Recommended GMing Books

[WhiteShark]

I want to know what good books there are on the topic of gamemastery (or specific aspects of it, such as worldbuilding, dungeon creation, etc.). I've read a few, but the two that stand out to me are Arbiter of Worlds by Alexander Macris and So You Want to Be a Game Master by Justin Alexander.

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Arbiter of Worlds focuses on the philosophy of roleplaying games and the role of the GM, but it also has practical advice on worldbuilding and running the game. So You Want to Be a Game Matser goes deeply into the structures and procedures for running different sorts of scenarios: dungeon crawls, hex crawls, point crawls, mysteries, raids, heists, wilderness and urban adventuring, and so on.

Other gamemastery books I've read:

• Muster: A Primer for War by Eero Tuovinen. A book on running OSR games. A good read for understanding that style of play, but meandering at times.
• Gamemastering by Brian Jamison. I read this ten years ago. I don't remember much except that, on its advice, I wrote an adventure by putting some ideas on index cards and mixing them together.
• Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering by Robin D. Laws. Maybe I'm doing it a disservice, but I remember even less of this than I do of Gamemastering despite having read it only half a decade ago.
• Tracks in the Sand by Anonymous. A 13 page treatise that mostly talks about how to railroad while pretending not to. Not recommended.
• The ZOZ Koans of Dungeon Master Foo by Anonymous. A short and entertaining read on OSR principles, but nothing revolutionary.
• The Living Campaign by John N. McGowan. My thoughts on it are here.
• Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master by Micahel Shea. Thoughts here.
• The chapter or manual dedicated to gamemastering that comes with every RPG system I've read. Many of these are not very useful or have outright bad advice.

Now reading:

• AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax.

I'm asking here because a quick glance at commonly recommended books leaves me skeptical. For example, one list I saw contained Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin D. Laws, which is apparently all about classifying and analyzing 'story beats'. It's hard for me to imagine an application for such that doesn't involve railroading.

[J-12]

I haven't read it yet, but it does sound fun to grab inspiration from and maybe mishmash with your own ideas.

[Stack of Turtles]

I think that books are mostly written by writers, and writers are used to railroading a single narrative that always goes the way they want.

That said, I do think it is possible to have something like "story beats", at least in the sense of setups, setting vignettes that you can slot into convenient places to give players something to do, without it being railroading. But I wouldn't trust anyone who would call it "story beats" to do that.

Something like, "I've designed this dungeon. I don't know where it is in the world specifically, but if the players go looking for a dungeon and succeed in finding one, or have some other reason to stumble on a dungeon, then I'll use this one, and from then on, it'll be wherever that turns out to be. Then they can choose what they want to do or not do with it." That's fine. It becomes railroading when you move on to something like "and if the players decide to skip it and go look somewhere else for a different dungeon, I'll just move this one there so I don't have to make a new one."

[WhiteShark]

Something like, "I've designed this dungeon. I don't know where it is in the world specifically, but if the players go looking for a dungeon and succeed in finding one, or have some other reason to stumble on a dungeon, then I'll use this one, and from then on, it'll be wherever that turns out to be. Then they can choose what they want to do or not do with it." That's fine. It becomes railroading when you move on to something like "and if the players decide to skip it and go look somewhere else for a different dungeon, I'll just move this one there so I don't have to make a new one."

I'm opposed to illusionism. I don't think the quantum dungeon is the worst gamemastering sin, and it's probably one of the easier ones to get away with, but it's inorganic. If the dungeon has no fixed location, it can't be integrated into its surroundings. There won't be monsters leaking out of it, rumors in the area, or any other localized signs of its existence until after the GM has decided to place it in the players' path. If it's that dungeon or nothing, I would rather openly tell my players that instead of giving them a fake choice.

[Stack of Turtles]

I'm opposed to illusionism. I don't think the quantum dungeon is the worst gamemastering sin, and it's probably one of the easier ones to get away with, but it's inorganic. If the dungeon has no fixed location, it can't be integrated into its surroundings. There won't be monsters leaking out of it, rumors in the area, or any other localized signs of its existence until after the GM has decided to place it in the players' path.

No given region or feature ever exists until after the GM has decided to place it in the player's path. That decision can simply be made earlier or later. There is such a thing as making it too late, but there's very rarely a benefit to making it too early.

By the time the players would encounter monsters leaking out of it, yeah, you should've made the decision already. On the other hand, rumors in the area? Rumors are often vague or outright wrong. There can always be more rumors, rumors are great tools. You can have rumors that a given area has something going on well before the players have been anywhere near it and well before you have even decided exactly why. Calling this "illusionism" is just emotive misdirection, though. The game world has always been an illusion.

