Comments on: Be Interested

By: Gnome Rodeo: More Links than a Sausage Golem

Gnome Rodeo: More Links than a Sausage Golem — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:12:58 +0000

[...] read everything Ben Robbins has ever written about GMing, but start with these two recent posts: Be Interested and Bad Trap [...]

By: ben robbins

ben robbins — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:12:30 +0000

“But how I wish that I’d been given the advice put forth in this post all those years ago, when I ran games as a kid!”

Thanks Eric — me too!

By: Tommi

Tommi — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 06:54:39 +0000

Good post.

I think that the advice about being interested is something players should live by, too. Be interested in other player characters, prominent NPCs and whatever other things are central to the game.

By: bignose

bignose — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:35:05 +0000

I’ve been reading Burning Empires with much interest. One of the core mechanics is a formal breakdown of game sessions into scenes: during every stage in the story (called a “maneuver”) the player characters each get an allotment of three scenes of various types (one “color”, one “building”, one of either “conflict” or “interstitial”). Each of the different scene types has a game-mechanical effect, so the players need to use them all to get what they want for their characters. The GM’s major characters also get an allotment of scenes, usually fewer than those of the PCs.

This “scene economy”, it is reported by those who play the game, leads to very intense play — there’s always more the players want to get done than will fit into their alloted scenes, so they have to decide what’s *really* important right now — and it also ensures that everyone’s characters gets a fair chance at spotlight time.

By: Eric Ullman

Eric Ullman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:53:10 +0000

Ben, my man, I’ve recently gotten back to gaming (~4 years) and GMing (~1 year) after a near-decade-long hiatus. I’ll be turning 40 this year, and I started gaming as a pup, so I’ve been around a bit. I started reading your blog about a year ago, having found it when I started getting serious about putting up the GM screen again. You’ve written tons of excellent stuff, and I’ve learned a great deal from your posts. (Thank you, from both me and my players.)

But how I wish that I’d been given the advice put forth in this post all those years ago, when I ran games as a kid! I think this is very likely the single most important advice for GMs that I’ve ever read. It’s so simple, yet it gets right to the heart of the matter of what role playing is about. It’s something EVERY GM can do, no matter what their level of social mastery or what the game is. It just _applies_.

Thank you. I’ll remember this one always and be a better GM for it.