On Improvisation and Getting Better

Let me begin by making a statement which I don't think will be easily contradicted: Improvisation of rules is perhaps the most important skill for a GM to develop.

Let me make a further statement: Improvisation of rules is not very thoroughly theorised, taught, or even talked about, whenever anybody grapples with the issue of "how to be a good GM" or, more fundamentally, "how to make games fun".

Let me make a concluding statement: There is a good reason for this.

In the intro to the 2nd edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, we find Zeb Cook giving probably the best GMing advice that I can think of:

The Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master Guide give you what you're expected to know, but that doesn't mean the game begins and ends there. Your game will go in directions not yet explored and your players will try things others think strange. Sometimes these strange things will work; sometimes they won't. Just accept this, be ready for it, and enjoy it. 

Take the time to have fun with the AD&D rules. Add, create, expand, and extrapolate. Don't just let the game sit there, and don't become a rules lawyer worrying about each piddly little detail. If you can't figure out the answer, MAKE IT UP! And whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of believing these rules are complete. They are not. You cannot sit back and let the rule book do everything for you. Take the time and effort to become not just a good DM, but a brilliant one.

To repeat: Take the time and effort to become not just a good DM, but a brilliant one.

Coming as it does at the end of these two paragraphs, the implication of this sentence is clear: Zeb believes that becoming "a brilliant DM" is directly connected to having fun with the rules; adding, creating, expanding, and extrapolating; and making up the answers to things. I agree with this - it does. But there is another implicit question which Zeb doesn't answer: How is possible to get better at all of this?

That's not a question which is easily answered, because I tend to think that GMing is basically a form of tacit knowledge, and being able to improvise rulings is perhaps the area where this is truest. Improvising rules in ways that are fair, interesting, and workable is not a skill that can really be learned from a book. It's something that has to come through experience. To borrow an analogy from Michael Oakeshott, being a good GM is rather like being a good chef. There is a set of rules, which are like a recipe. But creating a really tasty dish is much more about the feeling and intuition gained from years of cooking than it is about slavishly following the recipe. Strict adherence to the recipe will get you so far, but proper chefs have the experience and know-how to take the dish to a level far higher, and often if you ask them why they are doing what they are doing, and what rules they are following, they'll find it difficult to tell you.

GMing is similar. A good GM probably isn't particularly aware why they are doing the things they are doing (beyond the obvious awareness that they're doing it "because it works"), and if asked to write down a "good GMing guide" they would probably not be able to produce anything particularly coherent or enlightening. This is especially true when it comes to improvisation. I'm sure you all know GMs and players who are good at this - but try asking these people to explain how they got good at it, or what principles they apply. Probably, they won't be able to do that. Probably, they're just good because they have a lot of experience in GMing, giving them an intuition for what will work, and the tacit knowledge of how to pull it off.

In a sense, this reinforces Zeb Cook's advice, and perhaps shows it in an even better light: Take the time and effort to become not just a good DM, but a brilliant one; or, in other words, develop your tacit knowledge and intuition for improvisation through continual play.

(Edit, because I think it was unclear in the original post: Let me emphasise that I am talking about improvising rules for situations not covered in the game text, rather than improvising content - like NPC personalities or settings. I think the latter is more easily taught than the former. The paradigm example of what I am talking about would be what crops up in this post: There is an elf who might try to sneak up on the PCs' campsite during the night. One of the players decides his character will put coins on the tops of rocks, as a primitive alarm system which will make a noise if the elf knocks them over. Rules improvisation on the part of the DM here is crucial - he needs to decide how he will adjudicate the success of this. And to do so successfully he needs tacit knowledge.)

Wherein Swedish LARPers Get All Political

Perhaps I should be all morally outraged about the game which is the subject of this thread, but I must be mellowing in my old age, because now I mostly find it amusing. I mean, this stuff is so close to a parody it's practically indistinguishable from one: "a short, game masterless jeepform game centred around the idea of using fiat as a means for oppression", "the game mechanics were conceived for the purpose of playing gang rape, but are equally useful for any form of oppression, like for example bullying/mobbing" (woohoo, not only gang rape, which is my favourite form of oppression to explore, but I get bullying and mobbing too? But wait, no, now I'm disappointed - there doesn't seem to be any racist lynching involved), and, best of all, "don't play this game unless you're in a good place mentally, and really think you are up to it. It is not meant to be fun to play."

