How to Run

By Alexis D. Smolensk

In forty years, the role-playing community has sorely lacked a savvy investigation of the art of DMing, targeted exclusively for the long-standing enthusiast. For the first time, we have a book that presumes the reader knows what a role-playing game is, and how it is played, wasting no time covering old ground. Instead, How to Run exhaustively examines how to present the setting, handle players, draw forth emotion, cope with information overload and make a world from the ground up, step-by-step and point-by-point. Alexis Smolensk hasn’t written a dry, academic treatise of the game, he’s written an empowering field guide for grognards seeking illumination. No serious campaigner should venture forth without this book in their backpack!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312357853

Book preview

How to Run

How to Run

An Advanced Guide

To managing Role-playing Games

by

Alexis D. Smolensk

PEGASUS RIDER PUBLICATIONS

ISBN: 978-1-312-35785-3

First Printing:  2014

Copyright @ Pegasus Rider

Cover Design:  Karen Ann Sim, www.karensim.net

Author’s Blog:  tao-dnd.blogspot.com

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form

How to Run

A Note Regarding the DM

Introduction

Part 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part 2

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part 3

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part 4

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Part 5

Chapter 15

Bibliography

Quotes

Index

A Note Regarding the DM

I confess that I am an anachronism.  The term ‘DM’ was the one used when I first began role-playing in 1979.  I cling to it because I am old, I am sentimental and because within the context of RPGs it is impossible to mistake the acronym for anything else.

Many enthusiasts today prefer the term GM, or Game Master.  I have never been happy with this watered down alternative.  The original title has zeal.  It has mystery.  A GM is a general manager, a modernistic, shareholder-serving drone, a caretaker of someone else’s business, fitting a neat, round, limited hole.

I do not conceive that it is my role to manage generally.  Games must be managed, truly, as the title of this book admits.  In the larger sense, however, games must be mastered.  It is my role to oversee the dungeon of the player’s soul.  For that I must call myself the DM.  It is a title that carries weight.  It is a title that echoes in the catacombs and tombs.  It whispers in the wind.  It thunders from the clouds.

Thus I embrace the title.  I will not surrender it.

Introduction

This is not a book about Dungeons & Dragons, except that D&D happens to be a role-playing game.  Much of my experience has been with D&D – and much of what I write will reflect that experience.  However, the gentle reader should find the content of this book might be applied to any role-playing game, regardless of the genre, time period or system upon which that game is based.

Dungeons & Dragons was the first truly successful RPG, but it is an unfortunately named game.  The creators in the 1970s failed to recognize that the game would evolve until neither the ‘dungeon’ nor the ‘dragon’ remained crucial to play.  Like all games of its type, it is described as a ‘role-play,’ though no requirement in the rules demands that a role be assumed while playing.  It is an odd game.

Well, every activity develops a host of idiosyncrasies that are quarrelled over by the participants.  I have no interest in dissecting these.  I did not write this book to discuss the playing of roles, nor to settle any quarrels about the best sort of game.  I may hint about such things, but as they are not within the mandate of this book, I do not discuss them at length.

Moreover, this book has not been written for new players.  Throughout, I will be speaking about aspects of role-playing without taking the time to define my terms.  Therefore, this book may be somewhat incomprehensible to the uninitiated.  Too bad!  Neophytes may apply themselves to the many books and materials on the market intended to introduce them to role-playing.  This is not one of those books.  This book is not an introduction.  It is an advanced guide.

As such, this book presumes the reader already knows what the dice are for or what a character is.  It presumes a foreknowledge of spells, monsters, experience, upgrading, character stats and so on.  The reader, therefore, shouldn’t expect a long-winded definition of an ‘adventure,’ or any explanation of what is meant by ‘running the game.’  There is no glossary of terms to be found in the back.  No time is taken to explain the origin of game rules or how they have changed over time.  This book should be taken as an in-depth study produced for those who already have experience at playing or running.

Disappointing for some, this book was not written for players.  It is expressly for the DM.  A player will no doubt gain some insight upon reading the pages within, but there is no content here that will tell the player how to be a better role-player or how to succeed at a campaign.  These things are better left for another book.