The problem you actually have is simply that many people, probably most of the type of people who become GMs, are just bad at it. They won't be any better at it if you sit them down to spend a year building an entire detailed world first; you'll just get a really dull and poorly thought out copy-paste world.

[WhiteShark]

Calling this "illusionism" is just emotive misdirection, though. The game world has always been an illusion.

This tells me we have a fundamentally different philosophy about RPGs, so I don't really feel like arguing about it.

The problem you actually have is simply that many people, probably most of the type of people who become GMs, are just bad at it. They won't be any better at it if you sit them down to spend a year building an entire detailed world first; you'll just get a really dull and poorly thought out copy-paste world.

I've never read anybody suggest this. Even proponents of a substantial game world suggest only detailing the immediate region.

[Trickster]

I want to know what good books there are on the topic of gamemastery (or specific aspects of it, such as worldbuilding, dungeon creation, etc.). I've read a few, but the two that stand out to me are Arbiter of Worlds by Alexander Macris and So You Want to Be a Game Master by Justin Alexander.

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Arbiter of Worlds focuses on the philosophy of roleplaying games and the role of the GM, but it also has practical advice on worldbuilding and running the game. So You Want to Be a Game Matser goes deeply into the structures and procedures for running different sorts of scenarios: dungeon crawls, hex crawls, point crawls, mysteries, raids, heists, wilderness and urban adventuring, and so on.

Other gamemastery books I've read:

• Muster: A Primer for War by Eero Tuovinen. A book on running OSR games. A good read for understanding that style of play, but meandering at times.
• Gamemastering by Brian Jamison. I read this ten years ago. I don't remember much except that, on its advice, I wrote an adventure by putting some ideas on index cards and mixing them together.
• Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering by Robin D. Laws. Maybe I'm doing it a disservice, but I remember even less of this than I do of Gamemastering despite having read it only half a decade ago.
• Tracks in the Sand by Anonymous. A 13 page treatise that mostly talks about how to railroad while pretending not to. Not recommended.
• The ZOZ Koans of Dungeon Master Foo by Anonymous. A short and entertaining read on OSR principles, but nothing revolutionary.
• The chapter or manual dedicated to gamemastering that comes with every RPG system I've read. Many of these are not very useful or have outright bad advice.

Plan to read:

• The Living Campaing by John N. McGowan. The premise, in his own words: "In it, I detail a number of tips and techniques for creating and running a fully open sandbox campaign where the game master will be able to maximize the potential choices the players will be able to make."

I'm asking here because a quick glance at commonly recommended books leaves me skeptical. For example, one list I saw contained Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin D. Laws, which is apparently all about classifying and analyzing 'story beats'. It's hard for me to imagine an application for such that doesn't involve railroading.

Can you summarize the general principles you've gathered from these books? What's most important to you? What did you discover that you didn't know before?

[Brother Michael]

Wondering if the snail’s pace that my group moves at is a fault of shared incompetence, my own DMing, or the less serious atmosphere that we have as friends. Still a good time but I’d like to get them through more encounters and plots.

[J1M]

The 4e Dungeon Masters Guide 1 & 2 are generally regarded as the best D&D tomes on the subject of DMing.

There are also some books like Dungeonscape (3e) and Dungeon Delves (4e) that are regarded as good references because they contain dozens of dungeon examples.

https://www.youtube.com/@KnightsofLastCall/streams frequently discusses this topic at length.

[WhiteShark]

Can you summarize the general principles you've gathered from these books? What's most important to you? What did you discover that you didn't know before?

To me, these are the most important parts of Arbiter of Worlds:

• The Agency Theory of Fun: for players, the fun of an RPG comes from making meaningful decisions, which requires consistent rules and a substantial game world. The GM can't guarantee fun, but he can guarantee an environment that is able to produce fun.
• It's Not a Story: it's not the GM's job to tell a story, it's his job to impartially adjudicate outcomes. Don't force players down a predetermined path, don't fudge rolls, don't be afraid to let players do unexpected things.
• Use Dice and Abductive Reasoning: use random tables combined with improvised explanations to make interesting things happen. Take the result and figure out how it came to be that way and what it means for the game world. For example, if a random event table indicates the town is under attack and the party has fought orcs nearby recently, the GM can reason that it's a counterattack from the orc tribe.
• Rulings Are Rules: when the GM must make a ruling on a situation the rules don't cover, that ruling effectively becomes a new rule. For the sake of consistency, he should record his ruling and rule the same way in that situation every time.

But there are also chapters on things like how to run enemies, the basics of worldbuilding, and how to handle players at the table. Alexander Macris has an education in law, so his takes on rules and arbitration are quite interesting.

