I went to PAX East 2015! It was awesome! I took a lot of notes!

(Part 1: Social Stuff)
(Part 2: Making & Selling Games)

Here are the notes from the one talk that I went to on being a good Game Master.

Playing Between The Lines

Luke Crane, Adam Koebel, Sage LaTorra, Thor Olavsrud

• DMs are authoritative. (this is bullshit)
• DMs enforce a social contract.
• DMs organize & wrangle humans
• THE DM IS JUST ANOTHER PLAYER WITH DIFFERENT RULES.
• Prep
  • Creating Scenarios
  • Homework
  • Game Design
  • “Lonely Fun”
    • The DM who creates adventures that will never be run. And has a great time doing it.
• Prep in the most minimal way possible.
• Find and create things that will drive action.
• The GM is expected to always be thinking about the game. (this is also bullshit)
• What does prep look like for…
  • D&D
    • Reading
    • Research
    • Environment Building
    • Narrative Stuff
  • The Great Pendragon Campaign
    • Reading Le Morte D’Arthur
    • Reading about the current period and year
    • Tying in past family events and scandalous rumors
  • Dogs in the Vineyard
    • Towns, Sins, Demons, People, Relationships, Mormons, Guns
    • Play a GM Minigame to create the campaign (Lonely Fun)
    • Use their system for “creating problems”
  • The Burning Wheel
    • Building Characters
    • Developing Relationships, both oppositional and supportive
    • Challenging Beliefs
  • Dungeon World
    • Make shit up
    • Wave hands like muppet
    • Talk in funny voices
    • Buy more copies of Dungeon World [note: the publisher of D.W. was on the panel]
• 90% of DMing is making shit up (improv)
• Building a cool world:
  • If you are playing a game with characters, you need to build the map in personal terms instead of locational terms.
  • Your campaign doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Learn to build external media into your campaign. Steal from pop culture. Don’t worry about it as long as it’s fun.
  • Read A Wizard of EarthSea
    • Names are magical. They give things solidity. Going after a +3 broadsword is way less cool than going after Sunbrand, Sword of the Western Hills
    • Use language dictionaries. “What langauge is magic performed in?” (mongolian!)
• Have a folder.
  • Name List
  • Map
  • Notes
• DRAW MAPS, LEAVE BLANKS.
  • (JIT DM)
  • Collaborate in worldbuilding with the players
• Character (NPC) prep:
  • Use the rules. Then fudge the rules.
  • Build opposition to the characters
  • The axiom of antagonists: “They have something appalling that they want, but use methods that the players approve of” or “They have something good that they want, but use appalling methods to achieve it“
  • Then take it a step further and make sure the antagonist wants something from the PCs.
• For any character in the game, you should have 3 things that describe them.
• Story:
  • Relationship Maps! (example)
  • NPCs should have reactions to player events.
    • “What does your NPC dad think of what your PC is doing?”
    • “What do the rest of the goblins do after you’ve killed their king?”
  • Behind the scenes, or indirect action.
• rtfm
  • Consult the rules for prep systems
    • Burning Empires, Sorcerers, Dungeon World, Stars Without Number
  • Constraints breed creativity – they give the world structure
  • Read ahead
    • Using pre-printed scenarios, you will have to do some homework to know how the world fits together
• Game Mastering is Learned, Not Borned
  • Skills, not genetics
  • These skills can be taught
  • Anyone can become a GM if they’re not afraid