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Sir Daniel
2016-08-11, 11:36 PM
There's a website/blog thingy called the Angry GM. It has really great advice for running D&D games, as well as the final argument on things such as metagaming and railroading. Could one of you guys post a link? I haven't said enough stuff for the ability to post links. You should check it out. This is not a paid sponsorship.

Angelmaker
2016-08-13, 04:28 AM
Sure here's a link: http://lmgtfy.com ;)

I think most poeple can work it out from there.

Lorsa
2016-08-13, 04:41 AM
This thread confuses me...

dysike
2016-08-13, 05:22 AM
This thread confuses me...

It's someone who's found a blog of GMing advice he likes so he made a thread to tell more people about it.

Lorsa
2016-08-13, 06:36 AM
It's someone who's found a blog of GMing advice he likes so he made a thread to tell more people about it.

Yeah, except he asks other people to post a link to something that shows up at the top of a google search, which confuses me a bit.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any requests for comments or discussion around a specific article, and then the end line that says "this is not a paid sponsorship" seems to indicate the writer was aware that the post is basically an advertisement but tried to get past it by stating the opposite.

So, it confuses me a bit.

However, I would be more than willing to discuss the good and bad parts of The Angry GM's advice. Is there a specific article that anyone wants to bring up?

JNAProductions
2016-08-13, 10:43 AM
I like his Paragon Monster (For 5E) article. It's pretty good.

And I think this guy just is a big fan of the Angry GM and wants to spread the good word. Nothing wrong with that.

Kish
2016-08-13, 10:46 AM
Also, there doesn't seem to be any requests for comments or discussion around a specific article, and then the end line that says "this is not a paid sponsorship" seems to indicate the writer was aware that the post is basically an advertisement but tried to get past it by stating the opposite.
Pretty sure the idea is, "This is a non-paid recommendation, which I am doing only because I like this guy's articles, not because he's paying me, and thus it's not against the rules for me to post it here" not, "this post exists for a purpose other than to advertise his articles."

hymer
2016-08-13, 10:46 AM
I like his Paragon Monster (For 5E) article. It's pretty good.

And I think this guy just is a big fan of the Angry GM and wants to spread the good word. Nothing wrong with that.

Well, no... But then again, this forum usually gets paid for adverts.

ATHATH
2016-08-13, 12:31 PM
I like his Paragon Monster (For 5E) article. It's pretty good.

And I think this guy just is a big fan of the Angry GM and wants to spread the good word. Nothing wrong with that.
There are actually three articles on it, and they're all excellent.

Quertus
2016-08-13, 02:44 PM
However, I would be more than willing to discuss the good and bad parts of The Angry GM's advice. Is there a specific article that anyone wants to bring up?

I'd love to hear what you consider the bad parts of his advise. ;)

J-H
2016-08-13, 03:49 PM
I'm not a fan of his writing style. Content-wise, I prefer this website:

http://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-13, 03:56 PM
Well, I'll pick some articles then. I think this article on skills (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) is great for the starting DM, and if you are interested in DMing, should check it out.

However, I find his article on metagaming (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/)...Lacking. Sure, level 1 characters might know a bit about trolls. But every dang monster? No. Keep in mind he claims that medieval people might know these things. But keep in mind, medieval people also thought that pelicans would bleed themselves to feed their young, geese came from trees, lynxes made pee-gems, and hyenas didn't have any teeth. Even today, people have to be reassured that garter snakes are not poisonous.

I feel that the advice is useful, but when your players start knowing about EVERY monster you need to have a different plan in place. Especially in groups where you swap DMs a lot.

RazorChain
2016-08-13, 04:08 PM
I'm not a fan of his writing style. Content-wise, I prefer this website:

http://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101

Thanks for sharing this, read a couple of articles and it adheres to my style of GMing but I might learn a thing or two

Nicrosil
2016-08-13, 04:08 PM
I love his articles on monster building for 5th edition; the first one his here (http://theangrygm.com/monster-building-101-its-alive-its-alive/). I also love his series on the megadungeon he's building, found here (http://theangrygm.com/category/megadungeon/).

twas_Brillig
2016-08-13, 04:18 PM
However, I find his article on metagaming (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/)...Lacking. Sure, level 1 characters might know a bit about trolls. But every dang monster? No. Keep in mind he claims that medieval people might know these things. But keep in mind, medieval people also thought that pelicans would bleed themselves to feed their young, geese came from trees, lynxes made pee-gems, and hyenas didn't have any teeth. Even today, people have to be reassured that garter snakes are not poisonous.

I feel that the advice is useful, but when your players start knowing about EVERY monster you need to have a different plan in place. Especially in groups where you swap DMs a lot.

Forget medieval people, even people today have a really hit-or-miss understanding of biology, human and otherwise. And that's in a time with widespread printed books and formal education. Take away google, and people would be really unlikely to know anything by sight if it wasn't common and native to their area, or something they happened to see in a zoo, etc. I think there's still a good question of when simulation is fun, though.

gameogre
2016-08-13, 04:23 PM
I love his blog but then I'm a HUGE fan of nuttball Drama! I love to read people just ranting away. I'm told it's not one of my better qualities.

His advice is generally ok about the what you would think someone with a lot of miles under there belt would say...just with attitude.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2016-08-13, 07:24 PM
I like Justin Alexander (thealexandrian), because he addresses more planning problems and structure problems than system-specific problems. Taking what I see to be his most important articles as a series, he really addresses the common problem of "How do I keep a plot without railroading?", and applies it on every level from over-arching plot, to individual dungeon maps. While at the moment my GMing skills are limited to running prewritten adventures, I've at least been rewriting them to follow his suggestions on map keys, character keys, and encounter keys.

Sir Daniel
2016-08-13, 07:28 PM
Yeah, except he asks other people to post a link to something that shows up at the top of a google search, which confuses me a bit.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any requests for comments or discussion around a specific article, and then the end line that says "this is not a paid sponsorship" seems to indicate the writer was aware that the post is basically an advertisement but tried to get past it by stating the opposite.

So, it confuses me a bit.

However, I would be more than willing to discuss the good and bad parts of The Angry GM's advice. Is there a specific article that anyone wants to bring up?
Well, I said it as a joke. And it discourages lazy people when they have to google something. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-13, 11:39 PM
I think there's still a good question of when simulation is fun, though.

That I agree with, and witholding information should not be the twist of each encounter. But wasting skill points in a knowledge skill because Boris the Strong and Fair with an intelligence of 7 decided to ignore the rules isn't fun for some folks, either.

I think it's a matter of taste and which encounter you try this with, personally.

Lorsa
2016-08-14, 03:16 AM
I'd love to hear what you consider the bad parts of his advise. ;)

Hrmm. Now I have to go read all his articles so I find something bad to say right?

