Why is GMing so "difficult"

[Airk]

Putting the ol' airquotes around "difficult" in the topic, because honestly, I don't think it is. What I really mean is "why do so many people do it so badly?"

We've got threads and threads and threads here, ranging from "Tell me about your worst DM" mutual venting/sympathy to posts full of people desperately trying to save someone who has bad-DM'd themselves into a corner.

So. What is it about running a game that causes so many people to fail at it? (Both their first time and, in an appalling number of cases, over and over.) Is there a lack of good information in games on HOW to do this? It seems possible, especially when talking about older games, which in many cases included advice that was actually actively bad (Lookin' at you, World of Darkness!). Is it just that some people are incapable of thinking "how will this look from the other side of the GM screen?" Obviously, there's some sort of 'skill' involved here, but you'd expect things to be more "Well, that wasn't that good, but I see what went wrong." rather than the various horror stories we get around here.

[Rhynn]

I think a lot of people have misconceptions or specific ideas about what it is to run a game, and they try to put these into practice in ways that don't work out.

Specifically, I think a lot of people get their ideas about how the game should run from reading novels, watching movies, and playing video games.

Those are great sources for bits and pieces to put in your game - inspiration for characters, setpieces, locations, and set-ups.

But - in the majority of RPGs - any time you go into the game with a firm idea of what will or should happen (as GM or player), you're going to run into a fundamental problem: there are other people involved, and they have (and deserve to have) agency, and you can't control what they do, and that changes how things happen.

Frequently, problems arise from GMs trying to mitigate the effect the players have on events. They change rules, they railroad players, they abuse their power and behave badly, they panic, they scramble. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

So. What is it about running a game that causes so many people to fail at it? (Both their first time and, in an appalling number of cases, over and over.) Is there a lack of good information in games on HOW to do this? It seems possible, especially when talking about older games, which in many cases included advice that was actually actively bad (Lookin' at you, World of Darkness!).

Yes, there is a lack of good information. Many RPGs don't explicitly address how to run a game at all, and many more (like AD&D 2E and D&D 3.5, which have had a major influence on the hobby in general) give actively bad advice, both explicitly and implicitly by setting bad examples.

Now, what actually constitutes a good game (as in, an event and experience, not a system) is obviously going to vary, but I feel that the most obnoxiously bad GMs are the ones who are trying to control things they shouldn't.

There are other types of bad GMs, like the ones who have no grasp on the game at all, and it just sort of flails around. Hey, I was like that as a kid. (Then I became the above kind as a teen, and then I got better.) This is mostly a problem of planning and organizing. It doesn't take a lot of either, IMO, to run a great game, but it does take a little, and that requires awareness and intent.

A lot of the issue is with self-awareness. I think it can be hard for people who do possess the capacity for metacognition (assessing and observing your own thinking and decision-making with something resembling objectivity) to understand, but some people just plain can't look objectively at what they're doing and why. If you can't assess how you're running a game, you are only going to run a good game by chance. Some people certainly get lucky and find a method that works for them and their group purely by chance, but others just stumble around, doing the wrong things. Or, as you put it:

some people are incapable of thinking "how will this look from the other side of the GM screen?"

I'm honestly not sure how well these self-observing skills can be taught and learned, even. Certainly, people aren't born with them, and develop them over their childhood especially, but it may be that at a certain point, probably as a young adult, you're kinda stuck with what you've got. Who knows?

[obryn]

I'd say that if you combine immaturity (assuming a lot of these are from either teens or adults who never grew up) with a frequent lack of social skills, and then impose a power structure on top of it where not everyone is equal and one player is in control, you are almost begging for bad situations to arise.

But I think it's also a lack of good examples, bad habits passed down over "generations," and a lack of actual advice about the social parts of running a game. (You see a lot about the rules for stuff like village populations in various DMGs, but not a lot about how to manage your players, keep the game fun, and keep things moving.)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

There's a few reasons I can think of.

GM instruction is terrible. Some games have advice on building challenging encounters. Some games have outlines of settings and some ideas on how to make locations interesting. Games that teach you how to run a game are far less common, and the closest that RPGs get to proper GMing instruction is a sort of oral tradition, where you learn GMing techniques from those who GM you.

