Well, I wound up my campaign a couple of weeks ago (with a 100% PC survival rate, no less), and almost everybody else in the group has decided that I should take a break from gamemastering for a while. (I don't know why; I'm not at the burnout point yet... Anyway, that's irrelevant.)
Epsilon's already running a game, and he's posted game logs from it on occasion. He's a good GM, and it's an enjoyable game. (I'm sure I'd enjoy it more if the players could agree not to be idiots in-game. (No, Epsilon, I don't want to hear about the time my character was an idiot. That was with the full agreement of the other player-characters before I made the boneheaded maneuver; I was trying for some party unity.) Anyway, that's irrelevant.) But he's only able to run every other week.
Which leaves the others... No names, for obvious reasons.
Two of them I have no idea whether they'd make good GMs, because as far as I know they've never tried.
One has the attention-span of a mayfly; when he loses interest in a game, he stops coming to the sessions. He doesn't bother telling anyone, he just stops coming. I trust I don't have to explain why it would worry me if he was to try his hand as GM.
Another has trouble telling the difference between a computer RPG and a pencil & paper RPG when he GMs. His last campaign lasted less than a half-dozen sessions; the final session in that one was a carefully-contrived session-long "cut scene" where the players weren't allowed to do anything. (When I tried having my character say something that would have shifted the focus away from the NPCs and back to at least one of the PCs, he said "You don't want to say that" and went back to his prepared notes.) I believe he still doesn't understand why nobody wanted to play in that game again.
The last one brings his favourite character into each game he runs (modified as little as necessary to fit into the setting), and expects the players to not mind that this character is not only more competent than the PCs, but is also an active part of the party. He doesn't seem to grasp that we don't want to play sidekicks to a "GM's character".
(Yes, I have considered finding a different group. I'd send invitations to the better players I know if I had some gaming space and a decent game-plotline in mind... Anyway, that's irrelevant.)
So... What I'd like to do is give copies of a "how to be a good gamemaster" text to the other people in my group. There's no guarantee that they'd read the thing, but at least I'd have done something constructive. The problem is, I don't know of any such works. Introductory texts are a dime a dozen, but most of these folks need something more than introductory texts. (And there's always something in this sort of book that the old hands will find new, so I'd want to read them myself.)
Any suggestions? Printed books, PDFs, web sites, bundles of 80-column punch cards, ... anything?
-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Epsilon's already running a game, and he's posted game logs from it on occasion. He's a good GM, and it's an enjoyable game. (I'm sure I'd enjoy it more if the players could agree not to be idiots in-game. (No, Epsilon, I don't want to hear about the time my character was an idiot. That was with the full agreement of the other player-characters before I made the boneheaded maneuver; I was trying for some party unity.) Anyway, that's irrelevant.) But he's only able to run every other week.
Which leaves the others... No names, for obvious reasons.
Two of them I have no idea whether they'd make good GMs, because as far as I know they've never tried.
One has the attention-span of a mayfly; when he loses interest in a game, he stops coming to the sessions. He doesn't bother telling anyone, he just stops coming. I trust I don't have to explain why it would worry me if he was to try his hand as GM.
Another has trouble telling the difference between a computer RPG and a pencil & paper RPG when he GMs. His last campaign lasted less than a half-dozen sessions; the final session in that one was a carefully-contrived session-long "cut scene" where the players weren't allowed to do anything. (When I tried having my character say something that would have shifted the focus away from the NPCs and back to at least one of the PCs, he said "You don't want to say that" and went back to his prepared notes.) I believe he still doesn't understand why nobody wanted to play in that game again.
The last one brings his favourite character into each game he runs (modified as little as necessary to fit into the setting), and expects the players to not mind that this character is not only more competent than the PCs, but is also an active part of the party. He doesn't seem to grasp that we don't want to play sidekicks to a "GM's character".
(Yes, I have considered finding a different group. I'd send invitations to the better players I know if I had some gaming space and a decent game-plotline in mind... Anyway, that's irrelevant.)
So... What I'd like to do is give copies of a "how to be a good gamemaster" text to the other people in my group. There's no guarantee that they'd read the thing, but at least I'd have done something constructive. The problem is, I don't know of any such works. Introductory texts are a dime a dozen, but most of these folks need something more than introductory texts. (And there's always something in this sort of book that the old hands will find new, so I'd want to read them myself.)
Any suggestions? Printed books, PDFs, web sites, bundles of 80-column punch cards, ... anything?
-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012