The Role of the GM: Director, Writer, and Producer
I have a little red notebook. 150 sheets, college rule. If my players could get their hands on it, they would have access to every plot hook, NPC, critter and dastardly plan I have ever plotted to place in their paths. Every week, when the players go home after a night of grimy, blood-soaked battle against the latest nasty, I stay up to catalogue the events onto our private web page so they can have a real account of the events, and so I can later compare my original scripts to what actually happened to keep the storyline cohesive. Then, I send out an email to the group confirming the next session date is still open for everyone. I do this without need for encouragement or thanks; it's in the job description (more or less.)
I have a little red notebook. 150 sheets, college rule. If my players could get their hands on it, they would have access to every plot hook, NPC, critter and dastardly plan I have ever plotted to place in their paths. Every week, when the players go home after a night of grimy, blood-soaked battle against the latest nasty, I stay up to catalogue the events onto our private web page so they can have a real account of the events, and so I can later compare my original scripts to what actually happened to keep the storyline cohesive. Then, I send out an email to the group confirming the next session date is still open for everyone. I do this without need for encouragement or thanks; it's in the job description (more or less.)
I take on all these tasks, wear all these hats, don all these frocks just for the fun of seeing a fluid story take shape in the hands of my players. But, as happened recently in a session, sometimes my role is confused in the eyes of my players as either too intrusive or too removed.
Things were getting hairy for the characters. So many and so great were their enemies, so thick was the conspiracy the heroes barely trusted one another. I observed a more unnerving aspect, however; some players were encouraged by the scenario, and others were bored. Talk began of changing characters. I was a touch heartbroken, as these characters were now essential to my story. Secretly, I plotted to have them return later in the campaign, but for the time being my carefully constructed plot looked to be a casualty.
So, I sat everyone down for an open forum. The forum focused on a few mistakes I had made. I had told the players something out of game in order to save them from possible unwitting doom. A crazed character had convinced them to follow him into the lair of a powerful Horror (a sort of demon who feeds on emotional anguish for those unfamiliar with Earthdawn.) The move meant certain death, essentially, but the crazed character, and the player behind him, decided life or death didn't matter in light of his insanity. He had nothing to lose and plenty to gain.
Their deaths were imminent, I warned, if I were to play the game properly. I wanted to give them an out, if they wanted their characters to survive. It was decided by several players to take their chances. I had them make new characters in the likely event of the gruesome deaths of their current heroes. A second mistake, of three. The last came when I decided, based on the excitement surrounding the new characters, to skip the encounter as a loss and move on with the story, of which this death-dealing monster was a subplot invented by one character and essentially unrelated.
The players were up in arms, our forum revealed. Although I was making choices which seemed to promote the players' interest, I was dead wrong. The major arguments were: 1) I had given them an ultimatum that their characters were doomed without playing it out to see what might have happened and 2) I had ignored certain role-playing requests from characters and then scrapped them out of an assumption that they were no longer interested in them.
So, with the lengthy exposition out of the way I come to my point. These two mistakes made me realize how far my responsibilities as GM stretched. Even as director and producer and writer, a GM cannot take away choice from the players. What is good for the story or good for the game should be a consensus between all involved. The GM in these instances is not executive, but simply a proponent for the story and for the rules.
But the line is still a bit obscure. Some players want their GM involved in their characters' every detail and others would rather the GM not stick his nose into purely character business.
An example: when one of the characters was first brought in, I suggested she likely was illiterate due to her being raised on a farm and later becoming militia. The game's rules are fairly lax on whether someone is literate or not, and she seemed open to it as a character quirk. As the game wore on, the character was singled out for this flaw, and she wished to change it. Her method was to have one of the other characters teach hers when there was downtime. From that time on, whenever I asked what people were doing during downtime, those two players said they were spending time on the literacy tutoring.
