How do you give GMing advice to a friend without upsetting them? is an entertaining RPGnet thread about the age-old dilemma of giving criticism to your friends.
There’s some good advice in there, and I’d have linked to it solely on that basis — but the clincher was that the GM in question (who needs the criticism) smokes pot while he GMs.
Eeeenteresting. Is it just me, or is that a spectacularly bad idea?
A friend of ours did so regularly when he GMed; it didn’t seem to have much effect. (Either for good or bad; his campaigns were strange and whimsical most of the time– he was happy to GM and could encourage characterization, but couldn’t plot his way out of a paper sack.)
Smokes pot while GMing, eh? I dunno, could be interesting.
“Ok, so, like, the kobolds all drop their weapons and, like, grow butterfly wings and start singing kumbaya.”
Pass the twinkies, dude.
I’ve found that ingesting chemicals of any sort while GMing is a bad idea. One night I had a little too much to drink while running d6 Star Wars for my regular group plus a few new people, and let’s just say I wound up RPing the reprogramming of a droid to the point where I erased all of its programming (at least in the mind of the droid’s player). Nevertheless, I would strongly advise staying sober while GMing.
I’m very much anti-drug use, so I think it’s a bad idea in general. But to bring it in perspective, even though all my friends and I were social drinkers, we never drank while gaming.
Standard house rule is absolutely no drugs while gaming. Period. Non-negotiable. Many of my players are a generation older than me and have had a few bad experiences with gamers that were high – particularly the ones that started to be unable to differentiate between what was real and what wasn’t.
So, no drugs.
If there are minors in the group, no drinking, either. Again, non-negotiable. (Part of my social contract rules. 😀 )
My current group are all legal adults, but the other house rule is “If you’re going to drink, bring enough to share with everybody.” One of the party has to work after game (he works graveyard), so we don’t do that too often unless we get started early. We always have food when we drink too and make sure there is plenty of water around.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of any substance/condition that limits your ability to make reasonable judgment calls. In addition, GMing in particular seems to me to be one of those activities in which you’d want all of your neurons firing as clearly as possible. You’re juggling a LOT of rules, situations, ideas, etc… I want to be on top of my game in those situations.
Agree with Lilith on this one. No drugs during our sessions. At all. Most of the people I game with don’t need any help becoming more disassociated from reality. 😉
You think smoking at the GM’s table is bad? I know a guy that had to make a video for a Physics class (art integration thing) and was slamming H during the shooting of it. Now THAT was some damn funny acting.
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I understand the hesitance about smoking pot seeing as how it’s illegal and all, but I don’t understand the shyness of alcohol. It’s legal and unless someone gets out of control with it, I don’t see an issue.
Our gaming session are as much about unwinding after a hard week and visiting with friends as they are about gaming. Granted, we get some good gaming in, but we also get some good visiting in as well. Personally, a few brews or a bit of tequila help me relax and actually help me come out of my shell when roleplaying.
So I say more power to ya, if you can be an adult about imbibing a few, go for it.