Definitely a rules ignoring overaccommodating sandbox pantser. Though that has shifted over time, especially the planning. My current group and I play pretty silly and to have a laugh so it fits. It's funny to look back through my GM notebooks, old sessions I had endless notes, my session last week I wrote like 2 sentences haha.
Love it. If your group fits well with your style then laughs and fun will ensue! I agree it's funny to think back on your various stages as a GM. Who knows in 5 years I could look back at where I rated myself and think "was I crazy"? Spoiler alert: yes...yes, I am.
I love this! There's always a lot of talk around "the types of players," but I've always thought there should be more discussion around "what kind of DM are you" :)
Oh yay, I'm so glad! My viewpoint is it's not my business to tell someone HOW to have fun, just to provide tools to figure out what that looks like for them and their group.
"I guess go to a bar" encapsulates my playing experience... I used to plan a lot but then my group try to break the game, and it was more stressful for me trying to get them back to what I'd planned. So I'm somewhere in the the middle.
I really enjoyed how you put this together, it was really well thought out and clearly communicated, and I think it works a lot better than a singular label could.
What I really want to try is playing a really Railroaded Game where everyone knows it's going to be that way before. If you know what will happen you can really take your time and spend as much on being a character as you dont have to worry about other stuff.
Ohhh, these scales are fun! - Planner (but not to the extreme; funnily enough, I lean pantser in my writing!) - Leaning towards sandbox (but my players often know going in or early on what the basic scenario is -- like, if we're playing The Haunting, my players *could* have their characters decide to fly to France for whatever reason but they know the adventure they signed on for is in the direction of the house they've been asked to prove isn't haunted, you know?) - Leaning towards Rules Ignorer (Rool of Cool > RAW always and I bounce off super crunchy systems, but I do tend to know the rules and try not to ignore the ones I've not actively *decided* to ignore) - Overaccommodating (but not to the extreme; my priority is everyone having fun and telling a story we all enjoy, and I prefer to "yes and," but being too accommodating can get in the way of that) - Narrator (but not to the extreme; lengthy descriptions aren't great, details can be added as players explore and look closer and talk more, but I like being immersive and giving PCs things they can pick up on and/or follow up on) - Leaning towards Actor (but I am not good at voices; I still try to do the rest, though, without taking over a scene and instead supporting the PCs) This is what my chart ended up looking like (with my nonexistent art skills): i.imgur.com/Wj9QzHC.png
Great video XP! Thanks for the upload! The only description I relate to is the narrator but simply because when I started playing TTRPGs ( when I was 8 years old!) I had no one to play with so I just wrote everything down. It was extremely difficult to play TTRPGs around here in Brazil during the 90's for a good number of reasons. I heard many times the word balance in your video and In my humble opinion this pretty much sums it up. My advice would be to try to not label and restrict yourself towards a certain "GM style". A good and experienced GM adapts himself based first and foremost on the scenario he has at hand and secondly based on his players. If you don't know the scenario and players well, keep it simple and you should be fine. Asking for feedback is extremely important in order to improve yourself. One last thing that I would like to highlight is that TTRPGs are still games. Personally, I don't like this trend ( that fortunately has been declining ) of making TTRPG games into 100% improv drama series. Character progession, numbers and rules are not the most important aspect of the game but they exist to .. well, make this a damn game! When Im a GM instead of making a fool of myself, I tend to use digitalized voices for NPCs. The hell with that high production and acting BS, if I want to do acting art, I would study to become an actor or join amateur theaters or just 100% improv classes and gatherings or something! So it really bothers me when I see people trying to imitate every single famous TTRPG channel. They tend to fail to understand that most of them are actually actors IRL. And also, it doesn't mean they do it well... but that is a matter of opinion :)
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, you make a lot of really great points. Feedback from players is so important, sometimes it can be difficult for a GM to know what styles are resonating with players.
I like how you say that you've grown and changed as a GM. We all do and will. Also, the game system or particular scenario can have an impact on GM style, such as game prep vs. improv. Anyway, great video (as always)! Really useful things to think about!
Yes, great point. The system definitely influences aspects of how I GM. And yes, I've changed and I'm sure I will continue to change and evolve as I continue my RPG journey!
As far as Rules Lawyer vs Rules Ignorer goes, I lean strongly towards Rules Lawyer, mostly because want players to know the basics of how the world their characters live in operates. Consistent with that, my favorite rules system is Chaosium's BRP, what I call a "medium crunch" system that's the basis for CoC and other games. When it comes to Villain vs. Overaccommodating, I try to play it straight down the middle: I root for the PCs, but the world is going to challenge them, and the NPCs have their own goals. BTW, nice game collection in the background. :)
Agree on all points and I share your preferences. I think as far as Villain vs Overaccomodating I've drifted a bit onto the overaccomodating side in my campaign as I really like the characters but I've noticed that so now I'm starting to pull things back towards the middle on that scale.
Thank you, the game collection has exploded over the last couple of years and I'm itching to get more physical RPG books. I also love CoC's medium crunch level. Believe it or not where I placed myself on overaccommodating is more towards the middle than I was when I first started GMing! I'd like to continue to move that closer to the middle but it is rooted in my general people pleasing nature!
@@XPLovecat I've actually had to weed my collection of a lot of hardbound/paper copies in recent years for space reasons -- except for the Chaosium stuff. That's untouchable. :D
I've gotten really down a hole of being a planner right up until the first session starts, at which point I become a pantser, no matter how much I need to do some planning in the aftermath of player actions. I also always want to be a sandboxer, but I've had a hard time getting players to feel free to choose. Sometimes because my players are new to the hobby. Definitely lean toward rules ignorer (LOVE rules-lite games), but I've been running Dungeon Crawl Classics lately, and have been trying to take on a bit of the rules lawyer (but just a bit), because it's such an arbitrary (intentionally so) game. I'm also too far over on the overaccommodating side. Again, working on it. Slightly on the narrator side. Used to be more on the actor side, but I'm out of practice. I started running games back in the 80s, but after a decade plus break, I feel like I'm relearning a lot of the skills I used to take for granted.
