Are you a good game master or a bad game master? Do you drop houses on people who do things you don't like? Do you make up magical slippers of teleportation? Do you do the old "oh but it was all a dream" thing? (grrr I hate that one)
It's better to ask yourself what makes a GM bad, rather than if you're a bad GM. Was the movie "The Wizard of Oz" bad? I know for a fact that you know someone who loves it, and someone else that thinks it's a terrible movie. Games are the same way, you can't just follow a handful of rules and find the perfect game for every player. Ask your players what they're enjoying, ask them what bothers them. I asked you last week what makes a good GM because that's the questions that all good GMs ask. Are you doing a good job. The only ones that can tell you that are the players. They're your customers, and they're always right (unless they botch a skill check) so talk to them. Keep your players close to your decision making process. It's their game too.
Remember, an amazingly designed dungeon that the players (players, not characters) hated working their way thorough isn't a good thing. You're all on the same side in real life, you're trying to have fun, so if both sides aren't, then something needs to be fixed.
I think you mix two different questions here. They're related, sure, but I think they're different.
ReplyDelete"Are you a good GM?" is one. "Are you running cool adventures?" is another.
A good GM can make even a bad adventure fun. A bad one can ruin a good adventure. But, some adventures make it hard for a GM to "screw it up", just like some adventures don't give you everything you need to play and set you up for failure. It's partly a matter of using the right tools.
But it's also partly skill. I know some mediocre GMs who run kick ass published adventures because they can filter out the junk and use a powerful tool to make them better. I also know some awesome GMs who don't use any published adventures and hardly any notes and manage to run amazing adventures. Luckily, I know very few bad GMs.
I'll also state that while I love making my own characters, sometimes pregens are ok. Not all the time, though. So my tastes change on my expectations. Likewise, an adventure where all my cool stuff is taken away usually isn't my bag. But sometimes it is. I like playing charismatic characters. But after a bad day? I just want to kick some ass.
I agree totally. I meant this kind of as one facet of being a good GM, communication with players. Unfortunately a lot of GMs feel that it's a contest, not a game, and talking to the players about how they feel the game is going is almost like asking the enemy for advice.
DeleteBut thank you, I actually agree totally with what you said as well.