I was wondering what others thought the most important aspect of a great GM's game is.

*Ability to describe the scenes with enough detail to immerse the players in the game world?

*Ability to accurately enforce canon rules?

*Plotlines that are both challenging and well-developed?

*Realistic combat?

*Other?

I am using this info for a pet project of mine so any and all input would be greatly appreciated.

most importantly: The ability to adapt to the major curveballs that a player will throw at him/her

a good imagination and the ability to make characters with personality.

fairness.

I used to GM alot. I would spend a tonne of time making maps and developing plotlines. Everytime the players would completely hose what I did and make me develope some other alternate route that I could not forsee. Since I was basically making it up on the fly, I decided to stop the extra work before ... and GM'd off the cuff.
The runs really improved after that methodology change.

I'll second flexibility and imagination, and I'll add consistency and an ability to see the world through the players' eyes.

Quality NPCs. It's interacting with the GMs NPCs much more than the maps or the places that make the game world come to life. A GM who can quickly get into and out of character for a number of differen NPCs really makes the game.

don't be me... yet... maybe someday...

A good GM makes his game fun. What makes a game fun to some players may not be so fun for other players. The key is knowing what your players enjoy from the game and giving them that.

I'll add a third vote for adaptability, though in two senses. First is the capabillity to run things you aren't prepared for. Second is the ability to run more than one kind of game. I have a friend who GMs, and has good games so long as you want a lot of RP, but tries to just skim over combat and technical scenes because she has trouble with the rules. On the other hand, I've known two GMs who can manage a complex fight scene (I recall one with nearly 20 combatants) with ease, but their RP is like the Dead Alewives skit ("Uh, you guys can like, talk to each other now").

Also, in contradiction to that, preparation. If you know you'll be using an NPC, write down his stats at the very least. I was once in a D&D game where we spent 6 hours going through three rooms of a dungeon, because the DM wasn't well prepared, and had to stop and look up every monster, spell, and feat used.

Fun, yes. Thank you, toturi: for some reason that one keeps being misplaced -- perhaps because it is so very basic we usually don't really think about it.

I am glad someone started this thread. This is something that I have been thinking about seriously in an academic sense for some time now. I am a linguist and I primarily study syntax and semantics and pragmatics. I have noticed that rping has a lot to say about social situations, duhh since rpgs are social games. Here are a few observations that I have made based of current theory and literature in pragmatics. This is sort of a Ervin Goffman (Social Linguistics) type approach.

1. The 4 Gricean Maxims hold for roleplaying (in particular for the GM) as they do for any given social situation. They are:
quantity: Provinding enough information
quality: Provinding information that can have a truth value associated with, i.e. True or False.
relevance: Information that is pertinent to the situation.
manner: Information should be presented in a felicitous manner, i.e. the GM should be clear about what he is saying. Such as speak up, don't mumble, say things clearly and in an understandable manner. Also he should say things that do not logically contradict themselves.

So a GM should describe a given situation with enough information that is necessary. The information should be relevant, not distracting the players. Say things that the truth value can be easily ascertained, such as: There are 3 guards as the gate, and two guards walking the halls. If the players go to investigate what the GM said they can determine if this is true or not. If the GM says something like " I think there are two guards" the truth of that cannot be ascertained.

regarding detail: the GM should offer information that is relevant to the players and the given situation. Talking and describing in great detail the intricate wood work and carving of the pannels on the door frame of a door that the players might enter is probbably not relevant. If it is relevant then the players will know and describe it to them.

These 4 maxims are essential to clear communication and if a GM wants to communicate a story to his players he should follow them.

2. flouting the Maxims. The 4 maxims described above can also be flouted, or broken. Skilled speakers and story tellers do this all the time, you just need to know when to do it. For example if you are trying to sow doubt in the players you can flout the maxim of quality with a statement like, "I think there might be 4 guards, but you will have to check to make sure." No truth can be derived from that statement, but it stills leaves an avenue open of investigation for the players.

Another good way to do this is to flout the maxim of relevance. If you want to purposely distract the players from something you can by throwing a red harring at them. This can be a great GM tactic.

3. Common Ground. There is a thing we call Presupposition. This is when a speaker makes a statement that assumes a fact about a situation that is not common knowledge. If the players ask the GM; "We want to go to the bar." If they just entered the town and they assume that there is a bar in it and straight away state this they are presupposing that this town has a bar. If the GM says okay then he is giving in to their presupposed fact. GMs should try and build a common ground that the holds true between all the players and the GM. So when a GM states; "While you are running through the cloud of smoke, you trip and fall on your face." The player responds; "Hey wait-a-minute I did not say I was running." The GM assumed the players was and he made a judgement that presupposed a fact about the common ground. GMs should avoid doing this.