Role-playing games are difficult to manage.  They are complex.  There are very few materials that are directed purely at improving a DM’s expertise.  This explains why there are so few game-masters . . . and fewer still that run the game well.  Most DMs who are out there playing are wallowing; they are doing the best they can.  They understand the rules, they understand conventionally what they are meant to do – but they haven’t the skills or the training to do the job well.  They have a surfeit of materials on the market to help them with the game’s mechanics – but little that explains the game’s presentation or how the setting is made from scratch.  Every DM today has nothing more to go on than instinct, observation and a few scant paragraphs scattered among thousands of books.  Every DM hopes that trial and error will win out.  Mostly, it doesn’t.

I expect to offer something better.

This is not a rulebook.  This book does not contain rules.  It does not discuss systems for combat, or for spell use, nor does it offer any tables or templates for characters or skill sets.  This book has not been written to settle the matter of railroading versus sandboxes.  I am unquestionably in the camp of the latter, but the DM who makes use of story arcs, narratives and pre-destined gaming will find just as much content here as a DM of my stripe.  At times, I make the argument for yielding to the player’s agency.  The reader should not doubt that this is a prejudice of mine and not a de facto statement of the only way to DM a game.

I have said this already, but I feel it deserves repetition: this book is not geared for fantasy or for the medieval setting.  It does not care what edition of game the reader plays, or if the reader is Old School or New School.  I did not take any time to discuss the importance of house rules, or the matter of ‘roll-playing’ versus diceless games.  That is because this book was written with the philosophy that the mechanics of the game are irrelevant to the game’s quality.

The improvement of the game is not found in the game played.  It is found in the mastery of the game.

Make no mistake.  To improve, the reader will be asked to work.  No change can be obtained without working towards change.  This book will ask its readers to strain their imagination.  I will show how to structurally design a unique and meaningful world from the ground up – not with a set of checklists for what the world ought to contain, but by discussing how entities function and evoke player behaviour.  Directions will be given that will require months of dedicated work in order to present ideas to players, so that the reader can settle on the content of their world and bring it to fruition.  Ideas will need to be defended.  Work will need to be scrapped.  The reader’s mindset, indeed the reader’s whole conception of what goes to make an active game will be challenged.

This book invites the reader to change his or her mind.  It demands a reconsideration of the term ‘running.’  It challenges preconceptions of why players act as they do and what players want.  It offers insights into your own motivations, your limitations and your frustrations as a DM.  And it offers strategies that will enable you to compensate.

For an idea to grow, the hard, packed earth must be furrowed.  The soil must be shaped to allow a seed protection.  Time and care must be given for the seed to germinate.  A DM is not made in a day or with one book.  To DM very well takes a lifetime of experience – yet it must be the right experience.

Rest assured, if the precepts of this book are followed, the reader will become a better DM.  The mere consideration of the elements within will do as much.

My goal is not merely to inform, but to enable.  I wish to ease the irritation DMs have with the rules and the players.  I wish to provide a means by which this game can be run effectively and enjoyably.  I hope this book provides you, the reader, with a deep and profound understanding – and that once you’ve obtained this, others will view you as a significant representative of your craft.

Alexis D. Smolensk,

DM

Part 1

The Art of Presentation

Chapter 1

Early Days

From the very beginning, from the first time that I played Dungeons & Dragons, I wanted to be a Dungeon Master.

It took months to pull together the courage to draw out maps, create a world and to convince my friends to run through my first world.  When it happened, I gave a bad running.  I didn’t know the game rules very well.  When the players asked questions, I did not have the answers.  I was nervous, terribly nervous.  My voice shook and I got flustered.  My plans were vague, I hadn’t prepared enough – heck, I didn’t even know how to prepare.  The night just went on and on while I scrambled for tables, read off the wrong descriptions, misplaced critical notes and … oh, I fumbled everything.

The only experience I had was being a player, and only for a dozen actual runnings.  I’d only played two of the character classes.  The monsters were also unfamiliar, and combat from the DM’s side was a whole new unexpected problem.

I think of all that now and I shudder.

