I’ve got some sympathy for Fighter on this one. That’s because I’m one of those “learn as you go” type players. Sure I can read the manual and try to make informed decisions. But for me the best way to learn is to do.
Take Pathfinder for example. That was by no means a love at for sight system for me. Back when I was a young player, it took a year’s worth of sessions for things to click. And until they did I was perfectly happy rolling dice as instructed. I’d take my GM’s build suggestions, and simply enjoy the RP without sweating the mechanics.
Somewhere along the line, however, things began to change. Through long exposure to the system, I began to pick up the game’s lingo. It was like that scene in The 13th Warrior where Antonio Banderas suddenly understands Norwegian. All those esoteric rules and corner cases began to make sense. I didn’t understand every nuance, but I’d become fluent enough to express my ideas through game mechanics. Distinct “builds” started to coalesce. And suddenly I found that I cared what feats and spells I took.
Once I’d gained a little of that hard-won system mastery, I began to wonder what else was under the hood. I started to read articles and hang out in forms. Chris Perkins’s The Dungeon Master Experience was a major influence. So were some of Monte Cook’s old blog posts. I even dared to crack the pages of the DMG. By the time I felt ready to run my own game, I still hadn’t read the rules books cover to cover. I still haven’t, come to think of it. But I think that’s the point. Like any novice magic-user, a GM knows just enough to be dangerous. The rest of the learning process is nothing but arcane explosions and chaos bolts.
What about the rest of you GMs out there? How did you come to sit behind the screen? Did you start as a player, or were you self-taught through reading the manual? What’s the best way to inspire your players to try a turn behind the screen themselves? Sound off with your own GM origin stories down in the comments!
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The downside of the “learn as you go” approach is that misconceptions tend to stick until someone actually gets around to reading the book. When I started playing TTRPGs with my older brother, playing D&D 3.5, two nat 20 back to back on an attack meant instant kill, regardless of the target (yes, a commoner could one shot a god with that rule). We thought that was a real rule because he had learned with someone who thought that it was, who had learned with someone who thought it was,…
At some point, someone, somewhere decided to use that house rule, and everybody who learned with that person thought that was an actual rule and passed it on to the people they taught to themselves.
Anyway, back to the questions of the day : I started DM’ing because at some point I just wanted to try it, honestly. I did start as a player when we were still playing 3.5, but when we made the leap to 5e I was the one who was DM’ing initially. So yeah, I had to do some reading. Which, to 5e’s credit, isn’t as daunting a task as for other editions. As to how to inspire players to switch seats… eh. In my experience those who’d enjoy DMing tend to realize it themselves when playing. If they start dropping hints then you might give them a little push, but otherwise just leave things be, unless you’re feeling burnt out and you need someone to pick up the torch if you want your group to keep playing.
That is a very real downside. The learn-as-you-go approach requires a lot of trust in your teacher. I had that with my Pathfinder experience. A little less so with other systems, but by then I’d already been bit by the read-a-book bug.
Started as a player in mid 00’s I think 3,5 had just come out,my brothers friend was GMing, played Barbarian.
Scroll into 2010’s and I gm’d my first game in a online forum, Starship Troopers d20 rules, would you like to know more? Chose that because while it is more inspkred by the Roughnecks show, I love the setting, service quarantees citizenship. But as I have said I like giving new systems a try and play something else than just DnD or Pathfinder, and in order to teach those to new people I have to know the game so I play by myself a bit to get rules into muscle memory. it is fun to see some ones face go “I only need two d10’s at most in the game?” when you explain the rules. How to get some one else into GMing, no clue, zero success at that front. I have either beennin groups where we have couple already willing guys or people who absolutely refuse to do so. Planning on some shock therapy for converting soon.
I’ve taken to skimming the rules and watching YouTube explainer videos, *then* going back to the back for particulars. It’s still rough for me to grasp the shape of gameplay from words on the page.
I need to get my hands on, listening and reading only get me so far. I can memorice a piece if text but unless I know how to aply it it’s just white noise.
As a voracious reader, reading the manuals for AD&D as they came out was a no brainer for me. I got my grounding with the amazing group of players that I started with, and started my world fairly quickly after starting. I didn’t actually DM in my world for a few years though, just mainly running modules for the other DMs who wanted a break. So it was both?
I, like the rest of the players in that first group, were all adults back in 1978 (I was 22), and we all lived on base, so there wasn’t a problem with being available to play. So that was probably very different than a lot of players at the time.
I imagine that, before the content-glut that is the internet, it was easier to immerse yourself in the printed publications. I wonder if that’s something of a lost skill now?