The session before our forum, this player mentioned she was upset her character hadn't learned to read yet. When I suggested at the forum that she hadn't seemed interested in actually role-playing the tutoring, she was offended. She said I never offered to open the role-playing for it during the downtime. She thought I was skipping it, and it made her less interested in her character. Plus, she added, she was never really happy with "my decision" to make her illiterate. She had accepted it because it made sense, and then was angry when I seemingly wouldn't let her role-play the flaw away. What she wanted was for the GM to be active in that role-playing, rather than engaging the other character solely, so that the GM could determine how much she was learning.
So, I had at once been too involved and too removed. I don't pretend to have the answers on how to strike the perfect balance, but I do have some ideas on how to keep your role as GM comfortable for all involved.
Be a Director: Keep the scenes interesting. Don't make decisions or even make suggestions for a character's actions. Even if the player agrees his character might take a certain action, the action will feel somehow dictated by you. Instead focus on observing and rewarding players who do things you feel are in character. Also, make your NPCs more than extras.
Be a Writer: This role doesn't end just before the session. When the session is over, think about all the details that changed based on your players actions in your story. Rewrite the story to incorporate these actions and the players will be more engaged by the subplots they're involved in, and in the overall story arc.
Be a Producer: Handle all the little details of rules, schedules, and clarifications quickly and with authority. If the players can't agree on something, you are the final word. Keep yourself open to suggestions and criticism, however, or the Director and Writer cannot properly do their jobs. A collaborative approach with your players will make them warmer to all the work you're putting into wrecking their characters' lives.
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Interesting, I was really glad to see this article because it reminds me just how strange my current DM is from the norm. Our group has been involved in a similar forum determining where the boudaries are for the GM.
One of the primary points we have addressed is DM control over player created NPCs like family and contacts. The DM has justified his changes to the NPC as creating the possiblity of character development, the player has complained that the DM changed so much that the character is inconsistent with his own history.
Thank you for helping to get my mind clear on the kind of DM I want to be and where I see those boudaries.
Sometimes you just gotta take different approachs with different folks.
I regularly GM a group of 4 and each one of them needs various amounts of GM involvement. Some guys have no clue what to do in a combat situation and need some nudging. Other guys want as little nudging as possible. Sometimes you have to wear different hats on a player level basis.
When things are going down a dark road...I offer the group some "GM benevolence." I don't always tell it to them straight, but I give a hint that might get them back on the right path. For example, if the guyz spend too much time looking for a blue rock that the wize sage talked about...and if the rock doesn't exist...I'll tell them to watch out for red herrings.
It ain't always easy. Balance seems to be hard to find. But, it's certainly worth striving for.
Thanks for the feedback.
To your points, it is important to know your players well enough to understad how much involvement they expect from their GM. thinkanalagous, I've suffered under the yoke of many a GM who has manipulated back stories to their end. I've even done it on several occasions. I think the problem is that the GM wants so badly to get the players' emotions going, that they use the easy tactic of putting their loved ones in peril.
It's also very easy to slip into the habit of "this is what happened back then," as opposed to "what do you think of this twist on your character's background?"
What I tend to do is tell players that they create their family dynamic and any other important relationships in their character's background, but that what details they leave out of those NPC's are open to my interpretation. This lends to realism as well; a PC's sister no doubt occasionally harbors resentment, envy, anger, etc. It would be unrealistic for even the most doting family member to be as simple as the players sometimes leave them to be.
My views on DM involvement have been previously stated, but in a nutshell:
(1) DO impose the logic and integrity of your campaign on players.
(2) DO NOT impose your expected actions on players.
I give an example below which neatly displays both attitudes in action:
In one of my campaigns, my good friend Keith decided that he would play a flippant, lippy fighter. He gave his character a silly name and also gave npc's a lot of insulting backchat. I felt that his character was not treating my campaign seriously but I allowed this because, after all, its his character and I didn't want to dictate his actions.
However, he later had an audience with a local lord, in the lords town surrounded by the lords friends, guards, and followers. In this position he freely insulted the lord, despite being a lower level character. In this situation I felt that in order to maintain the integrity of my campaign I had to have him executed. Which I did. If he had been of much higher level than the lord, he might have got away with it. After all no-one wants to take on a real hero.