4. Possible worlds. When dealing with language (and human cognition) we can conceive of different worlds and different times. This is what an immiganition is to some extent. Intensionality is what it is called and this is what makes humans different from animals, and is also what makes natural language possible, IMHO. When planning for an adventure a GM should take into consideration the possible situations that can come up. This is what some have called being flexible.

GMs can prepare to be flexible, it just takes some thought and preperation. I always say that a good GM should "improvise as if he prepared for it, and prepare to improvise." Also you know you are a good gm if when you are improvising the players think that you have everything working according to your plans, and when you are following your plans the players should think that you are improvising. This way they will feel that you are not just pulling stuff out of your ass, or that you are not just trying to railroad them according to what you have planned out.

When planning, develop a plot and then try and think about any possible contingencies or diversions to it. Prepare for these. As you GM try and aim for your planned plot, but remember the players are naturally going to go against what you have planned out. So you most likely won't end up with exactly what you have planned but you could easily have an anticipated outcome. A good analogy would be a dart game. You the GM are aiming for the bull's eye, while the players are holding (fighting and tugging at) the dartboard. So really, GMing is the art of trying to hit a moving target in the bull's eye.

5. Conflict Resolution. This is more about what makes a good story, or plot then how to GM. So it is based more on literaty theory (which I am no expert on) then pragmatic theory. But anyhow, conflict is an essential part to any story. In fact I don't think that it is an accident that combat is so often the most fleshed out aspect of nearly all rpg mechanics. Think about what other type of rules section is devoted to just one thing, very few others. In almost every rpg book, GM's guide for that matter, there is at least one maybe two chapters devoted to combat. That is because combat, IMHO, is the most salient form of conflict resolution. This may also be why most gamers are male (just a thought).

There are three types of conflict that I am most aware, any literary critics can correct me if I am wrong, that I think are pertinent to rpgs:

man vs. man: i.e. Most hack-n-slash
man vs. nature: most simulation or realistic type of games
man vs self: more storytelling types of rpgs.

A good GM will note which type of conflict his game revolves around. Most games that are hack-n-slach are usually man vs man, deal with a lot of combat. I think that Shadowrun is a man vs nature type of game, where the environemt really matters. There are a lot of modifiers that come into play based on the environment. These affect the players in many ways. Story telling games should focus more on the characters pesonal struggles, even if these involve other characters in the game they still are problems that affect the player character.

A good gm will know what type of conflict that is involved in his game, what the rule system best fits to, and mix things up a bit to keep the game interesting. Some games are better suited to one type. For example, most D20 games are good for man vs man, resolving action sequences rather fast and maybe with some pizzaz, while L5R is more of a storytelling game about situational conflicts that the players get themselves involved with. I have considered L5R to be more of a chess game where players maneuver their characters into intriguing positions and then resolve personal conflicts. On the other hand games like Shadowrun are man vs nature where the world is your opponent, and the rules reflect this.

No matter what your opinion is of different games a GM should provide a lot of conflicts, and a major conlfict that a plot can revolve around, for the players to resolve. The rules represent a way that the player can through his character directly resolve these conflicts. So when at all possible a player should be able to use relevant skills and a bilities that they have acquired/or came with to resolve the situation. Role playing should be used as a means of bringing the game to life and creating the story. Thus if the GM has created an intense etiquette situation the players should roleplay out the scenario and with the GM create a good story, but the GM should resolve the situation with the appropriate etiquette roll with the possibility that the roleplaying can have a positive or negative result on the etiquette roll. It leaves a sour taste in player's mouth when the gm tells the face that their character foobarred the deal based solely on rping, especially if the character has a high skill in etiquette and/or negotiations. A good GM of mine once said, "the best thing about a roleplaying games is that I can rp a samurai even when I don't know the first thing about samurai etiquette. That is why I roll the dice." Frankly, i do not know anything about samurai etiquette but I know my samurai character knows a lot, and I would hate if his life is based solely on my foobarring a samurai meeting because of my bad etiquette.


Anyway, i have rambled on way too long. But I have thought about these things for the past couple of years, and I know that there can be some serious study and application of these things to rping. Role playing games are social situations and if there is one thing I know about communication there is a wrong way to do it. Do with this as you will.

