Game Masters of the Past and Present.
I haven't gone through as many Game Masters (GM) as you might think in the last 15 years due to the fact that I run the game most of the time. I am a VERY experienced GM and after 15 years, I have had a lot playing experience as well. Here is a list of some memorable GMs that I've had in the past.
First on my list would have to be James. Both one of the best and one of the worst GMs of all times. I have dozens of stories about how bad his games were. He did everything from player favoritism, to superpowerful NPCs, to blantant cheating, to favoring NPCs over the Pcs, to a host of other things that GMs are not supposed to do. However, in doing so he showed me what I should avoid, thus training me to be a better GM.
He is also my first GM. We were all young and we made all the mistakes that young newbies make when playing. He was willing to learn though, and in the end James became a very good GM. He is one of the few GMs that I'd still like to play with. Unfortunately, we have lost touch over the years and I have no real idea of where I could find him.
"O.k., what's he do?"
"Oh, he attacks you. Heh heh heh..."
Next up would be Alex. I never got to play more than one session of any given game system with Alex as he was always trying out new games. Alex was good at setting up a mood and at teaching new game systems to people. I would have loved to have played more with Alex but that never happened.
"All right guys, we're gonna play a game called..."
My dear friend Dawn would have to be next. Dawn is in the unique position of having plenty of time to write, research, create, and run adventures and campaigns in a world of her choosing even though she is married with two kids and is eight months pregnant. She is hampered a bit by a lack of confidence in herself as a GM and has no motivation. The other downside is that she lives twenty miles away and it's hard to visit with her on a regular basis.
Dawn is my best hope for a fresh new GM. I have a lot of faith in her abilities and am confident that she will make a great GM someday.
"O.k. Calamar, what's the negative for a called shot to the nads?"
"Woofman's got nads?"
Eric is the only GM ever to challenge me in such a way that I couldn't think of anything to do. No one else has ever made me do more than hesitate slightly, no matter how hard they thought the adventure would be. My character may die or get seriously messed up, but I always had a plan. I always knew what to do. Until I played Shadowrun with Eric. In his games I am rudderless, just going along with things and hoping that I could figure out something to do.
His fantasy game is a bit easier. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it's what I'm most comfortable with. Part of the problem that other GMs have with me is that they run fantasy games. Maybe they should a different genre...
"What do you do now?"
"I don't know. I guess I'll go have breakfast at Denny's while I think it over."
Mike is a problem GM. He is the kind of person you have run a game when you are desperate to play. The entire time that your playing with him you're wondering why you had to stoop to this. It's like paying a prostitute for sex. You're not going to be happy, it's gonna cost you, and you end up feeling worse for having done it.
He is the absolute most chauvanistic GM that I've ever had. He does have some good qualities, but he is unwilling to work on his GMing skills and takes criticisms of any sort as an insult. I don't think that I'll have to play with him again, he now lives in another state and it doesn't look like he'll be coming back for anything more than the occasional visit.
That's probably a good thing.
"You're a Seargent in the Guard. You have command over all the troops in the docks."
"Dude, I'm just a Seargent. Shouldn't an officer be in charge of the docks? This is the capital."
Jay was another really bad GM. In the three or four months that I played in his group I never found out if the game actually had a plot. There was so much immature fighting among the party members that the game never really took off.
The only reason that I had fun at all was because my character was cool and I got to play with my friend Freddy who is an awesome player and can lighten up any campaign.
"There's a massive hole in the wall, maybe twelve feet high. It's too dark in there to see anything in there but muzzle flashes from a chain gun and body parts that come flyin' out. What do you do?"
"I shoot all ten of my grapples into the middle of the darkness and try to yank whatever is in there out into the light. What happens?"
Jeff was the alternate GM for Jay. Jeff ran Call of Cthulu set in the modern world. I had a really cool character, a Gothic Drug Dealer with a degree in chemistry. Jeff was the main reason that Jay's game never got going. He hated some of the players (yes, that definately included me!) and took it out on our characters. When I missed a game, he punished my character for it in-game.
