What does Veeky Forums think of the guy doing the "How To Be A Great GM" channel on youtube?
Some of his advice seems sound and hes given me some solid new ideas but I find myself disagreeing with him on a few topics.
Is being a good GM just subjective or what?
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youtube.com
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Also does anyone know of any more similar youtube channels like this? I'm trying to find more resources for ideas and such.
I like alot of his stuff for "how to be a good PC". Its a great starting out point for deeper, better characters by getting you to actually think about things.
GMing is entirely subjective. There are as many GMing styles as there are different groups of people who want to play RPGs, and what might be amazing in one group might be awful in another.
Anyone advice given should be taken with a hefty helping of salt, doubly so if it's given with an attitude of 'This is the one right way to do things'.
Yeah, those vids were pretty good, ended up adopting some of those techniques and tried forwarding them to my players to help the creation process along. Worked out nicely, especially considering a lot of my players are newer.
My break down.
Types of Game Master dicks:
>01:10 - The No Dick
Agree , DM's need to support player agency by making reasonable ideas players come up with work and not focussing on one 'perfect' solution in their head.
>02:30 - The Yes Dick
Agree , isn't talked about as much but just as much of a problem, most of all in systems like Dungeon World where 'mother may I' is prevalent and campaigns can derail super fast when GM's have no backbone.
03:50 - The Rules Dick
Disagree . Obviously a nit picky rules lawyer GM is annoying but rules are really important so that the players can make informed choices about the world and so that the GM can structure the game properly. Also don't get his hate for random encounters, they're a lot of fun when done right.
>05:45 - The Vindictive Dick
Agree here, punishing players for IRL issues is childish. Granted I will create consequences for players characters for their characters choices in game good or bad.
>07:12 - The Favoritism Dick
Agree .I've played in this game where the girlfriend of the GM has plot armour and its not fun. Ironically one of the only times I've been guilty of the 'vindictive dick' is when I've had my partner as a player in game and unfairly targeted her to subconsciously prove I'm not bowing to favoritism.
(Some advice on who to target in combat to make it 'fair' but 'challenging' would be good, this can be really difficult as a GM to gauge. )
>08:54 - The Limelight Dick
Agree. Nobody wants to hear the DM monologue and players can only absorb so much information at a time. Why I'm not a fan of the various 'flavour' blocks of texts in premade modules. I did recently have an NPC whose sthick was being nobility who loved the sound of their own voice..so she monologued A LOT.
>10:30 - The Bored Dick
Agree,a disengaged GM is the worst. I understand it from a GM perspective I've just started a new campaign and already want to switch but a campaign isn't just for Christmas.
>continued
>Continued
>12:25 - The That Makes No Sense Dick
Disagree. In this case he's referring to GM's who make stories that 'make no sense'. I agree that GM's who nitpick that some player action 'doesn't make sense' are dicks.
GM's shouldn't be writing stories, they should be creating interesting situations for the players to engage with and NPC's with interesting goals they're trying to achieve.
Secondly a GM is almost always presenting his material for the first time. We don't have editors, or playtesters. This and the fact that in a good game the players can react to the GM's content in any way they want means that sometimes, some things aren't going to make perfect sense.
Thirdly most people have no idea what a plot hole or something not making sense actually is. A lot of people mistake plot hole for 'if I was in this situation, with perfect knowledge of everything that was happening, and a 100% logical person who always chooses the best course of action, I'd do this. Since X character didn't do this nothing makes sense.
A plot hole is actually when something that has been established by the worlds internal logic gets contradicted.
So if I give the players an item that is imbued with the power to smite undead in some early zombie dungeon, and they use that on my powerful vampire BBEG later on and I say they can't then I'm being a dick. ( Unless I planned ahead of time that he has some ring of smiting reistance, of course then the players need to be able to steal that off him and so forth). But if the players think its stupid that the vampire doesn't just fly into the inn at night and eat them all rather than setting up an elaborate zombie maze to trap them in then they're being pedantic dicks.
>rant over.
He looks like he's been around a while but he's not saying anything new but hes not saying anything that wrong either. He's a bit too much on the narrative side for my liking but each to his own. More material for GM's is always good.
Matt Colville
youtube.com
He sucks.
Especially with the "How to play a female character" vid he put out a while ago on Bacon Battalion.
One dude said "Simple, like a man but not quite", and the friggin Autist didn't get it
Not bad, but is a bit of a cuck
It's not a youtube channel, but the Fear the Boot podcast is mostly GMing and group advice. Like other anons have mentioned their stuff doesn't work for every group and not everything they say is gospel, but I usually like their approach to things.
What's everyone's thoughts on The Angry GM? I'm not a huge fan of the writing style, but most of what I've read I've agreed with so far.
Being a good GM is subjective.
I have a question. In a modern setting with low level supers how do I make things like armed UAVs, Main battle tanks, Shilkas, and air and atillary strikes devistating, terrifying, and potentially very lethal to the party, but also something they can take out, get around, or otherwise neutralize?
