Rules Love a Gamemaster
By The Warden
Today is GM’s Day, a dedication to the tireless slaving every person who runs a one-shot or campaign puts into our games while the rest of us carry on with our lives, waiting for the next game to take place so that we can screw with their delicate plans. As I review the events of the past week and consider which issue, update, or post warrants today’s latest installment of Under the Hood, it seems only too appropriate to focus on the role of Gamemasters – whether they are GMs, DMs, Watchers, Directors, or any other title – in our games.
Take a look at every RPG book you have on your shelf. Every single word has been written with the Gamemaster in mind, even those directed at players. GMs are expected to know, comprehend, and adjudicate every rule, power, application and component of every game played at the table, leaving the remaining players free to focus on their characters and imagination. To play a game, players normally require only one book. Gamemasters require two or three (or are referred to a special section at the second half of the massive 500-page volume they call a rulebook).
Almost every introductory RPG includes the dreaded “What is a Role-playing Game?” segment (preceded with the page recommendation for experienced players and GMs to skip towards) tackling what may be the biggest challenge of any rulebook: explaining how to run a role-playing game. After nearly 40 years, some volumes have come close, but nothing beats simply finding an existing game or attending a convention and experiencing it firsthand. The challenge is only directed at one person to learn this endeavor: the potential Gamemaster. Once you have that dedicated individual hooked and trained, the rest of the group will follow.
Explaining the concepts of a RPG may be one of the most daunting tasks in design for a few reasons. Arguably, the mechanics may be simpler to comprehend than ever as anyone who’s ever played video games can grasp the concept of hit points, turn-by-turn initiative, and more, but unlocking the true potential of any role-playing group requires clicking that tiny switch in the deep recesses of the mind. Unlocking the ability to have your character do whatever you can imagine and describe is the true goal of any RPG rulebook. The challenge is doing so while the player reads a giant tome presenting what appears to be clear-cut rules for every conceivable event. It’s one of those matters where too many words overwhelm and not enough undermines. Yet through it all, the Gamemaster reads, reviews, and experiments until they either quit or master the craft and explain the hobby to their fiancée years down the road.
As an example, look at initiative. Many classic games have a fixed mechanic for the order in which all characters act in combat, commonly set down by a single dice roll made at the beginning of the encounter. From this fixed concept, each player can then freeform their characters actions, yet always within the confines of their original initiative roll. As counter-intuitive as this may be, it’s a simplified and almost necessary way to allow the game to push forward (and a concept that’s being pushed to new limits as more and more games experiment with alternative initiative mechanics, such as the Marvel RPG rather free-for-all turn system).
I remember struggling with the old Planescape setting from TSR. I picked it up after catching sight of the original boxed set in my dad’s old comic book store (which I won’t name because it didn’t end well) and the TSR dragon logo in the bottom corner. After my initial read-through, I was confused. How do you have multiple infinite-sized planes all co-existing with a finite space linked between them? During my first (and only) year of film school, I re-read that boxed set and continued to pick up every supplement released in that next year, continuing to struggle with understanding it. It wasn’t until I sat at a bus stop with a classmate who spotted the Planewalker’s Handbook in my backpack that I learned how it all works: “It’s not supposed to make sense. This is how the gods work, not how mortals work. They play by their own rules and this is just the best way for mortals to describe it.” From there on, I was ready to play.
RPGs are truly written for one person: Gamemasters. In my opinion, even player supplements are written for GMs first and players second, because all you need is to grab the attention of that one crucial individual and the rest of the group will follow. They are designed with the imaginative and ingenious in mind, taunting them with endless possibilities of limitless potential and a venue to unleash the world you’ve always dreamed of building. In time, that infectious enthusiasm latches onto the rest of the group and every player is trying to squeeze in their own campaign or system, an event trumped only by those who design their own mechanics and insist on trying it out on the group during the next session.
Once again, turn to your books and think of how many ideas float around inside them. Have you ever used every single one of them? In all your years of playing and gamemastering, can you truly say you have maximized every book and wore it out like an old shoe? I didn’t think so and that’s the power of the role-playing game. While novels and films present us with defined parameters and finite details, a RPG gives us possibilities. Or, to be precise, it gives the Gamemaster possibility. Much like the first taste of an addictive drug (and if you’ve just spent hours designing a kingdom, dungeon, or new character class, you’re hooked like a junkie).
Every RPG, despite its hundreds of thousands of words of clearly defined detail, carries one phrase in its introduction. “It’s your game. Do with these rules as you will.” It’s an ironic twist and can throw some Gamemasters off course. Have you ever played with a GM who was a rules lawyer? Yech! It’s why the analogy of comparing Gamemasters to sports referees is so fitting: you can learn the rules to the point of unconscious recitation, but can you spot the fine when it happens in front of you? Only a select few can do it well to deserve the title and that is why we take this day to give thanks for their efforts.