Ah yes, GMing definitely takes practice so I can certain skills getting rusty over time. So glad you're getting back into the hobby! With sandboxing, I've found easing your players into the concept can be helpful. So giving them 5 clear directions can help ease them into thinking about multiple options without having to come up with them themselves. Slowly over time, they will start to think out of the box and be more active in creating the path they want to take.
Great stuff as usual, keep the good videos comming : ) I have similar Gm style stats as you, missing a few points in the planner stat, sometimes I feel I made that my dumpstat, but we are having fun so it cant be all bad : )
That rules ignorer is definitely something I struggle with. I sometimes when gming or creating content on rules on youtube struggle to talk about rules. I think what helps me is focusing on things that the players will enjoy (rules wise).
Yes, I can see the struggle. For me when I'm learning a new game I can slip into ignoring rules because I don't want to look it up in the moment. But definitely as I become more familiar with the system, I move closer to rules lawyer status
@@XPLovecat yeah i think playing the system at first and getting comfy with the rules allows you to be better at gming and managing said rules. all gming is a lot of work anyhow too.
I think the goal for a GM is not to find a comfort point on these scales and sit there, but to learn to move back and forth along these scales from moment to moment and session to session. The more experienced a DM is the more fluidly they move around on these scales. I've been DMing for more than 40 years and sometimes I'm at one end of the scale for each of these and sometimes at the other and I may flip alll the way multiple times within one session, it depends on the needs of the campaign and my feel in the moment for the PCs. The only exceptions for me are the villian to over-accomodating where my default position is slightly toward over-accomodating and I almost never go very far toward the villain end, and the actor to flavorless where my default is slightly left of midpoint (toward actor) but I slide back and forth depending on the importance of the NPC, the situation, and the mood at the table but never go all the way toward actor because it's just not fun for me, I want the PCs to be the focal point most of the time. I gess the planner v pantser one moves back and forth the most slowy because it depends on where we are in the campaign. I love to world-build so the setting is often pretty heavily front-loaded and I think it is important to plan out a few possible endings of the campaign as you get closer to it so that everything ties up in a satisfying way, but for most of the campaign (from around level 3 or 4 up to around level 15 or 16) I generally have a few ideas where the story might be going based on the last session, and there are always a few background events that are going to happen regardless of whether the PCs choose to engage with them, but I always leave room to make things up (at least a few times per campaign I will just flat out improv a whole session, making up locations and NPCs and even bits of lore as we go).
I tend to rely on my players to make characters with specific goals that I can accommodate into my campaign, and I love to improv stuff, but I also like to really plan out my encounters and dungeons. Probably because my favorite part of DMing is running a dungeon crawl, and I love adding an air of mystery to each room, just something to generate some intrigue from my players.
On both of the first two scales, it depends. I noticed during the pandemic when I started using online tools such as Roll20 much more, that I became more of a planner and a railroader because I started preparing appropriate battlemaps for the coming session and I wanted to use what I had prepared. When playing in-person, I had one campaign that was on the extreme sandbox end of the scale. I had some idea of the world, what might be in it, and a few NPCs and then I let the players do whatever they wanted. I've never actually had any complaints about either approach though, so I guess I'm able to find a good balance on either side. When it comes to the rules, it's interesting. I like rules-light systems, but when I'm playing something crunchier I like to make sure the rules are applied correctly. I also like to have someone in the group who knows the rules better than me. If I'm unsure of something, I can just ask that person. But if nobody at the table knows the answer, I prefer just making something up over wasting time looking through the books. On the relationships scale, I lean towards over-accomodating. I think I know when to say "No", but I don't do it very often. On game immersion, I'm nondescript. That's actually the only complaint I can remember getting on my GMing. One group wanted more narration. So that's something I'm working on. For the NPCs, I'm leaning towards actor. I do some amateur theatre as well, and I like to use my acting skills.
it's interesting because I do have a lot of things that I plan out but my improv is pretty good. I tend to plan locations and scenarios and characters, and preferably I have them essentially all or almost all done before the game ever begins, so if in any event a player decides to go to the 5th destination instead of the second destination then that destination will still be ready with the characters and local already set up. so I do think that that falls more in the planner Camp of things but I am very much enjoying this videos thus far
I'm definitely more of a sandbox-pantser. Or to quote one of my players, "Are... you rolling on the random terrain table as we explore?" Frankly, I gave up on detailed planning *long* ago, once I realized that even God can't predict all the lateral thinking a good group will do, so I had to learn to adapt to reacting quickly and consistently to characters coming up with crazy shenanigans. Definitely on the Rules Lawyer *side* of the spectrum, mainly to have consistency, but if a player comes up with something awesome that is not exactly covered by the rules, but not directly contrary to the rules, I'll certainly give'em a fair shot at it. Villain GMs are a blight, but overall, I'd rather have a GM leaning toward the villain side of the scale than an overaccommodating one. At least if the GM is rules lawyery. A GM that consistently pushes the challenge against the players by an only slightly unfair margin is preferable to one that just allows everything and ends up with no challenges at all... Personally, I think I'm in the fuzzy inbetween zone there. Leaning more toward the Narrator side, but I do try to limit it to *juuuust* enough of a description that the players have a good mental image of the place or situation, or they maybe ask a couple of clarifying questions for enough details, all to serve the world-building and immersion without boring the party with an overly long soliloquy. Definitely the Actor type, though - but I do avoid having NPCs stealing the scene, just making them interesting enough for the players to remember and maybe bond with as they interact. Nothing more boring than having a whole town of bland, nondescript people to deal with, they're people with their own lives, after all - maybe the elven shopkeep needs a discreet favor and very shyly asks the party's rogue to swing by the local alchemist for a "performance enhancer", or the dwarven smith smells strongly of lavender-scented beard oils... that sort of thing. Hm, definitely some sliding scales to keep in mind, all told.