As for So You Want to Be a Game Master, it's hard to summarize. Justin Alexander's explanation of game structures for running different types of scenarios is something I haven't seen anywhere else. I'm repeating myself from the OP, but he gives detailed structures and procedures for running and creating:

• Dungeons and any other location-based scenario
• Mysteries and any other node-based scenario
  • Most famously, Justin Alexander is the creator of the Three Clue Rule, which states that, if you want the party to discover something, you should add at least three clues pointing to that thing in the scenario.
  • Nodes can be anything from locations to people to events; the key is in finding ways to connect them (usually via clues) so that players can navigate the structure on their own initiative.
• Raids, which are location-based scenarios with a focus on surveying and then assaulting a target location
  • Also Heists, which are similar to Raids but with more information gathering and a focus on non-violent means
• Cities, including navigation, districts, factions, downtime, social events
• Wilderness, including navigation, hex crawls, and point crawls

And then another very useful section in the back covering things like how to make and manage a campaign, quick worldbuilding, and so on.

If I could only recommend one book on gamemastering, I would splice together the sections on RPG/GM philosophy from Arbiter of Worlds and all the structures and procedures from So You Want to Be a Game Master and hope my audience didn't notice.

[WhiteShark]

Wondering if the snail’s pace that my group moves at is a fault of shared incompetence, my own DMing, or the less serious atmosphere that we have as friends. Still a good time but I’d like to get them through more encounters and plots.

Where do you find things bog down? One thing Justin Alexander suggests is cutting to other players when someone has to make a roll instead of just waiting for him to finish.

[WhiteShark]

I should add that ACKS II is a great resource for procedures and ancient-world setting creation. When I go to find the rules for doing something in a given system and find them lacking, I often think, "How would ACKS handle this?"

[Brother Michael]

Wondering if the snail’s pace that my group moves at is a fault of shared incompetence, my own DMing, or the less serious atmosphere that we have as friends. Still a good time but I’d like to get them through more encounters and plots.

Where do you find things bog down? One thing Justin Alexander suggests is cutting to other players when someone has to make a roll instead of just waiting for him to finish.

I notice that my players are often given towards passivity and poor coordination when presented with an obstacle.

An example that might be illustrative, or at least amusing:

► Show Spoiler

Last session, the party needed to find the location that a gang was holding a hostage for ransom, and so they went to a bar that they learned was common spot for members. I also mentioned that they typically recruited short tempers. Everyone seemed to have a different plan on how to approach this. One simply waited outside intending to follow any who left to a presumed hideout. Another went in to simply observe the situation, and a third attempted to start a fight with the group of thugs. The other two chose to do nothing while this happened.

The character who started the fight managed to grab a hostage of his own, and I naturally expected him to use this opportunity to negotiate for the information they wanted. Instead, he tried to join the gang, assuming that my earlier comment meant they would look fondly on his actions. Naturally, the gang refused, and he chose to release the thug and leave the bar, and absolutely nothing was gained.

This led to them sitting around outside the bar for the stakeout plan, which took up at least another half hour of real time as they figured out what to do and went to another inn and back. I did send them an event to get them back on track, which eventually worked.

Do you think I should have immediately sent the backup event once things started to derail? It probably would have kept things moving better, but I want to avoid having my players fail upwards through “luck.”

I’ve been leaving problems pretty open ended for the most part. Perhaps I should be presenting clear options instead?

[WhiteShark]

The character who started the fight managed to grab a hostage of his own, and I naturally expected him to use this opportunity to negotiate for the information they wanted. Instead, he tried to join the gang, assuming that my earlier comment meant they would look fondly on his actions. Naturally, the gang refused, and he chose to release the thug and leave the bar, and absolutely nothing was gained.

I would be tempted to allow this to work. It depends on how you've characterized the gang, of course, but I can envision the leader of a gang that recruits the short-tempered having some respect for such bravado.

This led to them sitting around outside the bar for the stakeout plan, which took up at least another half hour of real time as they figured out what to do and went to another inn and back.

Was there no way to discern which were gang members based on appearance or mannerisms? This is another plan I can see working.

Do you think I should have immediately sent the backup event once things started to derail? It probably would have kept things moving better, but I want to avoid having my players fail upwards through “luck.”

That's understandable. Justin Alexander advocates the use of 'bangs', his term for events that demand a player response, to keep the game moving. In this case, if the gang really didn't take kindly to some of their thugs getting roughed up, it would be perfectly logical for them to send a larger group to beat down the PC who started a fight. I don't know if that's the event you used, but, if it was, I don't think there's an issue with it. Even if the players didn't need a 'bang' to get moving, it would still make sense for the gang to send a goon squad in retaliation.

I’ve been leaving problems pretty open ended for the most part. Perhaps I should be presenting clear options instead?

It can be helpful sometimes to diegetically give players some concrete options, such as through an NPC. However, my gut feeling here is that the players felt lost because they tried options they could reasonably expect to have results and didn't get any. Now, if you gamed this all out with skill checks and everything, what I'm about to say won't apply, but: I think you may want to be a little more permissive with regard to PC plans. I'm not of the school that says the party should always succeed or "fail forward", but a plan that isn't outright impossible should have at least a chance of working.

