If there is one universal truth about being a GM is that with each new campaign, with each new writing effort we are always looking for ways to improve, trying to create that truly great RPG experience that encapsulates all of our hopes and dreams for a game.

We watch shows like Critical Role and wonder, how the hell do they pull it off? Well the short answer is that they are professional actors and do create a professionally produced show for a living, which of course gives them a major advantage that most of us simply don’t have, but there is more to it than that. Even a professional show like Critical Role could fail, there are plenty of great methods for creating that perfect game and while there is plenty of advice on the subject from wonderful storytellers like Colville, Mercer and the like, since I’m currently on a high of success, I thought I would write my own article on the subject of how I finally achieved that truly great RPG experience.

First a bit of history on my RPG experiences in recent years. Now I have been running games for nearly 30 years and though I would like to claim that my success as a GM is attributed to all of the experience I gained of what to and not to do to create a great game that ultimately yielded the great results I have today, I don’t think that would be the complete truth.

Of course experience is a contributing factor to success but I don’t think you need to have 30 years under you belt to pull off an amazing game. In fact, in many ways, my long experience often works against me as you become kind of stubborn and set in your ways from running games a certain way for a long time. You begin to think that you have it all figured out and can become rather defensive about taking advice, about listening to player complaints and adapting to the many great evolution’s that take place in the RPG hobby. In essence you can become an old Gronard who thinks they have it all figured out and stop developing as a GM which is something that not only does happen, but happens far more frequently then it doesn’t. In fact it has happened to me many times and entire decades of potential progress as a GM was lost and many games ruined because I refused to change and accept certain fundamental truths.

Point here is that experience (being a veteran) is often presumed to be the key to being a good GM, and while this has some truth to it, their is a whole lot more to it then that and today we are going to crack open the knowledge basket and see what falls out as we explore some of the methods you can use that go beyond experience to create that perfect game.

The Group Dynamic is Key

All the writing, effort and experience in the world will not help you create that great RPG experience without a good group, a lesson I have learned the hard-way more times then I can count.

Now when I say good group, I don’t mean good people, good role-players or good anything else. A good group is a placeholder for a type of group that fits into the mold (your version) of what a perfect RPG experience is. They fit into your style of running and create a dynamic with each other that works at the table.

You might be tempted for example to bring together “the best role-players you know” and think that, this is the route to creating the perfect game. The reality is however that sometimes two amazing role-players when put into the same game can result in a disastrously bad game.

A good group, aka, a good group dynamic that works is something that just happens and there is no sure fire way to artificially create it, it takes experimentation. You put people in games together and it either happens or it doesn’t. When it does work its magic, when it doesn’t it may not become immediately apparent, but eventually it will slowly sink the game and derail the experience. The game might still be ok, fun even, but you will never achieve that high level of play you wish to have, that magic that comes only from great group dynamics.

So the advice here is to understand that when you form up a new group this is a testing period of the group, not an opportunity to run a campaign. If you want to achieve a great game sometime in the future you have to be ready to do some intermediate stuff to find out how the group dynamic works and be ready to make changes. Don’t create your masterpiece campaign for a new group and expect amazing results because you think your campaign is that good. A poor group dynamic can destroy any game, no matter how much work you put into it.

The goal anytime new players get together is to find out what the dynamic of that group is, what kind of fit they are for each other and for you. What are the complaints, is the focus of the game where you want it to be, do people get along, is there jealously or hostility in the group, is everyone in agreement about what is and isn’t important and good in the game or in RPG’s in general.

All of these things need to be tested and its best to run short campaigns, trying out different games, different approaches and testing the groups reaction to find out what works and more importantly who fits and doesn’t fit into the dynamics of that group.

Eventually you may realize that most of the group except for one or two people function and this is a hard realization to make. At some point you will know who in the group has to get politely asked to leave and that can be difficult, ney impossible in some cases because they might be friends, co-workers or family.

Its here where the first real pain to perfection comes in as its critical to ensure that you have a very strong, positive group dynamic that works for everyone without doubt or conflict. This is key to creating that awesome RPG experience and it actually is physically impossible to have even a marginally passable game that you will be satisfied with if the group dynamics just don’t work.

Its painful and uncomfortable to ask a player to leave a group, but often the first necessary step to take when trying to create a great troupe that will be able to achieve the heights of a truly great role-playing experience.

Don’t Skim over Character Creation

I can’t stress enough how important character creation is to the process of creating a great RPG experience. This isn’t just about vanity as a GM, aka, its not about saying “hey if you want to play in my game you need a deep robust backstory”. It’s not about control, or trying to be some sort of artist. This is a practical matter.

The reality of RPG’s is that it’s a game that focuses on the players, on their roles in the game and as such, its less important for you to know who the characters are and more important for the players to know what character they are running. Creating backstories, writing backgrounds and personalities is not something players do for you as the GM, but rather something they must do for themselves.