The GM role is complex. You are a voice of authority, a nexus for social problems, the face of a world, the one who ties plot threads together, the one who plays the opposition to a team of heroes, and the one expected to have an exhaustive knowledge of the rules and the setting. To reinforce the first point, games in general do not teach you the skills for this.

Players' needs are complex. Players need/want to be challenged, to have the freedom to choose their path, to find an engaging story, to believe in the world, to have an experience, to be entertained.

The mainstream game, D&D, is limited in its scope. You can do things other than "heroes face a series of challenges on their way to the endgame", but that requires harder work. D&D doesn't give a GM tools for the tone or style of many types of stories--they have to make it work themself. There's little support for other types of stories.

The problem of power. Hardly anyone has the same idea of what the authority of a GM means, and it's easy for that authority to go to a GM's head.

Is that an exhaustive list? Nah. But I think it's a great overview of a number of reasons why the GM's role is problematic. What it distills to, I think, is that there is a mainstream expectation of the GM that's not quite fair: the one player who organizes everything, puts in all of the prep-work, arbitrates any at-the-table conflicts, puts up with the players' ridiculousness, and in exchange gets absolute power (as opposed to the players, whose primary rule is "just show up"). It's a mindset that has an imbalance of power--it might technically be equal(ish), but it's not equitable.

EDIT: an addendum point I just thought of: I suspect that not enough GMs swap out with players, which hinders their ability to empathize with players and understand that perspective. And that flows both ways. In a group where all of the players take turns running games, I suspect that problems are greatly lessened.

[Rhynn]

I don't think it is.

Anecdote:

Early on, as a 9-12 -year-old GMing for friends, I rarely found the role of GM difficult. (The most difficult aspect was trying to keep a bunch of little kids focused on an activity when you're a little kid yourself!) 12-16 was sort of a golden period, with countless hours of great fun and little difficulty.

Later on, around 16-21, when my ambitions and aspirations for "telling stories" through games had grown, it often felt difficult: I couldn't keep my games "on point," I felt I failed to present something just right, I had too many threads to weave together, and so on.

Then, I gradually grew and worked out of those ideas, consciously changed how I ran games, and it's easy again! It may not be complete coincidence that I have also returned to retroclones of the first games I played and draw from the well of modules I did back then (although, honestly, I rarely actually ran modules then, more just read them). But, on the side, there are many other, newer systems, too.

Of course, it helps that my players are great people and friends and not giant jerks and bungholes like the players many other people seem to be saddled with.

[kailkay]

In my experience, the 'bad GMs' are the ones who don't realize that roleplaying games are best served as a group story-telling thing, with some crazy awesome action sequences.

They want the story to be about their BAMF DMPC, or they want the story to be about how the PCs die against this group of enemies, or they want the story to evolve in exactly one direction, inorganically, without input from other people.

[Airk]

In my experience, the 'bad GMs' are the ones who don't realize that roleplaying games are best served as a group story-telling thing, with some crazy awesome action sequences.

They want the story to be about their BAMF DMPC, or they want the story to be about how the PCs die against this group of enemies, or they want the story to evolve in exactly one direction, inorganically, without input from other people.

Sure, but where do these people get this idea? I suppose there's just a lack of information in the rulebooks about what the GM is supposed to do?

But then, it seems like some people don't even care what the 'book says' (This seems to be a problem for the GM in the much-derailed "Story Heavy, Rules Light" thread.) so how do you approach the problem?

[Rhynn]

Sure, but where do these people get this idea? I suppose there's just a lack of information in the rulebooks about what the GM is supposed to do?

I think a lot of it just is the idea that "RPGs = video games & novels & movies" and that they should be able to tell those same stories in the same way through RPGs. But of those, only video games have any player agency, and even that's usually enormously limited - especially in the tightly-plotted RPGs they usually look to for inspiration and imitate. (Yeah, yeah, Choose Your Own Adventure, etc., special cases.)

[DMSabre]

I would surmise that many of us started GMing/DMing with little or no experience in gaming, so we had no basis for what was possible or allowable other than the rulesets. Few people get exposure to many different GM styles other than what is in their gaming group, and that group is likely to have been influenced by the player's style, so it's a bit circular.

As a result, my own style was very classical. It wasn't until I had a chance to be exposed to completely new and different styles of GMing that I had my world expanded to what include not only what the words 'said' but also what the words 'meant'.