The other thing you should consider in any scenario that hinges on information gathering is Justin Alexander's Three Clue Rule: "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." If finding the hideout was scenario-critical, then placing at least three clues pointing to it from the bar that you prepared yourself—in addition to whatever means the players come up with to find out the same information—would have acted as a safety net to keep them from getting totally lost. Perhaps a discontented gang member willing to sell them out for money, a map stashed somewhere in the back of the bar, and a rumor about odd noises at night from a particular building. Since you know your own scenario, I'm sure you can do better, but I think you get the idea.

[Stack of Turtles]

This tells me we have a fundamentally different philosophy about RPGs, so I don't really feel like arguing about it.
[...]
I've never read anybody suggest this. Even proponents of a substantial game world suggest only detailing the immediate region.

But then if you agree that the latter is fine, I don't think you're explaining your philosophy well and I don't think you actually have any disagreement with me.

Would you agree that it is okay if, when the players begin to move toward the edge of their immediate region and you begin to need to fill out adjoining areas in that direction, you decide "I'll use this thing (dungeon, sidequest hook, whatever) I made before here, then", provided you fit it naturally into the area (which you should be filling in well ahead of the players' movement) and leave it there from that point on, even if you may have also decided to use the same thing somewhere else if the players had gone a different way as long as it could have made sense there too?

By all means, I agree that someone who's BAD AT THIS will probably end up creating the same progression of regions, like a Mario game, regardless of what direction the players go, making the entire question of the players picking their own direction pointless. But this will happen regardless of whether he has any ideas beforehand, or just invents them on the fly, because he's just not good at creativity.

I'm arguing that there's a difference between that, and simply using ideas you already have on hand when filling in new areas (if they make sense there), but some people, including you, frequently seem to me to talk as if there's no difference, just because the skill of being able to fill in new areas well, interestingly, and cohesively is rare.

[WhiteShark]

Would you agree that it is okay if, when the players begin to move toward the edge of their immediate region and you begin to need to fill out adjoining areas in that direction, you decide "I'll use this thing (dungeon, sidequest hook, whatever) I made before here, then", provided you fit it naturally into the area (which you should be filling in well ahead of the players' movement) and leave it there from that point on, even if you may have also decided to use the same thing somewhere else if the players had gone a different way as long as it could have made sense there too?

This was my primary point of contention:

Something like, "I've designed this dungeon. I don't know where it is in the world specifically, but if the players go looking for a dungeon and succeed in finding one, or have some other reason to stumble on a dungeon, then I'll use this one, and from then on, it'll be wherever that turns out to be. Then they can choose what they want to do or not do with it."

This made it sound as though you don't prep the immediate surroundings at all, so if the players set out in any direction from their current location, you would just plop the same dungeon in front of them in the same session. That's why I objected to it as illusionism. I don't have a problem with using a dungeon you've already made (or one pulled off the internet) to fill a hex, provided it fits and you haven't already fixed its location somewhere else on the map, but I think there ought to be a buffer zone to ensure the world stays organic and consistent. Now that you've clarified that you would fill out the region ahead of them, I don't think we're in disagreement.

[Stack of Turtles]

Would you agree that it is okay if, when the players begin to move toward the edge of their immediate region and you begin to need to fill out adjoining areas in that direction, you decide "I'll use this thing (dungeon, sidequest hook, whatever) I made before here, then", provided you fit it naturally into the area (which you should be filling in well ahead of the players' movement) and leave it there from that point on, even if you may have also decided to use the same thing somewhere else if the players had gone a different way as long as it could have made sense there too?

This was my primary point of contention:

Something like, "I've designed this dungeon. I don't know where it is in the world specifically, but if the players go looking for a dungeon and succeed in finding one, or have some other reason to stumble on a dungeon, then I'll use this one, and from then on, it'll be wherever that turns out to be. Then they can choose what they want to do or not do with it."

This made it sound as though you don't prep the immediate surroundings at all, so if the players set out in any direction from their current location, you would just plop the same dungeon in front of them in the same session. That's why I objected to it as illusionism. I don't have a problem with using a dungeon you've already made (or one pulled off the internet) to fill a hex, provided it fits and you haven't already fixed its location somewhere else on the map, but I think there ought to be a buffer zone to ensure the world stays organic and consistent. Now that you've clarified that you would fill out the region ahead of them, I don't think we're in disagreement.

I was trying to be succinct. I was imagining a situation where players went looking after leads to a dungeon, and I didn't happen to have one nearby already. It would be somewhere ELSE and they'd have to find out about it and choose whether or not to go there, certainly.