"Nothing more boring than having a whole town of bland, nondescript people" - totally agree. It's hard to keep track when they're all the same person essentially. Thank you for watching!
Planner for sure, though I can improv when need be. I just like to think out the 'most likely' routes ahead of time to make sure I know the general direction. I like the 'sandbox-on-rails' style-player freedom but still with an overarching plot. I am definitely a rules lawyer-I like to stick to RAW as often as I can, but if it's a mid-session rules question or if a PC wants to do something cool (that doesnt break the game) I can be lenient. I consider myself an impartial GM-I am not against them as a person, but some of my NPCs certainly are. I definitely want to make sure they are being challenged and that death is a risk, but I'm not sadistic. I find myself definitely making sure I give detailed descriptions to important things. I love acting-accents, quirks, all of it.
It sounds like we have very similar styles! All except for accents... I've dabbled with them but tend to rely on changing my voice pitch and way of speaking over accents.
3rd option for rules that I fall into: rules explorer where you draw from other TTRPGs or expand what the rules dictate. Lol for instance the restrained condition is a complicated condition if someone's hands are tied or in manacles it gives them the restrained condition but that condition reduces your speed to 0 and we know you can still walk and run in handcuffs. Which is why I like to add to conditions like tell my players your left arm is grabbed. Or your are restrained on a metal slab and can't move your arms or legs so you are incapacitated but still conscious.
I feel the first scale is really off. Playstyle involving lots of improv and emergent play can absolutely mean a lot of prep, it's just a very different kind of prep, probably more flexible and easier to recycle (you prepare improv tools, npcs and environment purpose and MO, layers of information, etc, but you avoid plots and contingencies).
That's a great distinction, thanks for calling that out. My take on this scale was more focused on being a planner that focuses on plot, NPC personalities, clues etc. adn less about tools. I think you can be considered on the "pantser" side of the scale and still take time to prepare tools that help you through those improv moments. Thanks for watching!
@@XPLovecat Completely agree with Guybrush here. In Sandbox games it's a really good idea to at least prep some characters and their motivations. It's from those motivations that you can improv well because you understand what drives the characters and therefore how they will act as soon as you are presented with a sudden unexpected player choice. It's super fun.
I aim to be a planner ready to throw it all out at the drop of a hat. The setting should be fleshed out enough to let the players go down unexpected roads. I hope to make a sandbox with threads compelling enough that the players will do their own railroading. I want to know the rules well enough to give the players confidence in the system and thus their ability to affect the game, while also being flexible in the name of fun. I will try to have the players know keeping the game fun is a cooperative effort, while the obstacles and antagonists are sufficiently confounding and challenging to make them worth overcoming. I must give the players enough description to know their options while leaving room to let them make indirect additions, like trying to find a clue that was unplanned, but makes sense. I should be a springboard for getting the players to interact with each other as much as possible as to not hog the spotlight from the stars of the show. Going to be running my first game soon, never been a Keeper or any kind of GM before.
I'm a planner mainly because English is not my first language and I have to do lots of translating in some of my rpgs, I plan for different options I think they'll do. But the other day my players started doing stuff that I hadn't prepared for and the result was one of the funniest sessions I've ever played 🤣. Also had to bend the rules a little bit so one of the player's character didn't go permanently insane in the first 10 minutes of the one-shot.
Yes, I've changed styles since I first started GMing. For me, it came from exploring how I like to play the game, which when you first start out might not be totally clear!
I want to give my NPC's life but it can be a challenge. I have found it's similar to theater: if my players respond to the performance and are enjoying it I'll ham it up a little more. I have Alsop found that, similar to what you mentioned, too good of a performance can be a big distraction for me.
It absolutely can be a challenge finding the right balance. For me, I try to test new ways to bring NPCs to life from time to time to find out what works for me and what my players enjoy the most.
Man, as someone who is also writing a book I gotta say, I think I am a 50/50 except for the rules in which I am a rule lawyer unless my players do make a compelling argument and definitely a narrator; for most of them I tend towards the left side anyway tho especially in terms of storytelling because otherwise improvised stuff never works (tho I changed that story a bit through the game to accomodate players and what they wanted)
@@XPLovecat it’s a fantasy adventure mainly inspired by the likes of lotr and the witcher but I kinda have to figure out the details of the mentor character (halfway through I realized some stuff didn’t make too much sense and was a bit childish)
Didn't really get much lore on that rock. I need a more mytho-historical background. What age was the rock spawned? Was it part of a larger rock before it came to be tripped over? Did the gods invoke the creation of rocks or did it travel from the Elemental Plane of Earth?
This was a good video and it was fun figuring out where I fall on each of those scales, but I do have a problem with the usage of rules lawyer. This name refers to a type of a problematic player that strictly follows the rules only when they benefit them and ignores them if they don't. The ttrpg community is slowly shifting its meaning to "someone who likes to follow the rules". This isn't great considering that innocent players that just like to follow the rules are now affected by the stigma of that name and the genuine rules lawyers can dismiss anyone calling them out.
I'm glad you had fun with the scales! Thanks for the callout on "rules lawyer", it does tend to have a stigma associated with that term. I will have to re-think that scale name. Thanks for watching!
