On blogs, discussion forums, and so forth, it's common to discuss all manner of DMing "best practices", which I'm sure people reading this blog will be quite familiar with. Some of the most obvious best practices for me are no railroading, rolling dice in the open, and never fudging a result. You will likely have others.
But I do increasingly wonder whether the most important thing is not merely enthusiasm. I work at a university, so I deliver about two lectures a week during term-time. There are all kinds of lecturing "best practices" which fill the instruction books and compulsory work-based-learning courses we poor saps have to do, but one absolute categorical, cast-iron requirement that rarely gets mentioned is simply that the lecturer has to be enthusiastic. He has to make the subject interesting, or the students won't engage, and while there are all manner of tricks for that, he can really get away with doing anything as long as he brings energy and enthusiasm and positivity to it.
(Now, of course, that requirement is subject to a lot of common sense caveats. If I am delivering a lecture on contract law and I talk enthusiastically and passionately about how to keep koi carp for 50 minutes, the lecture will not be successful. But you get my point.)
The same really holds true for DMing. As long as you are doing the basic things, I don't think it matters a huge amount as long as you are communicating a sense of interest to the players. I hesitate to use the word "fun", because that doesn't necessarily describe the sense that the DM wishes to convey; "interest" is broader and more appropriate. If you are interested in the game then nine times out of ten that's probably sufficient to keep the players interested too. I think back on good gaming sessions that I've enjoyed in the past as a player, and I can think of quite a few where things were a bit railroady or the DM was fudging dice results, but which I liked all the same because of what the DM brought to the table - literally and figuratively.
I think "engagement" is more important than "enthusiasm." A DM can bring a lot of enthusiasm and energy to the table, but if the players can't get engaged than their own enthusiasm will evaporate and the DM's enthusiasm will merely grate on their nerves.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I was thinking something similar - that enthusiasm is very good, and definitely (as noisms says) more important than any specific table trick. But if DM and players aren't on the same page, then enthusiasm can be a drawback instead of an advantage - imagine a DM enthusiastic about a carefully-constructed intricate railroad plot when the players want to just wander around committing violence and taking loot (or vice-versa, where the players want to be told a story and the DM just throws them into a sandbox, so they just sort of poke around listlessly waiting for Elminster to show up and tell them what to do already).
DeleteWell, when you boil things down, any social activity requires communication as a key underpinning. "Communicating a sense of interest" is a specific aspect of that.
Yeah, it depends on your definitions. Maybe "enthusiasm" is too narrow a term, but I think intuitively you probably know what I mean.
DeleteEngagement might be more a two-way street though. Its the result of both the DM and players brining good enthusiasm to the table.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, but I think necessarily the DM is the centre of things. A session can take one player having an off day. Not the DM.
DeleteI'm not sure "enthusiastic" is quite the right demeanor of successful GMing in my experience. It's more like a reserved (and justified) confidence: "Your move."
ReplyDeleteThat justified confidence is the thing, and I think that enthusiasm for prep might be one thing that gets you there.
Enthusiasm for prep is a whole other post - good point.
DeleteI don't think it is the only thing but I would agree it is the thing that is always present when I feel I am GMing at my best. That said, I could easily see a situation where I am enthusiastic but GM horribly because I am using techniques my players dislike. So I think enthusiasm is almost a baseline for the GM (if you are not enthusiastic you don't prepare as well and you tend not to manage the flow of play as well).
ReplyDeleteThis is a good train of thought.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not having fun, I know that my players aren't having fun. I can railroad, and fudge dice all day, and still have fun. I can break every rule in the game, but if I break the not having fun rule, then the whole show gets cancelled.
ReplyDeleteI agree about both GMing and lecturing! Mind you I did once have students complain when I gave a 5 minute lecture on the history of Contract law at the start of a tutorial just to give some context - "that's not in the exam!" - but generally your advice is very good. I'm just glad my institution doesn't seem to make those training courses compulsory. :D
ReplyDeleteI don't listen to those complaints any more. The students are hearing my mini-lecture on the Napoleonic Wars and the context of Stilk v Myrick whether they like it or not!
DeleteYou stick to your guns Sir! :D
DeleteTrue story: when I started work as a lecturer, I was assigned lectures at pretty short notice on a bunch of subjects that I didn't know very much about. So I approached them in the same way as I did with RPG sessions I'd under-prepared for; I did as much prep as I could and then just winged it, relying on enthusiasm and good humour to paper over the gaps. I wasn't terribly happy with the results, but to my surprise the student feedback on these lectures was more positive than on those I'd given on my specialist subjects; they'd much preferred the looser, free-wheeling lectures to the more comprehensive, information-heavy ones which I myself had been happier with.
ReplyDelete(A while later, I read about an American medical school where they'd had one course of lectures given by an eminent academic, and another course by a professional actor with no medical training, who'd memorised just enough information to be able to deliver the lecture. The students consistently rated the actor higher, not only for the quality of his performance, but also for the depth of knowledge displayed in his lectures!)
So... yeah. Enthusiasm isn't the only thing, in gaming or lecturing, but it does go an awfully long way.
Really nice work on Yoon-Suin, by the way!
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all - delivery means a lot. That's kind of what I mean by "enthusiasm". Good delivery may be a better way of putting it.
DeleteNice avatar - I love Blake.
One day I shall write an RPG campaign setting based on Blake's prophetic books and no-one will play it or read it or even understand it when I try to explain it and it will make me feel mildly sad.
DeleteFor now I'll just stick to nice, straightforward stuff like romantic Central Asian early modern clockpunk fantasy.
Like others have already said, I don't know if enthusiasm is the right word although I would say it is close. I've spent more time in front of the screen than behind it and I've seen my fair share of enthusiastic GMs whose games failed in spite of their enthusiasm. I've also had GMs who were bored with the types of games they were running but could feign enthusiasm or interest and the players enjoyed the games immensely. Of course, those GM s feigning enthusiasm often suffered from burn out where they would abruptly end an otherwise successful campaign.
ReplyDeleteAs for “fun,” I would say go ahead and use it. I've never played in a fun game that wasn't interesting and never had fun in an uninteresting game. It seems some people have a rather limited view of what constitutes fun. Fun often seems to be conceived as all sparkles, ponies and no effort. When I think of fun in the context of RPGs, my mind immediately turns to the fun I had as a child playing pretend with my friends since RPGs are the adult version of playing pretend. We would cross the wooden bridge which spanned the distance over the V-bottom ditch that ran between my childhood home's backyard & the small tree island that my friends & I refered to as The Woods. In our minds, it was as vast as Mirkwood but in reality it wasn't much bigger than a couple of blocks. One day we would move as quietly as possible through the blackberry brambles, poke & poison ivy with our bolt-action replicas on a mission to rescue POWs or captured spies. We garroted or sliced the throats of Nazi guards so the forces of evil wouldn't hear our approach. After a brief burst of gunfire & grenade blasts, the mission was complete and we came out of The Woods … some with a limp arm from an officer's Luger or a soldier's SMG and others hopping on one leg due to an imaginary grenade blast that had shredded a leg with fragmentation. On another day, we spent all day building a lean-to on top of a ridge, ate baked beans over a smokeless campfire and fortified the easiest approach up the ridge with punji sticks made from the cane poles that grew wild in The Woods. Seemingly grim play for kids but, when I came in the backdoor for dinner and my mom asked me what I had been doing all day, I said having fun playing in The Woods. Hard work, loss (albeit imaginary) & fun weren't mutually exclusive ideas then and they aren't now.
Fair enough. "Fun" means different things to different people, obviously. I tend to interpret it restrictively, but yes, it can mean, in general, having a good experience.
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