Should you be a Game Master?

[Music] hello and welcome to this episode of for your consideration my name is guy and today we answer that question of should you be a GM well I think everybody should be a Jim that's a bald-faced lie I don't think everybody should be a GM I think the GM's are not a rare breed I think that everyone has the capacity to be a GM but I think that there are certain asset certain fundamental human qualities that one needs in order to be a good GM and ultimately if you're a bad GM you might have some players for a while but I don't see it lasting I don't see it carrying on for long I I really don't see that happening personally maybe it will maybe I'm completely wrong and I hope so but if you want to be a GM I have suggestions these three different little topics that if you can tick them off then maybe you should consider being a GM like I said I think everyone has the capacity for it I think there's just some qualities that you need to have and embody that we'll just make sure that you enjoy it and that your players enjoy it as well so the mindset your mindset you need to want to explore you need to enjoy exploring you need to want to see a map and go I wanna I want my I wanted to take people on that map I want to be a tour guide I want to explore I want my I want I want my ideas to flourish and to grow you need to have the mindset of wanting to help others my players have got stuck I need to figure out how I can help them I need to give them an npc or a clue or an artifact I need to help them I need to drive them into a certain direction you want to help other people to have fun so your mindset needs to be collaborative you also need to want to let others win now that's a tricky one and I see it very often where the GM get upset because they're monsters keep dying I was a GM I that I hated my mom you are there to lose every NPC you play is there to die at the hands of the players characters all your monsters all your traps all your cunning is there to be broken by others you have to learn to enjoy that you have to like it you have to enjoy setting up a riddle that you know they would never get right so you're going to give them help to solve it you're going to beat yourself so in other words design a weapon give it to your players and then show them where to hit you with it so that you will die as quickly as possible that's what you've got to enjoy it so very strange mindset until you turn it around and you realize that it is not about letting others win it is about telling a narrative story with others and in that story you are representing the evil side the side that is going to become that is going to get overcome that is going to get defeated and you are actually supporting and rooting and trying to help but also trying to prevent but help a group of people move through that space it's a very difficult space to be in and if you enjoy winning it can be a very difficult difficult sensation to let your monsters die and to purposefully set up situations that you are defeated in I love it when I'm playing a betraying character and the players at the table start accusing me you are a betrayer you are evil character you I've caught you out and you're a liar you worm I love sitting there feeling this this this personal attack on me being a traitor and a liar and being able to be smarmy about it and then watch as my traitor gets executed by the players you've got to learn to love it you've got to learn to like it your mindset has got to be there if it isn't there you're going to struggle personally you need to be a storyteller now I'm not a good storyteller outside of structured environment if you asked me a question that would have a few sentence answers I will talk to you for an hour as I ramble and waffle and explore and go in different directions and get your opinion on what I'm saying it by a storyteller I mean you need to enjoy telling a narrative now an exercise I do with my partner is that we might be walking somewhere and there's a question that comes up he says to me did you pay the electricity's today and I'll go ah no I didn't because I was hijacked by ninjas and he'll say I what do you mean ninjas said yes I was walking and these ninjas they left out of this van and they hijacked me they took me to downtown Tokyo where they then served me sushi which you know I don't eat sushi so I actually allowed some of the sushi to escape and in doing so caught a ride with them out of the harbor escaping the ninjas in other words you need to like telling stories if you don't like telling stories if we don't like making things up as you go that's a problem that becomes a challenge that's what your entire focus is as a game master is to tell a story is to link narratives together the players are creating the story you've got the plot they are now interacting you've got to link them together and that means you also need to be a problem solver you don't have to be an accurate or correct solver of problems you just need to be able to solve problems to link things together the characters have gone down this tunnel which you know is going to lead to their certain death because of what has been set up figure out a way of how to prevent that from happening if you like to keep your party alive the characters have said something stupid to the king normally they'd be executed figure out a way as to avoid them being executed but to get them back on track into your adventure so you need to be able to balance out and think on your feet this is happening so I need to do that this is how me so I need to do that there's nothing worse than a game master who's it sits back and lets the game unfold and doesn't interfere in terms of trying to solve the problems remember you're there to help the players get through the scenario and to get through the adventure and to tell a good story if you just sit back and you're not trying to solve anything you're being very passive and sometimes that can lead to dead ends where players get very frustrated they don't know what to do they've got no options left and you're not helping them either you also need to be a talker now I know a lot of advice is that the GM should establish the scene and then shut up let the players continue talking absolutely but you need to enjoy talking you need to enjoy not necessarily the sound of your own voice although that certainly helps it's not arrogant to say oh I like the sound of my voice actually you need to enjoy your voice and enjoy talking and you do not have