In today's world of gaming podcasts and sites like these, that barrier has fallen down quite a bit and made it easier for people to transfer their knowledge about how they think and implement the rules in creative ways.

But, if all you have to go on is the printed rulebooks, there's a lot of learning about the art of GMing yet to do.

[NichG]

I think there's roughly three categories of DMs. I'll label them -1, 0, and 1.

Category -1: These DMs basically have internal goals that are inherently somewhat in conflict with the game actually being (stably) fun. A DM who really wants to tell a cool story they came up with to a captive audience, for example. The issue here is, no matter how much instructional material or advice or whatever you give, it is actually against their interest to improve. These 'category -1' DMs are basically the source of most of the horror stories you hear.

I'd also include DMs with particular personality issues that they fail to or cannot control in this category, so long as those issues actively prevent them from being a good DM.

Category 0: These are DMs who want to improve, but just aren't there yet. Learning to DM well takes time, and as long as new people are taking up the DM chair there will always be lots of people who haven't really honed their art yet. Also, the line between Category 0 and Category 1 is very much a matter of personal opinion.

I would say the key characteristic of 'Category 0' DMing is that the DM does things because they've seen it done in other games, or they have some idea that 'this is what the game is', but there is an incoherency between what they want from the game and what they do to make it happen. This is where you often see, e.g., someone deciding to run a 'low magic' campaign in D&D because their last D&D got dominated by casters; or someone who accidentally TPKs the party because they don't understand how encounter difficulty, action economy, etc all connect together.

These DMs (and their games) will be generally okay, but may have issues keeping steam all the way to the conclusion, may have player/DM/rules conflicts that sour the game, or have other problematic moments. You hear stories about these moments, but in general the problem is specific things, not the game as a whole.

Category 1: These DMs have been doing it long enough that they have some idea how to produce the game they want to run. This game may not be for everyone, so that can actually lead to some 'horror story' like reactions, but the main distinction is that they do things 'intentionally' or 'purposefully'.

I think at this point, the DM's personal style and tastes start to come through more clearly. While a Category 0 DM might angle things in ways that they personally like, they don't necessarily how to make it work (especially if the system doesn't quite match their personal tastes). At Category 1, the DM basically has the experience to work around that.

Category 1 is not necessarily 'better' than category 0 for all players (though I would say Category 1 DMs are capable of producing gaming experiences that are more polished than Category 0 DMs). I would rather say that the biases of the system will shine through more with category 0 DMs, and the biases of the DM will shine through more with category 1 DMs.

Anyhow, the point of all this is, the horror stories are mostly coming from DMs who are not actively trying to make the experience fun for everyone, but are just trying to do something for their own sake. Which, actually, is very common at gaming tables in players as well (the guy who plays a rogue that always steals from party members just because he can, or the guy who plays a character who just doesn't fit into the setting or storyline or party dynamics or power level of the campaign). Information about 'how to be a good X' is all well and good, if people actually want to follow it. But some just don't.

[Airk]

I'm not sure the category system works because:

A) I think there are "category -1" GMs who only do it that way because they don't know better.
B) I think not all category 0 GMs "want to improve" - which is not the say they aren't willing to improve, but 'want' to improve implies they are exerting some effort.

And even after all that, I don't think you've meaningfully addressed why people fall into these categories.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think a lot of it just is the idea that "RPGs = video games & novels & movies" and that they should be able to tell those same stories in the same way through RPGs. But of those, only video games have any player agency, and even that's usually enormously limited - especially in the tightly-plotted RPGs they usually look to for inspiration and imitate. (Yeah, yeah, Choose Your Own Adventure, etc., special cases.)

This is a great point; RPGs are a very different medium for story, and GMs don't really account for that, especially when the ruleset they use is calibrated to giving the characters problems to solve, and nothing else. (No framework for building a narrative, nothing.)

Dungeon World and associated games do a much better job of leveraging game-as-story-medium, because they teach a model of "the GM draws on the players for content, then ties things together, building on their answers".

[valadil]

1. GMing requires work.
2. As a GM you will be more invested in your game than all the players combined. This is frustrating.
3. GMing is a skill that requires practice. Many people ragequit before they can get good.
4. The GM is a single point of failure for the entire game.
5. The GM is in the spotlight. Some of us get stage fright. (I've GMed for 11 years and my pre-game random encounter still includes stomach butterflies from time to time.) This can be detrimental to your performance.