Ah, Swedish LARPers, where would we be without you?

Anyway, I've written before on the futility of this sort of thing (let's all get together and explore flavour-of-the-month-political-issue-[x] via the medium of role playing games), but this example strikes me as even more redundant than most. I mean, is there anyone out there, and I mean anyone at all, with the possible exception of genetically predetermined sociopaths, who needs to be reminded that gang rape isn't very nice? Least of all who needs to be reminded of it through a LARP? If you do know such a person, it's nothing a sound slap to the chops and a trip to a psychiatrist won't fix.

Now, to play devil's advocate, it appears the game creator isn't only trying to remind us that gang rape is bad, he's also making a political comment - "One thing that has been severely bugging me the last couple of years is that (at least in Sweden), it seems nearly impossible today to get convicted for rape or gang rape." (Well, I'm sure like me you try to get convicted for rape and gang rape in Sweden all the time, so you don't have to tell us twice!) Zounds, the razor-sharp political insight, eh? I mean, whatever next - "One thing that has really been annoying me recently is climate change - what are we going to do about all those nasty emissions?"; "Recently I've been getting really pissed off about all the murder and stuff going on in those African places, colonialism was such a bad thing, I'm really cheesed off about it"; "These days the big issue that really gets my goat is whaling, man, those sea cows are like the most beautiful and intelligent thing that has ever lived, they even discuss the general theory of relativity in those sea songs and the evil Japanese are just committing genocide against them and stuff".

For the record, I don't need game designers telling me what is or isn't bad. I don't need to LARP away my inner demons. I have a moral compass, thanksverymuch. Now let's get back to rolling dice and killing orcs. And kids, remember: don't do gang rape, mobbing, bullying, racist lynching or use fiat as a form of oppression of any kind. (Other uses of fiat are probably okay, but check with your local branch of the Jeepform LARP Society all the same.)

Power is a disease one has no desire to be cured of

As a rule, I'm not a fan of vampires. The whole idea never captured my imagination even as a child, and ever since Anne Rice and Vampire: The Masquerade the things have had this awful veneer of supposed 'coolness' and a geek cache that I loathe so much I can't adequately put it into words. Skinny bisexual spoiled rich kids are not cool - they're ANNOYING.

But I like the idea of politican-as-vampire, and I think that White Wolf missed a trick in going down the teenagers-and-ennui route. (Financially they didn't miss a trick, but in noisms' Ranking of Good Games they certainly did, and we all know which of those is the more important.) I really think there's great potential for a game about vampires in the Corridors of Power, whether in Westminster, Capitol Hill, the Diet, or whatever country you prefer. I say this mainly because vampires and politicians are practically indistinguishable from one another, but also because I just saw the film Il Divo, the story of Giulio Andreotti, three-time Italian Prime Minister, who happened to bear a striking resemblance to Count Orlok of Nosferatu fame - both in looks and personality. This then reminded me of Michael Howard, one time Home Secretary in one of Margeret Thatcher's cabinets, who famously resembles a vampire, not least in having Romanian ancestry. (Anne Widdecombe once offhandedly remarked that "there is something of the night about him" - one of the most notorious comments a British politician has ever made about another.)


I think some political systems would be more amenable to this sort of game. The Japanese Diet, and the Italian Parliament, with their well known ties to organised crime, would be the easiest to envisage being populated by vampires. The more open British and American systems, with their intense media scrutiny, perhaps not so much. (Although trying to maintain a blood habit while avoiding the prying noses of journalists could be a great game in and of itself.) Play could revolve around all kinds of corruption and derring-do - from assassination of rivals to bribery to tabloid indiscretion. I think I'd be more inclined to use a diceless system to run it, though - maybe Amber (if I ever get around to properly reading it) or Nobilis.

Or perhaps Risus...