Do you have this scale as a file or picture to share for DMs to look at and use? Would be nice, but honestly, I can easily make one for myself if you don't have anything to share.
Try this link (it is just a plain picture of the scales I use in the video): drive.google.com/file/d/1tw5Bvkqp5AcOTV1KaU9rFv9X4o8r-M3X/view?usp=sharing
I tend to prep enough for a session and leave details open enough to avoid railroading, but I never sandbox because it stresses me out. I've tried pantsing and I hated it, I need some guidance as a DM, so definitely close to the rules but, again, I'm open enough to ignore dumb rules, fudge some rolls or let someone do a cool thing that won't break the game.
I think your scales weren't quite free from biases to be honest. Especially with your last scale about the NPCs. "Flavourless" is a very loaded word to use haha! Actor Vs Describer might have been a better one, with Actor imbuing their NPCs with flavour through use of different voices, accents, body language etc and Describer using a more 3rd party narrative descriptive style to their NPCs. The reason I'd consider this a scale as opposed to a "why not both" type situation is simply air time, you want to get their character across quickly, do you use descriptive language or do you act it out.
Totally fair, I could have used a better word than flavorless. Let me know if you have a different way to name it, I may tweak my scale names in the future.
I think you have it exactly wrong about planning and sandboxing. I am a Planner 10 [max] (but remember that planning for a sandboxer means building the sandbox [worldbuilding], not building 'plots' or 'stories' to railroad the players), I am a Sandboxer 10 [max] which doesn't mean you leave your players adrift; Rules Lawyer 10 [max] - I don't worry about balance, that is up to the players (you should run when a fight is not balanced); I am a Neutral GM, right in the middle; I try to be in the middle on Narration vs Nondescript. I try to be in the middle on NPCs as well.
I like being a planner but I'm too lazy to read official books so I just write my own settings, spells, gods and lore because I can't be bothered to try to learn who tf Vecna is I also just come up with whatever if they find a plothole or empty valley
Those last 2 scales don't feel like styles but more like proficiency. Dms that have been playing a long time are likely to be descriptive narrators and entertaining actors just by the nature of the game. Maybe I'm closed minded, but to be it just seems like that shouldn't really be a style issue, just a rating of how emersive a dm is which can be good or bad regardless of any other traits.
I see what you're saying, I think there it becomes a style choice when taken to the extremes (like taking over scenes by acting). I also think that experienced GMs can chose to be more nondescript and instead rely on the players to describe their actions and build the world around them. Thank you for watching!
Several of my not so good playing experiences have been with rules ignoring GMs who glossed over aspects of the rules that my character had abilities to interact with. I feel like it's on the GM to know and play to the rules, making spot calls is fine but house rules should be clear from the start rather than just made up as and when.
Ah yes, that makes a lot of sense. That can be frustrating when you put in time and effort to make a cool character and then it doesn't even apply during gameplay.
Think you might have misrepresented the "Actor" side of the scale. when done well, it's about the players rather than the GM. Leaning into some NPCs with more personality, physical quirks, mannerisms and accents is usually about conveying information to the player. It's an easy way to show the players which characters are important to a plot thread without stating it. e.g. Acting out the following... 'The wrinkled old salesman has a glint in his eye. We winks and strokes his gnarled fingers through his unkempt beard. "Ah, a healings potun ya says! I gots jist whatcha needs yunguns, but only if I deprives ya of 3 gold pieces" is totally over the top ang gives the wrong impression to most players who thought correctly they were just turning up to buy a basic potion from a town stall. Barely Acting out the following (kept in narrator format) is more appropriate 'The salesman nods and asks for 3 gold pieces for the potion' Obviously the flip side of this is also true... and the real art comes when you want players to notice a character but not think too much about them, so when you reveal later that they are important they go "Really. Wow! I thought they were just a X", rather than "Who!"
This is a great point. Thank you for sharing! I agree with you that portraying NPCs is an important way to share information with your players and that using the Actor side of the scale can really help with that. Maybe my explanation was more on the "if the Acting side goes too far". Thanks for watching!
Does the scale change the longer you’re into a campaign? I find my planning increases the longer I’m in a campaign. After a few good sessions I know what the players want and what their characters actions have put in motion.
Absolutely Colin, that's a great callout! I've found with pre-written campaigns, there's a ton of upfront planning work but it becomes more loose as you go through. And like you said with creating a campaign, you can get a sense of what players want and go all in on that direction.
Definitely a rules ignoring overaccommodating sandbox pantser. Though that has shifted over time, especially the planning. My current group and I play pretty silly and to have a laugh so it fits. It's funny to look back through my GM notebooks, old sessions I had endless notes, my session last week I wrote like 2 sentences haha.
Love it. If your group fits well with your style then laughs and fun will ensue! I agree it's funny to think back on your various stages as a GM. Who knows in 5 years I could look back at where I rated myself and think "was I crazy"? Spoiler alert: yes...yes, I am.
I love this! There's always a lot of talk around "the types of players," but I've always thought there should be more discussion around "what kind of DM are you" :)
Awesome, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank you for watching!
I really appreciate the emphasis on GM and player group compatibility versus a "wrong or right" way to GM.
Oh yay, I'm so glad! My viewpoint is it's not my business to tell someone HOW to have fun, just to provide tools to figure out what that looks like for them and their group.
This has to be the absolute best video on GMing I've ever seen. You nailed all the types.
"I guess go to a bar" encapsulates my playing experience... I used to plan a lot but then my group try to break the game, and it was more stressful for me trying to get them back to what I'd planned. So I'm somewhere in the the middle.