[AMFV]

Putting the ol' airquotes around "difficult" in the topic, because honestly, I don't think it is. What I really mean is "why do so many people do it so badly?"

We've got threads and threads and threads here, ranging from "Tell me about your worst DM" mutual venting/sympathy to posts full of people desperately trying to save someone who has bad-DM'd themselves into a corner.

So. What is it about running a game that causes so many people to fail at it? (Both their first time and, in an appalling number of cases, over and over.) Is there a lack of good information in games on HOW to do this? It seems possible, especially when talking about older games, which in many cases included advice that was actually actively bad (Lookin' at you, World of Darkness!). Is it just that some people are incapable of thinking "how will this look from the other side of the GM screen?" Obviously, there's some sort of 'skill' involved here, but you'd expect things to be more "Well, that wasn't that good, but I see what went wrong." rather than the various horror stories we get around here.

Well there are a variety of problems many of which have been covered, but there is also a question of divergent tastes. If a DM would like to play a different style of game, then he can't understand why it's a problem, because even if he could put himself on the other side, he would enjoy the game. Since people's tastes in roleplaying games vary so dramatically, this kind of taste disparity can create a bad experience for everybody. It's why being up-front about tastes is a really important part of forming a group.

[Rhynn]

It's why being up-front about tastes is a really important part of forming a group.

I think this can be expanded into a broader area of potential trouble: communication, and communicating poorly.

Many players, GMs or not, won't even think that there might be such a thing as "sitting down together and figuring what we want to play and how." Working together to choose the system, the genre, the style, the premise, and agreeing on rules and conventions for playing (the "meta-rules") can be very helpful, but they are often not addressed at all by RPG sourcebooks. If everyone is coming into the game with different assumptions (not to mention different tastes), trouble can result.

Some GMs further exacerbate this by wielding what power and authority they have to force everyone else to play things their way.

[obryn]

Many players, GMs or not, won't even think that there might be such a thing as "sitting down together and figuring what we want to play and how." ...
Some GMs further exacerbate this by wielding what power and authority they have to force everyone else to play things their way.

It's stunning to me how often people post here (for some reason, here more than any other board I'm on) about a problem like, "My player is being disruptive and causing everyone else to have less fun," and get answers like, "Kill his character with a lightning bolt!" instead of "Why not sit down and talk like people?"

So, for all the DMs out there who haven't learned this yet: Almost all in-game problems have, as their root causes, out-of-game issues. Handle out-of-game issues with out-of-game solutions.

[NichG]

I'm not sure the category system works because:

A) I think there are "category -1" GMs who only do it that way because they don't know better.
B) I think not all category 0 GMs "want to improve" - which is not the say they aren't willing to improve, but 'want' to improve implies they are exerting some effort.

And even after all that, I don't think you've meaningfully addressed why people fall into these categories.

Well, in the formal sense, the Category -1 GMs who only do it that way because they don't know better are actually Category 0. The intent was to reserve Category -1 for GMs who specifically are actively trying to produce something that in general is going to be considered a bad game by the players.

Basically 'actively malign/selfish GMing', 'GMing reflexively', 'GMing with purpose'.

I'll accept that this may not be a useful way to categorize, but I think it is important to make the point 'existence of material on how to be a good DM does nothing if the person doesn't want to be a good DM'.

As to 'why' people might fall into this or that category, that hardly seems like a topic that would fit into a single forum thread. In short, there are tons of reasons why people do things that are self-gratifying. It shouldn't actually be a surprise that this extends to DMing too. Basically the question is 'why do people have desires?' and 'why are some of those desires harmful to others?', which I think is pretty broad.

[Airk]

I think this can be expanded into a broader area of potential trouble: communication, and communicating poorly.

Many players, GMs or not, won't even think that there might be such a thing as "sitting down together and figuring what we want to play and how." Working together to choose the system, the genre, the style, the premise, and agreeing on rules and conventions for playing (the "meta-rules") can be very helpful, but they are often not addressed at all by RPG sourcebooks. If everyone is coming into the game with different assumptions (not to mention different tastes), trouble can result.

Some GMs further exacerbate this by wielding what power and authority they have to force everyone else to play things their way.

