Quote from: tenbones;858215How much does one's reading habits matter for GMing? A few guys I know that I consider "great GM's" that are voracious readers of fiction and non-fiction.

...

Is this anecdotal with the rest of you? Do your own reading habits inform what you consider good/great in your GMs? What about your playstyle?

In my view the GM skills depends on practical experience (I play on weekly basis) and reading (I typically read 2 books per week).

I believe that reading greatly improves role playing because I get plenty of ideas and character mindsets from books. History in general and social history in particular are my main source for science fiction games. Knowing the world view and seeing how it makes the world work helps to make unique and different worlds.

I have been thinking before why reading makes a better GM. My conclusion was and is that literary and historical characters are often far more complex than television characters. Second thing is that role play requires one to get into mindset of the character and thus understanding world view of different kinds of societies helps in it. This method is also used by theater actors.

There are often lamentations of quality of books in these discussions. I do not see that as the critical issue. In my view it is the breath of subjects you read. The more different books you read, the wider the viewpoints and thus your experience. Of course it does not hurt to avoid bad books in general as one should generally avoid garbage.

I haven't read fiction in years, although I do listen regularly to a handful of short-fiction podcasts, which may or may not count.  I do read a fair bit of non-fiction and (obviously) discussion forums, but I assume that's not the kind of "reading" you're talking about.

I also get the impression that the people I've played with consider me a good GM and enjoy my games.  And, in recent years, I've only been playing with strangers (moving halfway across the world tends to do that), so it's not just old friends humoring me to be nice.  There have been a few who have left because they wanted different things in their RPGs than what I was offering, but that's to be expected any time you're bringing new players in.

Perhaps relevant, though, is that I specifically aim for campaigns which feel like they could be taking place in the (or at least a) real world rather than a feeling of being in a story, which seems like it would be a good fit with my reality-heavy/fiction-light reading habits.

I'm a GM, and I'm a voracious, constant reader (of RPGs, fiction, nonfiction, etc.). I think the upside is the bank of knowledge i draw from. Sometimes the downside is that my attention and interest move on to the next shiny thing.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;858256I don't really think it comes down to being a heavy reader or reading good material even. A lot of natural storytellers I have known never even touched a book. And GMing, while I don't consider it storytelling, is more like telling a story than like writing a novel. Your speaking. People are reacting. It is a kind of public speaking. In fact, the worst GMs I've had try too hard to sound like prose from a novel. That doesn't really work well for setting the scene in an RPG in my experience. It is a whole different skill set.

I generally agree here. But I'd stipulate that having a background in storytelling/storyconstruction/writing/reading etc. lets the GM nudge things in directions that players who may not otherwise have considered taking their characters.

An interesting anecdotal observation I have is trying to run EPIC FANTASY with people that know literally nothing about "epic fantasy" or even "fantasy" outside of the Lord of the Rings movies, it's difficult. Because they walk into the game with post-modern conceits about trying to be down-and-dirty as opposed to being a tad selfless. This could be a reflection of other things... but with people that read high-fantasy, its obviously a non-issue.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;858256What I do think is important is being inspired. Some GMs will find that in books, some in film, others in music or art. Most will probably have a blend of places they take inspiration from.

Agreed. New GM's will often try to replicate storylines from such media - rather than spin the settings into their own thing. This is why I rarely run Star Wars set during the movies and prefer doing things in the Old Republic. Much much larger canvas to paint with. But I understand why others would use the standard setting - it's less complicated.

Quote from: nDervish;858303I haven't read fiction in years, although I do listen regularly to a handful of short-fiction podcasts, which may or may not count.  I do read a fair bit of non-fiction and (obviously) discussion forums, but I assume that's not the kind of "reading" you're talking about.

I also get the impression that the people I've played with consider me a good GM and enjoy my games.  And, in recent years, I've only been playing with strangers (moving halfway across the world tends to do that), so it's not just old friends humoring me to be nice.  There have been a few who have left because they wanted different things in their RPGs than what I was offering, but that's to be expected any time you're bringing new players in.

Perhaps relevant, though, is that I specifically aim for campaigns which feel like they could be taking place in the (or at least a) real world rather than a feeling of being in a story, which seems like it would be a good fit with my reality-heavy/fiction-light reading habits.

