DM Theory

Is it elitist to believe a GM should be able to provide adequate motivation and reasoning for the players to adventure?

I'm one of the GMs in my play group and when I run a campaign I work hard to make sure people's motivations and plot hooks work well together in order to provide a rich and compelling story that my players can enjoy, knowing their tastes.

However, when the other GM's run they tend to have a campaign feeling more like the cartoon Adventure Time if you cut all the plot episodes out.The sessions are fun and it's nice to kick back and goof with our friends, but the campaigns tend to die out because there's no motivation to keep moving forward or the motivation is so downplayed you forget you had it to begin with.

This becomes even more problematic when running prewritten adventures that are meant to solve the problem (though to some degree it is on the part of the adventure writers since the game we play tends to have shit world building).

So I suppose,

tldr; Should GMs be expected to provide a narrative experience or does the role of the GM come down more to just being the rules judge and option provider?

>I'm the greatest GM
>Everybody tells me so
>They say they've never seen a GM as great as me
>"Donald your GMing is simply beautiful" they say
>Oh we're playing 3.5 D&D and I made all your characters for you

Entirely depends on the expectations and preferences of the group.

That makes sense (though maybe it's more common sense?) Either way it's totally true that we've never sat down as a group and said explicitly "this is what we are looking for". Honestly that's probably what we need. We are all tragically polite so its possible there are others who feel this way in the group but who have just never said anything because none of us want to hurt the GMs' feelings.

Thank you for the advice, I'll bring it up to them and see where they are at.

This is why I think the concept of session zero is really useful. It can be helpful in connecting characters together and establishing motivations, but it can also ensure everyone is on the same page with regards to the tone and content of the game.

Some conceptual disconnects between the players and the GM can be kinda insidious, though. Despite generally talking through things with my group, and having been playing with them a long time, last year we ended up having to end a game due to a long running disconnect leaving the GM and me acting at cross purposes for so long that it ended up warping the game beyond repair. Just shows how important good communication is, and not making assumptions.

He introduced fantasy romans into a setting, from an American and somewhat romanticised perspective, focusing on their advanced technology and sophisticated culture, with slavery being a step on the road to citizenship and so on.

I, as a briton, saw them as slaving invading bastards and assumed their friendly overtures where either insincere or an active trap set for us, and the other players tended to share my viewpoint.

It came to a head when a raid on an enemy camp established within our borders turned into a massacre. He'd expected us to subdue them and question them, while we went in to wipe them out, to make a statement that we would not tolerate territorial aggression against us.

It was kind of a sad end to the game, but to fix it we'd have had to try and retcon so much it'd basically not be the same game anymore, so we ended up wiping the slate clean and trying something new. Still, it's an important lesson to learn. As a GM, how you interpret an idea might not fit how your players do, so be clear with what you're doing, or be ready to notice that they're reacting to it differently and adapt.

I DM'd a campaign that ended up fizzling out due to real life shit bogging us down, i think to some extent my players had a truce with me, that as long as i provided interesting stuff to do, they'd be driven to go do it, the DM's job is two fold, they must create interesting scenario's, both prebuilt as an intended session, and be able to be creative enough to be able to break away from that path, or at least that's how i did it, like with most rpg's, your mileage might vary.

It's not one or the other, it's either or both. Games without a narrative drive often feel pointless, but a lot of GMs are bad at having a story and a lot of players don't really care about one. It isn't important if you game is entirely a dungeon crawl, or entirely plot driven, or some mixture of the two, as long as the GM and the players are happy with whatever balance you have, then it is going well. The problem comes when the GM tries to do one extreme and the players don't want it, or the GM tries to do what the players want, which is all in one direction, but has no interest or aptitude for it.

The GM and players have to work together to make a game good. If they are doing that and enjoying themselves, it doesn't matter much what the genre or style or system is, the game will usually be a success.

I believe that a GM should provide enticements for the PCs to adventure, but the PCs should be designed to be receptive to such things. Fuck you and your loner character who doesn't have any interest in being a part of a team. I'm not going to coddle you. PCs should be looking for hooks to bite on, and I'm not going to work really hard to accommodate somebody who's not putting in any effort themselves

only the biggest faggots in the land need a GM to hold their hands to this extreme
>no motivation
i rue the day i meet a kissless virgin so cringe that he needs someone's shitty fanfic to motivate him to play a G-A-M-E
>tragically polite
sounds fucking boring mate

tl;dr yes it's elitist, and also paradoxical considering how much weight you narrative fags give to player agency

Not really.
You as the player decides what motivates your character.
It is the GMs job to provide that motivation, often with a twist, to give that person a reason to go on the adventure.

The game demands so little from the players to begin with, they can damn well take a bit of responsibility and make characters that have their own reasons for adventuring.

It's not elitist, it's suboptimal. Good motivation stems from the players.

Note tough that a) good games provide motivations from the sheet writing on and b) motivations are necessarily explicit.

Jesus Christ this. I cannot stand players who take the adage "no idea survives first contact with the party" as a fucking challenge.

The DM has put in the effort to create a story of some sorts. You don't have to follow the exact line they expect, but don't be a cunt and go out of your way to break it at any turn.