Although I can imagine situations where it WOULD be appropriate to stumble upon a place randomly in the woods, too. Not everything necessarily does have to have a noticeable impact on its surroundings. But there would have to be good reasons for this.

[WhiteShark]

I was trying to be succinct. I was imagining a situation where players went looking after leads to a dungeon, and I didn't happen to have one nearby already. It would be somewhere ELSE and they'd have to find out about it and choose whether or not to go there, certainly.

Although I can imagine situations where it WOULD be appropriate to stumble upon a place randomly in the woods, too. Not everything necessarily does have to have a noticeable impact on its surroundings. But there would have to be good reasons for this.

Alright, it was just a misunderstanding, then. I'm used to /tg/, where some anons unironically advocate quantum ogres. There's such a confused understanding of RPGs out there that I don't tend to assume I'm on the same page as my interlocutor.

[Stack of Turtles]

I was trying to be succinct. I was imagining a situation where players went looking after leads to a dungeon, and I didn't happen to have one nearby already. It would be somewhere ELSE and they'd have to find out about it and choose whether or not to go there, certainly.

Although I can imagine situations where it WOULD be appropriate to stumble upon a place randomly in the woods, too. Not everything necessarily does have to have a noticeable impact on its surroundings. But there would have to be good reasons for this.

Alright, it was just a misunderstanding, then. I'm used to /tg/, where some anons unironically advocate quantum ogres. There's such a confused understanding of RPGs out there that I don't tend to assume I'm on the same page as my interlocutor.

I already skimmed Tracks in the Sand from your link so it's very clear that those kind of people have no idea what railroading is and wouldn't be able to stick to a definition if they had one, so I can understand

[Brother Michael]

The character who started the fight managed to grab a hostage of his own, and I naturally expected him to use this opportunity to negotiate for the information they wanted. Instead, he tried to join the gang, assuming that my earlier comment meant they would look fondly on his actions. Naturally, the gang refused, and he chose to release the thug and leave the bar, and absolutely nothing was gained.

I would be tempted to allow this to work. It depends on how you've characterized the gang, of course, but I can envision the leader of a gang that recruits the short-tempered having some respect for such bravado.

This led to them sitting around outside the bar for the stakeout plan, which took up at least another half hour of real time as they figured out what to do and went to another inn and back.

Was there no way to discern which were gang members based on appearance or mannerisms? This is another plan I can see working.

Do you think I should have immediately sent the backup event once things started to derail? It probably would have kept things moving better, but I want to avoid having my players fail upwards through “luck.”

That's understandable. Justin Alexander advocates the use of 'bangs', his term for events that demand a player response, to keep the game moving. In this case, if the gang really didn't take kindly to some of their thugs getting roughed up, it would be perfectly logical for them to send a larger group to beat down the PC who started a fight. I don't know if that's the event you used, but, if it was, I don't think there's an issue with it. Even if the players didn't need a 'bang' to get moving, it would still make sense for the gang to send a goon squad in retaliation.

I’ve been leaving problems pretty open ended for the most part. Perhaps I should be presenting clear options instead?

It can be helpful sometimes to diegetically give players some concrete options, such as through an NPC. However, my gut feeling here is that the players felt lost because they tried options they could reasonably expect to have results and didn't get any. Now, if you gamed this all out with skill checks and everything, what I'm about to say won't apply, but: I think you may want to be a little more permissive with regard to PC plans. I'm not of the school that says the party should always succeed or "fail forward", but a plan that isn't outright impossible should have at least a chance of working.

The other thing you should consider in any scenario that hinges on information gathering is Justin Alexander's Three Clue Rule: "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." If finding the hideout was scenario-critical, then placing at least three clues pointing to it from the bar that you prepared yourself—in addition to whatever means the players come up with to find out the same information—would have acted as a safety net to keep them from getting totally lost. Perhaps a discontented gang member willing to sell them out for money, a map stashed somewhere in the back of the bar, and a rumor about odd noises at night from a particular building. Since you know your own scenario, I'm sure you can do better, but I think you get the idea.

Thanks, this is helpful. Worth noting is that the gang members were identifiable by a facial tattoo and the idea of a hideout existing was theirs, not mine. This second fact could be me letting my planned answer get in the way (the hostage was actually on a small island on the lake). I also wasn’t rolling for npc reactions/persuasion in this instance, which would probably be a good change.

The “bang” I used was a beggar running into the bar to report to the gang that he saw someone kill a gang member after making him spill the location, which a player was able to eavesdrop through a perception check. The idea was to introduce a dangerous third party that I had planned for later, and giving them a group to tail to the location. This will have worked well if I can give it the right follow up.