Veracusse

Veracusse: I want to add that Maxim 4 (relevance) should be flouted at all possible opportunities. Unlike in real life, the irrelevant details don't become visible unless focused on by the GM at some point, and as a result a GM who doesn't focus on them (or doesn't focus on them enough) will make certain that anything they do focus on is immediately identified as important. This kills the ability of the players to improvise (if you spend time talking about the candlesticks a clever player can pick them up to smash over someone's head) and for you to use hiding-in-plain-sight puzzles (the plaque over the fireplace is a lot more obviously special if little else mentioned specifically has been non-special).

~J

Some good articles.

There's another way, Kagetenshi. You can get in the habit of describing a couple of details in each location - the players will very quickly learn that this is just how you describe things and won't go investigating when it isn't appropriate. This is also just good description technique. Saying that Mr. Johnson has expensive tastes doesn't give any flavor. Saying that Mr. Johnson has a platinum coffee stirrer says it all. Saying that a dragon is huge and strong is one thing. Saying it picks up a Eurocar in its jaws and spits out a tire is a whole different level.

...because that means that it ate the other three and will soon have ver ybad dragon gas.

Seriosuly though, I agree, keeps the players from jumping to insert random object you just described to investigate because you just described it when you never 'waste time' describing anything unimportant.

Veracusse:*clap* (as in applause, not VD)

I've run AD&D as a GM for more than 10 years. All my campaigns have been created on the spot, with an overall storyline that they catch a glimpse of now and then, but otherwise simply growing a tale as they go along.

My only notes are important NPC's that I create as we play, and then write down for future consistency.

Sometimes I prepare layouts of lairs of some note, but most of the time its not needed at all. The players don't care about that stuff, they care about whether they can figure out a way to enter, kill the monsters and leave with the loot.

Sometimes when I'm a player, a GM pulls out a booklet and begins a long narrative with background info, woven into flowered speech thats not suited to be read out aloud, and sometimes translated on the fly. - Booooring.

If I use a printed adventure, its as a plotline. Any information is delivered to the players in plain speech and the rest they learn by interacting with clues and NPC's. Never read your players a story.

Adaptability and improvisation. Don't plan things in too great detail. The minute you do is when your players throw a juggernaut sized curveball at you.

Make your NPC's, or at least your recurring ones, distinct. You can do this with something as simple as how they talk. Do they speak prefect and flawless engligh, or nothung but gutter slang?

I will say one important note is the system.

In Shadowrun, defining the world isn't so important because SR does a TERRIFIC job of defining it for you, although if the GM makes changes (as he likely will), those changes need to be shared. In CP2020 or D20, however, things are very poorly defined, so that ability on the GM's part is absolutely vital.

Adaptability also varies on the system. Some have everything written out beforehand. Some don't.

Realism vs. speed of combat and gameplay depends a lot on the system, and may or may not need to be altered due to the group playing. Shadowrun I've found is generally fairly realistic, but sometimes has to be tweaked to be faster. D20 I've found the oppositte effect.

Not to dwell too much on the notion of provided relevant information to players ("He said 'plaque on the wall'--that must be important!"), but as a GM, I love providing two kinds of scene descriptions:

1) A picture. An actual photograph or illustration pulled off the web. It might not be perfect, but odds are the picture will convey more in a few seconds than any description I could give would have. If it's important that something be in the image (the macguffin, the briefcase, the dead elf) I either go out of my way to find a perfect image or photoshop the neccessary feature in. That way the scene becomes alive. If the players are in a library, suddenly the shelves have bookends and curiousities on them in addition to books, there's a globe in the corner, and anachronistic gas lights on the walls. Instant atmosphere and adaptability.

2) A bare-bones description. Players are very imaginative people. The less you tell them, the more they'll imagine, which is half the fun of playing. Simple descriptions like, "You enter the library," "You open the door. [Character] blanches at the horrible sight waiting on the other side," etc. do more with less. It's hard enough to be a GM. Set the stage and let your players fill in the details.

Planning is important. Planning possibilites is the most tiresome part though. I've found that something as simple as a big sheet of paper (or Visio2003) can give a GM a good idea of how players can get somewhere. Look at it through their eyes and try to break it out as much as possible. That way you have ussually five or six different ways a player can reach an end point. I like a non-linear format for home campaigns. I think it allows players a more realistic view. I tend to run "who-dun it" type of street level games that seems to work fairly well.

For convention games though I think linear is better. I've found though that sometimes you have to goad some players into acting. Ussually there will be a few dominant players and some quiet folks. I try to "encourage" them along if they're being too quiet. And if they still don't act I'll throw in a plot hitch on the fly to wake them up a bit.

