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DontEatRawHagis
2014-10-31, 07:55 AM
So I was playing in my game last night ad I started to realize that my world is insane. I took a razor and broke it down into a few things that stood out as very Douglas Adams/British humor esque.

So I applied this to my friend's game im in.

Short list of his style:
*nonsensical villains who look and sound goofy but are evil and deranged.
*allies that are aloof and very full of themselves.
*no one can be reasoned with, even allies.
*entities that have mysterious names because they think they sound cool.

Then I realized that this was exactly like the time I watched Adventure Time for a couple of episodes.

Do any of you guys see a major show or series affecting your GM style without realizing it?

_felagund
2014-11-01, 01:34 AM
Yes of course, dungeon mastering to me is letting my friends to wander in my mind. And my mind is heavily affected by the novels i read, movies i watched and games i played.

Once i had made up a story nearly same as a quest from ice wind dale unknowingly, i realized when one of the players point it out.

Kane0
2014-11-01, 02:07 AM
My father's playstyle is identical to his DMing style. He meticulously explores every option except the obvious one, there is no such thing as trust amongst PCs or NPCs and there is always something behind or in addition to what is portrayed or described. He is also prone to overcomplicated plots that are easily foiled, possesses an aversion to anything straightforward and likes to have everything planned to the point that little progress is actually made.

So he ends up being a fantastic player/DM for an investigation, political or other plotting/scheming/backstabbing themed game but should not be allowed anywhere near dungeon crawls or casual bash-em-ups.
Shows like stargate, supernatural, game of thrones and the like will give you a great indication of how he operates, though he will always throw you off just that little bit with a deviation.

Similarly, I know my playstyle reflects my DMing also. I plan on the run, rely more than I should on serendipity and circumstance and adapt fairly well to new situations, but lack the in-depth, devious thinking method of the chessmaster (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheChessmaster) and am incapable of playing or running something with a lot happening behind the scenes. I am best at less serious, fast paced games but my adaptability allows me to pull off most game types passably, if not spectacularly.
I find that if you have watched avatar: TLA or futurama or played borderlands, neverwinter nights or mass effect you would be able to figure me out at the game table pretty quickly.

Dimers
2014-11-01, 06:42 AM
I'm deeply individualistic. I feel disappointed when someone shows me that I'm doing things the same way as somebody else, and pleased when I've made something nigh-unique.

I'm also perfectionistic, wanting to "fix" everything that's "wrong" and pin down details where it's not clear what "wrong" means.

So of course I strongly prefer to run games in homebrew worlds using heavily-modified or homebrewed rules.

Myth confirmed!

Zalphon
2014-11-01, 07:58 AM
My this mean traits of DMing are:

Moral Ambiguity
Sympathetic Villains
Aloof Allies
Crapsack World

What does this mean? It means I like those worlds with lots of gray. And I very likely am inspired by one piece of media or another when I write my campaign story arcs, likely subconsciously, because I can come up with some outlandish stuff. Wouldn't surprise me if when I write say a story arc about an Orc Empire if I'm subconsciously thinking of Everquest 2's Deathfyst Citadel and whatnot. Or when I'm auguring about some major aberrant threat, it's quite obvious that Mr. Lovecraft is on my mind.

Don't be ashamed to utilize good ideas from other sources. As long as your players are enjoying it and you are too, I see nothing wrong with shamelessly stealing from a plethora of sources and weaving it together into your own personal tapestry of a campaign.

Amphetryon
2014-11-03, 10:54 AM
I'm deeply individualistic. I feel disappointed when someone shows me that I'm doing things the same way as somebody else, and pleased when I've made something nigh-unique.

I'm also perfectionistic, wanting to "fix" everything that's "wrong" and pin down details where it's not clear what "wrong" means.

So of course I strongly prefer to run games in homebrew worlds using heavily-modified or homebrewed rules.

Myth confirmed!

If you want your things to be nigh-unique, you'll want to avoid Joseph Campbell or TV-Tropes, both of which will point out the extreme difficulty in this goal.

Gnomes2169
2014-11-03, 11:08 AM
I have no idea how much I steal from Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time and Baldur's Gate... But I know it's much more than I should.

Well... For characterization, at least. The world for my homebrew setting is a bit darker than those, and I try to avoid any direct references to anything (apart from using relatively obvious/ steryotypical names. I'm terrible at the names).

