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GMing Advice from Mike Mearls

Over on the Worldwide Adventure Month blog [1], Jeff Rients [2] has posted three pieces of GMing advice from prolific game designer extraordinaire Mike Mearls [3]: Tips from the Pros, Part 1 [4].

It boils down to “Do rather than thinking, talk about games and don’t worry about failing,” and as with all of Mike’s advice that I’ve ever read, it’s excellent — solid, simple and easy to grok. It also correlates well with leading with the cool stuff [5] and owning a pink shirt [6].

If you enjoy reading Mike’s advice, you might also like his 2006 interview here on TT [7].

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#1 Comment By Telas On June 14, 2007 @ 6:16 am

So, run a game, or play a game (…) and just focus on what was fun about it. At the end of the day, elegant die mechanics, compelling plot lines, and everything else are all crap unless the end result is fun.

Crap. I’ve become an echo… 😐

#2 Comment By tlorin On June 14, 2007 @ 6:35 am

Echoes are good, I’m glad Martin always references the best advice in case people (meaning me!) missed it the first time!

I ran my first new game in many many years when we did Shadowrun this last weekend. I reminded myself before we started ‘lead with the cool stuff.’ I tried to keep it fast paced, downtime for each player to no more than 2-3 minutes or so, and a big emphasis playing up to each characters strengths and using that in creating highly visual scenes.

Even though we don’t know half the rules, spent minimal time on character creation and didn’t use a single figure or battlemat, it was the best (meaning, most fun!) game we had in a long, long time. Everyone spontaneously decided we should probably move from a bi-weekly game to a weekly one, so I guessing that means it went extree-goodt!

Kudos to TT, it’s definitely improved our gaming.

#3 Comment By brcarl On June 14, 2007 @ 8:42 am

I need to start taking a daily “failure is better than mediocrity” pill. I’m an “undiagnosed OCD” guy (as one of my less-organized gamer friends calls me), and I’m trying reeeeeally hard to not over-plan and over-write the campaign we’re starting. The other side of resisting adventure-on-rails syndrome is being brave enough to try the wacky-fun idea that just popped into your head.

I guess fear of rejection plays a part, too. The guys I’m GMing for are mostly made up of folks I walked away from about a year ago, when a new GM stepped up and I decided his style wasn’t for me. He’s gotten better since, and to date he’s my best supporter getting my game off the ground! I need to let go of my guilt and just get on to having fun with these guys. I think they’re into it almost as much as me! 🙂

I just wish us middle-aged day-job married-with-kids guys could find more time to actually PLAY. 🙁

#4 Comment By VV_GM On June 14, 2007 @ 10:03 am

brcarl – The last line of your post rings so true for me too! One of my side projects lately is to find different technologies that make it easier to design adventures and do less prep work. Because even when we do get to play the quality of the session sometimes suffers since we don’t have time to get ready for it. Or perhaps we just want to blame it on not having enough prep work done? (I’m speaking about my group in particular here.)

That is why I like Mike’s approach so much. He cuts through all of the crap and gets back to the point of gaming: have fun. As GMs we have to be willing to say “Nuts!” when things fall apart and just plow through to keep the momentum going.

Stop thinking about the little details and try to throw something out there that will just blow the player’s minds! Game session is so-so? Take a chance and something like having a haunted pirate ship appear and just improvise it!

The worst thing that can happen is the session sucks, but I can’t recall a session where I threw out the manual and just rolled with it where the players and I didn’t have a good time. Maybe not the best game ever, but we still had fun and agreed to get together again for another game. I’ll take that result every time if possible.

#5 Comment By Mark On June 14, 2007 @ 10:11 am

It’s common sense, but good to hear. I’m running my first game in years Saturday.

Go with the flow. Go with the flow…

Damn, playing is so much easier.

#6 Comment By Walt C On June 14, 2007 @ 10:40 am

These comments remind me of the time I walked into a session and said “hey, I don’t have a lot of material here, so if you guys don’t roleplay the heck out your characters it’s going to be a short session!”

The result? The players picked up the slack and my material was able to stretch through two sessions. We all had a blast, as the players “filled in” what was fun for them.

I’ve used it quite a few times since then.