In general my criticism has little to do with his advice (although I haven't really found much I didn't know already), but rather his stylistic choice. His articles can get unnecessarily long, and sometimes includes introductions that really says nothing of the topic at hand. If you like to read ranting I guess it's fine, otherwise you have to wade through a lot of nonsense to get to the actual advice part (which isn't even summarized at the end, so you can't skip the ranting either).



Well, I said it as a joke. And it discourages lazy people when they have to google something. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

It's fine. I probably should've kept my mouth shut. I seem to lack good judgement at times.

Cozzer
2016-08-14, 07:44 AM
I read his articles and really like them. As others already said, his style might be... not perfect sometimes, though I usually like it, but his advice is very solid 99% of the time.

It's actually solid enough that sometimes I wonder whether all the opposition and hate (including death threats, apparently) he gets is... I mean, I don't think he's exaggerating, but it sometimes feels like he is. But then I remember he's on Twitter and of course he gets death threats.

Anyway, his site is the first place where I would send somebody who wants to improve their GMing skills. He always keeps everything about players making choices and/or experiencing the consequences of the choices they made, whether they're in combat or talking with the King. Which I think is the core of every RPG.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-14, 10:15 AM
Well, I'll pick some articles then. I think this article on skills (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) is great for the starting DM, and if you are interested in DMing, should check it out.

Eh, the first point is one that I disagree with. A player should always be able to ask if they can 'roll X to do something', because the GM can always respond with 'no, that's a Y check'. Sure, they shouldn't be able to just push the 'Diplomacy' button when they come to the guard, but I've had GMs stuck on what skill I should use in order to do something, or other ones where I don't have a specific skill but want to know if I can roll another similar skill as a substitute (which is vital if we're playing GURPS).

Point #2 is just good advice, although I also like the idea of rolling when there's a possible cost for success (Fate Core is good for this, with players being able to choose between 'succeed at a cost' or 'fail', and the book suggests letting them help generate the cost). To use his 'door with massive treasure behind it' example, failing the roll isn't 'you haven't picked the lock', it's 'you picked the lock, but the guards have just come round the corner'.

I like 3, although I can see the rare situation where a task is split between adventure phases and you can have one roll per phase, but that's just a series of 'is it ready now' checks.

#4 is weird, in that I agree with the core of it, but I don't agree with forcing PCs to make knowledge checks. I do agree with not forcing the PCs to ask questions, but sometimes having to investigate and work out what questions to ask is the fun part of the scene. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where I disagree with the point, it's not the core idea but sort of the surrounding assumptions.

I don't think I've seen anyone who'd disagree with point 5. It seems weird to even bring it up.


However, I find his article on metagaming (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/)...Lacking. Sure, level 1 characters might know a bit about trolls. But every dang monster? No. Keep in mind he claims that medieval people might know these things. But keep in mind, medieval people also thought that pelicans would bleed themselves to feed their young, geese came from trees, lynxes made pee-gems, and hyenas didn't have any teeth. Even today, people have to be reassured that garter snakes are not poisonous.

I feel that the advice is useful, but when your players start knowing about EVERY monster you need to have a different plan in place. Especially in groups where you swap DMs a lot.

Ummm... so every time I want the PCs to not know something about a monster, I have to invent a new monster that I have never used before? I mean, I enjoy using the occasional snufflegruffler, but when I have to use a Woozlebeater, an Eggplotter, and a Bamboomater just so the party doesn't know that white dragons use ice attacks it gets annoying (also, it's much easier to misplace the snufflegruffler stats then the monster manual). The wizard thing is kind of a strange situation though, most wizard players I know will mainly use one or two damage types for simplicity, in that if the wizard succeed in his knowledge check he should know to use fire, and if he doesn't then he probably will just use his default encounter opener (which, yes, might be Fireball).

And very occasionallycommonly you do get situations where the character just wouldn't know. Let's say I'm playing in a WW1 steampunk game, and the enemy has just unveiled their secret weapon: a steam-powered Tiger tank. Even if I'm a tank buff in real life, my character has no real idea of how to attack this one, which is fairly different to those he is used to (and also running around 20 years too early).

kyoryu
2016-08-14, 11:27 AM
Eh, the first point is one that I disagree with. A player should always be able to ask if they can 'roll X to do something', because the GM can always respond with 'no, that's a Y check'. Sure, they shouldn't be able to just push the 'Diplomacy' button when they come to the guard, but I've had GMs stuck on what skill I should use in order to do something, or other ones where I don't have a specific skill but want to know if I can roll another similar skill as a substitute (which is vital if we're playing GURPS).

The point on the first is you don't just "push Diplomacy". You "talk to the guard and try to convince him you'll let him go". No more, no less.

Even in your counter-example you're going along with the rule, because you're saying "roll X to do something". There's nothing wrong with suggesting what skill you're going for, so long as it's accompanied with an in-world action.

"I do something!" - my personal preference, and how I kinda mandate things in some systems (like FAE).
"I do something, can I roll x?" - also okay
"I roll x!" - not so awesome.



#4 is weird, in that I agree with the core of it, but I don't agree with forcing PCs to make knowledge checks. I do agree with not forcing the PCs to ask questions, but sometimes having to investigate and work out what questions to ask is the fun part of the scene. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where I disagree with the point, it's not the core idea but sort of the surrounding assumptions.

I think the point here is to avoid pixel-bitching. If there's something the PCs might know, tell them or make the roll for them, rather than forcing them to ask for the roll.

Which is something I agree with. If you'd recognize something, you'd recognize it automatically, and so that fits into the bits that I consider the GM's job to tell the players automatically. I see the GM's job as not just describing the situation, but also informing the players of things that the characters would know, but the players don't. So if you're a noble in court, I'll, as the GM, tell you what the appropriate etiquette is. You don't need to ask, because your character would KNOW those things without thinking about them.

If there's something that's *not* immediately obvious, then, yeah, the PCs should have to follow the trail to get there. So if there's something under the bed, you shouldn't just roll Spot, because that's not something that you'd actually notice without making a conscious effort to check for it. Is that maybe where the disconnect is?

Or, to put it differently, only things that are essentially automatic should be put on autopilot.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-14, 11:28 AM
Frankly, I found that the "expectation of ignorance" grew tiresome and tedious long ago. It leads to "debates", and rests largely on the level-based / Campbellian notion that every starting character is a raw green noob. Both as a player and as a GM, I'd rather just assume that the PCs know something about their world, and move on.


As for AngryGM, he has some good points and interesting advice, but he buries them in a really juvenile, clickbaity, overblown style that I find grating and tiresome

kyoryu
2016-08-14, 11:35 AM
And, yeah, in general I find the Angry GM's advice to be spot on, but I can see where people might disagree with his writing style.