Hope you are still doing well and thanks for continuing to share your rpg insights and thoughts!
I am doing well, thank you. And thank you for supporting me by watching my content!
I really enjoyed how you put this together, it was really well thought out and clearly communicated, and I think it works a lot better than a singular label could.
Thank you! I appreciate it and thank you for watching.
What I really want to try is playing a really Railroaded Game where everyone knows it's going to be that way before. If you know what will happen you can really take your time and spend as much on being a character as you dont have to worry about other stuff.
That would be a fun experiment!
Ohhh, these scales are fun!
- Planner (but not to the extreme; funnily enough, I lean pantser in my writing!)
- Leaning towards sandbox (but my players often know going in or early on what the basic scenario is -- like, if we're playing The Haunting, my players *could* have their characters decide to fly to France for whatever reason but they know the adventure they signed on for is in the direction of the house they've been asked to prove isn't haunted, you know?)
- Leaning towards Rules Ignorer (Rool of Cool > RAW always and I bounce off super crunchy systems, but I do tend to know the rules and try not to ignore the ones I've not actively *decided* to ignore)
- Overaccommodating (but not to the extreme; my priority is everyone having fun and telling a story we all enjoy, and I prefer to "yes and," but being too accommodating can get in the way of that)
- Narrator (but not to the extreme; lengthy descriptions aren't great, details can be added as players explore and look closer and talk more, but I like being immersive and giving PCs things they can pick up on and/or follow up on)
- Leaning towards Actor (but I am not good at voices; I still try to do the rest, though, without taking over a scene and instead supporting the PCs)
This is what my chart ended up looking like (with my nonexistent art skills): i.imgur.com/Wj9QzHC.png
Great video XP! Thanks for the upload!
The only description I relate to is the narrator but simply because when I started playing TTRPGs ( when I was 8 years old!) I had no one to play with so I just wrote everything down. It was extremely difficult to play TTRPGs around here in Brazil during the 90's for a good number of reasons.
I heard many times the word balance in your video and In my humble opinion this pretty much sums it up. My advice would be to try to not label and restrict yourself towards a certain "GM style". A good and experienced GM adapts himself based first and foremost on the scenario he has at hand and secondly based on his players. If you don't know the scenario and players well, keep it simple and you should be fine. Asking for feedback is extremely important in order to improve yourself.
One last thing that I would like to highlight is that TTRPGs are still games. Personally, I don't like this trend ( that fortunately has been declining ) of making TTRPG games into 100% improv drama series. Character progession, numbers and rules are not the most important aspect of the game but they exist to .. well, make this a damn game! When Im a GM instead of making a fool of myself, I tend to use digitalized voices for NPCs. The hell with that high production and acting BS, if I want to do acting art, I would study to become an actor or join amateur theaters or just 100% improv classes and gatherings or something! So it really bothers me when I see people trying to imitate every single famous TTRPG channel. They tend to fail to understand that most of them are actually actors IRL. And also, it doesn't mean they do it well... but that is a matter of opinion :)
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, you make a lot of really great points. Feedback from players is so important, sometimes it can be difficult for a GM to know what styles are resonating with players.
Ruleslawyer: "You can't just shoot a hole into the surface of Mars"
Me, the DM: "New mission: Shoot a hole into the surface of Mars"
I like how you say that you've grown and changed as a GM. We all do and will.
Also, the game system or particular scenario can have an impact on GM style, such as game prep vs. improv.
Anyway, great video (as always)! Really useful things to think about!
Yes, great point. The system definitely influences aspects of how I GM. And yes, I've changed and I'm sure I will continue to change and evolve as I continue my RPG journey!
As far as Rules Lawyer vs Rules Ignorer goes, I lean strongly towards Rules Lawyer, mostly because want players to know the basics of how the world their characters live in operates. Consistent with that, my favorite rules system is Chaosium's BRP, what I call a "medium crunch" system that's the basis for CoC and other games. When it comes to Villain vs. Overaccommodating, I try to play it straight down the middle: I root for the PCs, but the world is going to challenge them, and the NPCs have their own goals. BTW, nice game collection in the background. :)
Agree on all points and I share your preferences. I think as far as Villain vs Overaccomodating I've drifted a bit onto the overaccomodating side in my campaign as I really like the characters but I've noticed that so now I'm starting to pull things back towards the middle on that scale.
Thank you, the game collection has exploded over the last couple of years and I'm itching to get more physical RPG books. I also love CoC's medium crunch level.
Believe it or not where I placed myself on overaccommodating is more towards the middle than I was when I first started GMing! I'd like to continue to move that closer to the middle but it is rooted in my general people pleasing nature!
That's awesome that you have the awareness that you've drifted, your players are lucky to have a great GM!
@@XPLovecat I've actually had to weed my collection of a lot of hardbound/paper copies in recent years for space reasons -- except for the Chaosium stuff. That's untouchable. :D
I've gotten really down a hole of being a planner right up until the first session starts, at which point I become a pantser, no matter how much I need to do some planning in the aftermath of player actions. I also always want to be a sandboxer, but I've had a hard time getting players to feel free to choose. Sometimes because my players are new to the hobby. Definitely lean toward rules ignorer (LOVE rules-lite games), but I've been running Dungeon Crawl Classics lately, and have been trying to take on a bit of the rules lawyer (but just a bit), because it's such an arbitrary (intentionally so) game. I'm also too far over on the overaccommodating side. Again, working on it. Slightly on the narrator side. Used to be more on the actor side, but I'm out of practice.
I started running games back in the 80s, but after a decade plus break, I feel like I'm relearning a lot of the skills I used to take for granted.
