The key to good Game Mastering?

[Banzai Kamikaze]

What do you think is the key to good Game Mastering?

I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter.

I think there has to be a kind of "complicity" between the Game Master and the players, so that they both have fun. I also think the GM should adapt to what the players want, and if possible, that the players try to adapt to the GM.

Another element is communication. Not only openly talking about difficulties and problems about the GM or the game in general, but knowing HOW to express them. Accusing someone angrily without arguments isn't helpful, nor is players grouping to talk in the back of someone else. Everyone needs to have fun. There is no competition. Communication also means that IN a game, there should be a lot of talking. All players should have a chance to talk, and feel useful. Abandoning a player because he's not good in combat for example is a way to make him have less fun and become angry.

What do you think?

[Archangel Zero]

I agree. However, I believe that rules, GM rulings and GMing should be talked about AFTER a game session, so as to keep play smooth and enable everyone (INCLUDING the GM to have fun). I would also like to add that GMs are partly responsible for making the players feel useful by creating some encounters that are tailored to the players' skills and abilities.

[Rouroux]

Seems logic

[Archangel Zero]

Why isn't anyone helping in this important discussion? It IS important. For YOU!

[Rouroux]

You know what I think?

There is something I've never seen in any game session up to now and it is frienship and love... (yeuk...love...)

I know it sounds really "quetaine" but it is true. When did I see characters that cared for each other in-game? Never (except for Ian, my knight of the sacred light, that cares about his master AND friend).

All the caracters we play are chaotic, independant, selfish people that cares only for their own person. Never have I saw someone "sacrificing" himself to help another companion... for example: a fellow jedi that refuses to heal another fellow jedi because it would cost him vitality points... First, it is on a VERY high level on metagaming play, and also VERY selfish ( if I hav been the DM, I would have given this player a dark side point)

We must know that not all person in the universe is like that jedi.

Example: Han Solo...he's cool heu? He's got quite a shot with his blaster. But did you know that he had feelings for Princess Leia? Wow!!! What a revelation...

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, king of Gondor, and member of the fellowship of the orc slayers, killers... But still he is in love with Arwen.

I know that some of you might think that love is too complicated, that it would slow the massacre section of the game session, but it is a reality that exist and should not put aside.

Anyway... that a something I would like to see in a game sometime.

[Flax]

Maybe. but it would be nice to ACTUALLY meet a woman in a game, i mean in your game the female NPCs are not played well and in some campaigns it just seems that woman don't exist or are very rare. As for friendship, I agree wholefully, but seriously you can't like everyone and it takes more than just a day to become friends.

[Rouroux]

I understand, and I totally agree that women have been totally absent in my last game( except Elena, and the BIG sister of Rémi).

And I also agree that female character are also badly played, and for that I excuse myself in the name of Karyn the dragoon who peeked at you Flax when you were bathing...he he he... t'was funny though...

That is why I suggest that we begin a search for girls who actually would like to play with us. I already know one. Whe my Dongeon Ramadant will be over, I will try to talk to her about this.

[Banzai Kamikaze]

I think roleplaying a woman when you're a man is...quite hard. That's why you didn't see a lot of important women in my previous games.

Roleplaying love and care is also difficult. Usually, fun is more of a priority than deep immersion. That's why care is mostly forgotten by PCs: it's easier and funnier to mock someone than to care for him. As a GM, I'd like to see all PCs more sensible and less "Boba Fett" style, but it would require a storm of roleplay changes. More realisticaly, I require my PCs to at least try to respect other characters. I hope I see less mocking and more respect between party members in my next game...

Remember, it's a game. If no one tries to care for other party members, we'll see a bunch of little Fetts competing to have more glory.

[Archangel Zero]

I agree that love and friendship would be an interesting new addition to our role-playing. I will endeavour to add more female characters to my campaign so my players will have more opportunities to role-play emotional attachments, but first I'd like my players to move away for the metagame thinking that characterizes all of the current campaigns.

[LotrMinator]

Hoya there!

I've been wondering all along...
We've been talking about players being OOC (in another discussion I think), being metagamers, being poor roleplayers, etc. We've been talking about being immersive and even roleplay love. But what does mean all those words? Do we even know?

What standards do we pit against to determine wether one is a good or a poor roleplayer. Is someone dashing enough to say he's a good roleplayer?

I've been playing this d&d and other roleplaying games since I was six years old. Six years old alright? My first time, I couldn't understand the least of game mechanics. Yet, I played a cleric happily healing others in need (heh, this was Advanced D&D second edition).
Now, nearly thirteen years later, I won't go and say I'm a good roleplayer or not (and I've done drama and impro). I'll simply say I'm a fan. A true fan of roleplaying.

I've been in the shoes of more character you can imagine and I've also been a Gm countless times (first was when I was ten years old). I know what it means to play a good game and a bad game. The answer is so straightforward you'll think I'm dumb. A good game is one where you have fun, lots of usually. A bad game is when you want to get out stretch your legs every five minutes.

This is the easy part. Now, we've all been around trying to determine the hard part: what makes a good game? But we haven't come to any sort of agreement about what is good.

So, here and now, I'll say a good game is one when you have lots of fun. More precisely, you have so much fun playing that 1) before, you're waiting in earnest for it 2) after you still have fun reminiscing the best moments of the game session. I don't know if you can say any more than that about this subject, but I'll ask it anyways. What is a good game to you? Not what makes a good game. Just...

What TEXT a good game?

LotrMinator

[Banzai Kamikaze]

I think in your last sentence you meant what Is a good game ?

Anyway, yes it is true that to be a good DM, you must make games fun for everyone.

That's why I said there has to be "complicity" between players and DMs. If a DM doesn't adapt to players to make everything fun for them, the players will snore in games. If players never try to do an effort to appreciate the work of DMs when they try to do something interesting, the DM will get angry.

What is a good game to you?

A game where everyone has fun of course, but there are a lot of ways everyone can have fun. If players and DMs want a very immersive and coherent story, that could be fun for them. IF everyone finds some fun in having love stories in a game, well why not ?

IF everyone want to hack and slash through horde of monsters to conquer Forgotten Realms...why not ?

Bottom line: a good game master knows how to make games fun by respecting the tastes of everyone.

[Archangel Zero]

To me, a good game is when you get so close to your character that you can barely set a line between where your character ends and you begin.

I don't know if this makes sense to you: I'm feeling a bit muddled right now so my communication skills are slightly impaired. However, it makes sense to me so there should be a way for you to catch my drift before it flies off into the fireplace.

Oh by the way, I figure that if you don't make any background material for your campaign (and I'm not just talking maps; I'm talking history, NPC background stories, etc...) you're going to have some serious difficulty taming the ferocious beast that is consistency (Hell, I'm swamped in background material and I have a hard enough time of it already).