Help me like GMing, please.
stefoid:
Quote from: Josh Porter on November 27, 2011, 08:57:07 PM
Now, the long-term goals thing is the tricky part. I tried having a session where everyone wrote down their goals, but it was really tough. Most goals were either too long-term or too trivial to make any impact on the game. My group of friends aren't quite up to the Narrativist level of going straight for the story's jugular, so if the goals weren't immediate, they would tend to be overlooked. This is probably the big thing I'll want to engender when I get back to GMing someone else's game eventually.
Yeah. No. goals are hard.
In my game I have a bunch to say about goals and goal setting, because its a major thing - click the link in my sig and download it, and check out pages: 16, 56-58
Let me know what you think
Andy K:
I'd err on the side of stefoid and Josh here, I find that investing in the motivations of everyone around helps more natural, fun RP.
Being attentive to your PC's helps as well, and may even feed into the points stated above.
I ran a session without a set "plan" for the characters to follow, but I knew I wanted to lure them one village west. One PC challenged a rather prestigious commander to a one on one spar, I went with it, and he beat the commander, but spent the last of his willpower to do it. Now taking mental penalties, the commander was able to con him into leading an expeditionary force to that one town over. Now my PC's are fighting to regain their freedom from the clever commander while also discovering the secrets of that town.
The beauty of investing in your players is that the same situation can emerge from different results. If my PC lost, the commander would have mocked him harshly and branded him the laughing stock of the neighborhood, with only one way to make it up: lead an expeditionary force to that one village over.
By investing a little in where my player wanted to go, I made the transition more natural into the next stage of the campaign. Which is better than coming up with some bum reason like " the village flash floods and you have to start going west to the next village because my plot says so."
Ron Edwards:
Brief reply to Christoph's aside: right now, I think Josh's problem stems from the #3 thing I mentioned, and we should focus on that. I've been planning to address FATE as a system in one of Erik's current threads about the game, but it keeps taking second place to the other material I'm working on. I'll get there eventually.
Let's not permit whatever hot-button I pushed with my comment to sidetrack this thread.
Best, Ron
Roger:
Quote from: Josh Porter on November 27, 2011, 12:43:17 PM
I don't know exactly why, but I don't enjoy GMing.
But once I begin interacting with the other players, my heart just goes out of it.
So how do I fix it? How do I learn to like GMing?
Hello, Josh! Everyone's given some good advice here. I'm going to go in a different direction from them.
I see the fundamental problem here as the GM's version of the classic player complaint:
"OMG this game is so boring. The GM is doing absolutely nothing to entertain us. How can I have fun playing this game?"
And, indeed, I think if this was your complaint, someone by now might have recommended that you not rely on the GM or anyone else to keep you entertained during a game, and advised you that it isn't the GM's job to amuse you or the other players.
However, for some reason, your GM version -- "the other players are not playing the way I want them to and as a result I'm not enjoying it" -- seems to be invoking a different reaction. Maybe we're just not as familiar with seeing it.
In any case, I'd like to formally offer you the classic advice: relying on other people to make your gaming experience enjoyable is absolutely terrible in just about every way you can imagine. So don't do that. That's about all the advice I have on the subject.
If I've mischaracterized the nature of your inquiry, I apologize.
Josh Porter:
Roger, I think you've characterized it perfectly.
It seems more difficult to make my own fun as a GM. I'm not sure why. But earlier David pointed out to me that I have a lot of fun GMing my own game. So perhaps, when I decide to GM another game again, I'll steal all the things I like from my game that make my job fun.
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