I ussually start with a fair bit worked out and only use 10% to 20% and adlib. I just like having that skeleton worked out so I can focus more on NPC's and they're quirks.

Pictures Rock....You can never have too many color pictures if possible. Black and White works just as well.....

Two words....Google Earth.....Can't say enough good things about it.

I think that this is a really good thread so far. I know that there are many different ways and styles to GM. A few points and clarifiactions I would like to make:

Relevance: I agree with Kagentashi and others that this can be flouted and used propperly for a variety of effects in storytelling. I just finished a course on Salish Pragmatics and Semantics and we talked about storytelling. In Salish the storyteller starts the story very different from how an English speaker would. He will start off by presupposing certain facts. He will always presuppose that Coyote is a part of the story, and say something like this: "It was Coyote who walked down the street." Whereas in English we would say "There was a coyote walking down the street." My point here is that for a Salish story coyotes are always relevant, where that is not so for an English speaker. The storyteller is obviously flouting relevance and assuming that everyone knows or will catch on eventually to the fact that coyote is present.

This is sorta what I mean by relevance when GMing. There may be certain facts that can be presented as if they were already there, or barely mentioned at all to set the appropriate mood and emotion (as arcady mentioned) of a situation. There are different storytelling styles as there are different GMing styles, for that matter.

I figured that the Salish example was appropriate since Seattle is surrounded by the SSC.

Describing details is a major part of setting up a story. the details that are relevant t o the story should be communicated, unless there are reasons that the GM wants to hide, or cover up some things. I mean, if your playing a mystery detective game, you don't want to just blurt all the relevant clues right at the start, but clutter up their minds with a lot of irrelevant stuff as well. I remember I attended a gaming convention once and a Forensic Expert gave a workshop. One thing he mentioned was that when he was doing detective work he would come across hundreds if not thousands of seemingly relevant clues, but in the end all he was looking for was a needle in a haystack. I don't think it is necessary to exhaust the players but misdirection can be quite fun at times.

About truth conditions: It is important to communicate what the GM wants the players to know as true. I was refering to just communication, but I agree with Nyxll that truth should also be derived and interpreted from the dice rolls too. But again it all comes off how it is communicated to the players and what language you use. This can be hard sometimes, I know that I am no expert at doing this.

Common ground: I still make assumptions when I should not be. I try hard not to presuppose certain facts to be true when they are not. I had one very astute player who would always catch me on this. Although, I think that over the years I have gotten better at it. This is something that we, poor humans, do all the time. It really takes a trained lawyer to get it right, (not a sematicist).

Planning: I agree that planning is a part of the game that is a thorn in the side for many. In my experience, the gms that did not plan well their games were the least memorable. The same holds true for me. The games that I planned out well, were some of the most memorable games. I have also felt that these games allowed for the most flexibility. The method that I use for planning has two-parts: 1. I create and describe NPC that will pose a problem and a plot to the characters. I do this by creating the npcs and giving them an agenda. The agenda is some sort of goal that they will try to complete. their goals may or may not directly involve the players. i don't necessarly plan things out step by step, but usually just a general idea of what. 2. I develop any important locations. I try and describe the details for the location that I think are relevant and will help with the mood, manner, and story I want to get across. See what has been said about relevance above.

I have a few tricks that help me do this. I categorize all characters into 5 categories: PCs, PC contacts, extras, goons, and Major NPCs. I leave the pc development mainly up to te players, with minimal input (usually only to help new players out). PC-contacts, I let the players define their contacts as much as they want to and then I fill in the rest. However, I have control over the contacts during the game, but maintain a certain faithfulness to what the players have developed for them. Fillers, they are just that. i don't even use stats for them. Goons, security guards, police, gangers. These are people that the pcs will come in direct contact with, so I have generic stats prepared for them. These are great, because they can be saved and used over and over again. I have folders filled with goons (however, SR4 will make them all useless :sigh:). Sometimes, (when you accidently give a goon a lasting personality) you can make the goon into a more fleshed out character. At this point it is easy since I already have a template and all I need to do is tweak it a bit to fit the newly introduce personality. This goes a long way for adaptability when players introduce new and interesing things and characters into the game. The last category is the major npcs. I will flesh them out as appropriate to the story and plot. I usually try not to have too many of them, as I find it easier to keep things moving a long that way.

I also like to use maps and pictures. But I try to get maps that will have an in game effect on them, such as a map of the research lab that they managed to get their hands on. I also use the internet for these, and a little photoshop to make them just right.

