Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills
What are the essential skills of a GM?
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Mike’s Answer
I gave Loz’s question quite a bit of thought, and soon reached the conclusion that the obvious skills that I could list were not only boringly self-evident, but are either not all that essential, or are specifically relevant to just one game system, or they are easily learned by playing. But, over a bit of time, a few more fundamental skills suggested themselves, abilities for which there is no real substitute. So here they are, a Baker’s Dozen (plus one) things that a GM has to know how to do, in no particular order…
1. Find Information Without an Index
The uninitiated might think that I was being facetious, or trivial. Anyone who has been GMing for a while will know that’s not the case! RPG products are notoriously badly indexed, and so it’s vital for a GM to be able to remember where to find something he dimly remembers reading several years earlier, and to be able to find it again quickly.
2. Make Good Snap Decisions
Some people are good at making snap decisions, others have to think things over. GMing requires the ability to react to a die roll or a stated action by a Player with a decision as to what happens as a result. You don’t have the time to ponder deeply, the response has to be immediate.
3. Plan a Story
Some people might think the ability to construct a game world is vital, but there are a number of game settings out there you can use or adapt. A more essential skill is the ability to read something – anything – and construct a story idea from it.
That means more than just coming up with an idea, it’s structuring the players’ interactions with that idea in such a way that they will find entertaining (it has become something of an ongoing joke amongst my friends that I can find a scenario in just about anything)!
You need to structure an entry point to get your players involved in the storyline, a development path for the PCs to follow, setbacks, difficulties, plot twists, and a resolution; and while part of that is in the hands of your players and what they decide to do, the GM is the person who has to provide them with the opportunities.
4. Play Two Characters at the Same Time
One of the big differences between being a GM and being a player is that you have a cast of thousands at your fingertips, and will have to frequently play more than one of them at the same time, even when they are in opposition. You need to be able to wall off what one character knows from what another knows from what you know as GM, so that you can make appropriate decisions for these characters. It doesn’t matter how great you are at playing one character, if you can’t play two.
5. Play Politics
In many aspects, DMing is about compromise. You have to compromise your vision of the plotline with what the players actually have their characters do, you have to compromise your rulings and game philosophy with your player’s desires, you have to compromise in all sorts of areas. While the GM is always right, there’s no game without the players.
6. Time Management
Being a GM involves a lot of work, and the only way to be really good at it is to invest the necessary time into your campaign. How much time is required depends on a multiplicity of factors, but being able to manage your time is essential to getting the maximum done in whatever time you have available. Part of this skill is the ability to prioritise, and part is the ability to delegate what work you can (be it to a player or to your computer or even to your spouse, if he/she is willing). And part of it is efficiency, and still another part is knowing how to find those extra minutes here and there, and accumulate them.
7. Extrapolate From the Known
This skill shows itself in many facets of Game Mastering; from being able to expand or extend a character’s core concept into a broader characterisation, to being able to expand upon a basic rule to cover situations that the game mechanics don’t explicitly address.
8. Think Outside the Box
If the previous skill is all about extending the known to cover the known, this skill concerns the ability to recognise how far you can push things – rules, characters, situations – and finding ways to go beyond those limits.
9. Public Speaking
Speaking in front of an audience is often rated as one of the acts people find most terrifying in psychological surveys. As a GM, you must be able to orate both efficiently and effectively to communicate to players the things they have to know. In fact, you have to be able to do this so effectively that you can pretend to an ordinary person’s difficulty in public speaking while maintaining your own self-control.
10. Sound Convincing
A GM has to be a salesman. If you have not mastered this skill, your players may pretend to go along with whatever you tell them ‘for the good of the game’, but their characters won’t act in exactly the same way as they would if they believed what they had been told, and they will be fighting to suspend disbelief instead of putting their hearts and souls into what they are supposed to be doing.
11. Memorise Trivia
It’s not really necessary for a GM to be an expert in History, or Architecture, or any of a hundred other areas of knowledge; but they do have to have enough facts relating to those subjects at their fingertips that they can integrate little pieces of reality into their game settings. I’ve lost count of the number of times trivia has become essential in different campaigns.
12. Perform Simple Mental Arithmetic
There’s a lot of simple math involved in resolving basic actions at the gaming table – from working out whether or not a skill roll is needed to whether or not a blow hits. Reaching for a calculator – or even a pad and pencil – breaks the narrative flow.
13. Reconcile the Seemingly Irreconcilable
Games are full of contradictions, owing to the simple fact that no simulation of reality can ever be as rich and diverse as reality is. With different standards of abstraction applied to every single facet of a simulated reality, contradictions are inevitable – and that’s without adding in the ability to go beyond what is normally possible, by way of magic, or technology that doesn’t exist yet, or superpowers, or psionics.
If you can’t make sense of the dual propositions that “The Gods are Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient” and “Free Will is beyond the control of The Gods”, you can’t be a priest – or a GM.
14. Entertain Others
Last, but perhaps most important of all, the GM has to be able to entertain. If the game is not fun, sooner or later your players will find something else to do that IS.
So those are my fourteen essential GMing skills. Everything else you can fake, or learn on the job, or import from someone else.
And now it’s over to Johnn, for those things that I have inevitably overlooked…
Johnn’s Answer:
Thanks Mike. There are many skills involved in GMing. I have a shelf full of books dedicated just to the craft of running great games. That’s the part I find so appealing about being GM. Other games fade over time for me as they pale to the dimensions of being a game master.
