Easy enough, I was the one who wanted to play, I really wanted to DM, had recently made a bunch of rather nerdy new friends and the only other guy who wanted to DM wasn't exactly trusted to do a decent job.

Now, becoming a decent DM was bumpy. My brother used to Roleplay, so I thought I knew what I was doing. Some things actualy worked well from the start, though cliched as hell. I actually started the very first adventure in a Tavern with a hooded old man giving out the quest.

I think the social aspect of DMing was the toughest to learn. Knowing how to deal with disruptive players, making sure everyone gets their share, making sure everyones comfortable, handling expectations.

I quickly found the most profilic forums, lurked a year or two and devoured every resource offered. I think that really eased the process.


Really, not being a crappy player when my buddies started taking their turns as DM a few years later was harder. Not being able to give up the reigns and being the most familiar with the rules in the days of 3.5 does not make for a good player at all and I think I almost got myself kicked before I admitted that.

Like a lot of other people, "I had the books."  Other people were interested in the games.  I was willing to help them roll characters.  

80% of it is just showing up, and all that.

My brother excelled at GMing after he started buying books. My english major friends wanted to run our D&D groups.  So, although I started as GM, I wound up stuck in the player role for years.

Easy, and I found I loved drawing dungeons and spacecraft deck plans on all the graph paper I had, after that it was only fill in the blanks. Generally we rotated GMing duties though, and I like being a player also.

Like the others I found it easy to pick up and be a GM. I started playing in 1980 and my buddy RL was the first GM. As I recall Gamma World was the first RPG we bought but we also quickly got into the the Basic D&D red book, then Expert and so on. Later we got Star Frontiers when it came out. Dragon Magazine became a staple in my hands. I was always the kid in the neighborhood with the most board games, the most imaginative, the biggest reader, etc. So all of that came easy to me. I could think up more plots, scenarios and characters than I had time to put to paper.

I still cringe at much of what we did in those days but we didn't know better and it was still fun. Yeah, I too filled up piles of graph paper with various dungeons and forts and wrote up how they were stocked but we ran lots of the published modules too. The 80's were a fun time to be a teenage gamer.

The big problem was there were only a few of us game players in the neighborhood and in school and we all had conflicting interests and after school stuff to do. Almost all of my early gaming was 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 at best. I didn't play in a large group until college.

I found it pretty difficult. I still find it pretty difficult.

Finding the time to put everything together, learning the game rules, walking a group through character gen and rules... that's not easy. That requires confidence, not everybody can pull it off. When you actually get to the game, you've then got to be referee, MC, stage director, and every other actor, all at the same time, and be good enough at all of this to justify three hours of your friends' time. I was damn terrified. It never felt like I was prepared enough. Every decision felt like it took too long.

And rules. Oh, I hate fucking rules. I hated running Rogue Trader, that was awful. Dungeon World had the only GM rules I liked - ask what they're doing, think about what seems right, then have it happen. I can handle that. I learned a lot from that book.

Sure, the players said they had fun, but every time they looked at me, or there was a pause in the session, it felt like everyone was saying YOU AGREED TO AMUSE US, SO START FUCKING TALKING, LADYBIRD. Did I babble nervously? I've probably babbled nervously. And were they having fun, or were they just humoring me? I like constructive criticism! Constructive criticism is good! I didn't get any.

Clearly that means I was actually awful, because there is always something that people can do better.

So, yeah. Not easy. I wouldn't keep doing it, but I like to challenge myself, because that's the only way to get better. And I want to be better.

Quote from: Ladybird;777205And rules. Oh, I hate fucking rules.

They do, esp when a game gets so mechanistic in that they get in the way of actually playing.

I have had to laugh it that a table full of us have played through an encounter for a couple of hours, then later in the game, someone re-reads the rules and finds out we did it wrong. Oh well, play on through!

I started with published adventure modules, and no particular plan what to do with them; fortunately, our local library had a decent selection of adventures of the system we played back in the day and a few of those where not that bad to learn the ropes; eventually I dared to create my own adventures, but it took me years to get out of the "this is what is supposed to happen" mindset of a true train operator GM.

It was always easy and natural for me. I've always been a "take charge" kind of guy in my social groups and thrive on rallying everybody to do some activity, so it was just an extension of that.

I'm also the type to study whatever I'm interested about in meticulous detail and want to get it right, so I inevitably end up being competent at it. I love to voraciously devour every piece of GMing literature I can get my hands on too.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;777215It was always easy and natural for me. I've always been a "take charge" kind of guy in my social groups and thrive on rallying everybody to do some activity, so it was just an extension of that.

I'm also the type to study whatever I'm interested about in meticulous detail and want to get it right, so I inevitably end up being competent at it. I love to voraciously devour every piece of GMing literature I can get my hands on too.

This is pretty much my exact experience, except that I became a "take charge" kind of guy BECAUSE of RPGs.