Would you say that your games have hit the "Great" level? By that I mean you, and your players are jonesing to get to the next session, and emails are flying, IM's and texts are hammering you while you try to do your dayjob. Some old bastard is griping how you need to set up an Obsidian Portal site for the game so they can journal - or something along those lines?

Long thought:

On reflection, I think there are a bunch of talents that can make for a great GM, and a bunch of issues that can mess one up, and that there are similar traits for all the players, as well as different sets of sensitivities for everyone. By sensitivities I mean that when I was a younger gamer, I wouldn't notice many things that today would put me off, and I also wouldn't be able to appreciate or enjoy many things that now I do. And, I think all of these things can be developed by a variety of types of experience, but that reading good books is one excellent source, and reading is similar in that it also takes something to find and digest good books. Some literature professors like to say that completely understanding one great book can be a full education in itself.

I think that great GM skills can come from other places, even without any reading, though I'd certainly recommend reading good books (and avoiding crap). As for quality, I think it also depends on the quality of the other media, and it feels to me like the quality has plummeted since I was younger. I'd want to play in an RPG that operated like a good (1960's-1970's-style) movie, but now I have a hard time finding films I even want to watch. There have of course been exceptions, but there seems to be an awful lot of stuff that feels like crap that wouldn't be much like games I'd want to play.

I think persistence is a huge quality for a "great GM".

I try to tell that to a lot of new GM's. You WILL FAIL. Campaigns crater all the time. It's not always your fault, but sometimes it is. The key is to get back into the saddle.

I still can't get away from the nagging notion that a lot of it has to do with ones consumption of good inspiration. I probably should not hem-and-haw about it being just books, but that's due to my age. The issue then becomes how has media consumption changed how GM's run their games as time has moved on? Is that a fair question?

We've seen it countless times where D&D 3.x and 4e have been bludgeoned with being called WoW-simulators...

And right on queue...

someone links me this...

http://imgur.com/gallery/Cvrey

hahah nice.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;858268Some GMs are great at research and enhance their campaigns with it. Others take a lot of surface level knowledge and turn it into an exciting adventure. I certainly won't dispute you are probably going to learn more by reading books about the civil war than by watching documentaries (though reading the right books is just as important as how much you read). But I don't think GMing requires that kind of smarts. Again, I am not knocking being well read. I like to read a lot myself. And above all I like to read history books. But I have never really seen level of reading reflect quality in GMing in the groups I've been in. What seems to matter is that the person have sources of inspiration.

I may be reading to much into my experiences as I can't recall any GMs who didn't read a lot of books. Of course most of my friends are nerds and there was a high correlation between nerds and reading. It seems like there still is, from the younger nerds I know, though perhaps not as high a correlation. And on the other hand, the friends of mine who aren't interested in reading don't seem like they would make good GMs or even be very interested.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;858265What exactly are you looking for in your games???

Fun. What exactly fun consists of varies by what we are playing: Runequest/Glorantha, Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Honor+Intrigue are clearly going to differ and the particular characters in any one of those settings we play will vary the fun even more, e.g. good-guy heroic Rebels vs. Empire is going to have different kinds of fun than playing a crew of scruffy fringers trying to pay the vig on their ship loan long enough to finally make the big score.

Quote from: Bren;858341I may be reading to much into my experiences as I can't recall any GMs who didn't read a lot of books. Of course most of my friends are nerds and there was a high correlation between nerds and reading. It seems like there still is, from the younger nerds I know, though perhaps not as high a correlation. And on the other hand, the friends of mine who aren't interested in reading don't seem like they would make good GMs or even be very interested.
e.

I know a lot of movie geeks or comic book geeks who run a good game. My first group was actually a couple of guys who probably only watched saturday morning cartoons and a GM who mainly played video games and watched movies. I've also gamed with a lot of people who like to read. My view is it doesn't matter to me where the inspiration comes from. If the GM watches old martial arts movies 24/7 and finds inspiration there, I am on board with that, if the GM reads a bunch of fantasy novels, I am sure that will give them plenty of ideas. What is most important is for the GM to run stuff that he or she is enthusiastic about, regardless of what their source of inspiration is. It is when he GM who doesn't like hard science fiction, tries to run a hard science fiction game, that I think you tend to run into problems. But if I am about to play say a Horror Session, I'd feel comfortable in the hands of a GM who either reads lots of horror stories, watches lots of horror films, or some combination of the two. Really I think it is about the media you consume and turning that into inspiration for adventures.