NikitaDarkstar
2014-11-03, 02:49 PM
I'm currently setting up my first ever campaign as a DM... and I find myself getting rather... ahh... inspired by Age of Wonders and World of Warcraft, but I think I can live with that.

Silus
2014-11-03, 04:01 PM
As a DM, I tend to prefer encouraging character development over straight up dungeon diving for XP and loot. Yes your lvl 10 Barbarian can sunder mountains and wrestle dragons, but what sort of person is he? What drives him, what scares him, what makes him the man that he is? I also tend to latch onto what is more cinematic than what is mechanically feasible. If it makes the scene/event/action/whatever more dramatic and awesome then I'll run with that over something boring but mechanically viable.

As a player, I tend to gravitate towards characters built off a theme and a story, sometimes at the cost of initial viability in one area due to the concept (Like a librarian that is an amazing researcher and only has a tiny bit of firearms training, putting her just north of useless in combat). My goal for the most part is to make an interesting character with an interesting backstory that can be expanded on and for the DM to work off of to help generate character development opportunities.

Failing that, I tend to just make sort of passive-aggressive characters that are little more than bundles of stats designed to do a job and not even worry about a viable backstory.

Anonymouswizard
2014-11-03, 05:25 PM
My GMing focuses on the question "where are you going?" Some campaigns are like a train, going along it's tracks, whereas mine are like a car, we have a starting point but can turn off if we see a more interesting road. It is also stuffed with my awful humour.

I also believe that there is always a why. Nobody does something without a reason.

As both a player and a GM my characters tend towards archetypes, as I love them.

Honest Tiefling
2014-11-03, 06:22 PM
I once had a player be ambushed by cabbage farmers who moonlighted as inept bandits that failed to steal a cow. The cow angrily mooing became a trope in that campaign. This seems like a good metaphor for my style in general, I think.

Mastikator
2014-11-04, 06:57 AM
I tend to focus on NPC characterization and dialog, I always avoid having NPCs doing specific roles (villains, allies, neutrals, etc) and just do them as people with values, idiosyncrasies and goals, and then just see what happens when the PCs start stirring the pot.

D-naras
2014-11-04, 10:36 AM
My campaigns always end up being sandboxy, with numerous directions the PCs can take the metaplot that will twist and contort to involve them. I end up empowering the PCs a lot and play to their strengths. And there are always cool ladies that know something more/ are more powerful than they seem that the PCs ally with. Also lots of mind-screws because the game always takes place in a world that is off somehow to keep people on their toes.

Jeff the Green
2014-11-05, 01:43 AM
If you want your things to be nigh-unique, you'll want to avoid Joseph Campbell or TV-Tropes, both of which will point out the extreme difficulty in this goal.

There's got to be some combination of tropes that hasn't been used before. Admittedly the only candidates I can think of are a trope found pretty much only in porn and another found pretty much only in children's programming, but presumably there's something less creepy.

Dimers
2014-11-05, 02:50 AM
If you want your things to be nigh-unique, you'll want to avoid Joseph Campbell or TV-Tropes, both of which will point out the extreme difficulty in this goal.

There's got to be some combination of tropes that hasn't been used before.

All I'm personally going for is a unique presentation of a trope, not a unique intersection of tropes or a completely new concept. I *like* many tropes -- they've become tropes because they can be used to good effect. My Goblins Are Different in a way that I've never seen goblins (or goblin-equivalents) used ... my Chessmaster has an unexpected combination of personal traits ... the ways in which my gameworld is a Crapsack World aren't the specific ways found in any literary depiction of crapsack worlds that I've read.

I'm hard to please, but not that hard. :smallsmile: The words "way" and "unique" in my post have broad enough meanings that I meant something other than you read without anyone straying outside the definition.


Admittedly the only candidates I can think of are a trope found pretty much only in porn and another found pretty much only in children's programming, but presumably there's something less creepy.

Heeheehee eww. :smalltongue:

Joe the Rat
2014-11-05, 08:28 AM
A loosely cobbled pastiche of themes and ideas, with a little deliberate silliness but mostly setting up opportunities for everyone else to riff? Tends to work in fits and spurts, but mostly just a matter of piling things up and poking them to see what happens? The most memorable parts not being any sort of grand arc (should it last that long), but that funny event from an early session that was the result of someone rolling a one?

In other words: Steal stuff flagrantly, not take things too seriously, and make stuff up as I go along?

Yeah, pretty much.