This is largely for their benefit and of course to a degree, for the benefit of the game as a whole. They need to understand who their characters are, how do they behave, how will they react to different circumstances, how does their world view ties into the setting. This cannot be understated, great games come from great characters and great characters are born from in depth understanding of them which needs to happen before the game starts.

Its important to understand however that in depth understanding and fleshing out of characters is not necessarily the product of great writing. In fact, some players can produce very real, very believable characters and never put a word down on paper. Its enough that they spend time thinking and planning in their head exactly who this alter ego they are creating is. So don’t be hung up on the printed word in this regard, most people are not great writers, in fact, its far more common that people don’t write at all.

The important thing here is that players do more than produce a character sheet and personality quirks. You always know your in trouble when as a GM you ask a player to tell us who their character is and they use 3rd person generalities to describe them “He’s a savage Half-Orc Barbarian that doesn’t take shit from anyone” is not a character, its a caricature.

Push for depth, push for background, make sure your players really know their characters and have done the diligence required during the character development process. In most cases this means you have to give the players time, don’t let the excitement of playing an RPG push you to the table before the characters are really ready.

Great games are not about great story writing

One of the hardest lessons and most difficult thing to do for GM’s is to realize the very humbling fact that great games don’t come from great writing, but from great storytelling. Its not what the story is, but how you portray it.

What this simply means is that the plot doesn’t need to be a complicated, multi-layer onion for the players to peel involving lots of characters and in depth mysteries. In fact, an approach like that will most likely derail your game rather then make it great.

Great RPG experiences come from the moment and the moment doesn’t have to be part of a complex plot, but rather a simple situation made to feel real and authentic. As a GM you play the cast of characters with whom the players interact and these characters are what make the story and the world feel real, authentic and believable. How you define the scenes and portray the characters is far more important then the complexity and depth of the plot and it is the secret to great GMing and a great RPG experience for your players.

Its important to note however I’m not talking about wacky voices or the use of adjectives. Imagery can be simple, while remaining authentic, choosing your words carefully knowing when to define something or when to let the players imaginations take over is a subtle but important skill to learn, though notably its much easier then trying to become a master writer.

The game lives in your players minds and its your job to paint the first strokes and let them fill in the rest. If you make the world a believable place, that picture in their head will be clearer. You can mess that up by making things too complex and too involved as easily as you can by being too vague. So find that middle ground and understand that as a GM its your job to give players space to exist, its their story not yours.

Session Pacing is Vital

Most people when they watch a movie don’t realize how critical pacing of the story is as its such a very subtle art form, however the editing of a movie, the pace at which the story progresses and the time each character in a story is given is without a doubt one of the most technical and difficult things to get right and it is no different in an RPG session with one exception. The editors of a movie can do trial and error, they can edit a movie over and over again until they get it just right where as a GM you only get one shot at it in a live session where all decisions about pacing have to be made in the moment.

This vital and often difficult skill is unfortunately one of the things that really comes from experience of running games. However so many GM’s never truly learn how to do this correctly, not because they are incapable or because its so difficult, but because they aren’t consiously aware of it.

The pressure of running a session, managing the rules, thinking about the plots, portraying the characters, defining the world… there is already so much going on that it can feel like an impossibly daunting task to also be self aware of the pacing of the game and so it is largely something GMs tend to ignore. The result is a game where pacing can bounce around in a session from going way too fast where important details and emotion are lost, or too slow where the game bogs down and comes to a crawl.

It becomes even more complicated when you realize that different settings and worlds require an adjustment, require a different pace. There is a big difference between running a horror game and running a fantasy adventure and each requires its pace.

Fortunately if you are aware of pacing in your game and make a conscious effort to control and manage it, you will very quickly find the right pacing and become proficient in maintaing and controlling it.

Its very subtle but very important component of creating a great RPG experience for your players.

Find the Right Players, or Adapt to The Players You Have

If there is one hard lesson I have learned from years of GMing that probably didn’t need to be as painful as it was, its understanding that you cannot change what you players like and don’t like. While this goes to group dynamic to a degree, this is really more about choosing the right game for the group you have and there are two approaches to this.

The first approach is adapting to your players. What this means is that when you are choosing your game, when you are deciding on the style of the game and the method in which you will present it, you must understand the preferences of the players. Its vital, that the game you are running for your group is something everyone is overwhelmingly excited to play. If for example you are running a science-fiction game because you love science-fiction, but your players want to play a fantasy adventure, that mismatch (though it should be obvious) will never work.

Preference of settings, or style or game type are irreconcilable, meaning you will not be able to convince players to like something that they have already decided they don’t and there is no sense in trying. Run the game they want to play.

Now alternatively you can find another group that matches your preferences and while it may seem mean spirited or selfish the opposite is also true here. A GM running a game that they are not into, that they aren’t excited and overwhelming eager to run will be just as big a failure as running a game the players don’t want to play. You will never successfully achieve a great RPG experience running a game you don’t like.

