Malcolm Sheppard has split his gaming commentary into its own blog, Shooting Dice; it’s a lot less acerbic than his LiveJournal. Good GMing Advice delves into what constitutes good (as opposed to vague and/or useless) advice for GMs, and how that should look in print.
I’ve obviously got a horse in this race (and it’s a the topic of a popular thread in the GMing Q&A Forum) — what do you think of Malcolm’s points?
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As a whole, I found it to be an informative and enjoyable read.
About the first comment about d20: it seems to me that if WotC released their information about why they think Feat X is balanced with Feat Y, it would
1) expose too much of the inner workings of WotC (from Hasbro’s perspective – don’t forget who owns WotC. Money is everything.)
2) might be filled with “Well, after 20 years of seeing this happen, I made a judgement call.”
I’m sure that there is some general rules that could be passed down for sake of examining how the rules are created, but I doubt that it will ever happen in the bulk that was desired. I do like the idea that system mastery means knowing why the game was put together the way it was and not just knowing that Rule J5 is on page 58 of core book 4.
I’m a big fan of learning about “body hacks”, so the tidbit about sugar and starchy carbs is good to know. Otherwise I thought that the Table Business section was vague.
That’s all I have to say about it.
I like his article; it illustrates a fraction of the many things that GMs need to know. Some of that will come from books– maybe some will come from training videos, some from cobbled together implicit social contract, some from a GM’s own dreams and play experiences.
(Patrick) 1) expose too much of the inner workings of WotC (from Hasbro’s perspective – don’t forget who owns WotC. Money is everything.)
2) might be filled with “Well, after 20 years of seeing this happen, I made a judgement call.â€
I think you’re right on track here. d20-wise, some elements have been deconstructed pretty well (like prestige classes) but others are pretty frustrating to fiddle with (like races).
Scott: I wish a lot of those things were less implicit, and more explicit. “There need to be more [blanks] for GMs” has been popping up a lot lately for me.
I think a section of, “why we did what we did,” can be useful in an RPG–even above and beyond design notes. At the very least, it ought to be available in an online supplement. It does not need to be complete or exhaustive. But it is good to know that rule 8.6.2 was included for some specific reason, with two sentences about those reasons. OTOH, if 4.6 was included primarily for stylistic or mere instincts of the designer, then say that for the whole section.
In general, if you anticipate that people will happily reverse engineer your game, then you shouldn’t make them do that. The handful that do the reverse engineering for the thrill of it can avoid your notes. The rest of the community–that wants to make intelligent decisions regarding house rules, or even quick in-game rulings in the spirit of the system–can more effectively play the game.
I don’t think the WotC’s designers do a bad job of that per se, but I agree that they could do more for clarity. However, with their online articles from the WotC devs and with core dev-made supplements like Arcana Evolved clarifying some stylistic decisions, I believe the devs and even WotC are slowly trying to do that. In fact, I would argue that a dev notes would be the single best thing WotC could add to their next edition DMG. I would make it a CD though, with regular updates as errata are announced.
I find design notes absolutely invaluable. If I notice them in a new RPG, I generally read them first — I want to know what the designer was thinking, and why he did what he did.
Ditto with edition notes — they’re a great way to let folks who’ve played the older editions know what to focus on, and they give you insight into the how the designers’ philosophies have change, or what’s grown out of the way the game was actually played.