I think it really depends on your age. I firmly prefer having the book in my hand to read, than to scroll through pages (as proof I’ll point to my over full 12 full sized bookcases, five in my bedroom). Also it’s so much easier for me to just to flip to the page I need, than to scroll through sometimes hundreds of pages (for those older tomes without search functions). I can see where it would be easier for someone who grew up with the internet as a constant in their lives to go the digital route.
I started learning d&d with a couple of modules I bought at a yard sale. White Plume Mountain and one of the desert adventures. No PHB or DMG, just reading flavor text and extrapolating what the different stats likely meant and if more dangerous flavor text mapped to high or low values. (…so…AC10 is weak and…AC -1 is really….good?)
When a friend got the red box, those notations made so much more sense. And sometimes less, where flavor text had led me astray. The others thought it was too wordy and went back to playing the Atari, while I’d read the rules, waiting for my turn.
Love the image of you guys blasting Atari in some basement, Red Box cracked open on the side. Fully classic.
When D&D 3.0 came out, my friends and I were all still pretty new to roleplaying, so my one friend at the time who was most into fantasy bought the core book and taught us all how to play. Note I didn’t say he read it and taught us how to play, because that would not be an accurate description of what happened. Only later, when I actually read the book, did I realize all of the things we were doing wrong; our DM had basically just skimmed the rules and judged the rest based on feelings. But you know what? It wasn’t like the gameplay suffered for us not playing the game exactly by the rules either.
Nowadays, I am very often GM-in-chief (I actually kind of switch the hat out with another friend of mine; we take turns being burned out for years at a time), and I always sit down and read a book cover to cover before play. I usually read important chapters like combat two or three times because everything makes more sense the second time through; after you’ve been explosed to stuff from other chapters too it all starts fitting together like a puzzle.
As for encouraging others to GM, I feel like that happens naturally over time. People get caught up in the gaming and look for a way to get more involved, or natural storytellers start wanting to control their own narrative. I’ve already had one of the players of my current game ask to run his own one shot later on, and another is now waiting his turn for this game to end so he can make us play Battletech.
The old lead ’em to water approach? Hey, it worked on me! I have drunk deep of the horse trough of gaming, lol.
…I started as a GM. For probably one of the worst systems I’ve ever played. (Note to designers, please do not try to simulate video game mechanics in tabletop without LOTS of play testing.)
Which probably explains why my style is very focused on RP.
Oh come on. Dish! What was the system?
The game was called Pokémon Tabletop United. It did its darn best to replicate the Pokémon battle system in tabletop. This effectively meant that I could not run encounters without having a calculator on standby. (Okay, do I handle defense? How does the type bonus play into it? Which attack and defense stat do I use? WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS?) Even for low level stuff. Absolutely not, that gave me a headache.
I started as a DM in Pathfinder 1st edition.
…After that, everything else is easy mode.
My first foray into the game involved reading the Core Rulebook cover to cover three times, and running a few test games for myself to get some experience. It still didn’t go great. I got the skill eventually.
I like the word “skill” here. The rules help, but this mess is more art than science.
Started out as a nerdy kid who read every 1e AD&D book cover to cover and memorized the dungeoneering and environmental hazard sections by rote. 2e made me grumble, 3.5 took years for me to love as my favorite, and I have a passing acceptance of large portions of 5e. (We don’t talk about 4e.)
Whenever I start any new game (edition, MMO, game system…), though, I start as a player. I make a vanilla-brand fighter. Stick jockey. Hit it till it stops twitching. Lather, rinse, repeat. At least until I learn the system.
My pet peeve has always been folks who dump a new game in my lap with an eager expression, like my labradoodle with a half-chewed tennis ball, and expect me to DM a session in that system on-the-spot or with only a few days’ notice.
I’m flattered. Really. I may be good, but I’m not *that* good. Gimme a couple months to look over it in my spare time and bitch about game balance, poor editing, sloppy writing, and action economy– then *maybe* I can run an entertaining mission with your Radioactive Hamsters from a Planet Near Mars. I still feel bad for my friend who never got the 3.5 Eberron campaign he’d hoped I’d run for him.
Had a dude with “a talent for running games cold” at a recent convention. He completely ruined “Girl By Moonlight” for a table of gamers.
I’d sat down to learn since I was gearing up for a campaign myself. In any case, it felt weird to pipe up with, “Wait a minute, that’s not the rules!” when I hadn’t played either. Still, that was the only way we made even marginal progress.
“Back when I was a young player, it took a year’s worth of sessions for things to click. And until they did I was perfectly happy rolling dice as instructed. I’d take my GM’s build suggestions, and simply enjoy the RP without sweating the mechanics.”
I don’t emotionally understand that. (Yeah, sure intellectually I do, I’ve known players like this.)
I’m a system reader, if I enjoy something like a game, I want to understand it so I can play better, make informed choices. etc. I really can’t grok people who make decisions willingly absent as much information as the can get.
“How did you come to sit behind the screen?”