[Stack of Turtles]

The “bang” I used was a beggar running into the bar to report to the gang that he saw someone kill a gang member after making him spill the location, which a player was able to eavesdrop through a perception check. The idea was to introduce a dangerous third party that I had planned for later, and giving them a group to tail to the location. This will have worked well if I can give it the right follow up.

fair warning, in my experience, there's a strong chance the group decides they have to kill the third-party right now, and also forgets to even bother to try to get the location

[Brother Michael]

The “bang” I used was a beggar running into the bar to report to the gang that he saw someone kill a gang member after making him spill the location, which a player was able to eavesdrop through a perception check. The idea was to introduce a dangerous third party that I had planned for later, and giving them a group to tail to the location. This will have worked well if I can give it the right follow up.

fair warning, in my experience, there's a strong chance the group decides they have to kill the third-party right now, and also forgets to even bother to try to get the location

No worries, they found the location by following gang members who were going to warn the hostage takers of the third party. I did have to “subtly” remind them to leave at least one of the enemies alive to actually learn the location after they were spotted following them. “Do you attack non-lethally?”

The third party is definitely going to try to kill them!

[WhiteShark]

Thanks, this is helpful. Worth noting is that the gang members were identifiable by a facial tattoo and the idea of a hideout existing was theirs, not mine. This second fact could be me letting my planned answer get in the way (the hostage was actually on a small island on the lake).

I don't think you need to change things to accommodate player assumptions. If the hostage is on an island, that's where he is. Of course, the gang probably does have a hideout—what kind of gang wouldn't?—so the hideout itself, if located, could contain more clues pointing to the hostage's location. The key thing is just baking in ways to find out the critical information while also allowing the players to discover it in their own way.

The “bang” I used was a beggar running into the bar to report to the gang that he saw someone kill a gang member after making him spill the location, which a player was able to eavesdrop through a perception check. The idea was to introduce a dangerous third party that I had planned for later, and giving them a group to tail to the location. This will have worked well if I can give it the right follow up.

That sounds good. It's the type of thing you could even plan as a clue in advance.

[WhiteShark]

The Living Campaign by John N. McGowan. The premise, in his own words: "In it, I detail a number of tips and techniques for creating and running a fully open sandbox campaign where the game master will be able to maximize the potential choices the players will be able to make."

I'm three-quarters of the way through this, though I did skip over some stuff with which I'm already familiar. If you've spent any time in the OSR blogopshere, it's nothing new. In the first half, he advocates 1:1 timekeeping (i.e., for each day that passes in real life away from the table, one day passes in game; timekeeping is not 1:1 at the table), procedural generation, tracking resources, EXP for gold, etc., while providing procedures for some of these. The second half is dedicated to explaining and justifying those concepts in the face of modern RPG trends. He could really use an editor and has fully embraced singular 'they', which makes it somewhat torturous to read. If it were better written, I might recommend it to someone totally unfamiliar with OSR, but, as it stands, there are no doubt better starting points.

[WhiteShark]

I've decided to reread Gamemastering by Brian Jamison, both for lack of better candidates and because I apparently liked it enough the first time to buy a physical copy. I also (re)discovered that there's a free pdf version for anyone else who is interested.

[WhiteShark]

I decided to start by browsing the table of contents and index for anything that looked disagreeable ("I'm almost enjoying my anger!"). It didn't take long to find something:

Random Player Character Killing

The threat of character death supposedly brings a sense of reality to the game. If the players know their characters can die, it is widely said, a certain tension will be present that is difficult to create otherwise. Furthermore, the reasoning goes, if players know they cannot die they might take rash actions and treat the game world with disrespect.

I don’t believe any of that. I do believe that the casual disregard many Gamemasters show for player character’s lives is responsible for more ruined games than any other factor. Killing off characters without the permission of the player causes them to stop caring. Roleplaying dies. That’s no good. A GM that lets player characters die randomly will never have any meaningful roleplaying in the game. It will not happen.

This is later followed by advice to fudge dice to prevent character death and another section advocating for blatant deus ex machina to save a party that has gotten in way over its head. Ironically, he completely contradicts himself in the latter:

Try not to resort to the Deus Ex Machina ploy unless you absolutely must. If players sense that they will always be saved from harm, they may become reckless and lose interest in the game.

Which is it, Mr. Jamison? Do you or do you not believe that the threat of PC death creates 'a certain tension [...] that is difficult to create otherwise'? Does the looming threat of death enhance or stymie roleplaying?

Immediately following the section on deus ex machina, he advocates for the GM to do everything he can to keep nemesis characters alive:

Let the players think they have killed, banished, or imprisoned the Nemesis only to have him turn up unexpectedly later. Or you can make his immediate escape known. Both methods have their uses, and it’s wise to alternate between them to keep the players guessing. The Table of Nemesis Rescues lists a few handy escape ideas for a Nemesis.
[...]
Consider far in advance how each Nemesis will appear to meet his fate. See to it that the mechanism you choose for the escape or illusion is reasonable and at the ready. Consult the handy Table of Near Death Escapes for some ideas.

