How To Be A Lousy GM

Pseudoephedrine · December 01, 2011, 01:44:21 PM

You guys probably weren't optimising yourselves. We had the opposite problem - it was too easy to blow someone to shit. Combat became reduced to initiative, with whoever got the first shot off at least disabling, and normally killing, the enemy.

Blazing Donkey · December 01, 2011, 10:01:40 PM

Quote from: PaladinCA;493111You have to get fives and sixes to count as a success. Ones are pooled for potential glitches. A glitch happens when the entire roll fails and half or more of the dice are ones.

I hate the Shadowrun mechanics. They are very cumbersome.

QuoteI'm a fan of systems that you roll to hit. If you hit you do damage. I don't mind having a dodge OR a resist damage factor in the mechanics, but having both..... BLAH!

In Rifts, you can roll to dodge or parry, but if you get hit you take damage.

RPGPundit · December 02, 2011, 10:23:15 AM

That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

RPGPundit

PaladinCA · December 02, 2011, 12:01:49 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;493302That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

RPGPundit

Shadowrun 4e might be irredeemable.

Serious Paul · December 02, 2011, 12:11:40 PM

I run 4e-and I agree with a lot of the criticism of it's system, and even some of the setting. But that doesn't mean all of us running SR4 are crappy GM's.

Blazing Donkey · December 02, 2011, 03:01:01 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;493302That description of Shadowrun does sound like shitty mechanics, but I don't see how it makes GMs worse.

In fact, the mark of a GOOD GM is that he can run a game that's basically shitty and make it good.

That's true, however, when I run Shadowrun, I keep the game setting as it is and import combat mechanics from a entirely different RPG.

S'mon · December 02, 2011, 04:13:17 PM

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491477But you get one of these people and they want to show you a bunch of crap on their computer first, rant on about something irrelevent (eg. their neighbor), or show you newest book they got and tell you why it's better than sex.Thus, you spend anywhere from 20-60 minutes on non-game related stuff before anybody even pulls out their character.

Endlessly frustrating.

20-30 minutes is pretty normal settling in time, IME. 15 minutes at a pinch.

Machinegun Blue · December 02, 2011, 04:53:27 PM

I have seen Shadowrun 4e turn a normally good GM into a crappy GM.

RPGPundit · December 04, 2011, 08:20:08 AM

I don't buy that. Games don't make already good GMs crappy. Of course, certain games can fail to make newb GMs any good. 3e and 4e for example, create generations of GMs that are too dependent on rules and are incapable of understanding emulation.
Much as, to a much lesser extent, WoD games created a generation of GMs who believed their main job was to "craft a story" and that it was perfectly ok to force the players into the roles of passive witnesses of that story.

RPGPundit

Bedrockbrendan · December 04, 2011, 08:36:14 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;493583I don't buy that. Games don't make already good GMs crappy. Of course, certain games can fail to make newb GMs any good. 3e and 4e for example, create generations of GMs that are too dependent on rules and are incapable of understanding emulation.
Much as, to a much lesser extent, WoD games created a generation of GMs who believed their main job was to "craft a story" and that it was perfectly ok to force the players into the roles of passive witnesses of that story.

RPGPundit

And even in then a lot of that has more to do with the way the system is framed by the writers and the GM advice in the book than the actual mechanics of the game. When we played Vampire in the 90s the sessions were very free form (more non-linear and open than most of my D&D campaigns at the time). While I enjoyed 3E, I found the DMG had a lot of advice that ran counter to my preferences and experience.