I was the one that read the rules, and mowed enough lawns to be able to buy the books.

I never thought anything of it, any more than when I went to my friend's house and he played drums (it was his drum set, after all...).

I played in either one or two sessions of Gary 's game before getting a piece of graph paper and drawing a dungeon level.

I was 16.  I'm sure it sucked.  But we all had fun, and practice makes perfect.

It.  Really.  Is.  Just.  That.  Simple.

Quote from: Bren;777060Very, very, very easy. Like skim through the OD&D rules and draw a dungeon up that same night easy.

It was pretty much the same for me: read OD&D and Greyhawk (all that was in print when I started) and draw up a couple of dungeon levels and a small village and keep for the player's to retreat to/recruit from/etc. Of course, it took a few years of GMing almost every week before I got really good at it but it was easy to start. My players and I (mostly) had fun from the very beginning, however, and that's what really matters.

Quote from: Necrozius;777222This 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

For me it was the opposite, as I had to unlearn a slew of "the players are always right" style GM literature.

I don't remember how I starting being the GM... I think there was just a bunch of us who wanted to play and I was the only one who had played before and had the books.
It wasn't hard... but I wasn't particularly good at it either, though everyone seemed to have fun.

Quote from: Doughdee222;777193I 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.

I want to cringe about doing the same thing in the early/mid 90s.  Then I remember that we also had fun. Sometimes I want to cringe when people imply that "we had fun" is somehow worse than "we created a superb narrative, indicative of the human soul. The Great Kobold Raids over HammerPort were a metaphor for our own fleeting youth."

I did dumb things.  I did a lot of them.  They were fun things, too.  I regret nothing.

Quote from: cranebump;777061Easy to play, difficult to master. Like all the best games.

(P.S. Just to be clear, 30+ years and I haven't mastered it yet).

Veritas!

I think my first time GM'ing was the Darkstryder campaign for Star Wars d6. I tried so hard to stick to the script that first game, and quickly realized it was killing both mine and the players enjoyment, so it went a bit gonzo after that.

I soon found myself running three different Star Wars campaigns, as word got out. :eek:

Quote from: Novastar;777329I think my first time GM'ing was the Darkstryder campaign for Star Wars d6.

Well nothing like jumping into the deep end of the pool to learn to swim.

I have that campaign and most of the other WEG adventures and supplements. I never ran Darkstryder though. Partly because we never had enough players to make it work. Because of the mix of pregenerated characters, important NPCs, and underlying plot and background secrets, combined with players running multiple PCs, I'd say that is easily the most difficult of any WEG Star Wars supplement to run.

I was the players' choice for GM pretty much from the start, except for when Doug was in town (The college guy who had introduced us all to D&D). Whenever he was around everyone wanted to play in his killer dungeons, just to see how long we would last with our lastest "uber" character.

I never ran railroady modules, and took his lead in building a sandbox style post-apocalyptic D&D world where we would often run Gamma World instead of D&D. The two games were completely interchangeable and we were playing one or the other depending on if the characters hit the remnants of a high-tech pocket or were exploring the vast uncharted wilderness which was all that remained of civilization.

A bit later on I migrated to running adventures and mini-campaigns in a custom built entirely fantasy homebrew world largely inspired by the early Thieves World series of books, Sanctuary, Vulgar Unicorn, et. al.

My first game was pretty much a disaster, but I got better with practice, at least I think I did.

My first game was a homebrew low-fantasy setting using rigorously simplified GURPS. I didn't find it difficult but that's probably mainly because of the easy-going nature of my players (and possibly their low standards).
My weak spot has always been that I would like to be a bit more adversary and should really throw in some more combat. Also, I'm not good keeping track of complex/elaborate/extensive rules. Switching to other systems took care of that significantly.

With another player group, I'm not sure I'd be all that great a GM.

Quote from: Bill;777053For me, the challenge was by far, learning to create campaigns that were not just fighting monsters.

I was never a railroady, asshat, or adversarial gm.

But man, when I started out, my games were combat focused.

Fortunately a player told me "Bill, all we do in your game is go into dungeons and kill monsters. Where are the Imps selling magic trinkets? Where is the rivalry between the local priests and thieves guild? Etc.. Etc..."

I wised up fast.

But the "dungeon" is brilliant simply because it gives new refs such a bounded area to start.  And your players told you the other stuff they were interested in.  Sounds perfect to me.

Not too challenging, though I was a late bloomer.

When I was younger I mostly enjoyed playing. I had older friends that ran some very entertaining AD&D, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret campaigns, so I never really was driven to pick up the reins myself. It wasn't until the later stages of high school - after playing for 6 years - that I started running short campaigns.

During that time period, 1988-1990, I remember pulling a few asshat GM stunts. But everyone still had a great time. Then, I gave up gaming altogether during my college years, leaving the hobby until around 1999. When I got back in to the hobby, I was driven to run campaigns. Very driven. And, it felt comfortable and fairly easy to slide into the role. There have been a few bumps and railroads over the past 15 years, but nothing that really had a strong impact on my gaming experience, and the experience of the players.

Most people want to DM but most are terrible at it.  Being the DM is hardest job at the table, that's why game designers try to "fix" DMs with their rules.  The latest fad is simplicity and more vague rules.  The purpose is to hide the incompetence and laziness of the certain DM styles.  If you can call it a style.

I personally don't get any satisfaction in a game from poorly or not prepared DMs. It's a fun exercise to just sit down and make stuff up sometimes, but I find it more enjoyable to play with a well prepared and knowledgeable DM.  It takes the game to a whole new level and makes players invested more.

Finding a good DM willing (or capable) to take time to prepare is tough, but finding someone who will just sit down and make it up as they go is easy, but less satisfying in my opinion.

Quote from: hamstertamer;777687Most people want to DM but most are terrible at it.  Being the DM is hardest job at the table, that's why game designers try to "fix" DMs with their rules. The latest fad is simplicity and more vague rules.  The purpose is to hide the incompetence and laziness of the certain DM styles.  If you can call it a style.

I personally don't get any satisfaction in a game from poorly or not prepared DMs. It's a fun exercise to just sit down and make stuff up sometimes, but I find it more enjoyable to play with a well prepared and knowledgeable DM.  It takes the game to a whole new level and makes players invested more.

Finding a good DM willing (or capable) to take time to prepare is tough, but finding someone who will just sit down and make it up as they go is easy, but less satisfying in my opinion.

Sounds like from this you feel "competence" is knowing all the rules?  This seems like a disconnect, because, as far as "making it up as they go," it's hard to do that if you DON'T know the rules (or enough of the rules to make the game work). For improv to work, you have to know the rules inside out, unless you wanna pull orc stats out your ass.

So, I wouldn't knock improv. But I wouldn't overvalue the rules either. The first editions of this game encouraged people to change them. This may even include (shudder) ignoring the rules if they wish. The GM is not the ump at a baseball game. At least, he or she don't have to be. If we want more folks to attempt GM'ing, and, better yet, become GOOD at it, we have to encourage the attempt. Playing it up as incredibly "hard" puts folks off. It's not nearly as hard as folks think it is.