Super good point, and probably one of the biggest issues with the hobby right now. No one runs into this sort of thing when they sit down to play poker, because poker has clearly defined rules and expectations, but for better or worse, RPGs are all over the map in terms of what people think they are, and even when you are playing a game with relatively defined objectives (Like D&D) many people insist on using it for something else.

[Silus]

For me as a new DM, the problems are:

1) Player management.
2) Loot distribution.
3) Trying to prep for every eventuality so there's no bogging down as the DM scrambles to try and come up with something plausible for what the PCs just did.
4) NOT railroading and actually allowing the players to do things their own way, even if (and especially if) that thing is not going along with the plot you've carefully crafted for the last half year.
5) Players being jerks and taking advantage of common screwups that a new DM will make.

[SiuiS]

For the same reason writing is so difficult. It's not just a matter of having an idea, you've got to convey it artfully (the method of conveyance being an art itself), with a full grasp of nuance, fully aware of what details are only obvious because you invented them versus being apparent from writing, etc.

The number of people who couldn't spell, couldn't explain beyond basic grammar and who couldn't keep past and present tense in line who insisted they were gifted writers because they had stories to tell escapes my count, because it is very large. DMing is similar. Couple it with the fact that it's much easier to know when something sucks than to make something my suck... Yeah.

[Jay R]

Nobody assumes that because they've read several books, they can now write one. Lots of people assume that because they have played lots of games, they can now GM one.

An essential skill to be a good GM is to care about what other people think, and how other people feel. Lots of perfectly good people aren't very good at this.

Another crucial GM skill is to shift back and forth between advanced planning and improvisation. Each can be a difficult skill; shifting between them is a third difficult skill.

A GM must be able to make a ruling quickly and fairly. Lots of people cannot do that.

Finally, all complex tasks require practice. If players have no patience with a poor GM, how can she get the practice it will take to get good?

[Concrete]

The main reason for my personal failings as a GM is that I like to write stories. I like things to have a certain structure, I want things to have a certain tone, and I want a certain development arc.
I am used to having full control over the protagonists, and when I need them to be frightened, they get frightened. When I need them to get angry, they get angry. I know what they think, and I know what would make them react in certain ways.

Then, when I try to GM, the protagonists are both co-authors and audience. I can give a villain a grand entrance, but no one is gonna let that guy speak, when they can put an arrow in his face whe his guard is down. I can try to make a chase scene, but there will always be someone who won't run. I have to give five radically different characteers room to develop, but if I misjudge one of their motivations by even a smidge, they will walk right past a plothook meant for them just to jump on someone elses, or they will notice the one put out for them, but be offended that I misjudged them.

I have to give them room to act as individuals, but the rules makes one of them the face and the others meat. I have to find things for each one to do, while not making each encounter and problem a case of "insert key A into lock A"

A group needs conflicts and resolution, but I have no control over their chemistry.

Even with the best possible group of players (even if they can get a bit silly at times), I just end up either losing all control, or giving them none.
I simply don't have the flexibility to do it well, but no one else wants to do it! Add to that a whole host of issues, a fear of letting people down, or influencing their relationship to me IRL. I'm simply too small for my shoes, and as I notice them getting more bored for every session that passes, I just get more and more desperate, more and more stressed, and just generally worse.

I am a writer, and what a dm needs to be is a director, negotiator and a mastermind. And that is why I fail.

[Lorsa]

I actually find playing to be more difficult than GMing. Maybe that's just me?

The one important things to keep in mind is that proper GMing is a skill. A skill needs to be learnt. You can learn in various ways but eventually you reach a point where you need practice.

I consider myself to be a good GM, not by my own standard but by the reactions I get from the variety of players I have had. By my own standard I still need to get better and see faults with almost any campaign I run (and try to avoid doing the same again).

However, I have been GMing for 20 years. Before I started GMing I had made a character and played for about 40 minutes. I didn't even have any rulebook when I started, I wrote down what I remembered and then we just completely winged the rest. Looking back I have no idea how we found that acceptable but it was so fun that one of the players that had to be home every day at a specific time to eat dinner actually RAN 2 km and back (he didn't have a bike) to get back to the session faster.

So I really think the problem is that many people haven't been GMing enough. Maybe they've been playing for 10 years and are just now trying it out. Maybe they are new to the hobby and compare themselves with people who've been doing it for 20 years. It takes practice. Much practice. Many many long hours. Lots of mistakes that you have to learn from.