Ah yes, GMing definitely takes practice so I can certain skills getting rusty over time. So glad you're getting back into the hobby! With sandboxing, I've found easing your players into the concept can be helpful. So giving them 5 clear directions can help ease them into thinking about multiple options without having to come up with them themselves. Slowly over time, they will start to think out of the box and be more active in creating the path they want to take.
9/10 planner-pantser
7/10 railroad-sandbox
5/10 rules lawer-rules ignorer
8/10 villain-overaccomadating
9/10 narrator-nondescript
8/10 actor-flavorless
Great stuff as usual, keep the good videos comming : ) I have similar Gm style stats as you, missing a few points in the planner stat, sometimes I feel I made that my dumpstat, but we are having fun so it cant be all bad : )
Absolutely, fun is the goal. Thanks for watching!
That rules ignorer is definitely something I struggle with. I sometimes when gming or creating content on rules on youtube struggle to talk about rules. I think what helps me is focusing on things that the players will enjoy (rules wise).
Yes, I can see the struggle. For me when I'm learning a new game I can slip into ignoring rules because I don't want to look it up in the moment. But definitely as I become more familiar with the system, I move closer to rules lawyer status
@@XPLovecat yeah i think playing the system at first and getting comfy with the rules allows you to be better at gming and managing said rules. all gming is a lot of work anyhow too.
I think the goal for a GM is not to find a comfort point on these scales and sit there, but to learn to move back and forth along these scales from moment to moment and session to session. The more experienced a DM is the more fluidly they move around on these scales. I've been DMing for more than 40 years and sometimes I'm at one end of the scale for each of these and sometimes at the other and I may flip alll the way multiple times within one session, it depends on the needs of the campaign and my feel in the moment for the PCs.
The only exceptions for me are the villian to over-accomodating where my default position is slightly toward over-accomodating and I almost never go very far toward the villain end, and the actor to flavorless where my default is slightly left of midpoint (toward actor) but I slide back and forth depending on the importance of the NPC, the situation, and the mood at the table but never go all the way toward actor because it's just not fun for me, I want the PCs to be the focal point most of the time. I gess the planner v pantser one moves back and forth the most slowy because it depends on where we are in the campaign. I love to world-build so the setting is often pretty heavily front-loaded and I think it is important to plan out a few possible endings of the campaign as you get closer to it so that everything ties up in a satisfying way, but for most of the campaign (from around level 3 or 4 up to around level 15 or 16) I generally have a few ideas where the story might be going based on the last session, and there are always a few background events that are going to happen regardless of whether the PCs choose to engage with them, but I always leave room to make things up (at least a few times per campaign I will just flat out improv a whole session, making up locations and NPCs and even bits of lore as we go).
Love this video. As a newbie, this helps me understand better. Thank you!
Oh yay! I'm glad you found this helpful, thank you for watching.
Good video! Really helps put it all into perspective so I can better keep myself consistent
Awesome, I'm glad you found it helpful. Thanks for watching!
I tend to rely on my players to make characters with specific goals that I can accommodate into my campaign, and I love to improv stuff, but I also like to really plan out my encounters and dungeons. Probably because my favorite part of DMing is running a dungeon crawl, and I love adding an air of mystery to each room, just something to generate some intrigue from my players.
I love that! Having characters in the party that have specific goals can be really helpful and can make the player experience more enjoyable as well.
On both of the first two scales, it depends. I noticed during the pandemic when I started using online tools such as Roll20 much more, that I became more of a planner and a railroader because I started preparing appropriate battlemaps for the coming session and I wanted to use what I had prepared. When playing in-person, I had one campaign that was on the extreme sandbox end of the scale. I had some idea of the world, what might be in it, and a few NPCs and then I let the players do whatever they wanted. I've never actually had any complaints about either approach though, so I guess I'm able to find a good balance on either side.
When it comes to the rules, it's interesting. I like rules-light systems, but when I'm playing something crunchier I like to make sure the rules are applied correctly. I also like to have someone in the group who knows the rules better than me. If I'm unsure of something, I can just ask that person. But if nobody at the table knows the answer, I prefer just making something up over wasting time looking through the books.
On the relationships scale, I lean towards over-accomodating. I think I know when to say "No", but I don't do it very often.
On game immersion, I'm nondescript. That's actually the only complaint I can remember getting on my GMing. One group wanted more narration. So that's something I'm working on.
For the NPCs, I'm leaning towards actor. I do some amateur theatre as well, and I like to use my acting skills.
great advice!
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for watching!
it's interesting because I do have a lot of things that I plan out but my improv is pretty good. I tend to plan locations and scenarios and characters, and preferably I have them essentially all or almost all done before the game ever begins, so if in any event a player decides to go to the 5th destination instead of the second destination then that destination will still be ready with the characters and local already set up. so I do think that that falls more in the planner Camp of things but I am very much enjoying this videos thus far
Yes, that sounds like a planner to me! Thank you for watching
I'm definitely more of a sandbox-pantser.
Or to quote one of my players, "Are... you rolling on the random terrain table as we explore?"
Frankly, I gave up on detailed planning *long* ago, once I realized that even God can't predict all the lateral thinking a good group will do, so I had to learn to adapt to reacting quickly and consistently to characters coming up with crazy shenanigans.
Definitely on the Rules Lawyer *side* of the spectrum, mainly to have consistency, but if a player comes up with something awesome that is not exactly covered by the rules, but not directly contrary to the rules, I'll certainly give'em a fair shot at it.
Villain GMs are a blight, but overall, I'd rather have a GM leaning toward the villain side of the scale than an overaccommodating one. At least if the GM is rules lawyery. A GM that consistently pushes the challenge against the players by an only slightly unfair margin is preferable to one that just allows everything and ends up with no challenges at all... Personally, I think I'm in the fuzzy inbetween zone there.