It's a shtick, and sadly sometimes you need a shtick to get attention.

dps
2016-08-14, 11:37 AM
However, I find his article on metagaming (http://theangrygm.com/dear-gms-metagaming-is-your-fault/)...Lacking. Sure, level 1 characters might know a bit about trolls. But every dang monster? No. Keep in mind he claims that medieval people might know these things. But keep in mind, medieval people also thought that pelicans would bleed themselves to feed their young, geese came from trees, lynxes made pee-gems, and hyenas didn't have any teeth. Even today, people have to be reassured that garter snakes are not poisonous.


And, OTOH, some people today think that reindeer are fantasy creatures and don't really exist.

Arctanaar
2016-08-14, 11:43 AM
And very occasionallycommonly you do get situations where the character just wouldn't know. Let's say I'm playing in a WW1 steampunk game, and the enemy has just unveiled their secret weapon: a steam-powered Tiger tank. Even if I'm a tank buff in real life, my character has no real idea of how to attack this one, which is fairly different to those he is used to (and also running around 20 years too early).

Well, it wouldn't matter because the tank wouldn't have the capacity to move without breaking, assuming it is similar to the RL version and is even worse than the one that existed.

I actually agree with most things that you said, although I think that the example you gave is not great, considering that it's still a tank, and from a combatant's perspective, it is still going to have enough similarities to other tanks as to not change the set of good decisions, relative to the situation where it's not a Tiger but a tank that the character has some knowledge about.

On the other hand, if you are a low-ranking combatant, and the tanks have only recently become used, it could indeed be justified that your character wouldn't have any chance of knowing how to attack one.

MrStabby
2016-08-14, 12:37 PM
I find the Angry DM to be an effective source of the blindingly obvious and the wrong. The style is amusing enough for a couple of minutes at a time though.

I actually find the best place for improving DM skills to be here. I have learned much more from posting ideas here and seeing the different views of them that people put forwards. The breadth of experience you can tap on a forum is so much more than the narrow, stylised view of That Guy on the internet.

Here you can discuss specifics, get advice that works for your table, matches your campaign and there is a lot of support here for people starting out.

hymer
2016-08-14, 12:42 PM
MrStabby, thou hast spoke the right.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-14, 01:04 PM
Well, it wouldn't matter because the tank wouldn't have the capacity to move without breaking, assuming it is similar to the RL version and is even worse than the one that existed.

I actually agree with most things that you said, although I think that the example you gave is not great, considering that it's still a tank, and from a combatant's perspective, it is still going to have enough similarities to other tanks as to not change the set of good decisions, relative to the situation where it's not a Tiger but a tank that the character has some knowledge about.

On the other hand, if you are a low-ranking combatant, and the tanks have only recently become used, it could indeed be justified that your character wouldn't have any chance of knowing how to attack one.

Yeah, I know it was a poor example, both because I don't know that much about tanks and also because I was in a rush. I'll try to think of better examples in the future.


The style is amusing enough for a couple of minutes at a time though.

You see, I find the style dense, hard to read, and full of superfluous swearing. I also find that his style is rather hit and miss, but even when he makes decent points he presents them in a way that supports only one style of GMing and game (not to say that it's a bad style, but it's not the only good one). And that's when I can work out what he's talking about.


I actually find the best place for improving DM skills to be here. I have learned much more from posting ideas here and seeing the different views of them that people put forwards. The breadth of experience you can tap on a forum is so much more than the narrow, stylised view of That Guy on the internet.

Here you can discuss specifics, get advice that works for your table, matches your campaign and there is a lot of support here for people starting out.

I'm agreeing here, although GiantITP is slanted towards higher op games, so I take any encounter and party balancing advice with a pinch of salt. But the forum is generally good on giving GM advice, when we aren't arguing over something we all agree on for about 30 pages.

2D8HP
2016-08-14, 02:20 PM
But the forum is generally good on giving GM advice, when we aren't arguing over something we all agree on for about 30 pages.The Playground is like a Wish-Simulacrum spell chain of good advice with no ruby dust required!
:biggrin:

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-14, 03:25 PM
The Playground is like a Wish-Simulacrum spell chain of good advice with no ruby dust required!
:biggrin:

With the occasional off-color joke. It's like high sorcery with low-brow humor.

hymer
2016-08-14, 03:36 PM
With the occasional off-color joke. It's like high sorcery with low-brow humor.

Low-brow? I just quoted Shakespeare! I'd think that rates a 'presumptuous' at the least! :smallwink:

Honest Tiefling
2016-08-14, 03:37 PM
Low-brow? I just quoted Shakespeare! I'd think that rates a 'presumptuous' at the least! :smallwink:

Given how many penis, fart and vagina jokes there are in Shakespeare, it doesn't mean you can't multitask and be presumptuous and filthy at the same time.

hymer
2016-08-14, 03:40 PM
Given how many penis, fart and vagina jokes there are in Shakespeare, it doesn't mean you can't multitask and be presumptuous and filthy at the same time.

Get thee to a nunnery! :smalltongue:

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-14, 04:13 PM
Given how many penis, fart and vagina jokes there are in Shakespeare, it doesn't mean you can't multitask and be presumptuous and filthy at the same time.

I have to say, I hated Shakespeare when my main exposure was people claiming he was awesome at writing and divinely inspired. But as soon as I discovered that he had a similar sense of humour to me I began to enjoy it.

Although I'd say that Shakespeare makes the penis jokes a lot more enjoyable than most modern writers do.

Sir Daniel
2016-08-15, 01:35 PM
He also makes a podcast called "GM word of the week", which has vocabulary for D&D. That is more objectively better. I see how his writing style might not appeal to some people, but the podcast isn't written the same way.

Segev
2016-08-15, 02:16 PM
I am not a regular reader of his material, but he has some good ideas, presents some things that I have thought frequently in words that better encapsulate the concepts than I could have, and generally is at least mildly entertaining.

Most of what I disagree with him on strikes me as a presentation problem: if I really think about what he's saying and dig into the context of his article to see how he applies his "rules" (when he outlines any), I can see that I don't really disagree with where he's coming from and get what he means. The trouble is that his presentation is one of absolutes, even when he takes time to say "okay, not all the time," because of his overt tone. It's a stylistic choice that occasionally gets in the way of his point, I think.

For instance, I also disagree with the "rule 1" in his skills article, on the surface. "Never have your players/allow your players to call for a skill roll" is terrible advice if you don't understand WHY he's saying that. It leads to games of players trying to game the GM rather than the system, which is even more awkward and immersion-breaking.

What he's getting at is that players should never feel they need to call for skills. If you have to, to break them of a bad habit, you can tell them never to ask for a skill, but be guiding about it if they do so anyway.

What he's getting at, I think, is that players should just describe their PCs' actions, and the GM should know the situation and the PC well enough to call for an appropriate skill.