He actually had a pretty decent plot based on the music of the Insane Clown Posse but he destroyed it with his own stupidity and immature pettiness. It didn't help that Mick was playing either. The rest of the group was fairly decent and could have done something cool. But alas, it never happened.
"I AM New York!!!" (You had to be there)
Denon had a very in-depth world and when he GMed, he was really good. Unfortunately he was one of those cologne and perfume salesmen working the streets and didn't have a lot of time for gaming. Also, our group back then only had one experienced player and only two of us had an IQ in the triple digits. So, while Denon was good as a GM, he was a dissapointment in the end.
"As you run at him your feet are suddenly rooted to the ground. Make a Dex check to not fall on you face."
I make it.
"Now make a health roll at -4 to avoid snapping your ankles as you suddenly flip 180 degrees to face back the way you came."
"What?!?" It's o.k., I made that roll too. Good thing I'm lucky...
Mick is the absolute worse GM that I've ever had. He made everything too easy. Nothing was ever hard. There were no challenges. As bad as that was, he then started trying to add his sexual fantasies into the game. He had a fetish for spanking, both men and women. It was when he tried living out his fetish on my character that I stopped playing with him, or seeing him at all. Enough is enough, man. Go win a Darwin Award or something you sick bastard.
"All we're gonna do is tie you face down over the cannon and whip you with a cat o' nine tails."
"What!?!?!"
"Well, you've been pretty bad and you have to be punished. What do you do? Do you bend over the cannon?"
"No..."
"So what do you do?"
"I give them the finger..." Here I flipped Mick off. "...And I jump off the back of the ship."
"You what?!?!"
"I'd rather die than be your bitch. We're through here. Have a nice trip home."
I'm trying to think of other GMs that I've had but I'm drawing a blank. I know that I haven't written anything about my wife, her sister, Charles, or Grant, all of whom have run games for me in the past. The reason is because they only ran a couple of sessions and that was years ago.
Oh well, as soon as I send this off I'll think of more GMs. That's how it always works...
First on my list would have to be James. Both one of the best and one of the worst GMs of all times. I have dozens of stories about how bad his games were. He did everything from player favoritism, to superpowerful NPCs, to blantant cheating, to favoring NPCs over the Pcs, to a host of other things that GMs are not supposed to do. However, in doing so he showed me what I should avoid, thus training me to be a better GM.
He is also my first GM. We were all young and we made all the mistakes that young newbies make when playing. He was willing to learn though, and in the end James became a very good GM. He is one of the few GMs that I'd still like to play with. Unfortunately, we have lost touch over the years and I have no real idea of where I could find him.
"O.k., what's he do?"
"Oh, he attacks you. Heh heh heh..."
Next up would be Alex. I never got to play more than one session of any given game system with Alex as he was always trying out new games. Alex was good at setting up a mood and at teaching new game systems to people. I would have loved to have played more with Alex but that never happened.
"All right guys, we're gonna play a game called..."
My dear friend Dawn would have to be next. Dawn is in the unique position of having plenty of time to write, research, create, and run adventures and campaigns in a world of her choosing even though she is married with two kids and is eight months pregnant. She is hampered a bit by a lack of confidence in herself as a GM and has no motivation. The other downside is that she lives twenty miles away and it's hard to visit with her on a regular basis.
Dawn is my best hope for a fresh new GM. I have a lot of faith in her abilities and am confident that she will make a great GM someday.
"O.k. Calamar, what's the negative for a called shot to the nads?"
"Woofman's got nads?"
Eric is the only GM ever to challenge me in such a way that I couldn't think of anything to do. No one else has ever made me do more than hesitate slightly, no matter how hard they thought the adventure would be. My character may die or get seriously messed up, but I always had a plan. I always knew what to do. Until I played Shadowrun with Eric. In his games I am rudderless, just going along with things and hoping that I could figure out something to do.