GMing got me to grow a backbone. I was an introverted kid and GMing helped me become outgoing and assertive in organized social activities.

I guess that it is a bit ironic that role-playing games made me become a more outgoing, social person. At least in the pop culture sense.

EDIT: Note: At around the same time, I listened to a lot of Metal and Industrial and became a goth, so it might be a bit more complicated than that, lol

Not hard. I played the game one night as an introduction and the next day I was drawing and keying my own dungeon.

 35+ years later, I am still learning how to be a better DM.

Trial and error. Lots of error...  :-)

I had similar experiences. The Easter Bunny left me a red box at 10 years old, read through it, fell in love instantly and recruited friends to play (as suggested in the box set...).

We stumbled around until I hit my stride. I feel I had a strong grasp of the rules and my role when running 2er, so it took years to really be where I wanted to be at (but people we're having fun, so it wasn't a tragedy or anything).

I also made terrible mistakes and had to make apologies and amends along the way. I think I picked up the basics pretty fast, but really eased into an "expertise" with it, which is really more a lifelong professional hobbyist pursuit versus a static end goal. :-D

I GMed for years before I ever became self-conscious about GMing as a "thing". I started in '78, and someone needed to do it.

I'm uncomfortable with GMing being "easy" - it means I'm not trying.
I think I always thought I was good (mainly because people I gamed with said so /yank yank) but without fail, I'd play with another group and there would be a GM that showed me what GMing could be.

By the time 2e was under full swing, I remember being really confident in my GMing skills. I could run a game at the drop of a hat with anyone. As it happened, I was asked to play in a demo for this new D&D game called Spelljammer. I was between games (I was running a 4-day tournament) and I said sure! why not?

I sit down at the table, and my GM showed up, he had no books. He dumps a bunch of rubber monsters on the table. At first I'm thinking "WTF... is this going to be some kinda joke game?" I look around the table - and I notice the names on the badges and I'm playing with some of the TSR and Dragon Magazine staff - and Skip Williams was our GM.

It was an eye-opening experience. Skip was encyclopedic, he didn't have fucking books because he didn't need them. He proceeded to show me what "the next level of GMing was" (I played a Dwarf berserker and threw myself into it. I think I scared them in a good way - they took a picture of it and put it in Polyhedron, was amusing.) Truly one of the great gaming pleasures and learning experiences.

I'm not sure GMing is ever "easy" if you're going for it. I think GM's should always be pushing their own boundaries.

Quote from: tenbones;777242I'm not sure GMing is ever "easy" if you're going for it. I think GM's should always be pushing their own boundaries.

If that's what floats your boat, cool. Personally GMing needs to be fun for me and I don't see it as a sport or competition.

Sometimes fun means I decide to stretch things or try something new:

• Sessions with soundtracks.
• Sessions with recorded sound effects.
• Long multi-session adventures where each scene relates to one song on an album and the session starts with that song.
• Index cards with a weird picture or drawing of a book for the tomes and grimories they find.
• Hand made artifacts for the player to touch, look at, and hold- aged maps or jewelry.
• Troupe style play where each player has multiple PCs.
• Totally improv sessions.
• Heavily planned sessions.
• Players running all the key NPCs for other players.
• Individual pictures for each NPC they meet.
• Sessions run by lantern light with the players separated into different rooms when their PCs split up.
• A silent movie session where the players cannot speak, only gesture or write their dialog on a card.

But a lot of the time, I just want to do my usual GM thing.

Not exactly. No. It was easy to run games, harder to make those games good--that's a skill I developed over time and lots and lots of practice and I've made some mistakes down the road.

Mostly, a common problem I still have is that the pc's will try and think around difficult problems rather than try and bull their way through them. It surprises me when they DO think around the problem sometimes as well.

If I put a monster they can't fight against them, sometimes that's a sign there is more work to be done. (Example: AD&D Gargoyle guarding gate, no magical items in the party.)

Quote from: Bren;777250If that's what floats your boat, cool. Personally GMing needs to be fun for me and I don't see it as a sport or competition.

The competition is not with other GM's.

The "competition" (as you put it ) is with myself. I'm always looking to make my games better.

*I* find putting in the effort fun.

C'mon you know your campaigns that you've run where your players will always remember "THAT CAMPAIGN" - the one(s) that stand head and shoulders above all others.

That's the plane where I want all my games. I want to surprise myself. I want my games to be unpredictable - it's why I do sandbox style play exclusively - I want the players to surprise me. I want them to do what they want and push the envelope within the context of the campaign.

If I do "same ol' shit" all the time - I'd just as soon not GM because it would bore me. I'm not telling people what to do. I'm telling people what I do. But I have no problem passing judgement on a shitty game (like most of the livecasts I've seen. Does anyone at WotC actually play???) I'll call it as such. But you know, to each their own and all that.