All I had was confidence, which evaporated quickly.  I thought I could run a world.  Sadly, I didn’t know how.  Confidence alone is not enough.  To create a setting, to make the players believe in it and to maintain its blood and thunder for running after running, takes skill.  In the beginning, I didn’t have it.  I didn’t have it five months later, either, when I threw out my first campaign.

I had to learn what a good DM is.  I had to be familiar with the rules, the players and most importantly, with the setting.  I needed to speak with authority, to give the campaign meaning and relevance.  I had to be at ease while delivering the game, benevolent in my judgements and self-assured in making the right ones.  I had to promote respect from others while keeping perspective, for I had to see role-playing from both sides of the table.  I had to have a complete comprehension about why players play – what they wanted and why they came.

Unfortunately, these are things that were not taught to me.  They were gained over time, from experience, from mistakes made and from recognizing those mistakes.  Too often, however, my experience served to calcify my bad habits rather than teaching me good ones.  Yet bad habits can be dropped and good habits acquired.  Change is most valuable, for it promises improvement.  I may not have known how to control the table at one time, but I learned.  All I needed was time.

I have something to say for courage, also.  Without courage, I would not be able to face the players, even today.  I need courage to go on designing and shaping my setting.  Courage helps me get past those moments when I’ve erred, or when I know I need to admit to the players that I’ve failed them.  To me, ‘saving face’ has always seemed like an excuse not to step up and take responsibility – on the chin, if need be.  If an adventure or a campaign goes down the wrong road, it takes courage for me to change it and restore the good game.  I feel it is better, and honest, to accept one’s faults and then make them right.  Sticking to my pride would only ensure that I forever ran a bad game.  I won’t accept that.

The goal of this book is not to encourage the reader’s pride or pump up the reader’s confidence.  On the contrary, I presume you’re reading about how to manage role-playing games because you want to be better at it.  To become better, we must first admit that once upon a time, we were terrible.  That is what I am doing now.

Once, I was a terrible DM.

I cannot repeat this too often: evolution is a slow process – and often a difficult one.  Familiarity takes research and work.  Authority comes with maturity and respect for others.  Assurance and courage come from doing, from running many games with many different players.  Having perspective means listening to others and believing what they have to say, even when it’s impossible to agree.

I sincerely hope the reader will always find ways to improve and grow, until mastering a role-playing game becomes second nature – like breathing and eating.  Eventually, I was able to comfortably administer a game without feeling pressured or scattered, or left in doubt afterwards about how well I did.  This took me a few years; but no matter how I felt, I never stopped learning.  I never stopped searching for ways to make my game better.  And I never stop changing.

After my first failure, I thought furiously about my mistakes.  I launched myself at the rulebooks and began reading them with what could be called ‘religious zeal.’  I copied out parts of the books, writing and rewriting the tables, shifting them around, expanding them, contracting them, exploring what worked.  I memorized what rules appeared on what pages to make finding a rule easier during the game.  I made up cheat sheets, which I indexed.  I drew up maps, floor plans, castles, city streets, monster lairs and siege engines.  I filled a lot of paper with lines, numbers and ideas.

There had always been after-game spit-balling among the players about rules or elements of the game.  I began to start up those talks, wanting to discuss everything.  I looked to others for advice and ideas.  I asked carefully worded questions about why a given rule had to exist or how it improved the game.  I challenged other players to look at the game differently.  It wasn’t enough that I knew the rules.  I wanted to understand how they fit together.  I wanted to be sure that every rule belonged.  To be honest, I didn’t trust that they did.  There were many, many rules; I was looking for ways to trim them down or fill in gaps.

I took up another practice – which, admittedly, some might feel ashamed to admit.  I began what’s unfortunately called ‘self-play.’  I created characters by myself that I ran alone in dungeons, just to see what happened.  I created hundreds of combatants for big fights where I played both sides, using board game pieces, buttons and – eventually – a host of brand new miniatures that I purchased at great cost.  I explored strategies and used the RPG combat tables over and over, growing intimately familiar with weapon damage, ‘to hit’ numbers, spells, magic items and so on.  I even invented random generators to produce unexpected encounter and combat combinations.