It has to be a perfect match and your options in this matter should be clear, run the game your players want to play and make sure you love it as well, ensure that game is like its your first born child.

Conclusion

The truth is that running RPG’s is a challenging labor of love and while it’s by no stretch of the imagination an easy thing to create a truly great RPG experience, I do believe that if you are really aware of some of the subtleties that go into creating such a game you are far more likely to achieve that far earlier in your GMing career then if you ignore them.

It’s important I believe to not get hung up on the technicalities of the game, sure knowing the rules is important, being prepared is important, but these things are the standard stuff of running a game. The more subtle things like group dynamic, focus on character creation, understanding the important distinction between story writing and storytelling, the strategy of pacing and the sort of equilibrium of picking the right game are far more subtle yet far more critical components of creating a great RPG experience.

Often these things aren’t talked about and addressed by GM’s who are eager to simply play a game and while this can be fine for some GM’s who are a little less eager to perfect, those of us who are striving for that Critical Role level experience, these subtle things become paramount. Knowing and understanding them is the key to success.

My advice is of course just one point of view, but I do attribute all of my success as a GM to the subtle changes I have made in my style and approach to running games, as they say, the devil is in the details and its clear to me that really is the case when it comes to chasing that perfect role-playing experience.

Good Luck Out There!

Recently I have gotten myself into a 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons game as a player, as well as wrapped up a second season as a GM in my Game of Thrones RPG game while simultaneously preparing a new RPG for online play with my friends back in the states. Suffice to say, role-playing has suddenly become “it” in terms of where all my gaming time is going. In so doing I have been kind of jotting some notes down for future articles, the loot from many conversations and I realized this week I finally have enough to put one together. In today’s D&D Theory article I’m going to be musing about the concept of “Old School Gaming”, which I think is a very relevant topic these days given the rather sudden shift of Wizards of the Coast to return the game of D&D to a more classic or old school state with the release of 5e last year.

Now I say Classic/old school state with a grain of salt as the exact definition of what that is, is a bit murky. After all D&D is 40+ old, has had many editions, sub-editions, clones and spin-offs and as such what is “classic” or “old school” is probably different for everyone depending on which generation of the game you started in and how far back you go.

As such I think it’s relevant to first identify what “old school” gaming is, which as I found was a deep and fairly complex, albeit interesting topic that took me quite a bit to get my head around. The question really is, is it a “feeling”, is it a “mechanic” or is it some sort of “conceptual design or philosophy”? All good questions and today I’m going to try to answer them!

I started my research in perhaps the most obvious place, first edition of D&D and tried to identify what in that early version(s) of the games like Basic, Expert and Advanced rules system differs in approach, feel, design, mechanics etc. as it compares to modern systems like 3rd, 4th and 5th edition of the game.

At first, it was quite unclear to me. While certainly the mechanics were different in many respects, the fundamentals where very much the same, D&D as a concept in 1e is really not any different than any other edition that has come out since. To me it was clear that early editions of D&D weren’t as streamlined, and refined, there was certainly a lot less standardization and quite a bit more limitations on character classes and races, and players in general. Though I can’t imagine how having those limitations and lack of rules clarity really altered the experience for the better. Fewer options sure, but I didn’t find anything within the scope of the mechanics that couldn’t be accomplished in a modern RPG if you really wanted to include it or exclude it as the case may be. A DM for example could simply say “hey in my game Dwarves hate and never use magic so they can’t be any kind of Arcane caster”. Is having the limitation as a rule in the book as opposed to an option for the DM “old school”? I don’t believe so, there had to be more to it.

The realization didn’t really strike me until I read and was reminded of one very unusual rule in 1st edition AD&D called “XP-Treasure Conversion”. The basics of this rule was that if a character hauls out treasure from a dungeon of some sort and brings it back to a safe place like a town, the value of that treasure can be converted into XP. Gygax explains and reminds us in the DMG (paraphrasing here) that while the rule doesn’t make narrative sense, D&D is a game and games have rules and this is one of them. Simply put, the rule was there to remind and motivate players (not characters) that the premise of the game is that the players characters and their alter egos (PC’s) are in fact treasure hunters. Another words that the core premise of D&D is that you go into dungeons, kill monsters and take their treasure.

Now I would imagine a modern gamer would have a real problem with that explanation when defining what they do when playing D&D. After all, what that rule & premise suggests is that the cliché about D&D is a less a myth and more a fact. That D&D really is just a light hearted adventure game about going in dungeons, killing monsters and taking their treasure. I think most modern gamers would disagree with that assessment of what D&D is. The question is however, is that the source of “old school” or “classic” gaming mentality, another words is that the goal of “old school” gaming to capture that feel of this classic premise?