To be honest my plans rarely if ever work out as planned (sorry redundant). But at least I feel that I am prepared for a game and that makes me alot more comfortable while gming. To go back to my dart board analogy: I actually have never hit the bull's eye, but usually instead I hit the player who is running off with the damn target, and that makes me happy just as well.

Veracusse

Very well said.

The tip on NPC's is so very right on the money.

Create a quick personality, know a concept of strength, but make sure you know their agenda. The agenda is key, and often overlooked.

Great Post.

I 100% agree with that statement. Often the agenda is all I need for a good game.

Inevitably, you'll need to do some things off the cuff, and improvise.

But I feel the "meat" of a Shadowrun game should be written up ahead of time, with maps made and stats filled.

That's the only way the PCs will ever have had the satisfaction of having attained their victory by successful use of superior tactics, and the only way that the challenges they face could be affirmed by the instances when they experienced splattering failure through either bad gaming or bad luck.

If I am playing SR and the GM improvises most of the game, it dosen't matter how carefully I conducted myself in the firefight, how I laid suppressing fire, how I took up positions beforehand, or how I managed my support weapons. The enemies and their fortifications will be secondary to the plot and flow, and I probably could have beaten them even if I were nothing but an 80s elf with a leather jacket, a pistol, and a mullet, since the GM probably would have edited things down so all you needed to pull was some Miami Vice crap to win.

But, if the important parts of the adventure are written up in great detail, if all the security and enemy fortifications have been designed intelligently, and if the enemy has already considered likely means of attack and set up countermeasures, if I run in as the 80s elf I die right away. The runner team must be particularly strategic and professional under fire to accomplish the mission objectives.

And it is that difficulty, that threat of being utterly splattered, which makes the whole run worth playing through in the first place. An easy, flowing victory against unprepared enemies is meaningless. A grueling, intense battle where your ferocity, your strategy, and those extra mags you brought made the difference is the gamer's ambrosia.

Just as an example, in one SR3 game I ran I had the players in a fort with 20 soldiers under their command, and I had them get attacked by 100 NPCs. I nearly died rolling Assault Rifle checks for all 100 of the NPCs, but it was a very strategic and challening exercise.

The best GM I ever played under had the ability to send his players cowering under the table through sheer force of personality. More over, he had an instinctive sense for when to keep things light, and when to turn up the intensity full blast. It was that raw presence, tempered by his deep understanding of his players, that made for a fantastic bond of trust between group and GM.

Throw in the guy's knack for being able to do impersonations and accents at a professional morning-radio-DJ level, and a great many sins became pardonable. For example, I don't think anyone would advise taking a campaign that starts at low-powered street level, and advancing it to into the heights of epic level plots, in just 3 game sessions. This GM did just that, with complete and total buy-in from the entire group, to the point where we're still able to discuss that "one perfect campaign" 14 years later.

Sure he had contrived plot points at times. There were times where the combats were neither realistic or cinematic, the were just silly. There were scenarios where the balance between PCs and NPCs swung wildly in both directions alternating between us handing the NPCs their asses or the other way around. There were times at 4:30am on a Sunday morning when the GM would be half asleep and barely able to describe a scene only to be balanced off by the fact that over half the players were mostly asleep, and yet we would not be able to stop.

However, even with all those flaws, we didn't care. If I had to boil it down to something off the list offered by the original poster back in August, I'd have to say that this was a case of Immersiveness trumping everything else. Of course, to achieve that level of immersiveness requires a special kind of crazy on the part of the GM (like a fox), and a trusting relationship between Players and GM.

That sounds really incredible. Can you share the overall storyline with us? I'm curious to hear what made such a big impression on the whole group.

First off, it wasn't a Shadowrun game, unfortunately. It was Mage: the Ascension. If that doesn't scare you off, let me know and I'll post it.

The only thing a GM has to do is make a game fun. If he has to blatantly break rules to do that fine, if he has to do all kinds of wierd stuff fine, but as long as he can make a game FUN it dosn't matter.

For me, the Big 3 traits that make an outstanding GM are: Adaptability, Creativeness and Ingenuity.

Wow, great thread! As the usual GM, I'll take this all as useful advice.

Knowledge and preparation are very important to me, but enthusiasm is paramount. Everything else will fall into place if you throw yourself into the game with gusto.

Edit: ...and beer. Karma earned translates directly into beer.

three words...

ALL THE BOOKS!

that and being creative and being able to make players feel under threat/challenged while making the session an interesting story.

We never learned about that fateful session. *sniffle*