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.