The player should absolutely be able to ask, "Eh, I'm more trying to trick him than persuade him, can I roll Bluff instead?" because it's really annoying to have to guess correctly what skill a GM would assign when you're trying to play to your strengths and he...doesn't agree that you are.

But that's not the angry GM's advice: he's not telling you to make your players play a guessing game. He's telling you to try to make skill assignments after they stunt their action (to use Exalted terms). And to discourage them from going straight for the skill roll, but instead to think about what they're doing IC. Which is good advice.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-15, 02:22 PM
I want my players to think FIRST about what their characters are doing, but I have no issue with them thinking about what skill that might take. There's nothing wrong with understanding the system you're using to play the game.

kyoryu
2016-08-15, 02:26 PM
I want my players to think FIRST about what their characters are doing, but I have no issue with them thinking about what skill that might take. There's nothing wrong with understanding the system you're using to play the game.

And to be honest, they're GOING to. You can't make them not do it.

In Fate Accelerated (where I absolutely insist on "describe what you do, don't tell me which approach to use"), you can absolutely see where players tweak their presentation of their action to try to hit a certain approach. And that's awesome, because it makes for a more interesting narrative, and a more colorful mental picture of what's going on.

goto124
2016-08-17, 03:27 AM
And to discourage them from going straight for the skill roll, but instead to think about what they're doing IC. Which is good advice.

When the players have already decided to use a skill roll, what they're doing is taking pains to appease the GM.

I've been in games where pretty much everything had to be reworded into fancy terms to 'stay in-character'. All it did was to force players to spent time and brainpower converting "I have 121 points in the Basketweaving skill" into "I have practiced weaving baskets about a hundred times".

Then again, I suppose the intent is to stop the players from thinking in terms of skill rolls in the first place. But when after the fact the GM announces "that sounds more like Intimidate" and the player has to backroll to say "wait I think I described that wrongly, my character's a Diplomancy guy..."

Knaight
2016-08-17, 03:53 AM
There's some decent articles, and were I interested in megadungeons the site might be a decent resource. There's also a lot of espousing a particular GM philosophy that I tend to find leads to crappy games though, so I'm a lot less impressed than most of the commentators here.

Lorsa
2016-08-17, 08:22 AM
There's some decent articles, and were I interested in megadungeons the site might be a decent resource. There's also a lot of espousing a particular GM philosophy that I tend to find leads to crappy games though, so I'm a lot less impressed than most of the commentators here.

Which GM philosophy are you talking about?

I honestly just started reading through the material apart form the occasional link I've been clicking.

Segev
2016-08-17, 02:08 PM
When the players have already decided to use a skill roll, what they're doing is taking pains to appease the GM.

I've been in games where pretty much everything had to be reworded into fancy terms to 'stay in-character'. All it did was to force players to spent time and brainpower converting "I have 121 points in the Basketweaving skill" into "I have practiced weaving baskets about a hundred times".

Then again, I suppose the intent is to stop the players from thinking in terms of skill rolls in the first place. But when after the fact the GM announces "that sounds more like Intimidate" and the player has to backroll to say "wait I think I described that wrongly, my character's a Diplomancy guy..."I agree. I get where he's coming from, but you're never really going to remove the players' consideration of their skills from the game. It's nice if you can get them to a point where they describe what they do FIRST, and the negotiation over skills comes second, though.


Which GM philosophy are you talking about?

I honestly just started reading through the material apart form the occasional link I've been clicking.
At a guess - as I am not the one who mentioned particular GM philosophy - he's referring to the Angry GM's schtick of assuming a very authoritarian stance as GM.

This works for both his tone and for using his advice (at least when introducing it), but is a touch over-the-top. Careful reading of most of the articles I've gone through indicates that this, like his absolutist declarations, is more a rhetorical tool for presenting his points than how he genuinely thinks you should run a game, but it can get in the way of really seeing that.

And he is a bit of a troll, though not directly so in his articles. He is awfully smug about his "two-headed, two-tailed, bifurcated snake" that he trolled a D&D board with by insisting it's one monster while everybody said "no, it's two." In the context of his article about making multi-part boss-type monsters, it's clear that it was a thought experiment, but it's equally clear from his description of how he presented this "bifurcated snake" to the board did not provide the context nor purpose of that thought experiment. He feigned ignorance in order to get people to respond to the obvious flaw, rather than explaining where he was going with it.

kyoryu
2016-08-18, 10:14 AM
When the players have already decided to use a skill roll, what they're doing is taking pains to appease the GM.

I disagree with this.

I've played in games where players really have primarily considered the action that they're doing, and "how we resolve it" is a secondary concern.

Part of that also boils down to making sure that "what they do" *matters*. It needs to color the results of both success and failure. If you're not going to do that for whatever reason (playing RAW being an obvious one), then, yeah, it doesn't actually matter if they describe things or not. They're using a mechanical widget to get a mechanical result.

Will players ever *not* think about what skill they're using at all? Probably not. But not all games are played with that type of "mechanics first" methodology.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-18, 10:58 AM
I disagree with this.

I've played in games where players really have primarily considered the action that they're doing, and "how we resolve it" is a secondary concern.

Part of that also boils down to making sure that "what they do" *matters*. It needs to color the results of both success and failure. If you're not going to do that for whatever reason (playing RAW being an obvious one), then, yeah, it doesn't actually matter if they describe things or not. They're using a mechanical widget to get a mechanical result.

Will players ever *not* think about what skill they're using at all? Probably not. But not all games are played with that type of "mechanics first" methodology.

Okay, here's the problem.

Skills aren't the only way to explain how good you are at something, and not the most suited to 'players say action, GM calls for rolls'.

To use Fate Core, because it's a brilliant toolkit in addition to being a game, in the Fate System Toolkit book it talks about messing around with skills, and ends up with three different basic options for who they work.
-Skills say what you do, and as such are generally specific and the action you take should generally dictate the skill you use. A skill might be Computers, Fight, Athletics, or Muttering suspiciously under your breath (although that's better as an Aspect).
-Approaches are how you do stuff. While the action decides when using skills, if characters are built with Approaches then how you narrate the action determines which approach you use. Yes, this does lead to narrating actions in such a way as to use your highest bonus, that's the intent, but it's not always possible (it'll be hard to use Sneaky multiple times in a fight for example). The Fate Accelerated Approaches are Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick, and Sneaky.
-Professions are who you are. The situation determines what profession you use. This is a little bit like a broader version of skills, except that the actions they link together are broader. In a fantasy game I might pick Warrior (battle stuff), Bard (social skills), Thief (picking locks and sneaking), Scholar (knowing stuff), and Ranger (wilderness survival and tracking). A battlemage might have decent Scholar and high Warrior, while a paladin might have equal ranks in Warrior and Bard.