His fantasy game is a bit easier. Fantasy is my favorite genre and it's what I'm most comfortable with. Part of the problem that other GMs have with me is that they run fantasy games. Maybe they should a different genre...
"What do you do now?"
"I don't know. I guess I'll go have breakfast at Denny's while I think it over."
Mike is a problem GM. He is the kind of person you have run a game when you are desperate to play. The entire time that your playing with him you're wondering why you had to stoop to this. It's like paying a prostitute for sex. You're not going to be happy, it's gonna cost you, and you end up feeling worse for having done it.
He is the absolute most chauvanistic GM that I've ever had. He does have some good qualities, but he is unwilling to work on his GMing skills and takes criticisms of any sort as an insult. I don't think that I'll have to play with him again, he now lives in another state and it doesn't look like he'll be coming back for anything more than the occasional visit.
That's probably a good thing.
"You're a Seargent in the Guard. You have command over all the troops in the docks."
"Dude, I'm just a Seargent. Shouldn't an officer be in charge of the docks? This is the capital."
Jay was another really bad GM. In the three or four months that I played in his group I never found out if the game actually had a plot. There was so much immature fighting among the party members that the game never really took off.
The only reason that I had fun at all was because my character was cool and I got to play with my friend Freddy who is an awesome player and can lighten up any campaign.
"There's a massive hole in the wall, maybe twelve feet high. It's too dark in there to see anything in there but muzzle flashes from a chain gun and body parts that come flyin' out. What do you do?"
"I shoot all ten of my grapples into the middle of the darkness and try to yank whatever is in there out into the light. What happens?"
Jeff was the alternate GM for Jay. Jeff ran Call of Cthulu set in the modern world. I had a really cool character, a Gothic Drug Dealer with a degree in chemistry. Jeff was the main reason that Jay's game never got going. He hated some of the players (yes, that definately included me!) and took it out on our characters. When I missed a game, he punished my character for it in-game.
He actually had a pretty decent plot based on the music of the Insane Clown Posse but he destroyed it with his own stupidity and immature pettiness. It didn't help that Mick was playing either. The rest of the group was fairly decent and could have done something cool. But alas, it never happened.
"I AM New York!!!" (You had to be there)
Denon had a very in-depth world and when he GMed, he was really good. Unfortunately he was one of those cologne and perfume salesmen working the streets and didn't have a lot of time for gaming. Also, our group back then only had one experienced player and only two of us had an IQ in the triple digits. So, while Denon was good as a GM, he was a dissapointment in the end.
"As you run at him your feet are suddenly rooted to the ground. Make a Dex check to not fall on you face."
I make it.
"Now make a health roll at -4 to avoid snapping your ankles as you suddenly flip 180 degrees to face back the way you came."
"What?!?" It's o.k., I made that roll too. Good thing I'm lucky...
Mick is the absolute worse GM that I've ever had. He made everything too easy. Nothing was ever hard. There were no challenges. As bad as that was, he then started trying to add his sexual fantasies into the game. He had a fetish for spanking, both men and women. It was when he tried living out his fetish on my character that I stopped playing with him, or seeing him at all. Enough is enough, man. Go win a Darwin Award or something you sick bastard.
"All we're gonna do is tie you face down over the cannon and whip you with a cat o' nine tails."
"What!?!?!"
"Well, you've been pretty bad and you have to be punished. What do you do? Do you bend over the cannon?"
"No..."
"So what do you do?"
"I give them the finger..." Here I flipped Mick off. "...And I jump off the back of the ship."
"You what?!?!"
"I'd rather die than be your bitch. We're through here. Have a nice trip home."
I'm trying to think of other GMs that I've had but I'm drawing a blank. I know that I haven't written anything about my wife, her sister, Charles, or Grant, all of whom have run games for me in the past. The reason is because they only ran a couple of sessions and that was years ago.
Oh well, as soon as I send this off I'll think of more GMs. That's how it always works...
posted by Keko at 15:05
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