Quote from: droog;278340Kill the GM, become the GM.

There is a type of universal GM that is too frequent: the "player who is only playing with a mind to steal your players". They don't even care what you're saying and just wait for a lull to promote their game. I usually will just go with "the shanghaied" to see what all this promotion was about and it usually turns out that the entire world will crunch down on my head just for showing up it always seems. But I'd never resort to insinuating "my game" at a game no matter what (even in "retaliation") but I must confess that I do enjoy it when they come back all paranoid to the table (bathroom, cigarette, etc.) after I've told a few potent but irrelevant jokes...

I'm such a bastard!

Sorry.

GM is a motor company.  

Seriously, GMs are the people who run the simulation.  Assistant GMs are people who might help the main GM, in role playing the Director, to put the Players/Protagonists into particular situations.  These Asst. GMs are called Auxiliaries (or auxiliary egos).  the rules are there to assist them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;277466I think that one of the most idiotic statements ever uttered in the context of RPGs is "You should only game with your friends!!"; I have a ton of friends I would never want to game with, and there's nothing about the condition of close friendship that would make it particularly suitable for gaming with, or make the game better.  Some of the people in my gaming group I consider close friends, but most of them are acquaintances (albeit close acquaintances based on seeing each other regularly).
And if "friend" is a prerequisite to joining someone's gaming group you've pretty much created a closed, incestuous, bound-to-die-out gaming group right there.

Personally, I occupy the middle ground here; I won't outright refuse to play with someone simply because they're not my friend, but at the same time I won't game for very long with someone if it's clear that there isn't at least the potential to be friends there. If all you have in common with someone is an interest in RPGs that's not really a strong basis for a long-term association.

This doesn't mean that I won't be civil to such a person over the course of a session or two, but if it's clear to me that I'm only going to be "Warthur, the guy who GMs" or "Warthur, the guy who plays the mage" and nothing more than that to this person - or, worse, if our personalities actually just plain clash - then I'm not going to be taking part in long-term campaigns with them.

For what it's worth, I find that an actual personality clash is far more common than flat-out neutrality: generally people like to shoot the shit before sessions in my part of the world, and generally in the course of that people get better-acquainted and friendships rapidly form. I suspect most of the time when people say "only game with friends!" if you interrogated them their position would end up looking more like "only game with people who do not have entirely incompatible personalities!", which is so obvious it should go without saying.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;278462There is a type of universal GM that is too frequent: the "player who is only playing with a mind to steal your players". They don't even care what you're saying and just wait for a lull to promote their game.

That's never worried me. I believe in a game group free market. Competition is good for GMs and players both. If you know your place is not assured, it makes you try to bring something worthwhile to the table - snacks, if nothing else.

Knowing the players have a few other campaigns they could be playing, but chose mine, or knowing nobody showed up because other stuff was better, this makes me a better GM. Knowing I was invited to a game group to play when they could have invited a dozen others, or knowing I was set aside in someone else's favour, this makes me a better player. Competition drives excellence. Monopolies lead to stagnation and general shittiness.

It's best when everyone feels free to come and go as they wish. That way, nobody who would rather be somewhere else hangs around to make things dull and depressing, and nobody who wants to be in and contributing lots misses out.

Gaming is like sex, technical skills are nice but enthusiasm is most important. That's why Weigel's posted video of his game session was so awful, there was no gaming enthusiasm, just smoking and talking shit.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;281098That's never worried me. I believe in a game group free market. Competition is good for GMs and players both. If you know your place is not assured, it makes you try to bring something worthwhile to the table - snacks, if nothing else.

Knowing the players have a few other campaigns they could be playing, but chose mine, or knowing nobody showed up because other stuff was better, this makes me a better GM. Knowing I was invited to a game group to play when they could have invited a dozen others, or knowing I was set aside in someone else's favour, this makes me a better player. Competition drives excellence. Monopolies lead to stagnation and general shittiness.

It's best when everyone feels free to come and go as they wish. That way, nobody who would rather be somewhere else hangs around to make things dull and depressing, and nobody who wants to be in and contributing lots misses out.

Gaming is like sex, technical skills are nice but enthusiasm is most important. That's why Weigel's posted video of his game session was so awful, there was no gaming enthusiasm, just smoking and talking shit.

If you think that I'm a tyrant who needs to be taken down a notch then I think its a misread. I take care of referees and players. I actually listen to what an unforgivably screwed player and referee is saying and I'm most exhuberant as a player and referee.

As far as come and go, I'm all for it.

As far as the video, the only player there who is fit enough for public consumption is the guy in the back who isn't saying anything when the camera was rolling. These are players from the early 80's with the same characters from the early 80's playing in a continuing campaign from the early 80's. Not exactly pop in guys. And I don't cuss or smoke when I run the public campaign and I certainly wouldn't put strangers on film! That video was a video of old players still playing the same game with their last surviving or most well off characters. So you can take it as your personal nightmare game but theres no reason to not take it for what it is: screwing around with a camera when people weren't playing. Thats all it is. Next time, I'm going to film I guarantee it.

I've certainly never had a problem with player-poaching stealth-GMs.  Possibly because my games have a reputation for being extremely awesome and no one would bother to join for such a dumb reason.
Possibly too, because in Uruguay the gaming community is more like a big pool of players where people come and go from campaigns however they like and there's relatively little feeling of scarcity here.
And of course possibly because the gaming community here knows I'm a Freemason, and it has already been hinted at them that they shouldn't "remember" having ever seen the last guy who tried something like this, who obviously ain't around anymore...

RPGPundit

I don't believe that i ever had a bad reputation as game referee, in addition to constant new people I get the same people back all the time when running a public game.  Pick 15 people out of 30 for a date and you end up with less than 4 people showing up so you have to be real flexible. There is a lot of slummers here in the city who just want a game to play in but would rather be playing something "current" or "different". Thats the type that generates the subclass of "pseudo-player" when they see your cool enough to attract cool people all the time but instead of participating they just want to carve out their own piece that frankly doesn't exist without you. It cracks me up seeing them go to work with the "interrupting press gang BS" but I do feel sorry for them at the same time thats really why I cater to them. I get a kick out of it sure but I do feel sympathetic towards their plight (It was hard finding players out of nowhere before the internet in upstate NY but in the city its a different story.). Its just when I get there to their self-proclaimed "superior games" and its just what I expected: "bad execution with lots of rules and nerdy cliches" that I get a little feisty... I'M NOT A TOTAL BASTARD!!!