The practice vastly improved my experience with combat.  Whereas playing sessions with my friends might have given me as many as 200 hours of experience in a year, by waging battles on my bedroom desktop, I could triple that.  I could experiment with different combatants, terrain effects, monster-to-character ratios, total party kills and so on … and I could do it every day.  With practice, my memory improved, which contributed greatly to my running games efficiently and accurately.

I also worked hard on improving my maps, with greater detail and a crafted appearance that would engage my players.  I designed maps that were sensible, easy to understand though rich with minutia, so that my party would grasp at once how different regions fit together and how they influenced one another.  I made maps with more than geography in mind, but with politics and culture as well.  I coloured them and drew them large so as to impress.

I coloured my dungeon maps, too.  I was proud to lay out the sheets for each running, and enjoyed hearing my players praise my work.  I loved when they would talk enthusiastically about places they wanted to go, or things they wanted to do, and from that, I recognized how important it was for the players to be knocked out by my work.  It produced respect and contributed to my authority.  That was why, in those far off days before computers, I learned to paint, and spent months detailing tiny swords and tiny faces.

I invested myself completely in every part of the game.

Today, I have been playing for nearly 35 years.  During that time, I have worked on my world, changing it, redesigning various elements, reformatting the rules and rethinking the game.  I am always rethinking.  I have run hundreds of people through my world since the summer of 1980 ... some players for a single night and others for ten years.  I have run week in and week out.  I have had brilliant players, frustrated players, quiet players and players so anxious they could not sit in their seats.  My players have been interactive, shy, talented, fretful, furious, sullen, gregarious, distrustful and drunk.  I have DM’d games where the players smoked pot, where they have cooked fondue, where they’ve performed yoga and where they’ve slipped out for ten minutes (without my knowing) to have quick sex in the bathroom during a game break.  I have had players start romantic relationships at my table and end them violently in the same place.  I have booted players from my game on a moment’s notice, forgiven players, infuriated players and enlightened players.  I have boosted players from another table at a gaming club.  I have lost players to drugs, prison and born-again Christianity.  In all, I estimate I’ve spent something like 11,000 hours and more at the gaming table, most of that DMing.

I have always been doubtful of my ability, which might come from those first difficult years and a sense that there is always something that can be improved.  I am often told by others that I am a good DM.  I am reassured in that players of mine return to session after session, which encourages me to give them a good ‘show.’  It’s easy, however, to get too caught up in what I might want, or what I would like to see.  However, as all the power is in my hands, I am the last person that should be served by it.  That power is meant to be at the disposal of the player, to give them a good night, to allow them to feel satisfied in exploring the setting and enriching themselves.  I gain nothing if I am the only person the game serves or if the measure of the game is in what pleases me.  That would be dishonourable.  I believe running a game well is a duty, and it is from the performance of that duty that I take my satisfaction.  It is pleasant to be complimented – but better still to see the players leaving the game unable to stop talking about it.

Some will say that thinking positively will improve one’s running.  Certainly, negative thinking will destroy a game effectively.  Relying on good feelings and good intentions, however, can be as much a trap as a philosophy.  I prefer to rely upon my experience, and upon my good sense.  I have run many a good game though I began the night from a place that was emotionally low.  Knowing what to say – and the right time to say it – helped me through those sessions more than plastering on a happy face.  It isn’t my mood that runs a game; it is my attention, my effort and my ability … all three of which derive from training myself through hundreds of sessions.  I started with one, then did another, and then another … and however many bad sessions I had, however many mistakes I made, with persistence I learned how to do what I wanted.  I learned how to be a DM.

In those early days, it was easy to be discouraged by one bad running.  There was no mystery about why they were bad, as they either plodded dismally to a sad conclusion or broke up in bitter dispute.  I could point to this running or that and say, "Oh yeah, that one was hideous.  I am an absolutely useless DM."  I could sit and pick apart what had gone wrong, or what had been a bad ruling, for hours.

Yet, while we can identify a bad session, we really have no idea what makes a ‘good’ running.  I remember that after a lively running I couldn’t define what made it good.  I began to think it was because I was in the right mood, that I’d happened to be ‘on’ that night, or that the players were just more interested in the game than usual.  I grew to think that a good running happened by chance, and that I had no control over it.