On March 31, 2004 03:38 AM, Mohammed (Mo) said:
In this situation I felt that in order to maintain the integrity of my campaign I had to have him executed. Which I did.
Yikes, touchy NPC there Mo.
No flogging or time in the stocks, right to execution. Well, no one will accuse the lord of being indecisive. ;-)
=)
I disagree John. You've gotta remember, these guys have to maintain their authority. whats a Lord without respect I say ? just another jumped up bandit.
If you look back historically in almost any culture. open disrespect of the Lord could often be fatal. in many cases these guys were not subject to the rule of law. Think Mafis Don for a modern equivalent.
To put the case more in context, the guy insulted was more like a local king. it was a viking based campaign and the Lord controlled a major town and surrounding villages. The culture was violent in any case, and the lord did not answer to any higher authority, except maybe for tribute to a more powerful lord.
As you say. Indecision was not one of his faults.
=)
I'm with John. There's a point where realism kills fun. Unless you offered the characters attempts at a daring rescue, that might have been a little too decisive. But, if the player really was causing an issue in the game with his choice in character, that's an effective way to learn 'im. Plus, it helps that your good friends and he (probably) won't take it personally.
Some players do value a no-nonsense, super-gritty game with a decisive GM at the helm. I wouldn't recommend that approach to most, though, particularly if the players are new to your game.
He was warned. Now he knows. He's still my friend.
I think I'm a flexible DM. Do whatever you like as a player, but don't expect the campaign to continue forgiving bad behaviour.
Yes a DM combines roles of writer, director, and producer. But DM's put different emphases on each role.
I used to do a lot of D&D with acting students and amateur dramatists. I think that there are three sorts of DM's. There are what you might call actor's DM's, director's DM's, and writer's DM's.
An actor's DM puts all the focus on the players. He hands them the ball and lets them run. The advantage of this is that as a player you feel like you can do anything within your imagination. The disadvantage of this sort of DM is that the campaign is at the mercy of the players, and if they lack self-restraint the campaign degenerates into Monty Haul.
Then there are director's DM's. These guys usually have all the technical/rules aspects of the games down tight, and they keep adventures challenging while still hving the focus on the action. The advantage of these DM's campaigns is that looked at from the outside, as if you had the camera's eye, so to speak, you can get great scenes. The action or "moment" is captured nicely, and while your character is on camera, you can feel like you're the star. On the other hand, there is the disadvantage that a gaming session often feels like a film shoot: you spend most of your time sitting around, sampling the refreshments, and waiting for your few seconds in the scene.
Then there are writer's DM's. These guys put the emphasis not on the actors and what they're doing, nor on the overall production and how it looks, but on the underlying story. The good part of this is that the stories are usually interesting and characters can feel like they are part of an actual world--scratch the surface and there is stuff underneath. The bad part, however, is that sometimes players feel like the story is predetermined, and that they don't have any part in making the world. The world would go on quite nicely without them. I think this is what Nephandus complained about in a few of his posts--"let's sit down and let the DM tell us what our characters did."
Obviously a blend of characteristics is what's desired. My own style is the "writer" because I always enjoyed creating worlds. Some guys roll up characters that they know they might never play--they just like making up characters. Me, I like making up worlds, even though I seldom get a chance to play much of the material. Possibly a pointless hobby, but after all hobbies are activities pursued for their own sake. I never used modules in play, although I did browse them for ideas. I'm not by any means an actual writer but the beauty of RPG's is that they offer an easy-to-use toolkit that allows a slightly creative person to indulge his desire to create.
Roland,
Thats an interesting way of putting it. I guess I fall in the 'acting' DM role. I prefer for the characters to drive the campaign in any direction they like. Except that I don't let it disintegrate into farce. The campaign it there as a, hopefully, rich background, and there may be certain themes going on, but how and if they deal with them is up to the players.