Is it a GM's responsibility to teach/reinforce lessons?

Is it a GM's responsibility to teach/reinforce lessons?

Being a GM is like being an educator. So to a degree, yes. As long as it's mostly game-related.

No need to get preachy about stuff like lessons on politics and the like.

A GM's responsibility is to make sure everyone has fun. No more, no less.

...

As much as it is your friend's responsibility to dress you - it might seem cool of them if you are wanting the help, but if you aren't they just come of as a prick no matter how genuine their desire to help you is.

I think it's a lot more complicated than that. That's essentially a vague truism, and doesn't really provide any meaningful council or advice.

How about "the GM's job is to deliver the best version of the experience he and the players agreed to"?

I think that's better, but it does bring up that a lot of what a GM does can't really be agreed upon beforehand. Even the question of "Should I teach you guys lessons?" is an awkward topic to bring up before a game.

For the game I ran from the first week of 2017 until today the education went both ways.

This was the second game I'd ever run, and the first in a system of average complexity. (Mutants and Masterminds 3rd edition with 4 players, before I'd run a game with 2 players using Simple D6 1st edition)

In late 2016 they taught me the system, played in or ran practice sessions with me, and came up with houserules to help get the system to support the kind of game we were planning.

There were cases where I had to put my food down, make judgement calls, or settle disputes between players, but they were rare and dropped off after the first 2 months.

In that group I would say it was not one particular person's responsibility to teach and reinforce lessons.

It was my responsibility to do my best to see to it that everyone had fun, though I also had help with that from my players. After all you can't MAKE people have fun or be happy.

I thing it's something that you can feel out with a mix of social skills and straight up talking to your players, like you wouldn't suddenly shift tone in the middle of a campaign if you've had a consistent tone up until that point and your players seemed to like it

Absolutely not. You're there to enjoy an experience with your group, not act as some bizarre teacher-behaviourist trying to give them object lessons.

>Social Skills
>on Veeky Forums

AHAHAHAHAHAHA

If you have to directly teach your players anything, you meed to get a new group, because that means
>they didn't come prepared for the campaign
>they aren't paying attention to what's going on and therefore aren't learning from experience
>they're just retarded
>all of the above

it's everyone in the group's responsibility to get each other more in sync with each others' playstyles so you all have more fun.

The GM has a leadership role in doing so, so I suppose yes.

jeez, what, do you have players that NEVER get confused with rules they don't always use?

A GM is a referee and a guide for the story. Nothing more, nothing less. Anybody who strays from this narrow road is only making it hard for themselves and the people they play with.

...

Nah, the GM's job is to be the referee, arbiter of rules, and to write the outline of the story. "Fun" is a by-product, its not something you can design for, and its not anyone's responsibility to provide for anyone elses' fun. I don't know you, I'm not in your brain, I don't know what 100% is "fun" to you. I can prep sessions I think will be "fun," but and even have fun while GMing them, but that doesn't automaticaly mean that it was fun for you as well. If you're not having fun in a game, its your own personal responsibility to square that shit, not anyone elses.

This is the correct answer. Players need to take some responsibility for their own fun. Unlike the e-celeb GMs would have you believe.

>Nah, the GM's job is to be the referee, arbiter of rules, and to write the outline of the story. "Fun" is a by-product, its not something you can design for, and its not anyone's responsibility to provide for anyone elses' fun.
That's going too far. GMs can (and absolutely should) tailor their campaigns to be as fun for everybody as possible. Now, you can certainly overdo this and sacrifice substance for a shortsighted, empty, pandering fun that actually makes shit less enjoyable when all is said and done. But the purpose of the game is for everybody to enjoy themselves, and the GM should keep this and his players' tastes in mind when designing shit.

And by the way, the players should be doing something similar as well. They should be trying to avoid actions that sabotage the campaign or make other players miserable. I'm not saying that's *all* anybody should care about or dwell on, but it should certainly be a vital consideration.

It's not their job but I do feel like it's inevitable. All the events of the game, both proactive and how it reacts to the PCs, are going to be informed by how the GM thinks the world works. As such the things which happen in the game on the GM side can't help but conform to their worldview which will be communicated to the players. Basically, you can't tell a story without it containing some of your political ideas.

Depends what you mean by lessons.
Moral messages? Probably not, unless your players are into it.

If you mean stuff like teaching them not to poke a sleeping dragon in the dick with a spear, then yeah sure

This

>"Fun" is a by-product, its not something you can design for,

>I don't know you, I'm not in your brain, I don't know what 100% is "fun" to you.

Half the GM's job is finding out what their players think is fun. Sure, you can't 100% it, but you can get pretty close.

The problem with that philosophy is that nobody really knows what they want.

Like you sit down for a sandbox game to placate the "muh agency" crowd, only to find yourself railroading them towards an actual goal because nobody bothers speaking up to say "hey, let's do X" just to give you a vague direction of where the campaign will go.

The most you can hope for is to come to a compromise and play it straight until everyone decides to move on to something else.

>The most you can hope for is to come to a compromise and play it straight until everyone decides to move on to something else.
This is pretty fucking sad, and speaks more about the poster than the hobby.

It's only so sad because it's true.

>continues speaking for himself
You know, you could do something about it.

Don't project your problems onto me.

No, the GM work is to provide a fun game for everyone. That really all that matters, lessons are meaningless

>The problem with that philosophy is that nobody really knows what they want.

That's why you don't ask the players what they want, but through trial and error and careful observation you slowly learn their preferences.

One of the reasons people play games isn't simply to have fun, but to find out what it is that they enjoy.

A moral lesson? no, that's dumb. games aren't an after school cartoon special and I'm not here to preach at my players.
An in game lesson? You had best believe I'll teach these faggots to search for traps and think outside of the box.

If the game theme is saturday morning cartoon-ish, then making one or two lessons that aren't overly preachy might actually work out.
Just don't make it overtake the entire fucking game like a retard.

>fun is a by-product

Not per se, but teaching, reinforcing, and testing your player for particular knowledge makes up a good 75% of encounter design.

/thread

...are you looking for an extra player?

System rules yes.

Morals no.

Sex things. Maybe

You should look into the MDA model, a model trying to translate "I wanna have fun" into what makes that "fun" really fun for that person.

That is still not a perfect solution, but saying "fun" cannot be inquired into it's luckily wrong.

As a DM, I try and put scenarios in game to help my players deal with stuff out of game. Just subtle stuff, stuff that when the characters talk about it in character, it helps the players deal with their shit.

Seriously, I've seen such an improvement psychologically in my friends over these past few years, I swear TTRPGs are part-game, part-therapy.

>Sex things. Maybe
And now we know why your group is looking for another female player.

Getting taught rarely is.

That's every player's job, not just the game runner's.

A GM's responsibility is to make sure everyone has fun
It's not just the GM's responsibility.

Everyone at the table should work actively to entertain each other and foster a positive, casual environment.

>A GM's responsibility is to make sure everyone has fun

Fuck, forgot my meme-arrow there

Then suck your players' dicks, you fucking retard piece of shit.
If you think GMing is all about making people have "fun" then you are a clown and you need to get out of this hobby.