automatic rocket fire. My unwillingness to kill them has everything to do with fairness and little do with the fact that I really want to shoot my PCs body 18 troll with a panther assault cannon until HE FUCKING DIES... er.... see what I mean? I like to highlight that PCs drive the plot but they aren't the focus of attention in the universe unless they choose to make themselves that way. The world will grind along without them but if they decide to shove their hands into the gears... they can expect to come away with less hand.

Well here's an example, perhaps some of you would have played it differently. When we started my SR4 campaign I had a number of newbies at the table and I myself was a newbie with the SR4 rules, particularly magic. There came a point where one of my players got fixated on starting some shit with a burned out Desert Wars mage. When astral combat was joined we both suddenly realized that he had never spent on points on Astral Combat because... he was a newbie, had no idea what that it was for, figured he could just throw spells and be done with it. At the ranges in question and given that he was attacking the guy in his own turf... the PC was going to die more or less instantly. Now if I was just dead set on smoking PCs this would be one of those prime candidates for instant and horrific death. The PC had been stupid to try and antagonize this guy but the player was a newbie who didn't fully grasp the rules. As such I ruled that the player could spend some of his karma award to buy a rank or two in astral combat solely for the purposes of not dying instantly for making a poor life choice. I did this because I didn't think it was fair to punish him (and kill a PC that he'd invested a great deal of time in) for not knowing some of the rules.

Like I said, that doesn't work for every table but it certainly works for mine. In the end the player was thankful to not regen and ended up more or less memorizing all the magic rules. I think it worked out fairly well.

If I ever met a GM like that, I wouldn't play in his games. As the usual GM for my own group, I always put their fun first. I'm not there to play AGAINST the players. What's up with that?

(Note Cardul, this isn't a flame at you, I'm just snatching your example: I acknowledge that your GM did the right thing for your group.)

This was followed by elaborate dice math. It's an example of a trend that I, personally, think is a big problem with roleplaying.

The players AND the GM are on the same team. The purpose of the system isn't to make sure everything is properly randomized, it's to make sure the players have a good challenge. They have to know they might not always succeed, and there's an element of danger.

But dice do not equal fun. Random success does not equal drama. The fun is in coming up with a plan and going through with it a-team style.

In the above example, I would have ruled that the first guard must make a roll to see if he NOTICES the wire. If he doesn't, he not only takes damage from the monowire but is suitably slain. (perhaps automatically losing head or feet, or being disembowled, depending on wire hight). The second guard then makes a reflex roll to see if he can stop running or duck in time. If he fails, he takes full damage but might survive. Anyone after that knows the wire is there and can duck beneath it or hop over. That's it. No roll for booby-trapping or intuition etc. The players have already done the thinking. It's the NPC's that have to rely on random chance in this instance of cinematics.

To the OP: I too dislike SR4's system, but not because there's anything wrong with it. Instead of memorizing the system, I would rather spend my time coming up with plot hooks, encounters, cool mcguffins and NPC's the players can interact with. I have been GMing Shadowrun since about... two or three years prior to the release of 4th edition. I couldn't tell you what the rules say about vehicle combat or summoning spirits. In my games, it just happens.

I've never had a fight with players about rules (and they have never fought amongst each other). I've never had a problem with needing to find a rule for a situation. Rules lawyering is a grave offense at my gaming table. In fact, as The Computer says, "Knowing the rules is treason. Disagreeing with The Computer is treason. Please report to incineration station U-B-G1 for summary execution. Have a nice day!'

Yeah, if your GM is fiating his way into stupidity he needs a sit down with his players who in turn need to work him over with heavy objects.

Furthermore if your playing with a GM who isn't open to having bullshit called on him during (or after depending on your preference) gameplay... I think you're gaming with the wrong GM. GM's make mistakes but in my experience it's usually not the result of them being player hating losers, it's just that they misjudged something. Players calling bullshit is simply feedback to the GM to prevent those moments from happening all the time.

Telling a GM "That was retarded and totally killed my fun" is a legitimate bullshit call.

Because gaming with them is your best hope of redeeming them. I won't go into the long boring story as to how I finally saw the light; let's just say I learned from example.

But there is a huge rift that most gamers see between GM and players. That sets them apart, and sometimes sets them up to oppose one another. The GM is providing opposition, which you have to beat; if the GM isn't careful, the players might start thinking they need to beat the GM as well.

If there's anything I've learned, it's that I am not *against* the players. I am not there *for* the players. I am there *WITH* the players, and the game we create belongs to them as much as anyone. The GM is just another player; with more responsibility, perhaps, and more respect. But he doesn't have or need any more power than anyone else. He can earn that through earning respect.

Master of M also raises an interesting point. Most of us have relatively mature gaming groups. So, why do we need to wield absolute authority over them? If they're decent players, and you've earned their respect, why do you need to play an iron fist in a velvet glove? Basically, the term "Benevolent dictator" is an oxymoron.

Or you could, y'know, discuss it with the players and reach a concensus as to wether X item is overpowerd or how Y rule works.



'Vote with their feet' made me think of all the players kicking the GM's shins under the table. =P


I'd just like to thank you for providing one of the most intelligent, calm and clear posts in this thread so far. While I don't agree with you 100% (more like 95), I think you've - for the most part - hit the nail on the head, at least as far as the 'ideal' of pen & paper RPGs go.

Does anyone else think that the last couple of pages should be moved into it's own topic? I think we've strayed far away from the original "SR4 sucks" angle and into a very interesting discussion of the philosophy of the gaming group and the role of the GM.

Frankly I think the discussion is better for it, it's good to see all these alternative models out there.

DocTaotsu, the quote in your signature is perfect.

Done.