I personally like professions as a concept for an attribute-free skill-free game (I believe Warrior Rogue Mage does this?), as they give broad areas of competence and it should be obvious to everyone what's suitable at what point, and no amount of narrating will allow you troll roll Bard+3 instead of Scholar+1.

kyoryu
2016-08-18, 11:23 AM
Skills aren't the only way to explain how good you are at something, and not the most suited to 'players say action, GM calls for rolls'.

Sure. The fundamental issue is "given <x> real world action, what number do I map it to?" (presuming lots of common concepts there, but we won't unpack that far). "Skills" is one way to do it.

I don't think that skills are really *bad* for that, to be honest. The issue becomes when you start having very codified ideas about what 'success' on a skill roll means, since then it becomes easy to skip what's happening "in the world".

Fate (as you talk about below) doesn't have these types of codified results, so it works pretty well, even using "skills".


To use Fate Core

Fully aware. I'm reasonably known in the Fate Core community and am friends with the main Jadepunk peeps :D


I personally like professions as a concept for an attribute-free skill-free game (I believe Warrior Rogue Mage does this?), as they give broad areas of competence and it should be obvious to everyone what's suitable at what point, and no amount of narrating will allow you troll roll Bard+3 instead of Scholar+1.

I'm not super happy with Professions, to be honest. Though they do avoid the "I can justify anything with this Approach" issue of approaches. It just feels weird to me to say "well, I have to have some amount of Scholar in me", almost like enforced D&D 3.x-style multiclassing.

I think the big thing to think about with any kind of action resolution is:

1) What does success look like? And this should change based on *how* you're solving the problem.
1a) What side effects will happen because of this success? In FAE, for instance, the mantra goes something like "if you're Sneaky, you're not <some other Approach>". So you have to make a choice between doing it stealthily and doing it quickly, for instance.

2) What does failure look like? In addition to not accomplishing what you wanted to, what else has now changed? Do you now have additional problems to deal with?

So, yeah, you might be able to justify using brute force to open a chest. But that doesn't mean that fragile things inside of the chest won't be broken when you open it. It doesn't mean that you won't make a lot of noise, drawing attention. And it certainly doesn't mean that the chest will be intact when you're done, either.

But, again, if you have codified results for skill (or whatever) use, you tend to lose this. Approaches are kind of a brilliant mechanic in that they *force* you to think about these things, because you can't really codify "Forceful".

EDIT: To be clear, that's "if you want to do the type of thing that Angry GM talks about" (which maps well to Fate, and Apocalypse World, etc.). It's totally valid to not want to do this sort of thing and to want a more codified experience.

goto124
2016-08-19, 01:51 AM
the type of thing that Angry GM talks about" (which maps well to Fate, and Apocalypse World, etc.)

Wait, not DnD?

Blake Hannon
2016-08-19, 06:16 AM
The impression I've gotten from Angry is that he's very good at designing games, but probably not nearly as great at running them.

Reading his articles has certainly made me better at encounter, campaign, and dungeon design. You just need to recognize his weak spots, and to skip his introductions.

kyoryu
2016-08-19, 10:21 AM
Wait, not DnD?

Which version?

And while it can work with D&D, Fate and AW and such were really *designed* around that style of play.

Airk
2016-08-23, 02:21 PM
Which version?

And while it can work with D&D, Fate and AW and such were really *designed* around that style of play.

Except he HATES Fate. :P

Anyway, I find his style usually amusing, his points usually correct, and his site both more informative and less irritating, overall, than an average day on any RPG forum, which definitely includes this one. Because even if you disagree with him, he usually has reasons that can lead you to think more intelligently about how you run games, which is far more than I can say for most RPG "Advice."

MrStabby
2016-08-23, 02:39 PM
The reason I find the site to be of so little worth is not that I think he is wrong. He is usually right. He just takes something so moronically obvious to everyone and then says it as if he is the only person in the world to have the insight to see the obvious.

Airk
2016-08-23, 02:51 PM
The reason I find the site to be of so little worth is not that I think he is wrong. He is usually right. He just takes something so moronically obvious to everyone and then says it as if he is the only person in the world to have the insight to see the obvious.

Well, A) He usually says it in a way that makes it clear in a way that it wasn't before and B) The comments are ALWAYS full of people going "HOLY CRAP! I never thought of it that way!" so obviously it's not as obvious as you think it is.

quinron
2016-08-23, 05:32 PM
The reason I find the site to be of so little worth is not that I think he is wrong. He is usually right. He just takes something so moronically obvious to everyone and then says it as if he is the only person in the world to have the insight to see the obvious.

There may be a bit of a Dunning-Kruger effect going on here - I frequent his site, and I tend to get a lot out of it when the articles focus on something I hadn't considered before. While I love the pants off these forums, I sometimes find it difficult to get straight advice on the basics because they're so instinctual to the experienced forumites.

Even if it is something I've considered, though, I usually benefit from the fact that most of the articles aren't "this is how you're supposed to do X," so much as they are "this is how I do X, and I'm explaining why I do X this way so that you'll think about why you do X the way you do." The Megadungeon series especially has helped me analyze my own GMing style just by getting me to think about it in comparison to someone else's.

MrStabby
2016-08-23, 07:30 PM
Well, A) He usually says it in a way that makes it clear in a way that it wasn't before and B) The comments are ALWAYS full of people going "HOLY CRAP! I never thought of it that way!" so obviously it's not as obvious as you think it is.

Well either that or the people who frequent his comment section are that unique special subset of people blessed with such intellectual innocence that it wasn't obvious.


There may be a bit of a Dunning-Kruger effect going on here - I frequent his site, and I tend to get a lot out of it when the articles focus on something I hadn't considered before. While I love the pants off these forums, I sometimes find it difficult to get straight advice on the basics because they're so instinctual to the experienced forumites.

Even if it is something I've considered, though, I usually benefit from the fact that most of the articles aren't "this is how you're supposed to do X," so much as they are "this is how I do X, and I'm explaining why I do X this way so that you'll think about why you do X the way you do." The Megadungeon series especially has helped me analyze my own GMing style just by getting me to think about it in comparison to someone else's.

So my understanding of Dunning Kruger is that it refers to people who are incompetent not recognising their incompetence - are you suggesting that the commenters who argue with him are generally bad DMs and don't know it? Or is it that here on GitP people are not suitable and overestimate their abilities?

Kalashak
2016-08-23, 08:16 PM
The flip side of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that people who are knowledgeable will tend to underrate themselves because they assume everyone else knows or can figure out what they can, so I think jinjitsu's point was that experienced players assume things are easier to grasp than they can be for new players or GMs.

quinron
2016-08-24, 12:52 AM
The flip side of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is that people who are knowledgeable will tend to underrate themselves because they assume everyone else knows or can figure out what they can, so I think jinjitsu's point was that experienced players assume things are easier to grasp than they can be for new players or GMs.