Natural evolution from Player to GM. I suspect most Players get the itch to try GMing, but many do not get the same (or greater) satisfaction out of running games as they get playing them.
“Did you start as a player, or were you self-taught through reading the manual?”
Both. I started playing BECM D&D, I read the books, and then after a few years tried running. It was a disaster, but didn’t deter me. In HS a couple of friends had bought GURPS 3e, they wanted to play it, but had never run a game, or even being playing D&D for very long… so they showed me the book and asked if I’d run it. I’ve been a GURPS fanatic ever since.
“What’s the best way to inspire your players to try a turn behind the screen themselves?”
Run as great a game as you can. Make it look effortless (or super exhaustive, whichever your way of prepping works). Make the rules available to the Players. Encourage any who say anything even remotely like “I might like to run a story…”
I had faith in the game. I figured I’d have powers and abilities no matter what was put in front of me. It was more interesting to RP a character than worry about calculating epic-level stats. Especially as a new player.
Honestly, I first started GMing (well, STing – I started with WoD) because I’d been having a less-than-fun time as a player thus far. This was largely to do with problem players and GMs of a couple of different systems who were either railroady or flakes. My now-ex, for example, used to promise to run a one-shot for my birthday every year, so I could be just a player for once, and every year he’d flake out either the day before or on the day, so I’d have to pull a session out of absolutely nowhere on less than 24 hours notice. I’ve just had a lot of bad luck with groups, and that made me lose trust in most GMs, and after awhile, I decided I was going to be the GM (or DM, since I was getting into 5e at the time) that I needed when I was a player. Watched a few liveplays, read through the books, gathered my party and ventured forth, and now I am Forever DM by choice.
As to tempting someone behind the DM screen, evileyecore has the right of it – run a great game. A few members of my group have got very much into DMing for others since we started the campaign. One of them runs for her kids now and it’s adorable. At least one of them wants me to write a world guide for my homebrew world so he can run a campaign in it, but he’s happy enough with his group starting an industrial revolution in Barovia for now.
I started out as a GM in an afterschool thingie-place with some of the other kids. At first using the Fighting Fantasy “make your own adventures” book of all things (not actually a good system, but still good times). That gradually moved to first to a simple system in a danish introductory book for roleplaying (which I think was actually perfectly serviceable), and then to dnd 3.5 (also a good time).
After that I joined the local roleplaying group and got to try being a player and in a much wider set of systems too, with some GMing too from time to time
Started as a player. Played in a game for a semester. DM went on a co-op. I wanted to keep playing. Convinced my parents to get the core 3 D&D books (v3.5) for my birthday. Convinced some friends to play with me. Stole from every fantasy media I had ever consumed. The first campaign was awful. Over time I got less bad. (I am a firm believer that everyone’s first campaign is bad.)
There are other systems I would love to try. But I really want to play them first before I run them.
I definitely played a few times before I ran anything. But back in High School we had an informal club that was just basically our friend group and the arrangement was basically just we passed around who ran games.
I think the first thing I ever ran was Teenagers from Outer Space since we had an ongoing round robin GMing game of that.
Then there was a smaller group of us that did our own homebrew systems we’d create and run.
After that I don’t think I GMed again until I was doing play by post games. Though not until I’d played in several and gotten used to the space and rules of games. Or once again got back into making my own things.
Last game I ran was a Blades in the Dark game last year .
(Well actually I got kinda burned out on that one after taking a few too many turns at GM in a row and after a bit I ran another system of my own creation, but the players REALLY didn’t want to cooperate with the vibes I was trying to go for with it, so it went pretty poorly. So that only lasted one session.)
I enjoy reading, and while I can’t say I’ve fully read any editions books cover to cover, I’ve usually read the majority. I got into D&D as a kid because my older brother and his friends were patient enough to include me in it. I didn’t start seriously DMing until college though, first running sessions of Living Greyhawk and then my own campaigns. I slowly transitioned into the forever DM among my friends as few were interested in running themselves, and I generally enjoy running. Putting the time into decent prep work has always been my Achilles Heel. Currently getting a chance to play (PF2e) for the first time in 5+ years, will probably be stuffed back into the DM chair as soon as the campaign is over though ; )
They chained me to this chair. Need help..or food at least, next game session is only thursday… 😉
Ok, seriously: started as a player, started GMing because our usual GM was a bit exhausted and then it was learning by doing.
Did someone teach me how to GM?
I dont think so, but I had a very good and friendly group back then (as it should be – we´re all still friends after all these years) and it was all about the fun. You might say we all taught each other what a good gaming group is.
Today I run a PF1 game for another group, and as I agreed to run The Curse of the Crimson Throne and we are very RP heavy…I think I will be the GM for some years now *g*
We are in C2 still after about 1,5 years so…yeah