Loz quests for an essential list. And Mike, you’ve got an excellent group of core skills. So I’m going to name my Top 3 Essential GM Skills.
I have not made such a list before, and I spent the week pondering it. Turns out the top skills I think you need to be a great GM are not technical in nature but are more leadership type qualities.
15. Make Game Sessions Happen
Playing the game is the best activity in the GM’s toolbox. It’s the end goal of all the planning, creating, reading, studying and thinking. Without game sessions actually occurring, all your efforts are moot.
Sessions are also the best way to learn. Experience is the best teacher. The more you plan, prepare and run games, the better you will get. All skills slowly improve each session. Skills in which you have talent or great interest will improve even faster. GM more = better GM.
Real life is against you. Tricky schedules, other priorities, logistics, player issues, personal energy levels and many other factors conspire to create a fractured gaming calendar. A goal every January is to stick to our game schedule for the year and make as many of those game sessions happen as possible.
Unless you have a like-minded player who is willing to make games happen, it’s up to you to cleave through any obstacles preventing gameplay.
A GM who can handle all the details of finding players to form a group, organizing game dates and session details, and doing whatever level of preparation that’s desired is going to make 50% of sessions happen.
The GM who can negotiate all the crises that afflict the gaming calendar, such as absent players, last-minute emergencies, and time- and energy-sucking events at work, home or school is going to make 90% of sessions happen.
16. Communicate Well
Good communicators make sessions fun. The GM has many required interactions with his gaming group. Here are a few examples:
- Game and session expectations – yours and the players’
- Player relationships with the GM and with other players
- Session organization
- Encounter details and management
- Character actions and results
- Rules refereeing
- Roleplaying
- Combat management
If any of these standard interactions go wrong often, the game is in jeopardy. If things go wrong once at special times, such as during player conflicts or tricky game moments, the game is in jeopardy.
Communication clears up misunderstandings. It encourages participation. It gets people staked into games. It helps everyone have more fun.
Communication is not just about getting your point across. It’s not about compromise. It’s not about announcing dice roll numbers.
A game master who communicates well will listen – and encourage listening amongst all group members, usually by being a good example – not just talk. He’ll take the time to consider more points of view than his own. He’ll explain the thought process behind his decisions. He’ll describe scenes with flair. He’ll coax shy players to not just participate but to express their opinions and ask for what they want at the appropriate times.
A good communicator might occasionally smooth over ruffled feathers, but they prefer to get to the heart of interpersonal conflicts to solve them permanently. They get communication happening before small things grow into big monsters.
Communicators also help players feel welcome, valued and respected. Key ingredients for great gaming.
17. Desire to Do Your Best
Give it your best shot every session. Do this and you will not have any regrets.
You might not feel 100%, but do your best under any circumstances. Sometimes you’ll only manage 50% or 70%, but that’s great. Outcomes will take care of themselves over the long haul. Just focus on applying yourself each moment you GM. It’s the struggle to learn more, be better, do well that’ll get you better and better results. The journey shapes the great GM, not the destination.
Make a list of why you like GMing. Go out and read more about these topics. Have a desire to improve even more in these areas.
Make a short list of critical shortcomings. Shore up these with study and practice. Do not make a list of all your GMing faults – just ones causing game session problems. Fix those. Do not try to be the best at these skills, just get good enough so the serious problems are gone. Then keep focusing on the areas where your talents and passions lie to make those soar.
I can tell a GM who wants to improve their craft from one who just shows up, basically killing time. Your players can too.
Do your best. If you’re unwell, be the best unwell GM you can. If you’re unprepared, be the best unprepared GM you can. If you have a group of piranhas for players, cheat just focus on yourself and what’s in your control and do your best.
I look forward to everyone else’s thoughts on what makes a great GM. What are the skills and traits you’ve noticed great GMs in your life possess? What skills do you possess that you think makes games better?
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March 1st, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I think two essential traits are confidence and remembering that it’s everyone’s game, not just the GM’s. Those two elements combined make for great GMs, in my experience.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Agreed. A confident GM who isn’t about shining the spotlight on himself is a good combo.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:37 am
Hot-wash response : Thanks for re-starting my question, Mike, John. These are all good comments and suggestions, and very useful. I think Rafe’s point is bang on the mark, too.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:52 am
perfectly suitable for shining at job-interviews as well:
“What did you learn from roleplaying?”
.-= nightclaw´s last blog ..Wlan Reichweite verbessern – Repeater vs. Antenne =-.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:51 am
As a counter to Rafe’s comment, and one I am guilty of forgetting myself on a regular basis, is that it’s the GM’s game too! Make sure that you are having fun, which will make it easier for you to entertain the others. I know sometimes I’m so focused on putting on a good show that I forget to enjoy the bits I like doing.
GMing has made me a much better public speaker which shows just how much practice I’ve been getting.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:23 am
[…] Mastery addresses the Essential Game Master skills. Give some thought to what’s missing on the list. This is a ‘bad’ because […]
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:40 am
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.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:26 am
“Making sessions happen” is the thing I suck at the most — I do about five per year!
March 4th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
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.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:11 am
“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.
March 8th, 2010 at 5:44 am
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’.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:18 am
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.
March 8th, 2010 at 10:23 am
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.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:26 am
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.
March 22nd, 2010 at 9:45 am
very good post. Thank you
May 28th, 2010 at 11:24 am
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