When I heard stories about other games, with screaming matches and players ganging up on each other all the time, I really began to believe in luck.  I sure was lucky to have good players.  My players weren’t petty; they weren’t greedy or selfish.  They didn’t attack each other’s characters all the time.  Somehow, I had just found players that wanted to play with each other instead of against each other.  I hoped I was as good a DM as they were players.  That was the only ‘plan’ I had for my improvement – to appreciate them.

After two years, the number of my good sessions definitely increased.  My technique had improved, but I didn’t know that.  As far as I knew, I was the same clumsy and scattered DM I’d always been.  I couldn’t explain what was changing.  I didn’t know how to self-examine things like style or performance.  At 17, I lacked everything – experience, advanced schooling, knowledge of the workplace, a sense of accomplishment, time that I would later spend in theatre and the arts and so on.  I had read a lot; I was observant.  I did not have the maturity to understand how participation and practicality fitted with human behaviour and mutual understanding.  I did not know how to improve my game because I had only just begun on the journey to improve myself, as anyone does at 17.

I did have a ‘natural quality’ that urged me towards role-playing, or being a DM, along with a dedication to work at the particulars of adventure and campaigning.  The real improvements I made, however, were made just by playing.  I managed to somehow repeat good habits and dispense with bad ones.  I have never had an aversion to things that get results.  When I like something, I like to do it and do it – I rarely feel the need to toss something aside for the sake of doing something new.  I’m sure that had much to do with my doggedness.

Playing so much, as I did in those days, with many players in many circumstances, at conventions and in ‘tournaments,’ with strangers at gaming clubs – and then later, at university – I could not help but acquire awareness of certain patterns of player behaviour.  I ran thousands of combat rounds.  I ruled or rolled as characters died.  I watched party after party argue and deliberate over the division of wealth.  I had players try every kind of tactic to get around non-player characters or solve problems.  I watched – mute – as parties broke down into overthinking or squabbling.  I listened to players debate intentions, plans, ideas and so on.  I sat and waited while parties bickered, for many sessions, over many years.

I have learned that the strongest determiner of a DM’s ability is experience.  It does not say that experience always makes a great DM – later on in this book I discuss why that might not be so – but learning takes time.  And time rewards those who want to learn.  It is true that time can tear people down, and that it can embitter and cement prejudices … but time can eradicate prejudices too.

It is up to us.

Chapter 1: Keys to Success

     Experience is power.  Play as often as you can, alone if you have no other options, and try every character, even those you don’t like.  Someday you’ll have one of those hated character types in your world, with a player that loves it.

     The rules are tools.  Learn them.  Keep at it until you know them backwards.  Remember that the fewer role-playing game systems you play in, the less rules there are to remember and the less diluted your gaming experience will be.

     Build, design, experiment.  Practice drawing floor plans, castles, starships, city maps, scattered huts in wilderness valleys, traps, puzzles, ruins, desolated blasted regions, anything!  Get to know your mapping tools and practice with them.  Make things you’ve never made before.

     Educate yourself.  Beyond school, there are books on geography, history, religion, psychology, art, publishing, communications, all the sciences, agriculture, engineering and more.  Read literature, investigate theatre, see films, explore the internet.  The more you know, the better fit you will be to astound your players.

     You’re not at fault if you’re young and you haven’t lived.  This is your chance to start young.  Many of the readers of this book will already be in their thirties and forties; you may not be as experienced as they are, but they haven’t got the time to grow that you have.

Chapter 2

The Carrot and the Donkey

Sit down.  Now I don’t want any noise tonight.  I don’t want any lawyering or IRL drama of any kind.  I want peace and calm and order.  If there is any nonsense of any sort, I will be merciless.  Merciless!  Is that clearly understood?

If the game were focused upon me and my needs, that’s how I might address the players – as minions or disciples who have come to worship that which is the glory of my world.  I can’t imagine having this attitude – but now and then I could have pointed to DMs like this.

I do not ‘play’ the game.  I offer the game.  The onus of service is upon me, not the players.  They are the participants.  They are both the actors fretting their hours upon the stage and the audience in the theatre that sits in judgment of my contribution.  This chapter means to examine the appreciation of players, with strategies on how to win it.