Leaning more toward the Narrator side, but I do try to limit it to *juuuust* enough of a description that the players have a good mental image of the place or situation, or they maybe ask a couple of clarifying questions for enough details, all to serve the world-building and immersion without boring the party with an overly long soliloquy.
Definitely the Actor type, though - but I do avoid having NPCs stealing the scene, just making them interesting enough for the players to remember and maybe bond with as they interact. Nothing more boring than having a whole town of bland, nondescript people to deal with, they're people with their own lives, after all - maybe the elven shopkeep needs a discreet favor and very shyly asks the party's rogue to swing by the local alchemist for a "performance enhancer", or the dwarven smith smells strongly of lavender-scented beard oils... that sort of thing.
Hm, definitely some sliding scales to keep in mind, all told.
"Nothing more boring than having a whole town of bland, nondescript people" - totally agree. It's hard to keep track when they're all the same person essentially. Thank you for watching!
Planner for sure, though I can improv when need be. I just like to think out the 'most likely' routes ahead of time to make sure I know the general direction. I like the 'sandbox-on-rails' style-player freedom but still with an overarching plot. I am definitely a rules lawyer-I like to stick to RAW as often as I can, but if it's a mid-session rules question or if a PC wants to do something cool (that doesnt break the game) I can be lenient. I consider myself an impartial GM-I am not against them as a person, but some of my NPCs certainly are. I definitely want to make sure they are being challenged and that death is a risk, but I'm not sadistic. I find myself definitely making sure I give detailed descriptions to important things. I love acting-accents, quirks, all of it.
It sounds like we have very similar styles! All except for accents... I've dabbled with them but tend to rely on changing my voice pitch and way of speaking over accents.
3rd option for rules that I fall into: rules explorer where you draw from other TTRPGs or expand what the rules dictate. Lol for instance the restrained condition is a complicated condition if someone's hands are tied or in manacles it gives them the restrained condition but that condition reduces your speed to 0 and we know you can still walk and run in handcuffs. Which is why I like to add to conditions like tell my players your left arm is grabbed. Or your are restrained on a metal slab and can't move your arms or legs so you are incapacitated but still conscious.
Oh interesting, I hadn't considered this aspect of rules. Homebrew would basically be this category. great callout and thanks for watching!
I feel the first scale is really off.
Playstyle involving lots of improv and emergent play can absolutely mean a lot of prep, it's just a very different kind of prep, probably more flexible and easier to recycle (you prepare improv tools, npcs and environment purpose and MO, layers of information, etc, but you avoid plots and contingencies).
That's a great distinction, thanks for calling that out. My take on this scale was more focused on being a planner that focuses on plot, NPC personalities, clues etc. adn less about tools. I think you can be considered on the "pantser" side of the scale and still take time to prepare tools that help you through those improv moments. Thanks for watching!
@@XPLovecat Completely agree with Guybrush here. In Sandbox games it's a really good idea to at least prep some characters and their motivations. It's from those motivations that you can improv well because you understand what drives the characters and therefore how they will act as soon as you are presented with a sudden unexpected player choice. It's super fun.
I aim to be a planner ready to throw it all out at the drop of a hat. The setting should be fleshed out enough to let the players go down unexpected roads.
I hope to make a sandbox with threads compelling enough that the players will do their own railroading.
I want to know the rules well enough to give the players confidence in the system and thus their ability to affect the game, while also being flexible in the name of fun.
I will try to have the players know keeping the game fun is a cooperative effort, while the obstacles and antagonists are sufficiently confounding and challenging to make them worth overcoming.
I must give the players enough description to know their options while leaving room to let them make indirect additions, like trying to find a clue that was unplanned, but makes sense.
I should be a springboard for getting the players to interact with each other as much as possible as to not hog the spotlight from the stars of the show.
Going to be running my first game soon, never been a Keeper or any kind of GM before.
I'm a planner mainly because English is not my first language and I have to do lots of translating in some of my rpgs, I plan for different options I think they'll do. But the other day my players started doing stuff that I hadn't prepared for and the result was one of the funniest sessions I've ever played 🤣. Also had to bend the rules a little bit so one of the player's character didn't go permanently insane in the first 10 minutes of the one-shot.
hahaha I love that there was already enough weird stuff happening that there was a risk of going insane that quickly!
@@XPLovecat it's a Spanish rpg called Nameless Cults, the player decided to go full brawn and ended up with 9 sanity points 🤣
I like to plan but have been known to improv a whole session
I’ve changed styles with age and wisdom too
Good video
Yes, I've changed styles since I first started GMing. For me, it came from exploring how I like to play the game, which when you first start out might not be totally clear!
I want to give my NPC's life but it can be a challenge. I have found it's similar to theater: if my players respond to the performance and are enjoying it I'll ham it up a little more. I have Alsop found that, similar to what you mentioned, too good of a performance can be a big distraction for me.
It absolutely can be a challenge finding the right balance. For me, I try to test new ways to bring NPCs to life from time to time to find out what works for me and what my players enjoy the most.
Man, as someone who is also writing a book I gotta say, I think I am a 50/50 except for the rules in which I am a rule lawyer unless my players do make a compelling argument and definitely a narrator; for most of them I tend towards the left side anyway tho especially in terms of storytelling because otherwise improvised stuff never works (tho I changed that story a bit through the game to accomodate players and what they wanted)
Nice! What genre is your book? I'd love to hear about it!
@@XPLovecat it’s a fantasy adventure mainly inspired by the likes of lotr and the witcher but I kinda have to figure out the details of the mentor character (halfway through I realized some stuff didn’t make too much sense and was a bit childish)
Didn't really get much lore on that rock. I need a more mytho-historical background. What age was the rock spawned? Was it part of a larger rock before it came to be tripped over? Did the gods invoke the creation of rocks or did it travel from the Elemental Plane of Earth?