To be perfectly honest, I think everyone should start out GMing as early as possible in their roleplaying career. The moment you've been introduced to the hobby, you should sit down and start running your own game. If you've been roleplaying for a year but never been GM you've waited for too long. It should be a session or two before you start yourself. That's the best way to get better and where I think most people fail. They simply don't practice enough.

[Rhynn]

plot you've carefully crafted for the last half year

I know this can be a crushingly depressingly idea - I know, I've been in the mindset you are - but don't do that. Just don't.

Spend half a year crafting a setting, a world, instead. That pays off over and over, if you keep developing it over the years. People have run decades of games in a single setting, created entire game systems around their settings, and even sold both to thousands of other people to play with and in.

The most carefully-crafted plot only lasts a while. A decently-crafted setting keeps on going.

Nobody assumes that because they've read several books, they can now write one. Lots of people assume that because they have played lots of games, they can now GM one.

Worse yet, they assume that because they've read several books, they can now GM a book.

Finally, all complex tasks require practice. If players have no patience with a poor GM, how can she get the practice it will take to get good?

This is absolutely true. For more than half of the time I've been playing and GMing, I ran embarrassingly bad games. Horribly, horribly bad. But we had more fun than not, and I steadily got better.

[Scow2]

\ I didn't even have any rulebook when I started, I wrote down what I remembered and then we just completely winged the rest. Looking back I have no idea how we found that acceptable but it was so fun that one of the players that had to be home every day at a specific time to eat dinner actually RAN 2 km and back (he didn't have a bike) to get back to the session faster.

Why wouldn't you find that acceptable?

[obryn]

Worse yet, they assume that because they've read several books, they can now GM a book.

I um... tried that back when I was in 6th grade or so.

It didn't happen, thank god.

[Axinian]

Well, as others have pointed out, GMing is a complex skill... or rather a large group of ALREADY complex skills that all have to be reconciled with each other, often on the fly. Of the top of my head, there's:

1) Good planning/time management

2) Improvisation

3) Understanding of narrative structure

4) Understanding of narratives OTHER than a linear story

5) Communication/Listening skills

6) Accurate Self-Assessment

7) Working rules knowledge of basically the entire game (regardless of system)


And more. All of these are difficult to master in and of themselves, and you need to be alright in most of them to be a really effective GM. Not all of them necessarily, but that's still a lot.

[Lorsa]

Why wouldn't you find that acceptable?

Because having actual rules helps everyone, especially the GM.

Maybe I would find it acceptable, but I am quite certain most groups would find it weird if I turned up with a bunch of scribbles and said "this is what I remember of the system, let's play!". Also, we didn't have a d100, which is what you were supposed to roll, so we used d6's instead.

First roll tells you if you're between 1-50 or 51-100, second which interval of ten you're in (with sixes being re-rolls), the third roll if you're between 1-5 or 6-10 in that interval and the fourth roll which number you end up on (again sixes being re-rolls).

So to get 100 you would need to roll 4/5/6 + 5 + 4/5/6 + 5. For 32 you would need 1/2/3 + 4 + 1/2/3 + 2. I have no idea how that works with statistics but that's how we did it back when we had only d6s from old family boardgame boxes. I even remember one time when me and a friend was on a beach and wanted to do a bit of roleplaying and I figured we could use a coin as die.

That's really how I started roleplaying back when I was 13. I worked with the tools that was availible. Guess that's how I got good at improvisation and also where I got my idea that roleplaying really shouldn't be all that complicated. If you're a bunch of people sitting down one evening and feel you want to play then just start playing damnit! It's meant to be fun and not necessarily require months of planning before the first session can take place.

[shadow_archmagi]

GMing is generally done poorly because there's no coherent guide to doing it right, and the fact that two GMs can be fantastic but radically different means that a GM who is incredibly awful will just think of his flaws as parts of his style.

"Of course I shoot down everything that interferes with the plotline I wrote. That's the only way to get anything done! My games always proceed forward very quickly and smoothly."

[Lorsa]

"Of course I shoot down everything that interferes with the plotline I wrote. That's the only way to get anything done! My games always proceed forward very quickly and smoothly."

Which completely ignores the only metric that matters. How much fun are people having? Games moving forward quickly and smoothly has no value in itself.