This, again, strikes me as incredibly ironic, for the book actually started off quite strong in Chapter 1:

The realization of this led me to discover the only absolute Law I know of in gamemastering:

“The more the Gamemaster plots, the less the players will follow the plot.”

It’s easy for a GM to escape the consequences of this law – just banish the idea of creating a plot.

Having decried both plots and railroading (he elsewhere recalls an anecdote of the worst session he had ever played in, which was a miserable railroad from start to finish), he yet still goes on to suggest tactics like this:

Keep throwing just enough at the team so they succeed, but at some cost: ammo spent, damaged equipment, injuries, fuel consumed, lost GCs, negative consequences in the world. When they are almost overwhelmed, they overcome the threat, get more ammo and equipment, and heal up, ready for the next obstacle.

At several points, he also argues for inventing problems on the spur of the moment merely for the sake of 'fun'. Here is one such example:

Throw in a brick wall anytime things are going too smoothly. Simply take an element in the game that seemed permanent, reliable, or certain and make it change, fail, or become uncertain. This will cause the players to break out in a sweat, their incipient boredom forgotten. For example, a chase scene lacks excitement because the team is getting away too easily - suddenly a tire blows out!

No regard for cause and effect, rationality, game mechanics, or anything! Just random setbacks for their own sake. I, for one, would not be pleased if my character's car's tire blew out purely because the GM felt things weren't exciting enough. It would make me question the basis for anything the GM decided would occur.

Mr. Jamison seems like a narrativist in denial, and I think I know why. On the one hand, he clearly understands, or, at least, claims to understand, that narrativism is not roleplaying:

In fact, any game that has a predetermined conclusion isn’t a game.

GMs sometimes write a story in advance because that’s what they want to do. These folks should write a book/play/movie and get it published or produced. Likewise, if the players want to act in a scripted environment, they’d probably have more fun with a theater troupe. Those are great activities, but they aren’t roleplaying.

Roleplaying only works when the players feel they have a relatively free hand to do as their characters please. This is impossible with a plot.

On the other hand, he says that his first RPG experience consisted of taking 45 minutes to roll up a character, being dropped in the middle of a desert, and then having his character eaten by a giant centipede within the first three minutes of the game. Hence, his distaste for character death. Furthermore, he says that PCs should be created with beliefs, vices and virtues, backstories, friends and foes, woes, goals, and quirks, much of which should be hashed out in a 'character interview' with the GM. Indeed, he says that all of this is essential for creating adventures, for his method is to directly base adventures on all these PC details. It's no wonder he feels character death ruins games. Most players aren't going to want to do all of that more than once, and his method doesn't work without it.

Thus, he faces a dilemma. It's not roleplaying if the players aren't free, but true freedom could lead to character death, which he despises. His answer is illusionism: do everything to make the players feel they are free while simultaneously, by means both subtle and overt, shielding them from the consequences of their actions. This goes for his nemesis characters, too. He puts so much weight on character relationships that he can't bear to let a villain die except in dramatically appropriate circumstances. I don't know how he reconciles this with his stated rejection of plots.

---

Now that I've got the bad out of the way (I hope), I still plan to read the rest to see if he has any gold hidden in there. The random tables at the back do look useful. However, to any inexperienced GMs, I strongly recommend reading one of the two books I suggested at the top of the OP instead.

[WhiteShark]

In retrospect, I think I liked it the first time because it was the first I had encountered seemingly solid, comprehensive gamemastering advice and methodology. Prior to that, the only other relevant books I recall having read were the Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D 3.5 and the core books for a few OGL d20 systems. My reading of Gamemastering also coincided with my very brief FATE phase. That probably wasn't mere coincidence.

[DemoGraph]

I've read Arbiter (AR), So you want (SYW) and Gamemastering (GM), in that order.

Of the three:
- I liked AR and GM for their opposing, but covered views on rule-vs-narrative dichotomy.
- I liked GM most for its "faction blueprints as on the go conflict generators". The modular approach clicked well for me.
- AR and GM both for their different, but similar approaches for just enough worldbuilding.
- SYW I remember best for node-based advice on city crawls, because it coincided with my considerations for a game I'm in the process of making.

All of them have some passages I find strange or unusable, but all of them have some merit as well.

It's interesting that none of them touches upon the question of "GM fun" in the matter. It's as if it was obvious. It's not that way to me.
There're pages upon pages on the ways to maintain players' interest and attract them to the game. And maybe a sentenceir a paragraph on the matter of "why the hell should you bother with them players" ("and not dream up the world alone, as Tolkien did").