This was a good video and it was fun figuring out where I fall on each of those scales, but I do have a problem with the usage of rules lawyer. This name refers to a type of a problematic player that strictly follows the rules only when they benefit them and ignores them if they don't. The ttrpg community is slowly shifting its meaning to "someone who likes to follow the rules". This isn't great considering that innocent players that just like to follow the rules are now affected by the stigma of that name and the genuine rules lawyers can dismiss anyone calling them out.
I'm glad you had fun with the scales! Thanks for the callout on "rules lawyer", it does tend to have a stigma associated with that term. I will have to re-think that scale name. Thanks for watching!
Do you have this scale as a file or picture to share for DMs to look at and use? Would be nice, but honestly, I can easily make one for myself if you don't have anything to share.
Try this link (it is just a plain picture of the scales I use in the video): drive.google.com/file/d/1tw5Bvkqp5AcOTV1KaU9rFv9X4o8r-M3X/view?usp=sharing
So, basically what it boils down to is: You need to reject both sides of the spectrum to leave a healthy middle.
I tend to prep enough for a session and leave details open enough to avoid railroading, but I never sandbox because it stresses me out.
I've tried pantsing and I hated it, I need some guidance as a DM, so definitely close to the rules but, again, I'm open enough to ignore dumb rules, fudge some rolls or let someone do a cool thing that won't break the game.
It's good to know sandboxing stresses you and you don't enjoy pantsing! That way you know you won't enjoy GMing spontaneous games.
I think your scales weren't quite free from biases to be honest. Especially with your last scale about the NPCs. "Flavourless" is a very loaded word to use haha! Actor Vs Describer might have been a better one, with Actor imbuing their NPCs with flavour through use of different voices, accents, body language etc and Describer using a more 3rd party narrative descriptive style to their NPCs. The reason I'd consider this a scale as opposed to a "why not both" type situation is simply air time, you want to get their character across quickly, do you use descriptive language or do you act it out.
Totally fair, I could have used a better word than flavorless. Let me know if you have a different way to name it, I may tweak my scale names in the future.
I think you have it exactly wrong about planning and sandboxing. I am a Planner 10 [max] (but remember that planning for a sandboxer means building the sandbox [worldbuilding], not building 'plots' or 'stories' to railroad the players), I am a Sandboxer 10 [max] which doesn't mean you leave your players adrift; Rules Lawyer 10 [max] - I don't worry about balance, that is up to the players (you should run when a fight is not balanced); I am a Neutral GM, right in the middle; I try to be in the middle on Narration vs Nondescript. I try to be in the middle on NPCs as well.
I like being a planner but I'm too lazy to read official books so I just write my own settings, spells, gods and lore because I can't be bothered to try to learn who tf Vecna is
I also just come up with whatever if they find a plothole or empty valley
That's so funny to me that you say you're too lazy to read the books since making your own setting is probably more effort and time!
Those last 2 scales don't feel like styles but more like proficiency. Dms that have been playing a long time are likely to be descriptive narrators and entertaining actors just by the nature of the game. Maybe I'm closed minded, but to be it just seems like that shouldn't really be a style issue, just a rating of how emersive a dm is which can be good or bad regardless of any other traits.
I see what you're saying, I think there it becomes a style choice when taken to the extremes (like taking over scenes by acting). I also think that experienced GMs can chose to be more nondescript and instead rely on the players to describe their actions and build the world around them. Thank you for watching!
Several of my not so good playing experiences have been with rules ignoring GMs who glossed over aspects of the rules that my character had abilities to interact with. I feel like it's on the GM to know and play to the rules, making spot calls is fine but house rules should be clear from the start rather than just made up as and when.
Ah yes, that makes a lot of sense. That can be frustrating when you put in time and effort to make a cool character and then it doesn't even apply during gameplay.
Think you might have misrepresented the "Actor" side of the scale. when done well, it's about the players rather than the GM. Leaning into some NPCs with more personality, physical quirks, mannerisms and accents is usually about conveying information to the player. It's an easy way to show the players which characters are important to a plot thread without stating it.
e.g. Acting out the following...
'The wrinkled old salesman has a glint in his eye. We winks and strokes his gnarled fingers through his unkempt beard. "Ah, a healings potun ya says! I gots jist whatcha needs yunguns, but only if I deprives ya of 3 gold pieces"
is totally over the top ang gives the wrong impression to most players who thought correctly they were just turning up to buy a basic potion from a town stall.
Barely Acting out the following (kept in narrator format) is more appropriate
'The salesman nods and asks for 3 gold pieces for the potion'
Obviously the flip side of this is also true...
and the real art comes when you want players to notice a character but not think too much about them, so when you reveal later that they are important they go "Really. Wow! I thought they were just a X", rather than "Who!"
This is a great point. Thank you for sharing! I agree with you that portraying NPCs is an important way to share information with your players and that using the Actor side of the scale can really help with that. Maybe my explanation was more on the "if the Acting side goes too far". Thanks for watching!
I've been in both villain and overaccomodating GMs and can confirm I dislike both and would prefer a balance.
Does the scale change the longer you’re into a campaign? I find my planning increases the longer I’m in a campaign. After a few good sessions I know what the players want and what their characters actions have put in motion.
Absolutely Colin, that's a great callout! I've found with pre-written campaigns, there's a ton of upfront planning work but it becomes more loose as you go through. And like you said with creating a campaign, you can get a sense of what players want and go all in on that direction.
You absolutely need to know the rules so that you may break them properly.