Comments on: Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills

By: Evil Machinations » Blog Archive » Games…Must Have Games…

Evil Machinations » Blog Archive » Games…Must Have Games… — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:24:24 +0000

[...] Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills (campaignmastery.com) Carnival, GMing, inspiration Related Posts [...]

By: Squigot

Squigot — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:45:36 +0000

very good post. Thank you

By: Johnny xbox

Johnny xbox — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:26:56 +0000

Good afternoon, this was a really quality blog. I’d like to blog like this also – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I Am lazy and never seem to get something done.

By: Loz NEWMAN

Loz NEWMAN — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:23:00 +0000

Note-taking, oh my yes. Unless you have an elephant’s memory.
My Gaming group summaries (easily-printed from excel calculation sheets that make XP investment a snap.) alway have a space on the bottom of the cover sheet for me to note down important in-game actions, notes for the basis of the next scenario, etc. I keep all the cover sheets during the campaign. Bingo : instant campaign proto-journal/ stats tracking.
The above goes to illustrate the point above about keeping a firm grip on the details of your campaigns.

By: Johnn

Johnn — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:18:15 +0000

Excellent advice, everyone.

@Jeff – agreed, player empathy is important. My group goes for lunch, and it’s easy to talk about sessions that way and get/give feedback.

@Joseph – great items, thanks. I also combo paper and digital notes. For my new campaign I’m using index cards for the paper part.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:44:47 +0000

If I might add to the list:

Have Spare Time : As any good long term GM knows, you need to have some spare time in your life to prepare before the game. Minimally I suggest that you can spare at least as many hours in preparation as the session is going to run in preparation time for it.

Have A Good Memory : Don’t depend on your players to remember things for you from session to session. You need to be able to remember details about past events, plans, plots and setting so you don’t need to reference books and notes in game too much. Players hate waiting for an answer and it slows the pacing.

Keep Good Notes : No matter how good your memory is, you will need to keep track of things, during and between games. If your handwriting is horrible, be good at typing notes while talking to folks so that you don’t lose stuff and plop it all into a notebook pc. I combine computer and paper notes (computer for long term note storage, paper for quick things like combat event info as it occurs), and have done so since the earliest MSDOS based laptop computers. It drastically improved my GMing capability to keep up with folks and to do all that prep work I mentioned under ‘Have Spare Time’.

By: Loz

Loz — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:11:46 +0000

“The players make the story”. I’m entirely in agreement. The GM gathers a group, sets the scene, and lets the players loose (within limits). One of the best quotes for our beloved activity I ever heard was “We’re people who get together to have fun, otherwise what’s the point?”. GM-nurturing and tweaking has to be a strong part of that, e.g. in subtly adjusting descriptions to better engage the players interest, to name but one aspect.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:21:00 +0000

In my opinion the one thing missing from this list though alluded to throughout is understanding your players. If you get a feel for what kind of players you are dealing with in terms of there likes and dislikes are and their styles of play you can cater the game to them. The DM needs to have fun too but really the players make the story so if they are having a blast being part of it then it will be easier for the DM to jump in more. How you cater to your players should be an article within itself. One thing about this I will say, find what aspects about each session they really liked and what they didn’t like. Listen for themes among players. Also let the players talk about these likes and dislikes in front of the other players so that the other players have a chance to interject and say their disagreement or agreement if they wish. It is your goal to engage them after all.

By: Noumenon

Noumenon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:26:21 +0000

“Making sessions happen” is the thing I suck at the most — I do about five per year!

By: Johnn

Johnn — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:40:08 +0000

Hi James, I agree, fun is an important component. Not sure how it’s a skill though. Maybe we need another post someday on important game qualities. :) Good call on public speaking.