While I think at this point I was getting close, I don’t believe this was it in its entirety. One clear aspect of early editions of D&D was that the game itself was very unforgiving. This concept of the dungeon crawl as a core, was layered by the uncanny deadliness of the game itself in particular as it applies to the core premise of fighting monsters. Simply put, fighting monsters in early editions of D&D was extremely dangerous, something to actually be avoided hence it was at odds with the core premise on which its founded. Mind you when I say deadly, I really mean it. I recall in the 1st edition AD&D days, having one or two characters die each session was fairly common. 1st level characters were so fragile most of the time you would make 2 or 3 in advance, create them without back story’s, hell sometimes without a name and put them in the game to see which of them survived long enough to hit 2nd or 3rd level at which point you would flesh them out a bit and give them some much needed dimensions.

The most notable aspect of all of this was that none of it had anything to do with the story of the game. The premise of the game, the deadliness of the game, and this concept of detachment from characters, it all pointed to one thing. It was less a game about story and more a game about, well the game. Putting that question to old school gamers came with its own reactions as they rejected the idea that the game was not about story. In fact, they adamantly insisted that old school gaming was “real role-playing” and what they do in modern editions is “playing CRPG’s”.

The logic was that the story wasn’t about individual characters, the story was about the world and its events, the characters were parts in it. Sometimes those parts were small, insignificant and short lived and sometimes those parts were epic, elaborate and detailed. Your roles in the game might change periodically as a result of death of an adventurer, but the story lived on with new characters. A campaign was bigger and more to them than any individual character and they were adamant at saying that there was no detachment from their characters, but rather the solemn reality that adventuring life was dangerous as it should be and the results were often tragic. Interesting concept and I think Shakespeare would agree!

Still I believe I’m right at least in one thing. I believe early editions of D&D were less about a focus on characters and more of a focus on players. I believe there is a lot of evidence to support this theory and I also believe within that logic is actually the reason that “Old School” is a premise that is different from modern gaming. I don’t believe it’s purely rules or feel related,  some part of this movement is about nostalgia.  Still I think there is a concrete difference that is identifiable between modern D&D and early (1st edition) D&D as a design concept.

That premise or concept if you will is the difference between Character Centric game design and Player Centric Game design. I will define both but it’s worth noting up front that these aren’t always rules driven concepts nor are they mutually exclusive in that all RPG’s have some Character Centric elements and some Player Centric elements. It’s just that in 1st edition D&D, the Player Centric design is both more prevalent and more firmly defined as a part of the expected flow of the game and vice versus for modern game design as Character Centric systems.

Ok so let’s define Player Centric and Character Centric Design. The principle is really quite simple.

Character Centric design means that by the logic and premise of the design and by the implementation of mechanics into the game, a player character is the focus of the rules and ultimately the mechanics of that character are what drive the resolution of challenges and conflicts. Another words, when a players character is faced with a problem, there is a mechanical property on his character sheet that is designed to address it via mechanical rules.

For example, if a player needs to search a room, in a Character Centric design, that players character will have a skill or attribute available that he or the GM can activate to resolve the search and determine if the character finds what he is looking for. So a player will say, “I search this room for the magic ring, I think it’s here somewhere” and the GM determines “Ok make a search check, let’s see if your character finds it”.

It’s worth pointing out that Character Centric design doesn’t mean the GM is obligated to character centric play, a distinction with a difference. However it is kind of presumed that when you make a skill check, as a player you roll the dice, you know what the result is and hence know if you succeeded or failed the check. Hence if you find nothing, you know it’s not here, else you find it, vice versus if you fail you know you have failed hence you know, it might still be here, but you just didn’t find it or the ring may in fact is not here in the first place (boy that’s a mouth full!). You can also further layer this by having the GM make the roll in secret, in which case you have no information about whether or not you fail the roll, hence, if your GM tells you that you find nothing you don’t know if it’s because the ring is not there or if it’s because you failed the check and simply didn’t find it.

Regardless however as a Character Centric designed mechanic, the activity of searching is mechanized and the results are determined with the dice.

In a Player Centric design the challenge and obstacles of the game are instead directed at the player, and it’s the player who is expected to resolve these challenges through a narrative exchange with the GM as opposed to a function of mechanics associated with his character.

Taking the same example of searching for the ring, in a Player Centric design, the GM would describe the room and situation and the player would feed the GM instructions about his activities. For example he might say, I check under the bed, in the mattress, under the pillows, all the drawers in the dresser, I search for loose floor boards and check behind the paintings and so on. The GM in turn would respond to the activities of the player. It’s presumed the GM knows where the ring is hidden so if the player says, I check in the flower pot, he finds the ring, otherwise he does not.

The point here is however that there is no mechanical function of the character that assists or somehow affects the outcome of “searching the room”. The event exists purely in the narrative, a strictly player driven resolution and it’s typically (or at least it was the case in 1st edition) because no “search” mechanic actually exists. There is no search skill, you don’t make attribute checks. It’s simply a narrative exchange between the GM and the player.

