The 10 Commandments of GMing

[Rapier]

Humorous or serious, whichever you feel.

If you were going to quantify the 10 Commandments of GMing what would they be?

Just a couple to get ya started:

Humorous:
1. Thou shalt hide a troll in every closet.
2. Thou shalt not allow players to Mind Control Dr Destroyer into wearing frilly undergarments.


Serious:
1. Thou shalt never set the players an impossible task.
2. Thou shalt allow the dice to speak, except when it hoses your game.

[Vondy]

Serious: heap loads of trouble on the protagonists, and just when it seems it can't get any worse, heap on some more.

[TheEmerged]

Serious

4: Remember that gaming is a hobby and is supposed to be fun. If the participants aren't having fun, you're doing something wrong.

[Zeropoint]

"An it be fun, game as thou wilt." -- Uncle Figgy

[JMcL63]

Well, here are a few I could summon up:

Humerous

1. Never roll a dice when you can make up the result you want.
2. Always remember that you are infallible, and a perfect communicator, so if the players can't pick up your subtle clues and follow your plot, they are idiots.
3. Don't forget always to have a few walk-on NPC's handy so that you can steal players' roleplaying scenes with your superior characterisation.

Serious

1. When the s**t hits the fan, and everyone gets ready to rumble, don't fix the dice.

[tmutant]

Humorous:
Always stock the drinks and snackage. Feed the masses of gamers.

Serious:
Remember it's just a game. No hard feelings, bitterness, etc.

[Theron]

When in doubt, complicate matters.

If the story starts to bog down, have a couple of guys show up and start shooting (hey, it worked for Raymond Chandler).

[rbezold]

Humorous:
Always stock the drinks and snackage. Feed the masses of gamers

No! No! No! Serious! When you screw up, you may NEED bribes!

[Vondy]

If the plot is bogginfg down, fling more corpses at the heroes (a paraphrase of a raymond chandler quote).

[Rhys]

Humorous:
Always stock the drinks and snackage. Feed the masses of gamers.

Our rule was always: Bring food and drink, keep the GM happy.

[zornwil]

Serious: Listen to your players. Doesn't mean do what they say, necessarily, but listen. If nothing else you'll often get better ideas than you had from them when they speculate about the underlying plot you had planned.

[Eodin]

Humerous:
1. Subplots aplenty! Make sure that there are at least 5-10 subplots all going on at the same time. Then they can't complain about nothing to do
2. Villains are immortal. No matter what the dice say, a villain never stays dead, and always comes back to threaten the PCs.

Serious:
1. Intertwine plots. It can be interesting to discover that the three villain groups you've been thwarting for years have decided to band together in a scheme...
2. Reward good role-playing! If the character makes a well-spoken empassioned plea, and then rolls a 15 instead of a 13, let him have at least partial success if the roleplaying and characterization were really good.

[Rhys]

2. Reward good role-playing! If the character makes a well-spoken empassioned plea, and then rolls a 15 instead of a 13, let him have at least partial success if the roleplaying and characterization were really good.

But what if his character doesn't have either Persuasion or Conversation? You can hardly let him get away with it then, can you?

Seriously, if a player makes really good, impassioned plea or really gets into bargaining with a shopkeeper, I usually go with the flow and frequently don't roll at all. One of the reasons I like the Amber system.

[zornwil]

Humerous:
1. Subplots aplenty! Make sure that there are at least 5-10 subplots all going on at the same time. Then they can't complain about nothing to do
(snip)

Stop making fun of my games!

[Rapier]

But what if his character doesn't have either Persuasion or Conversation? You can hardly let him get away with it then, can you?

Seriously, if a player makes really good, impassioned plea or really gets into bargaining with a shopkeeper, I usually go with the flow and frequently don't roll at all. One of the reasons I like the Amber system.

I was a player in a Shadowrun game my Freshman year. I was playing a hermetic mage. In a conversation with a dragon about who stole his dagger (no, thats nothing behind my back, mr dragon sir) I had to make a bullshit roll (I dont remember if that was the actual skill name but it sums up the skill pretty well) as well as some REALLY fast talking on my part. In SR target numbers have no upper limit. If you roll a 6 you get to reroll the die and add it to the first value (eg if you roll a 6 you roll again. if the second roll is a 5 you get an 11).

They always joked about me being the "Diceman" because I was unstoppable at rolling well (it's been years since I thought about being called the Diceman. I switched over to GMing and now they aren't so excited when I roll REALLY well ). I rolled something like 6 or 8 dice, and had a target value of 13 or 14 or something obscene (I didnt have bullshit skill so I was using my INT at a +2 or +4 penality, or whatever it is). I had one (maybe 2) score(s) in the 30s, 2 or 3 in the 20s and a couple in the teens and a couple in the single digit range. I had four or five SOLID successes. There was this loud THUD as about 10 jaws hit the table simultaneously.

After that adventure, the GM gave me a 9 in Bullshit (which means I got to roll 9 dice to test for successes, REALLY good in a skill was 7). Sometimes you gotta reward the dice AND the player.