180 Degrees of Seperation

In a tradition that dates back to the early days of role-playing, many Game Masters have become accustom to separating themselves from their players with that ubiquitous cardboard barrier known as the GM screen. Tradition is not always good.

GM screens, on their surface (literally), seem to be a useful tool. They are usually covered with a myriad of helpful charts, tables and quick reference material that allows the Game Master to have instant access to game rules without digging through a book. They also serve to obfuscate the Game Masters' notes, dice rolls and NPC character sheets. All of these are important things, but they come at a price.

Being a good Game Master is all about connecting with your players. The one thing GM screens do best, is to separate the GM from the players. This is not conducive to good storytelling. Too many GMs use their screen (perhaps unintentionally) to hide behind. While this may be good for keeping the Game Master surrounded in the little bubble of his game world, it tends to leave everyone else at the table feeling like they are on the outside looking in. Would you want to listen to a story that was being told from the next room? How connected would you feel to a speaker who was sitting behind glass, like in a prison visiting room? As a Game Master, your number one job is to draw your players' imaginations into the fantasy world you create. Role-playing is supposed to be interactive. A GM screen not only creates a physical barrier, but an emotional and psychological one that insulates the players and the GM from one another. It distances them. It provides everyone an emotional distance that will likely lead to distraction, and allows the mind to wander. As a storyteller, you want as little to distract your players as possible. You need to engage them and hold their rapped attention for every second, engrossing them and immersing their minds in your world through vivid description. The most fulfilling and memorable role-playing experiences are ones that connect with the players emotionally. To achieve this, you want as little to stand in the way of your communication as possible. Ask any public speaker, and they will tell you that eye contact with your audience is key. You just can't connect from behind a cardboard fortress.

But you need all those ancillary benefits a GM screen provides, don't you? You can't be looking up tables and spot rules every few minutes. Won't that be even more distracting? Let's forget for the moment that as the Game Master you should be fluent with the rule system before you attempt to run a game for anyone, and let's set aside the fact that you are supposed to be role-playing, not rule-playing (more on that in another post). You can still use the reference charts. Just don't hide behind them! Having spot rules and hit tables handy does speed up game play, just leave the screen lay flat on the table if you need it for that. It will still work horizontally.

As for hiding your notes, can't you just cover them will a blank sheet of paper? If your players are so immature that they have to cheat by looking at your materials, they are only robbing themselves of the experience. If you suspect that they have been peeking, you can always change the material during play. Having the wrong information is usually more detrimental than not having any information.

The same goes for dice rolls. You don't have to hide them from the players. You don't have to tell they players what they are for, or what the target number is, or if high or low is good for them. I rarely tell my players anything about my dice rolls. I make some of them in the open, and some I hide with my cupped hand or behind a short stack of books. Besides, dice are small and the numbers are smaller. It's hard to read a d20 from across the table. By not telling your players what you are rolling for, or the parameters of the roll, you are free to make things up as you go. Ignore the result. Roll for things that don't exist. Re-roll with impunity. Cheat. You're the GM, you're allowed.

If you absolutely must have a screen, make it a small one. By small I mean short, and by short I mean no more than six inches. That's plenty tall enough to hide your dice rolls and should make reading your notes from across the table pretty challenging. It's also big enough to print a few rules charts on, if necessary. For a time, I used a small screen I made from a cardboard box. It was about six inches high and twelve inches long, folded into thirds to help it stand up. It was just big enough to paper clip some 4x6 note cards to it to hold NPC stats. It worked fine, and was never in the way. I don't use it any more. Now, I don't use any screen at all, and I have never been happier.

Rule #1: NO BOXED TEXT !

This is a mistake I see even experienced Game Masters make all too often, and it is one of my biggest pet peeves. You know those little boxes you find in published scenarios that are filled with description text or narration for the Game Master to read to the players? DON'T READ IT!

I don't mean not to read it to yourself so that you know what it says, I mean do not read it to the players. Under no circumstances should you ever read boxed text to the players. This is one of the worst thing you could possibly do. Let me explain why. Set aside the fact that it is a clear indication to the players that you are unfamiliar with the material; As soon as your eyes drop down to that page and your voice changes to that "narration" style tone, you have lost the players' attention. And I do mean right now. Nothing will lull a player into a glassy-eyed daze faster than the GM reading boxed text. Within seconds, they stop listening to you, they stop paying attention to the game, they are already thinking about looking up the movie schedule on their cell phone. You have little to no chance that they will even hear, let alone absorb, the information you are reading to them, so why bother. You may as well just skip that box and move on as if you had read it. Actually you are better off to just skip it. Even tough they will miss the information in the box, at least they won't unplug from the game.

Of course, I'm not actually advocating that you skip the box, or its contents, but for god's sakes don't read it to them. Paraphrase. Tell them what it says, but don't read from the page. You should keep eye contact with the players, and deliver the information with an engaging conversational tone of voice.

I loath seeing published scenarios that over use this feature. The more boxes they print, the more tempting it is for the GM to read them aloud to the players. Try to think of those boxes as highlighting the description of the scene for you to relate to the players, making it easier for you to find on the page. Try not to think of them as a script for you to read.

Maybe it seems like I'm harping on this rather simple point, but I see it happen time and time again. It is the single most common problem I have come across with bad Game Masters. I really can't over stress how important this simple rule is to the enjoyment of your players and your success as a Game Master. That is why I made it the subject of the first post on this blog. If you take away nothing else from this site, please remember this one rule...

NO BOXED TEXT !

Welcome, my name is Marx.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Be A Better Game Master blog. As, the title suggests, this blog is designed to give you tips and advice that will make you a better Game Master, whether you are running a small game for a couple of friends, or servicing hundreds of players at a major convention. Let me start off this adventure by telling you just a little bit about myself. My name is Marx Stead, and I am a Game Master and the head administrator of Rogue Cthulhu, which is a gaming group founded in 1998 and which has organized and presented well over 100 games at the Origins Game Fair. I began playing role-playing games in 1984, and Game Mastering a few years later. I have written, organized and run hundreds of game sessions, of both Live Action and traditional RPGs, for groups as large as 60 players and as small as one-on-one. I have run games in many different game systems, styles and genres, from horror to fantasy to romance, modern, and historical. I run both one-off scenarios and ongoing campaigns (one of which has been ongoing for over ten years).

Over the years my experiences as both a player and a Game Master, I have formed many opinions about what makes a good game, and what a good Game Master should, and should not, do. For some time now, I have considered sharing those thoughts with others (especially whenever I see another Game Master performing poorly). I have considered several different formats, including pod casts or an essay, but the volume of material seemed daunting and I found it difficult to organize my thoughts. My recent experience with another craft and prop making blog helped to convince me that the blog format might help break the information down into more manageable chunks and allow for a more "stream of consciousness" style of writing. Additionally, it would give readers like you the opportunity to chime in and share your thoughts and opinions via the comments section. I have no delusions about being the perfect Game Master, but I think I have some tips and advice that most other Game Masters could benefit from.

Little by little, post by post, I hope to help make each of you a little better gamers and enhance your enjoyment of my favorite hobby. So, if everyone is sitting comfortably... let's begin.