DM Styles

My friend Kris wrote:

I don't know a lot about game theory, but I do know something about giving form to creativity - a structure of some kind. The dice rolling provides an objective structure upon which an elaborate foray in creativity can be had. I would think simple rule-making would not be enough, since rules, by being made of language, which is in itself ambiguous and arbitrary, can be bent, broken, disregarded, etc.

Going to pull back the curtain a little bit about how I work all this stuff out.

Kris' idea here has been a tension for me basically since I started DM'ing when I was 14. How do I tell a cool story while at the same time letting people decide the direction of that story? The interactivity makes it hard for me to plan.

To handle this tension, there are actually different DM styles that I'm balancing currently. First is a strict rules structure, which can be tedious but *absolutely* fair and controlled. There's a "rail" (like a railroad -- only going down one track) structure where there's less interactivity on the part of the players and more of a storytelling component. There's a "referee" style where the DM is very hands-off, giving the characters a situation and then lets the characters choose on their own what happens. He's only there to stop them when they do something illegal. There's also a more freeform style that relies very little on the rules and is much more about style.

Rail systems fail for obvious reasons: if there's no interactivity, its just watching a movie. I've had some incredible DMs tell some astonishingly cool stories, but our characters were very, very secondary. Entertainment factor was high but I didn't care about my character. Elf? Minotaur? Who cares? We're still getting into the castle. Now tell me what happens.

Freeform oddly fails because there is no real danger in dying. This is because if someone's going to lose their character, they want to know that they *really* died and you weren't just punishing them for something intangible and casual. People take that personally and quit playing so DMs can't kill anyone. When you hold death over the head of your players, they're more concerned about what's going on, get deeper into the game, and avoid needless risks. Success and failure in freeform games are mostly based on real human charisma (not some kind of in-game charisma). You often have to talk the DM into it, which is a bit silly and absolutely vague. Here's an example freeform scene:

Player: I'm going to jump off the cliff. I'm going to aim for that little outcropping.
DM: You're @#$% dead.
Player: I hate you!

The Referee style sucks too because there's no direction:

Team: Where are we going?
DM: Wherever you want.
Team: I want money. Where's the money?
DM: In the dungeon.
Team: To the dungeon!
DM: How do you get there?
Team: Is there a door?
DM: Maybe.

Since the DM doesn't seem engaged, the players aren't likely to come along with him. Like a Freshman trying to decide his major in college, players want direction. Very creative players can thrive in this situation but too much freedom is like asking the players to do your work for you.

Strict rules systems involve lots of looking up of information. You're continually pulling up a book and looking for the table that does whatever. If there's no table, what do you do? Sometimes you make one. You have to have a lot of patience for this and be very focused on the game mechanics and usually you fancy yourself a role-playing-game-system writer. On the upside, the DM is not culpable; when something goes wrong, the players might as well argue with the book authors.

Player: I want to shoot him.
DM: You missed. Roll to see which direction it went.
Player: Uh. Left.
DM: Your team mate is to the left. Roll to see if you hit her.
Player: Oops. I hit her.
DM: Roll dexterity check.
Player: Still hit.
DM: Roll for damage.
Player: 5
DM: Roll to save vs. death
Player (to teammate): Idiot! Why were you standing there?!