Again just like Character Centric design, Player Centric design is not limited or somehow unable to switch and become Character Centric at the GM’s discretion. A GM might call for some sort of dice roll based on the attributes of the character anyway, perhaps asking him to roll his IQ or lower to see if he finds the ring. It is however just like Character Centric design, outside of the premise or core function of the rule-system, it is in a sense a “GM call”.

This concept of Player & Character centric design however is a core fundamental difference between “old school” D&D and “New School” D&D. Original AD&D is very much a player centric design, while modern games starting as early as the end of 1st edition AD&D with expanded books like the Survival Guides and 2nd Edition core transitioned into a more Character Centric design with each new edition. By 4th edition the adherence to Character Centric design was so firm, it even went so far as to add “skill challenges” to avoid Player centricity as much as possible..

I think in part why Old School gamers look at modern system and make classic comments like “That’s not real role-playing” is because the game they know is heavily buried in Player Centric play, which is by nature much more narrative as it lacks the ability to resolve challenges and obstacles with mechanics.

The main commonalty all D&D systems share is that they are all, since the very beginning, purely character centric in the execution of Combat. For some reason, no one argues or has issues with combat being purely character centric, but in other areas of the game there is a never ending discussion as to what degree a game should be player or character centric.

One thing to note however as mentioned earlier is that combat in 1st edition AD&D was very deadly and unforgiving and as such, just by the sheer volatility of characters, the meta of characters in its own right is very player centric. So while combat might not be player centric at all in any editions of D&D, most of what’s involved around it in early editions is and I think this is also a part of the definition of “Old School” gaming. As my friend pointed out, the game is about the campaign, about the story and the events in the story and while it’s focused on characters to a degree as they act as our avatars, it’s clear that all players understand that sooner or later their characters will die and they will make a new one, but the game is not over. They as players steer the avatar and it’s their decisions, their actions, their activities that bring the resolutions to conflicts, not their characters (in the meta of course) hence it doesn’t matter which character you are using all that much as their mechanics are not involved outside of combat.

Making characters and doing so considerably more frequently than in modern design is just part of the experience of old school gaming. In Character Centric games, characters getting killed is not desired and considered more of an “event”, as it’s their abilities, skills, attributes and powers that drive conflict resolution and in essence much of the narrative. They are an important component of a players success. Character Centric designs is why we have terms like “Character Build”, as the avatar is not just a representation of a character in the narrative sense for the player, but also his abilities, skills and influence over conflict within the confines of the game. In essence in Character Centric play, the player has considerably less influence over the success of his character as he is reliant on the mechanics to resolve conflict as opposed to the player’s narrative exchange.  I will point out that I think its weird that no one has issue with overcoming challenges with character centricity in combat, but for some reason its a big fight when it comes to resolution for conflicts outside of combat.  Weirder still are the exceptions like pick pocketing and climbing walls, suddenly, its ok in 1st edition AD&D, but only for the thief class, for everyone else, I guess you just die trying?  The logic of this player vs. character centric design is a strange beast.

It’s expected in Character Centric games that characters are relatively safe and they walk into dangerous situations that are kind of rigged in their favor mechanically. Which is why things like CR ratings, the concept of balanced encounters, death rolls and other survival mechanisms exist in modern games, it’s all in the name of saving characters from death but more specifically in the name of preserving the importance of the narrative. Characters are an intricate part of the story, not because of their narrative but because of their mechanics and removing them from it, is in general bad. It means a new character needs to be made and the story components of the previous characters are lost, in particular for the player, as well as the mechanic advantages that reigned in his success. In a way in character centric games, characters have a greater importance.

The question is then which is better? Get ready for me to drop some life affirming knowledge, the answer is modern is better and the reason is that it’s the same fucking thing!

In the end, any sub-system, mechanic or function that is added in a system becomes “available” anything that is omitted is “unavailable”. Availability however does not require or assume use, its simply there and as a GM in any system be it 1st or 5th edition, the decision, the ruling if you will of what mechanics to use and when to use them is entirely up to you. Hence in a fully Character Centric game, you can with virtually no effort go fully Player Centric at any time. Its 100% fully backwards compatible, however in a Player Centric system you cannot just “switch” to a character centric system as the rules do not exist for you to use and fall back on. If search doesn’t exist, you can’t make a search check and as a GM you’re going to have to make a mechanic up on the fly to fill in for the missing rule, if the search does exist and you want to play out a search scene, simply don’t allow the check. The obvious logic is obvious!

That said, there is a problem with running a Character Centric system in a Player Centric style, which is of course player expectation.  Consider that a players character is his investment, hence in a Character Centric system, the player invests points, or other advancements into various skills and abilities.  If as a GM you choose to go Player Centric and ignore those aspects of their character, you are kind of cheating them out of their investments.  Hence, if you are a GM (like me) who has a Player Centric style (aka old school) then you should stick to Player Centric systems if for no other reason than to ensure expectations match the result and you are not ignoring parts of the mechanical character the player might deem important to his role/story or whatever.

