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]
- D&D
- 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
- 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