Quote from: tenbones;858336I think persistence is a huge quality for a "great GM".

I try to tell that to a lot of new GM's. You WILL FAIL. Campaigns crater all the time. It's not always your fault, but sometimes it is. The key is to get back into the saddle.

I still can't get away from the nagging notion that a lot of it has to do with ones consumption of good inspiration. I probably should not hem-and-haw about it being just books, but that's due to my age. The issue then becomes how has media consumption changed how GM's run their games as time has moved on? Is that a fair question?

We've seen it countless times where D&D 3.x and 4e have been bludgeoned with being called WoW-simulators...

This is good advice, another piece I would give potential GMs is 'Be flexible'.  Don't pre-plan everything.  Have a backbone for what you want, but you're players may end up fleshing it out in a way you didn't expect. Roll with it.  A good GM needs to be able to react to whatever happens, cuz sometimes?  That's all you're getting.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;858343I know a lot of movie geeks or comic book geeks who run a good game. My first group was actually a couple of guys who probably only watched saturday morning cartoons and a GM who mainly played video games and watched movies. I've also gamed with a lot of people who like to read. My view is it doesn't matter to me where the inspiration comes from. If the GM watches old martial arts movies 24/7 and finds inspiration there, I am on board with that, if the GM reads a bunch of fantasy novels, I am sure that will give them plenty of ideas. What is most important is for the GM to run stuff that he or she is enthusiastic about, regardless of what their source of inspiration is. It is when he GM who doesn't like hard science fiction, tries to run a hard science fiction game, that I think you tend to run into problems. But if I am about to play say a Horror Session, I'd feel comfortable in the hands of a GM who either reads lots of horror stories, watches lots of horror films, or some combination of the two. Really I think it is about the media you consume and turning that into inspiration for adventures.

This is exactly what crystallized the question for me. Do you agree that it's certainly possible to have a non-reading/consuming GM do a "good" game. But what about those really *great* campaigns? I guess this is an informal poll of sorts... has anyone had a truly WTF-awesome campaign from a GM that wasn't an avid reader (or whatever passes for that these days)?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;858346This is good advice, another piece I would give potential GMs is 'Be flexible'.  Don't pre-plan everything.  Have a backbone for what you want, but you're players may end up fleshing it out in a way you didn't expect. Roll with it.  A good GM needs to be able to react to whatever happens, cuz sometimes?  That's all you're getting.

Yep. In fact I'd say that it's basically impossible to prepare for everything. The players *will* at some point, go off of any script you concoct. That's why I just write a basic fabric of a region, its general conceits, fill it with setpieces and how they all interact (if at all) populate it with NPC's and let'er rip.

The offroading that players take the game is where you learn to be a good GM. And that's where the flexibility to let your players do that. It also means you have to trust yourself and be fearless about your game. Take it where the players lead it. Give'em a nudge to keep the train moving as necessary, slap some rough terrain in front to slow it down as needed.

Basic rules of advanced GMancy

Quote from: tenbones;858359This is exactly what crystallized the question for me. Do you agree that it's certainly possible to have a non-reading/consuming GM do a "good" game. But what about those really *great* campaigns? I guess this is an informal poll of sorts... has anyone had a truly WTF-awesome campaign from a GM that wasn't an avid reader (or whatever passes for that these days)?

I think it is possible to have non-reading GM make a good or a great campaign. I've definitely had WTF-Awesome campaigns run by people who read very little or not at all. I think sometimes because we are gamers and gamer culture is so focused on books and reading, we don't see other approaches as viable or we maybe dismiss people who don't talk like they read a lot. The great GMs have usually had a strong source of inspiration that helped inform their GMing and were good at dealing with the social situation of speaking to a group and managing it. Like I said before some of the best GMs I knew really liked a particular kind of movie for example.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;858343I know a lot of movie geeks or comic book geeks who run a good game.

We definitely have different experiences with our GMs. I find it takes a fair amount of effort to summarize the insights in culture, history, and language derived from wide reading to people who don't read. That's part of what I was trying to say about narrowness and shallowness vs. depth and breadth of information.