System is mutants and masterminds.
Thanks for introducing me to this.
not youtube but i listen to
fear the boot
rppr
npccast
Give players a lot of warning that they are approaching, show another super get railed by one, and then if they absolutely don't take any precaution, send in some AOE piercing damage
The Angry GM is not the worst DM to be getting advice from, but he's easily in the top 30, if not higher. Most of his advice just barely breaches middle-tier DMing which wouldn't be bad in and of itself, but he masks it with a sense of inflated authority, using his feux-swearing to make it seem like he's trying to 'drop some knowledge' on you and tell you how it is, when in reality he's kind of a pussy.
I don't know the guy in the OP but Matt is actually good even considering that almost exclusively focuses on DnD
I'm subscribed to his channel. I think he's coming at the topic from a more "serious" style of play. If your group is one that's fine narrating what your character does instead of assuming you're always "in-character" unless you make a specific hand gesture, his advice may not be as useful to you.
Either way, the "How not to be a dick" videos are good for everyone to watch and understand what he's saying. Don't be That Guy. Nobody wants to be That Guy.
OP's guy and the angry GM alike mainly have a (IMO very useful) role to play because of how bad 3.PF and 5e explain what it really means to GM.
D&D/PF are, for better or worse, the systems that will be most people's introduction to ttrpgs and they are both abso-goddamn-lutely dreadful at explaining how to GM at even the most basic of levels.
I've found the great gm channel and angry gm blog to be very useful in setting out the basics of how to make decent hooks, npcs, how to manage players etc.
He's got decent advice wrapped in a f$%& sh$%& package.
We're all adults here user, you can say fucking shit.
As everyone else says being a good GM is subjective.
On the other hand most of this guys advice is sound from my perspective.
I also like this blunt style he uses.
Prefer him to a lot of GM advisors out there that talk about mechanics and other bollocks.
Nah he was right, all this gender bending bollocks tends to be a problem with modern day snowflakes and perverts.
Anyone that wants to play a gender bender can leave my table.
I will never understand why people make such a big fucking deal of a player characters gender in a game where you can play elves and dwarves.
Not the Angry GM though apparently.
I fall between these two extremes. In the hands of skilled, experienced player - sure. There are some character concepts that look like lame snowflaking on paper, but in the hands of a skilled player actually turn out to be awesome. If it's a new player or a known munchkin, then I'm going to clamp down and make them a play a very between-the-lines character.
Bottom line - I treat "play a character you can easily identify with" as a core rule, but every rule has exceptions.
Happy Jacks RPG podcast is also pretty good. Not specifically focused on GM advice, but that's around 50% of most episodes. Also, they're one of the few RPG podcasts that actually talks about multiple systems, and the hosts even try new ones and play with outside people.
A lot of RPG podcasts tend to get a bit too... incestuous. "Good GM advice" becomes "Advice for dealing with Bob and Jerry's specific flavor of bullshit in my spehouseruled version of D&D". Which can be amusing, but not very useful.
His advice is about roleplay not dnd
Being Everything Else is a good YouTube series. A little basic at times but very helpful for breaking bad DM habits.
The old GmTips episodes with Matt Mercer were pgud in my opinion. Now that that porn star took over it's mostly interviews with some "artists" pitching their books/settings/shitty community sites
>Is being a good GM just subjective or what?
In the sense that every group of players will be different yes.
But it is focused on DnD and a particular style of game. His advice is not always relevant to general GMs
Looks like a fat Frankie Boyle, is he any good?
>Is being a good GM just subjective
There's a few core fundamentals, but by and large yes, good GMing is subjective.
As I get older, I find it increasingly fascinating how people react to character decisions in stories. I hear people say it about TTRPGs and movies and anything else; things like, "Wait, why did he do that? He wouldn't do that. That's stupid." Then I see all the tinfoil hat theories trying to make the story "make sense."
All you have to do is turn around and look at the real world to see people don't always make the best decisions and sometimes even appear to be fighting against their own interests.
>Some advice on who to target in combat to make it 'fair' but 'challenging' would be good, this can be really difficult as a GM to gauge.
Agreed, as a GM I would roll it up randomly according to closest players to make it "Fair", but it makes fights feel pretty brainless. Curious to hear how other GMs play out their encounters.
Depends entirely on the group.
For casual fantasy heroics, go with what's thematically appropriate, for hardcore tactics gamers play them as efficiently as possible, etc.
Jesus Christ I hate channels and videos like this.
If your group and you are having a good time, you're a good GM. If your group leaves the session/campaign going "Man, that was great," and you feel the same way, you're a good GM.
Fuck these stereotypes, some of them might even be good for certain groups. It all depends.
I think he focus too much on creating "stereotypes to sort players & dms in, but his series on how to make a good character is pretty neat