Kudos to Whiteshark for finding them.
Previously I've read only GM manuals from DND, WW, Gurps and the like, and those are useless.

I'd say the thread should be pinned.

[WhiteShark]

I have very frustratingly just lost a post I was writing here by accidentally hitting the back button on my mouse. I will attempt to recreate it. This is a good reminder to always write my drafts in a text editor first.

- I liked GM most for its "faction blueprints as on the go conflict generators". The modular approach clicked well for me.
- AR and GM both for their different, but similar approaches for just enough worldbuilding.

These do seem like the strong point of GM. I have yet to finish my reread, for I ended up detouring through some other material, but the part on society creation looked good.

- SYW I remember best for node-based advice on city crawls, because it coincided with my considerations for a game I'm in the process of making.

This was the most revolutionary part for me, too. I don't know of any other book with clear urban crawl procedures. The closest are the ones found in City State of the Invincible Overlord, which was a direct inspiration for Justin Alexander's urban crawl procedures, but even that had oddities such as an expectation of street by street traversal and no definition for the length of an urban turn.

It's interesting that none of them touches upon the question of "GM fun" in the matter. It's as if it was obvious. It's not that way to me.

I hadn't thought about it before, but I do find it intuitively obvious. For me, it's the realization of the fictional world. I've posted somewhere before that it's the sharing of the world between minds that makes it feel substantial to me. Running a serious game in which everyone becomes invested is satisfying in and of itself. I suspect most GMs feel this way, which is why it goes unmentioned. What I don't enjoy is running a non-serious game even if the players have fun; I can't ignore how fake it feels.

Regarding the other material I mentioned, I blasted through Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master by Michael Shea. I was going to write up my thoughts on it, but then I found I had already saved a screenshot of a review with which I largely agree, so I will post that instead. All I have to add beyond that is:

• The advice assumes a loose railroad. The assumption is that the players will obediently follow whatever hook you throw out and pursue your vaguely prepared adventure for the whole session, every session. The concept of a sandbox or hexcrawl is never mentioned.
• The reviewer thinks the art is good. It is not good. The characters are ugly and often brown.
• I did like Six Truths idea: six brief statements about your campaign world to serve as a very brief primer for your players.
• The bibliography alone is enough to make one lose all faith in the author, beginning as it does with Apocalypse World and Fate: Core System and following with many books on writing and Matt Colville videos.

► Malcolm's Review of Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master

I've also been picking at the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax, searching for system-agnostic ideas and procedures. Gygax advocates, as the BrOSR has noted, for 1:1 timekeeping: outside of play, for each day that passes in the real world, one day passes in the game world. Characters who get ahead in time (by going on long journeys, etc.) become locked when the session ends and must wait for time to catch up before they can be used again. I like the idea. I have yet to try it. There seem to be three main benefits:

• Players are encouraged to maintain multiple characters so that they have something to do when one is locked.
• The pace of the game is grounded, making it feel more real.
• The passage of time between sessions gives space for players to engage in solo or small group activities without the whole party.

When talking about a single player controlling multiple PCs, Gygax makes clear that a PC is an Individual, not an Avatar. He warns that one of the pitfalls of such an arrangement is the temptation to make one's PCs instant friends and allies with no basis. His advice for dealing with players who roleplay improperly is to dole out in-game punishments of one sort or another. It sounds goofy, but who knows. The conventional wisdom is to simply talk to the player, but perhaps there are some people who would respond better to in-game incentives and disincentives.

Gygax is quite inconsistent in some interesting ways. He rejects realism, but his advice on building a milieu would be considered simulationist today. His justification for awarding XP for gold is quite clearly gamist: realistic training wouldn't be fun! He advises fudging rolls that would lead to a character's death in situations where the player 'didn't do anything wrong', but shortly afterward states that rolls for resurrection success should never be fudged.

The worldbuilding advice is distinctly bottom-up. He suggests starting with a town, a nearby dungeon, and a reason for the PCs to all be setting off together to explore it. I think this works because of D&D's implicit setting, but it wouldn't be sufficient in a generic system.

I'm not quite done with it, but, so far, I wouldn't recommend it for general advice. It's mainly interesting to me as a look into Gygax's mind. I was struck, though, by one very interesting concept: he says that the benefits of leveling up (increased HP, etc.) are divine aid. I'd never heard that before. In my own worlds, I had conceptualized the difference in power and potential between PCs and the average person as the PCs' being people born with greater souls. I'm glad to find that Gygax had given the topic some thought.

Once I wrap up the Dungeon Master's Guide, I will probably return to Gamemastering, and then possibly check out Role-Playing Mastery by Gary Gygax.

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[Oyster Sauce]

I have very frustratingly just lost a post I was writing here by accidentally hitting the back button on my mouse. I will attempt to recreate it. This is a good reminder to always write my drafts in a text editor first.

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