Precisely. As I said, getting "straight advice" can sometimes be difficult, not just on the forums but when talking to experienced GMs. Because the Angry GM is writing for an anonymous audience with mixed levels of experience, he can't assume anything about his readers' competence, so he always has to start with the basics.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-24, 01:06 AM
Well, A) He usually says it in a way that makes it iunclear in a way that it wasn't before

Fixed it for you :smallwink:

No seriously, his writing style is so dense, confusing, and superfluous that I have to force myself to skim it to work out anything he says. I mean, I know that I can sometimes hide my point within a load of waffle, even on these forums, but I do try to make my sentences easy to read and follow.

Oh, plus he can come off as a five year old annoyed that I'm not running the game with his authoritarian style. I know it's his 'thing', but it really makes him hard to take seriously. Maybe I should start a blog and make a 'The Calm GM' series with my views on running the game.

Lorsa
2016-08-24, 01:15 AM
Fixed it for you :smallwink:

No seriously, his writing style is so dense, confusing, and superfluous that I have to force myself to skim it to work out anything he says. I mean, I know that I can sometimes hide my point within a load of waffle, even on these forums, but I do try to make my sentences easy to read and follow.

Oh, plus he can come off as a five year old annoyed that I'm not running the game with his authoritarian style. I know it's his 'thing', but it really makes him hard to take seriously. Maybe I should start a blog and make a 'The Calm GM' series with my views on running the game.

A very common self-quote by him is "you can run your game any wrong way you want". Which appearantly isn't supposed to be snark, but an honest statement. So he isn't really annoyed with how you are running your game.

What he is annoyed with, I think, is the people (other GMs in specific) who gives bad advice to others.

Problem is, I'm not sure where he gets this bad advice from. For example, when he is upset with the advice that "the GM should bring only a blank sheet of paper and improvise the rest", I wonder who said that? I mean, it should be obvious to anyone that this isn't good general advice.

goto124
2016-08-24, 02:00 AM
Maybe I should start a blog and make a 'The Calm GM' series with my views on running the game.

Please do. For a blog that's supposed to give advice to newbie GMs and players, his articles are a pain to read and sift through.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-24, 02:18 AM
Please do. For a blog that's supposed to give advice to newbie GMs and players, his articles are a pain to read and sift through.

I'll start after tomorrow's exam, but I'm not sure what to start with. I've got ideas for articles, one on picking your system and game (and how they differ), one on preparation, one on railroading (and the quantum ogre), ideally one on when to use rulings over rules, and so on. I'm just not sure where to begin, GMing is something I've learnt by running games so I'm not sure what would be most useful to new GMs.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 07:32 AM
A very common self-quote by him is "you can run your game any wrong way you want". Which appearantly isn't supposed to be snark, but an honest statement. So he isn't really annoyed with how you are running your game.

What he is annoyed with, I think, is the people (other GMs in specific) who gives bad advice to others.

Problem is, I'm not sure where he gets this bad advice from. For example, when he is upset with the advice that "the GM should bring only a blank sheet of paper and improvise the rest", I wonder who said that? I mean, it should be obvious to anyone that this isn't good general advice.


It's an exaggerated version of the "No Myth" and "Fail Forward" styles.

Airk
2016-08-24, 12:19 PM
Well either that or the people who frequent his comment section are that unique special subset of people blessed with such intellectual innocence that it wasn't obvious.

So you figure we should just throw new GMs to the sharks and let them reinvent the wheel from scratch? Quite the champion of growing the hobby, you are. :P Seriously. How much of this stuff did you know when you started out?

And how many of his articles have you actually read?

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-24, 01:24 PM
So you figure we should just throw new GMs to the sharks and let them reinvent the wheel from scratch? Quite the champion of growing the hobby, you are. :P Seriously. How much of this stuff did you know when you started out?

And how many of his articles have you actually read?

The problem is, everyone will GM a game slightly differently. Say me and me friend Geoff (fictional dude) were going to run a game where the PCs play gangsters, and were using GURPS. I'd probably make stats for mooks the PCs can call on, make up some gangs, stat up the gang and police mooks, identify and stat some key NPCs, and then improv the story. Geoff will think of a gangster story he wants to tell, work out the main characters, and then loosely plan his sessions beforehand to move the story along. Both are valid styles, but good advice for one is bad advice for the other.

The problem with Angry is that he pushes one GM style, even if he doesn't think it's the only way to play, which is especially apparent in his article on metagaming. This poses the problem that if you tend towards a specific style that isn't his then the advice isn't very useful.

His style also makes it hard to understand the advice. Mainly because it's hard to read more than a few sentences at a time.

So the AnonymousWizard's guide to giving people GM advice: keep it easy to understand, and avoid specifics unless asked about them. I plan to follow these rules when I start my gaming blog.

kyoryu
2016-08-24, 01:25 PM
Problem is, I'm not sure where he gets this bad advice from. For example, when he is upset with the advice that "the GM should bring only a blank sheet of paper and improvise the rest", I wonder who said that? I mean, it should be obvious to anyone that this isn't good general advice.

Even the most low-prep games I'm aware of don't actually recommend that.


It's an exaggerated version of the "No Myth" and "Fail Forward" styles.

By "exaggerated", perhaps you mean "strawman"?

Segev
2016-08-24, 01:32 PM
Even the most low-prep games I'm aware of don't actually recommend that.



By "exaggerated", perhaps you mean "strawman"?

It's more slippery-slope. Nobody really advocates that level of improv as a general rule. But sometimes the advice one gets off the internet can feel like that, as one person's "loose outline from which I can improv" is another person's "useless pile of too little information that may as well be a blank sheet."

Mordar
2016-08-24, 01:43 PM
So you figure we should just throw new GMs to the sharks and let them reinvent the wheel from scratch? Quite the champion of growing the hobby, you are. :P Seriously. How much of this stuff did you know when you started out?

And how many of his articles have you actually read?

Vizzini comes to mind. You know..."Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?...Morons."

You know...right before he dies.

Can't imagine why that came to mind :smallamused:

On topic: Interesting to see the thought processes that go into some of his design decisions. That Angry tries to explain his perspective and how he got there is useful and can inform others (our resident super-genius types notwithstanding, of course, but what use have they of discussion such as this?) even if they don't buy in or agree with the whole of a given point/article. It would be nice, I think, if some of the bluster was stripped away, but I suppose you have to have a gimmick to get noticed.

- M

MrStabby
2016-08-24, 01:52 PM
So you figure we should just throw new GMs to the sharks and let them reinvent the wheel from scratch? Quite the champion of growing the hobby, you are. :P Seriously. How much of this stuff did you know when you started out?

And how many of his articles have you actually read?

I was new to DMing when I came across his pretentious self important drivel. It didn't help.