Players, of course, must be managed and entertained, but this is left for later.  Here, we will concentrate upon the game’s presentation.  If I am to have players, I must motivate them, provoking their attention and creating the shared experience that is game play.

At the start of the session, the players enter the ‘theatre,’ that being my living room.  They come in a few at a time and this is a ‘settling in’ process.  In many ways it is an influential time for a DM.  I must be cheerful and welcoming.  I should apply myself to the players’ needs and resolve any issues they may have brought in with them from outside.  If they need to tell a story about something that has happened, I must listen.  However, I should not listen like a friend, but like a priest.  I want to offer support and comfort, but I do not at this time want to take advantage by speaking of my own troubles, or giving my opinions extensively upon the player’s woes.  My goal is to take the player from the outside world into the world of the game – and this is not done by unnecessarily expanding upon what the player has to say.  Players need to unburden before a game, in order to free their minds.  I am here to enable this unburdening; not to solve a player’s troubles.

Anyone who needs to eat should – the food and drink that I have is free for all.  I do not want players who have grumbling stomachs because they did not have time to stop between whatever they have just been doing and getting to my world.  As the players spread out into the space, I want them feeling comfortable, free, in control and at home.  They shouldn’t feel inhibited in any way.  They are shifting from reality to fantasy.  This is a process of melding, through which they reconnect with one another, and with me, after the period of separation between games.

I will want to get started, but I don’t rush.  I prefer that players arrive about an hour before I plan to begin the game.  This recognizes the human animal need to ‘check in’ mentally and biologically.  Dialogue produces trust between the players, for they are not just participants in the game, they are friends also.  Free, non-game time encourages empathy, a sharing of resources, a chance to tell jokes and receive approval from their peers, and to sort out any lingering emotional rents that may have occurred with the previous running, that have lingered in the past week or two.  This also helps the party to cool down if they have been hurrying through traffic or if they have had a work shift that day.

A pattern will emerge that will tell me the players are ready to play.  I have spent this time answering questions and cooling down a bit myself.  I’ve been working, readying the game.  I take my place and sit among my books, ready to start.  One by one the players will find their chairs and open their own books or laptops.  I observe them.  I don’t need to give any warning.  As the hour approaches, I only need to stop talking.  I will shift my books, examining them.  I will deliberately set out my dice.  I will make some notes.  At the moment I want the game to begin, the players will be ready.  They will have talked themselves out.  They will want to play.

I lower my voice just to bit to convey my seriousness, and begin describing whatever it was the party did last.

The importance of this moment is often overlooked.  It lacks the prestige of the lights dimming in a theatre, or the curtain rising, but this is effectively what happens.  Changing the tone of my voice – slightly, so as not to be comic – formalizes the beginning of the session.  The players want this.  I awaken their anticipation, just as the start of a performance does with an audience.

I do not produce the emotional level of the session alone.  The players make a considerable contribution.  Before arriving to play, they have been goading themselves into the right mindset.  They have long term plans to consider and unresolved plot threads that tease their imaginations.  The timing of the last session’s end may have left a more immediate uncertainty.  Their character may be one moment from death.  All of this goes towards establishing a base tension upon which I build.  The player understands this.  That is why they will appear, ready to play, even if their character lays unconscious and we might expect that to continue for half the night.  The tension for the player has been rumbling since the last session, and now they yearn for resolution.

This motivates everything about the game.  Their uncertainty drives them to my game table.  Part of what I do is to encourage the players to chat among themselves, making predications and plans.  This, in fact, causes the party to jointly help in ‘running’ my session.  I do not want to step on their toes, or be too forthcoming with giving information not yet earned.  The less the party knows, the greater their curiosity.

Curiosity is the great enabler.  It encourages players to take risks.  It justifies opening doors – or kettles of fish – that might be wisely left alone.  Nevertheless, the party seeks wealth.  The party seeks safety or security.  The party seeks enlightenment.  The party is willing to risk that there might be death behind the door.  Their curiosity wills it.

That is why, in presenting the game, I must be in my players’ heads.  I must be able to ‘read’ where their curiosity lies.  I must hear it in the