Old School gaming is all about enforced limitation. I find it odd that because the rulebook tells you something is not allowed, or simply by omission makes it unavailable that this somehow makes a game better than one in which all options are available to use at your discretion. It’s a silly concept and I actually hate conversations like this with Old School gamers even though, on this little blue planet there is no bigger old school gamer than me.  Still, I do understand it from a player perspective that if a mechanic exists, in particular as it applies to characters, it should be used and used often.  You wouldn’t deny someone spells or combat abilities that their character can perform, hence you should not ignore other aspects that are on the character sheet either.

I adore limitations, deadly game systems, player centric gaming, Gold to XP conversions and all that great stuff, but at the same time I don’t see why having a lift on limitations in a book, or having safety nets in a system or the absence of a Gold to XP rule changes anything at all. I’m a damn GM, if I want or don’t want something in the game, I snap my fingers and it happens. I don’t care if there is a search skill, if I say “there is no check, if you want to find something tell me how you are looking for it”, we are instantly in Player Centric gameplay, the system cannot stop me, I’m basically the god of the game. It is however a problem if I want to make a skill check and the rule for it is not available, and then I’m forced to invent shit on the fly. I don’t really see how that will result in a better experience old school or otherwise!

Hence Character Centric games do not change anything for me at all, I actually largely prefer them because it really just gives you more options on how to handle stuff. Even as an old school gamer I recognize that sometimes, stuff is just irrelevant and I want to get through a scene quickly. Skill checks are great for that. Oh your searching this room, go ahead make a check, oh you failed, great, scene done. I don’t have an obsessive need to waste time on irrelevant shit in my game and I don’t believe this makes me “new school”, it just means I’m a good GM, I know how to spend session time to keep the game fun and interesting.

Now I will say this. I adore, I mean truly love 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and I will happily run a campaign anytime. I think Gygax’s work is absolutely fantastic, I love the light hearted adventure and the player centric concepts of dungeon delving, for me D&D IS going into dungeons, killing monsters and taking their treasure. Is that simplistic? Is it really role-playing? Hell I have no idea, I just know that it’s absolutely fun and I love doing it in the confines of the many restrictions and funny concepts of 1st edition. I love 1st edition modules, I love its deadly nature, I adore the natural progression of meta characters from farmers with a rusty dagger to Lords of Castles and everything in between. I love watching beloved characters getting killed, I love creating new characters, I love everything about the system. I am, without a doubt an Old School gamer.

I do believe however, the argument that someone who plays modern games is “not really role-playing” or that it’s somehow a different experience is quite ridiculous. I hate these old Gonards that think their way is the right way, or even that somehow they do it differently than the rest of us. It really is absolute bullshit. I can turn 5e into 1e in a two page document, hell I can run a D&D game without you even knowing what system I’m using. It really is not that hard to add limitations, it is however hard to design RPG mechanics on the fly.

So there you have it, research complete. I can say without question that I understand Old School gaming, there are far more nuances then that of Character & Player centric play, but at the end of the day, role-playing games is a dynamic, infinitely diverse activity. Quantifying it fully is not really possible and while I do think it’s more than just a “feel”, it’s definitely achievable in all its glory in pretty much in any system. Sure, many things about modern system irk me. A Dwarf Wizard? Get the fuck out of here with that nonsense! But that’s my world, I share it with Gygax and 1st edition, but using a modern system does not exclude its implementation. I don’t need to use 1st edition to get rid of Dwarf Mages. I might prefer it (sometimes), but I don’t see how using a system that allows it, or allowing it in a system that doesn’t creates a disparity of classifiable groups like Old School and New School. I do think Old School is a thing, but I adamantly reject the idea that Old School is only achievable in Old School systems, or that somehow adding a rule like a skill check, or offering some extra options to a character some how breaks “old school” gameplay.

Well this brings us to an end, I know that many of you role-players out there have had this conversation and  so I hope that perhaps you found something useful in this little theory-crafting article!

I rarely write either RPG articles or theory articles, but I think I should given that this blog was always intended to handle all forms of table top gaming and role-playing definitely falls into that category.  In particular however that I actually do love RPG’s and play them as often as I can.

I actually kicked off this blog with articles about D&D several years back,  so I thought why not get back into the spirit of things by continuing kind of where I left off.

One aspect I love to explore about D&D is its rich history as a game, fandom that is associated with it and the many different versions and variations of D&D that have been released since Gygax’s original work.   This goes far beyond simply editions of the game as we have seen offshoots, based on re-imaginings and even spoofs.  More than that though I love to muse about the theories and ideas behind being a great GM and this will be the topic of today.

First I would like to say that I think Gygax, no matter what he ever said or thought about how his game was treated after he himself stopped working on it, he certainly should be proud of the legacy and fans he created.  His passing was a great loss to the RPG community, but really his creativity lives on and among gamers, having a story about how you played D&D in the past, is perhaps one of the most common things most table top gamers share.  Few of us will ever see the day where we create something that wonderful, it really is a lifetime achievement.