Now I would be sympathetic if it was so tricky that others couldn't help but I have had a far greater depth of insight on this forum than I ever saw on his blog.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-24, 01:58 PM
By "exaggerated", perhaps you mean "strawman"?


No, I mean exaggerated.

I've read more than a little absolutely dead-serious "fail forward" advice that includes comments like "there was no Dread Sword in the setting or the PC's backstory until the player made it up on the spot" and "no one, not event he GM, knows if the Dread Sword is in the ruined tower before the player succeeds or fails the search roll"...

It's not that far from there to "blank page".




It's more slippery-slope. Nobody really advocates that level of improv as a general rule. But sometimes the advice one gets off the internet can feel like that, as one person's "loose outline from which I can improv" is another person's "useless pile of too little information that may as well be a blank sheet."


Especially since too much of the GMing advice online tends to be accompanied by a sort of fervent preachy "revelatory" tone. "I used to run bad games making all these mistakes, then I found a better way! Anyone who isn't using the same new way I am now must be making the same mistakes I used to!" It's the convert's fallacy.

quinron
2016-08-24, 03:31 PM
On topic: Interesting to see the thought processes that go into some of his design decisions. That Angry tries to explain his perspective and how he got there is useful and can inform others (our resident super-genius types notwithstanding, of course, but what use have they of discussion such as this?) even if they don't buy in or agree with the whole of a given point/article. It would be nice, I think, if some of the bluster was stripped away, but I suppose you have to have a gimmick to get noticed.

- M

This is my major takeaway. I'll admit I've started paying closer attention to the site since he started "Making the Megadungeon," his step-by-step design philosophy series. I'll also admit that I usually take about half a day to read his articles, getting pretty easily sidetracked by something else and not picking them up until later, especially his older stuff where the gimmick was more pronounced.

Lorsa
2016-08-25, 01:25 AM
Even the most low-prep games I'm aware of don't actually recommend that.



By "exaggerated", perhaps you mean "strawman"?


It's more slippery-slope. Nobody really advocates that level of improv as a general rule. But sometimes the advice one gets off the internet can feel like that, as one person's "loose outline from which I can improv" is another person's "useless pile of too little information that may as well be a blank sheet."

Come to think of it, I might actually suggest that as a training method for someone who is dead-stuck on their prepared [whatever] and can't improvise anything (most likely resulting in heavily railroaded games). There is a difference between advice for "how do you practice a skill which you don't have" and "how do you run good games" though.



On topic: Interesting to see the thought processes that go into some of his design decisions. That Angry tries to explain his perspective and how he got there is useful and can inform others (our resident super-genius types notwithstanding, of course, but what use have they of discussion such as this?) even if they don't buy in or agree with the whole of a given point/article. It would be nice, I think, if some of the bluster was stripped away, but I suppose you have to have a gimmick to get noticed.

I've read through quite a lot of his articles since this thread popped up. Some of them are quite interesting actually. I especially like the one on pacing and the one on making decisions for what actions should be allowed or not.

nyjastul69
2016-08-25, 02:32 AM
I haven't read the entire thread. I must say I had to stop at point 1. When you fail at number one, I care not for number 2.


When the DM asks a player: “what do you do,” there are only two valid responses. And neither one involves the name of a skill.

First, the player can ask the DM a question about the world or the situation. “Do I know anything about the strange rune?” “Do I recognize the name ‘The Clan of the Pointed Stick?” “Do I see anything hiding on the ceiling?” Notice, none of these things require the player to mention skills. The DM can respond with an answer or ask for a specific roll. “Make an Arcane Lore check, but only if you’re trained.” “Yes. The strange old man in the mask mentioned it last week. It is apparently a clan of martial artists.” “Make an Observation roll with a -5 penalty because its dark.”

Only 2 valid responses? Seriously some guy? I can think of many more. He has this bit completely backward. When you see a 'strange rune' the player need not ask if he has seen it before. The DM should front that info. I have never seen play where the questions were asked before a knowledge roll made. See rune. Make check. Get info. Ask questions from gained info. Why would I ask the DM if I know something about the rune? If I know something about it, I don't need to ask a question. I should have been told that. YMMV

kyoryu
2016-08-25, 12:36 PM
No, I mean exaggerated.

I've read more than a little absolutely dead-serious "fail forward" advice that includes comments like "there was no Dread Sword in the setting or the PC's backstory until the player made it up on the spot" and "no one, not event he GM, knows if the Dread Sword is in the ruined tower before the player succeeds or fails the search roll"...

It's not that far from there to "blank page".

I think there's an interesting bit in here.

If you're running Keep on the Borderlands, it's very well established what is and is not in the caves. If the book says something is in the Caves, it is. If it doesn't say it, it's not.

More improv-focused games kind of look at things in three categories - things we've established to exist or be true, things we've established to not exist/not be true, and things that we haven't really established.

So if a player asks "hey, is there some kind of weapon this guy is weak to?" in a more Keep-like scenario, either we've established that there *is* such a thing, or there is *not* such a thing. One of the two is true.

In the more improv-style game, though, the GM might say "hrm, I hadn't assumed there was, but that sounds reasonable... let's roll to see if you know of one." We're taking that "not-established" question and answering it, one way or the other.

That doesn't preclude prep. It doesn't preclude lots of prep. It doesn't mean that you override established facts. It just means that if you, as a GM, haven't really decided explicitly whether something is true or not, you can decide it on the fly, using a skill or whatever.

The existence of this third category is mostly orthogonal to the amount of prep you do.

As a technique, it's also more useful in some types of games than others. If your game is really about "here's a challenge, beat it", then the ability to come up with these off-the-cuff things might seriously put a crimp on the designed challenge you're setting before the players.

But in a game where the focus is more on "what happens", it can work quite well.



Only 2 valid responses? Seriously some guy? I can think of many more. He has this bit completely backward. When you see a 'strange rune' the player need not ask if he has seen it before. The DM should front that info. I have never seen play where the questions were asked before a knowledge roll made. See rune. Make check. Get info. Ask questions from gained info. Why would I ask the DM if I know something about the rune? If I know something about it, I don't need to ask a question. I should have been told that. YMMV

Well, his two valid responses, I think have some validity to them. You're either asking about what you can see and know, or you're actively doing something.

He chose very poor "asking" examples, as I agree those are likely things the GM should just tell the player.

Lorsa
2016-08-25, 01:11 PM
I think there's an interesting bit in here.

If you're running Keep on the Borderlands, it's very well established what is and is not in the caves. If the book says something is in the Caves, it is. If it doesn't say it, it's not.

More improv-focused games kind of look at things in three categories - things we've established to exist or be true, things we've established to not exist/not be true, and things that we haven't really established.

So if a player asks "hey, is there some kind of weapon this guy is weak to?" in a more Keep-like scenario, either we've established that there *is* such a thing, or there is *not* such a thing. One of the two is true.