This actually brings up something I've been thinking on. I run Delta Green for group and I had everyone write a little backstory for their characters, specifically their encounter with the unnatural that led Delta Green to their door.
>Marine who's platoon encountered a city out of nowhere and most all of them became casualities.
>Anthropologist who was studying some monoliths and theorized they directed to a specific point in the night sky... They did and he saw something moving up there.
>Physician who treated a bunch of people with physical and mental trauma after a play titled "The Pallid Masque."
>Essentially Fox Mulder.
Given the nature of the game, I'm having them keep stuff mostly secret from one another, but I did drop some references in our first session and some plot hooks for an overarching story while I run prewritten scenarios, and I'd also like to tie a couple of said scenarios to specific players(Kali Ghati for the Marine, for example). I guess I'm looking for recommendations on when/how often to drop hooks to the overarch and set up more singular-player focused scenarios.

Out of curiosity, how long have the people responding to this thread been GMing? I don't see the point to these sorts of threads.

I've ran two sessions and they were in the past month, only been playing any table top for about a year.

I've been GMing for well over a decade, and I think there's a point in it. Although veteran GM's will have a well established style, someone GMing with less experience needs to figure it out. Being aware of the scope of options, and the necessity of the communication with the group, is good advice to take forward, no matter which option ends up suiting them best.

Only had one campaign succeeding in my GM career of roughly a year, but I also had like, a bunch of ones that failed before it. Then again, I also learned a lot from a real successful GM, allowing me to become Gundam.

It's just been my experience that if you can't intuitively grasp how to GM you're not going to grasp it intellectually by asking questions. I've had people IRL ask me for advice and then completely forget it or be reminded by me and ignore it during the session.

This. DMing is a skill you learn. You literally need to GIT GUD at it. I'm not saying everyone can do it, but every session I learn a new thing that I can use to make me a better DM. Not everyone can be a great DM and I wouldn't be arrogant enough to suggest that I'm great, but nobody starts out incredible at it.

My only piece of advice I could possibly give is chat to your players after each session. So long as you're willing to accept criticism, you'll learn SO MUCH about how to be a better DM each time.

So you've never made some sort of mistake or made something harder for yourself and afterwards realized maybe there was a better or different way to do something?

Well, I think that's just the other important thing- Advice is only worth as much as it fits with the style you find comfortable.

It doesn't matter how experienced you are, or how sincerely you give advice, if it doesn't work with the style they come to prefer they don't gain anything from trying to incorporate it. A lot of GMing is figuring out what works for you, and knowing your options is an asset, even if you don't use them.

>>Oh we're playing 3.5 D&D and I made all your characters for you

>Not playing Shadowrun
>Not getting fired if your runner is shit
>Not infiltrating the DNC
>Not infiltrating Shillarycorp
>Not fending of hordes of bots as you make your escape with 'THE TRUTH'

Following on to this, observe other DMs and try to notice what they do better than you. Years ago when I was just starting to DM, I played with a bloke who was far better as describing the scenery than me. I took on board what he did and it made me a better DM. Personally I think it's better to experience rather than read random advice from people you don't know and will never meet on the internet

>observe other DMs and try to notice what they do better than you.
I was in the Marine Corps and my Senior Drill Instructor said something to us once that always stuck with me, and this was about leadership but the overall principle still applies:
>Throughout your career and life you're going to have different leaders. You'll take things from them and put those things in your "leadership tool box." You'll take the good things and try and emulate them, but you should also take the bad things. Not to emulate, but so make sure you DON'T do those things.

That isn't even remotely what I said, dumbass. That would be saying that I started out as a perfect DM and never learned anything because there was nothing to learn. I stated that I've never observed people learn how to GM by talking about it with other GMs.

Your point is sound, and yet there's some stuff you can't really parse as being "against someone's style", they're just things you have to do. I played in one guy's campaign and told him the entire party was never being challenged in or out of combat. Nothing changed in the next session and I asked him flatout to up the CR of the monsters. Again nothing changed. Lather rinse and repeat until I quit the game. Another person allowed laptops, smart phones, etc. at the table and people were constantly talking over him or ignoring him in favor of the electronics. I told him he needed to do something about it and he never did. There are GMing styles, and then there's a failure to GM.

>I stated that I've never observed people learn how to GM by talking about it with other GMs.
Then why are you here? Fuck off if the thread doesn't apply to you.

I'm here because of curiosity, and I have learned something by being here. See the above point about advice being tailored to a GM's style. Albeit it still doesn't help with those people I already dealt with, I think they were genuinely hopeless.

>That isn't even remotely what I said, dumbass.
I wasn't implying you did, dumbass. But let's say you're just starting out and have an idea, see someone or someones else have tried the same thing with bad results. Different people learn different ways, sometimes that way is by discussion. Though I do agree that usually you learn best by doing.

>The dragon was Russian
>The State has fallen into bankruptcy
>The Corporation rule openly
>Humanity is enslaved
>Player "but we made our saves and won user"
>DM "Well RL and in game you're still fucked, now you just get to watch"

>Is it elitist to believe a GM should be able to provide adequate motivation and reasoning for the players to adventure?

My take is that plot in an RPG is kind of like plot in a porn movie: it's expected to exist, but it's really not why you're there and it's okay to half-ass it.

>The Russian dragon was head of the DNC
>The State withered away and died
>The Corporations moved from indirect rule through politics and politicians to direct rule
>Humanity is free to fight back now