Despite this however Gygax’s work is often seen in the light of what he started, rather then a body of work that is relevant in today’s gaming communities.  This irks me personally because I actually believe his original writing still trumps everything that has come out since.  He isn’t a classic original to me, he is a master who’s work is as relevant today as it was the day it was created.

For me personally their is a lot of nostalgia built into the 1st Advanced Dungeons & Dragons edition as its the first version of D&D and RPG I ever played.  That said, I do continue to use it, in particular my Gamemasters guide which I see as a platform for inspiration and as a backdrop for the creation of adventures in fantasy worlds even when using other rule systems.  I believe it to be as valid today as it was back then and in a lot of ways, it is behind almost all of the success I have ever had as a GM.  No other GM guide ever written since has provided me with the same level of input and conceptual ideas as this book.

People (friends) often ask myself why I value this ancient and outdated tomb to modern books, a question I hate answering in person as it usually leads to conceptual arguments but… in my blog, I don’t have to entertain arguments so I will explain it.  I believe the answer is that Gygax spoke of the GM in a unique way, a way that modern RPG’s no longer do, perhaps my biggest beef with modern RPG’s in general.

In Gygax’s writings the GM is the creator of all things, the master of the game and perhaps most importantly the master of the rules.  This concept is often frowned upon in modern RPG gaming environments as it has a totalitarian, almost tyrannical feel to it.  It suggests that the GM is more important then the rules, the other players and their characters.  Its with this interpretation of Gygax’s original GM bible that I have issue with because I believe it to be both a very narrow interpretation and not at all in the spirit of the writing, yet it is a quite common interpretation and outlook on the book in modern RPG communities.  In fact its often reflected onto the man himself.

I believe Gygax’s GM guide, the bible as I like to call it, made clear that the GM was the author of the world, the story and the adventure.  He is the creator and that does have certain privileges in the participation of mutually experienced, interactive storytelling game that is role-playing. But, and this is the most important message of the book, everything, the writing, the creativity, the adventure, the game session, all of it is created solely for the benefit of his audience, the players.  Unlike is often suggested about Gygax and his writings, he valued players most of all.  With the caveat of course that the players represent characters in a story that may not necessarily, in fact should not according to the bible, turn out how the players expect or even hoped it does.  In fact, like all good story’s it should be filled with trials and tribulations and often end in sadness and tragedy as so often the best story’s do.

In essence Gygax’s was a purist and something of a historian, clearly well read,  he understood that happy endings generally don’t make for a good story, an aspect of the art of creative writing and storytelling that has been lost in the 21st century.  I think the reason people believe that Gygax and his 1st edition were tyrannical and negative is because people have grown accustomed to a guaranteed happy ending, one that is expected, one that is in line with their hopes and most important one they feel control over.

A good example is the story of Romeo and Juliet.  Today, such a story would be rejected, seen as a poor ending, but Shakespeare, quite possibly one of the greatest masters of storytelling understood how powerful a tragic and unexpected ending could be and his writings are full of them.  Imagine if that story ended with Romeo and Juliet living happily ever after, would it have been as powerful, as popular and as memorable?  I’m certain that it would not.

This is what Gygax was driving at with the GM Guides approach to adventure writing and author control.  He understood that it was more important to tell a powerful story, one which surprised, or even better shocked their audience, rather then one that was predictable and concluded in an expected way.  The only way to ensure that is to allow the GM license to author, to create adventures that were quite obviously rigged to favor the direction the GM wants the story to go as opposed to where the players are trying to will it to go, which in modern games is done through the manipulation of the mechanics.

In modern RPG’s what we have is two key presumptions that always ring true.  The players are the heroes of the story and they will always succeed in the end.  A tragedy or surprise in a modern RPG session is that a character dies, a concept in itself often considered controversial, one that should be left to the rules to resolve as opposed to a GM’s interventions and in fact, its expected that the intervention of a GM will come in a form of saving a character, not ending one.  Its considered wrong for a GM to rig the death of a character, often its considered wrong to let the rules of the game end a character,  all signs of a bad GM in the eyes of modern gaming “think”.

Now what is the cause of this turn from darkness and tragedy to light hearted happy endings?  The game.  Yes, RPG’s have become more game and less story.  We now want the rules of the game to govern when, where and how a character meets his end and when an adventure succeeds or fails with a clear expectation that the GM will drive them to success and prevent tragedy.  In my eyes, this is terrible.  One of the most powerful pieces of storytelling has been lost, the ability for the author of the story to steer it into the surprises and tragedies for the benefit of creativity and memorable moments.