In the more improv-style game, though, the GM might say "hrm, I hadn't assumed there was, but that sounds reasonable... let's roll to see if you know of one." We're taking that "not-established" question and answering it, one way or the other.

That doesn't preclude prep. It doesn't preclude lots of prep. It doesn't mean that you override established facts. It just means that if you, as a GM, haven't really decided explicitly whether something is true or not, you can decide it on the fly, using a skill or whatever.

The existence of this third category is mostly orthogonal to the amount of prep you do.

As a technique, it's also more useful in some types of games than others. If your game is really about "here's a challenge, beat it", then the ability to come up with these off-the-cuff things might seriously put a crimp on the designed challenge you're setting before the players.

But in a game where the focus is more on "what happens", it can work quite well.

I would just like to add that even in the improv-style game you mentioned, it IS possible for the GM (at least I assume as much) to say "no, that doesn't sound reasonable at all...". For example, if a player says "you know, my character's grandfather used to have a super-magical sword called the Dread Sword that could kill anything in one hit and on his deathbed he told my character where he had buried it", the GM could say "this seems like the sort of thing you should have mentioned earlier if that was the case, it feels like you're just making up stuff to help make you super-powerful to deal with this combat problem (and many others to come) in a very cheap way, so I won't allow it".

Whether you choose to put things in beforehand or on the spot doesn't really matter. You still have to make a decision, just at a different time.

kyoryu
2016-08-25, 01:28 PM
I would just like to add that even in the improv-style game you mentioned, it IS possible for the GM (at least I assume as much) to say "no, that doesn't sound reasonable at all...".

Absolutely.


For example, if a player says "you know, my character's grandfather used to have a super-magical sword called the Dread Sword that could kill anything in one hit and on his deathbed he told my character where he had buried it", the GM could say "this seems like the sort of thing you should have mentioned earlier if that was the case, it feels like you're just making up stuff to help make you super-powerful to deal with this combat problem (and many others to come) in a very cheap way, so I won't allow it".

Yeah, I doubt I'd ever allow that as a GM. I might respond with "No, but you do remember your grandfather telling you about a legendary sword..."


Whether you choose to put things in beforehand or on the spot doesn't really matter. You still have to make a decision, just at a different time.

Exactly.

Though, as I said, for the more "here's a challenge, now beat it" type games, adding stuff into the challenge may violate the spirit of what you're doing, and might not be appropriate.

Malacronious
2016-08-25, 04:57 PM
Behind the tasteless name calling and just general "I am great and you are not" attitude, I have personally found some pretty useful advice on the site. As some others have made mention to though, it does seem like you have to sift through a bunch of "blah blah blah you're a dips$&%" content to get to the most useful pieces. If I had a ton of time to to read through everything to find the good stuff I'm sure I'd get something out of it but it seems like the "Angry GM Advice with Attitude" thing he has going is just making the articles a much longer read than need be.

grimsly
2016-08-30, 10:19 PM
I haven't read the entire thread. I must say I had to stop at point 1. When you fail at number one, I care not for number 2.



Only 2 valid responses? Seriously some guy? I can think of many more. He has this bit completely backward. When you see a 'strange rune' the player need not ask if he has seen it before. The DM should front that info. I have never seen play where the questions were asked before a knowledge roll made. See rune. Make check. Get info. Ask questions from gained info. Why would I ask the DM if I know something about the rune? If I know something about it, I don't need to ask a question. I should have been told that. YMMV

I can see a few reasons this could come up in a game legitimately, though perhaps not exactly as written. First and most simply, it breaks up the narration and gives the player a chance to speak. This wouldn't be necessary if the GM could be concise in his descriptions, but that is something not all GMs are capable of, alas. So the player might jump in in the middle of narration with a question to clarify, then the GM responds as indicated.

Another possibility is that it's an investigation scene, in which several 'clues' (as in points of interest/plot hooks/actual clues to a mystery) are present, and I think letting players decide what to talk about first in that sort of scene is a good idea.

Lastly, if this sort of detail oriented approach it's past of the feel the GM wants the game to have. I've seen some OSR types who swear by meticulous mapping by the players (like, down to the yard), and will give you a thousand reasons for how it enhances the experience. Others don't bother with maps at all. Encumbrance, exhaustion, insanity, itemized lists of where items are placed on a character's person, who rolls perception, the list goes on and on. In a game where investigation and discovery are major themes, I can see how putting the responsibility for calling for knowledge checks in the players hands could play into that.

I've read a ton of Angry's stuff, and really enjoy it, so I'll admit a strong bias to trust that he knows what he's talking about. I read pretty fast, so the extra length from the attitude doesn't bother me either. If you go in looking for something you can throw into your game tomorrow(not an attitude I disparage by any means) you'll probably be disappointed, but if you want to take some time to wax philosophical, it's a great site.

Tl,dr: I like Angry because I enjoy overthinking everything and, deep down, I feel like I deserve the abuse.

James_the_Giant
2016-09-01, 01:34 PM
I've read a lot of AngryGM's articles and find they contain great information, once you get past the constant deleted expletives and condescension. For those that like solid GMing tips in video form and without those other things, you might take a look at How to Be a Great GM over on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1F4eMw3W_rHBfxf9_m1hbw

This guy also has another channel called Bacon Battalion RPG that gives tips to players as well as some rpg game play videos.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDcjQrzOsHZqayu4TMCJMQ

2D8HP
2016-09-04, 11:43 AM
I for one welcome our new RPG overlord and his obscenity laced diatribes. The rants are hilarious, interesting to read, and then I forget most of it within an hour of reading them.
On the benefits of improv vs. pre-planning:
The most successful RPG sessions I've every GM'd (judging by the players responses) were in the late 1980's, and except for some scenes ripped-off from inspired by movies, and were almost completely improvised using only dice and nothing on paper, beyond the PC's character sheets. I had about a decade of experience heavily playing and GM'ing RPG's. I wouldn't have been able to "just wing it" without any previous practice with pre-planned adventures, and I can't do that level of improvisation now since I no longer have a young mentally agile mind.
Improv was best during the brief time I could pull it off, but those days are gone.

Anonymouswizard
2016-09-08, 09:35 AM
So remember this?


Maybe I should start a blog and make a 'The Calm GM' series with my views on running the game.

Well, I've done it (http://thatnamelessmage.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-calm-gm-starting-your-game.html). Now I need to work on making the blog look good and get up some more content (I'm also planning to chronicle the games I'm currently making, starting with my space opera one, as well as maybe do the occasional review), but starting is the first step to becoming an unknown on the internet. The advice isn't very good, it's a bit generic and about a specific situation, but it gives me a jumping off point to talk about more important things. If anybody has ideas of topics I should add to the list please feel free to make suggestions, it'll hopefully remind me to get the next post written sooner.

Now I'm off to make this blog look pretty, I see you around.