to do accents you don't have to do accents but you need be able to create an emotional expression to and convey or at least have a vocabulary to convey sadness or joy you need to enjoy articulating and speaking because when you do speak you are setting the entire tone for the whole table you are setting the mood you are setting the tone you are embodying all of these different NPCs you are bringing that world to life so if you don't have the capacity if you don't like talking you're not going to bring that world to life and the players are going to feel very very very put upon they are having to do all of this work so if you don't like talking being a GM is not for you then you need to have passion and that passion needs to be openness you need to be open to ideas because remember all of your ideas everything you're coming up with is there to be broken by the players it's there to be defeated to be overcome by the players so if they go in a completely different direction to all of your plans they are still doing exactly what we expect them to do they are overcoming your plans so you need to be open to that idea you need to be open to the fact that they're going to do stuff that's completely crazy completely an intentional completely ludicrous but you need to be open to that sort of thing if you can't be if you if you are so blinkered that no the must stick to plan and if they don't stick to plan I just kill them I don't think you're going to enjoy being a GM I think you're gonna be frustrated frequently because players go off in different directions all the time it's what they do you need to have dedication and that dedication is reading the rule books understanding the rules you don't have to be a rules lawyer you don't have to apply the rules 100% correctly from day one but you need to be dedicated that idea you need to be dedicated to the story to the adventures to working out these problems to talking to your players that's what you need to have you need to be dedicated make some Maps come up with some stuff work on areas that you're poor on embellish areas that you're good on drive forward this this narrative story you need to be dedicated and then you need to seek improvement I'm constantly trying to figure out how to be better at how to do more of how to expand my capacity as a game master some I get feedback from players oh what did you like about this what didn't you like about that is this going in the right direction is that is too much of that too little of that I'm now doing a lot more role playing so as a player I'm getting was I too overbearing was I not overbearing enough did I do this did I do that did you get this type of character that wasn't annoying was it this so you constantly have to crave improvement and that in a nutshell is what I think sandbox style jamming is all about I put the wrong slide in my apologies that is what I think you need in order to be a good GM is you need that mindset to be correct you need that personal space that personal drive those personal abilities and you need the passion and if you've got that if you've got those three things even in a small amount you are going to be a great GM and if you see it in others if you see that there are others that have got that capacity but they're not sure I don't know it's so much work support them help them sit through some adventures with them give them accurate and honest feedback point out areas that were strong point out areas with it were weak but encourage them to continue encourage them to carry on that's what kept me going that's what kept me gme was i was encouraged to continue by my players even though i made all sorts of horrific mistakes i wasn't open to ideas i was a railroader i didn't like my characters my monsters my people being defeated so I always tried to outfox my players my players stay dedicated to me and they pointed it out well you did it again your evil villain somehow managed to outfox us once again we are not enjoying your sessions because you're not flexible you're not open you et cetera et cetera you don't give us enough descriptions your descriptions are so lacking that's what encouraged me to go out there and say how do I give better descriptions how do I give more information or not enough or too much tour you've got to have that so that all boils down to having passion for it anyway I hope that this video has encouraged you perhaps to look at it and say well I actually kind of do have those I've got some of those you can get some of those you can develop your ability to talk you absolutely can you can develop the openness mindset that flexibility mindset you can develop the desire to want to help others you can overcome your desire to win all the time you can overcome that you can develop these things so if these are things that apply to you become a GM and that reason why I'm so passionate about people becoming game masters is because we've got far more players we know this we've got far more players than we have GM's so to have good GM's passionate mindset personal base passionate GM's means we'll have more games we'll have more opportunities to bring more people into our wonderful hobby and that just drives it further that allows us to explore things that we've never thought of exploring before it adds to our collective knowledge and psyche and gives us a much more interesting future than if we stay stagnant so if you think you can become a GM I challenge you now become a GM leave comments below saying I am going to become a GM and then give us feedback let us know how it goes come back to this channel ask question well I did my first session and it was a disaster everyone was bored what did I do wrong yes yes yes bring that to the channel let's discuss it let's unpack it let's look at it let's try and help you to become the great game master that I know that all of you can become anyway enough from me don't have a weekend [Music]

Channel: How to be a Great GM

Views: 50,011

Keywords: dnd 5e, dungeon masters guide, Dungeon master tips, Game master review, Dungeon building, World building, Dnd gm tips, Game master toolkit, dnd, d&d, dnd gm tips, game master tips, Great game master, Tabletop Roleplaying, GM, How to GM, Roleplaying demo, How to be a great game master, Game Master, Great Game Mastering, How to, How to be a great dungeon master, DM Tips, Dungeon Master, RPG, Game Master Tips, Dungeon Master Tips, GMing Tips, DMing Tips

Id: BohJMNOAX8U

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 31 2018