Now I will argue as devils advocate and say that sometimes the rules do come through and create wonderful moments as well, but we are literally rolling the dice to see if that happens and in my experience these memorable moments are few and far in-between by comparison to the old days of a well scripted and planned tragedy or an unexpected twists.   More importantly, they feel more forced then the manipulations of a GM as the mechanics of the game and of the characters can be designed for success.  Often it’s something simple like “the door is locked and no you can’t pick it and you don’t know why”.  Oh you have lock picking at +1000 and can pick all locks with 100% efficiency so you want a roll to see if your successful?  Sure as a GM I can let you roll the dice and lie to you about how you failed anyway, but what is the point of that?  In my eyes, obvious manipulation of the rules as defined by modern games, puts to question the reason to have them.  Is it not the same thing that Gygax is saying anyway, that, the GM is the master of the game and embodies the powers that govern the laws of the universe?  Its called The GameMaster for a reason, these words were not chosen frivolously, there is power in them with a purpose.

I digress, my point here is that Gygax understood how to create a great story and he understood that the GM would need to take a lot of liberties to ensure those powerful moments, those twists, all those surprises materialize.  His Gamemasters guide defines these aspects in great detail, even going so far as Gygax arguing with his own words to make the point, a style of writing I often use myself.

The point is that the GM effectively has to cheat and Gygax was ok with it and so am I, but I think its important to note that it was underlined that its not really cheating because the rules are not that well defined very intentionally, hence left for interpretation.  Its why I call it a bible as it means something different to each person that reads it, much of what is in the GM guide is, is up for interpretation but its made clear that the authority on how it should be interpreted is the GM.  Unfortunately because of this interpretive aspect of the book, people often missed his point of why its setup this way.

The question we must then ask is,  is if this is fair?  Is it fair that one player in the game gets to decide what happens, rigs the mechanical portions of the game to create the experience he wants everyone else to have and to ensure events transpire as written and planned?  No of course its not fair, but the GM is not a player, he is your narrator, the person bringing you the adventure, he is not governed by mechanical rules and its this key aspect of the original GM guide for 1st edition D&D that is at the center of the theory behind how the GM should conduct himself.  It a responsibility to create an experience that feels fair, but clearly behind the screen is not.

His story is there for you to experience and since you have no idea how it will turn out, whether its the dice that lead you to that end, or the manipulation of events by the GM is completely irrelevant and would be indistinguishable to you if you were not aware of the rules of the game.  The dice are a meaningless component in the story and play a small role at best.  You don’t know what will happen either way and it will be surprise dice or no dice, the difference is that the dice will make it random, often anti-climatic, while a storyteller, a good GM that is, will always make it an amazing one or at least that is the aspiration.

This is not to say that players should not have any influence over the story, again the GM guide speaks to this as well.  The players should most definitely contribute to the moments in the story in their control.  Its their dialogue, their choices, their responses to what is happening that are most important.  This however is always an illusion of control, one players insists on having rules dictated in some vein effort to grasp the reigns of control, but the dice are as much an illusion of control as the players involvement in shaping the story.  They certainly will experience the story from their own perspective, its why dialogue and the common question from the GM is “what do you want to do”, but at the highest level of storytelling is this simple fact.  You will experience the GM’s creation as he has written it, attempting to manipulate it with dice will not change this aspect, or perhaps better to say it should not.  Its more likely that using dice to determine the story will derail the planned twists and create a lesser experience, but its not going to give you any additional control.

And so this is the point.  The GM is the master of the game, let him do his thing, this is what the 1st edition GM Guide, Gygax’s greatest contribution to role-playing tells us.  Its the GM’s job to create the illusion, its the players place to sit back and enjoy it from the perspective of an interactive character.  This is what role-playing is to me and while I know countless players would argue the opposite, to me, much of the art and creativity of the game has been lost as a result of this awkward shift to letting rules govern the game.  Its also why I consider Gygax’s Dungeon Masters Guide for 1st Edition D&D the single and quite possibly only worthy source for becoming a great GM.

One final aspect of GMing I think the Gygax touched on is the concept of adaptive play, something I think a lot of GM miss the point of.  The idea is simple, you create story’s for your players, hence you must know what kind of story’s your players love and give those story’s to them with a twist.  Another words, this idea that the GM is a Tyrant and runs the story he wants to run, is wrong and not supported by Gygax’s writing though for some reason its an idea always attributed to him.  This is not at all what he is talking about when he talks about the GM’s powers and how to apply them.  In his and my eyes, its vital that you create story’s that are built around the characters, around the players preferences and always for their benefit.  Hence in a lot of ways, the act of a GM is creating a story that the players requested and often this meta conversation is what doesn’t take place between GM and players.  It must.

If your players want a political thriller and you give them a dungeon crawl, you are not going to be successful no matter how well written, planned and executed the story is.  More importantly, you will still be a shit GM, because the core, fundamental rule for a GM is that you are a host, the entertainment and your audience is the single most important and only reason you are creating and telling a story.  If you miss that, everything else you do right will be in vein.

So that is my interpretation and theory on being a good GM.  In short, listen to Gygax, but really listen to him, not to the presumptions and discussions about his work, read the book, absorb the book and understand what ideas about the GM he is presenting.  If you can manage to do that and take his advice, you will be a great GM.