You see how well he impresses the judges. They have scores they tally up and calculate, but in the end, you’re just trying to “please” them… and pleasure is something that’s very problematic to benchmark.

Judges do not simply vote on how impressed they are. Any gymnastic routine involves technical elements that judges can objectively assess. Figure skating, e.g., works the same way. A huge part of any routine is performing specific moves that are assessed using a point system.

Again, there are “soft” elements that enter into it, but that doesn’t make the pocess 100% subjective. IMO, there are some basic GM’ing skills that can be assessed before moving on to issues of style and feel.

At GenCon Indy this year, I walked out on an event; I’ve never done this before. It wasn’t just becasue I had a gut feeling about the GM. It was becasue the GM was making some fundamental mistakes that were making participation in the event pointless, and thus a waste of my time. These mistakes could be easily pointed out (and hopefully corrected) before even touching on whether I liked how he did accents or whatever.

If your main concern isn’t getting them to pick up their pens, pass around a laptop at the end of the session instead — and then print out the results to share.

A friend passes a comment book around starting the last half hour or so each session. Idle players start filling it out, and then the rest do it during pack-up. It’s done every session, so group members quickly learn to make mental notes for their content. We all enjoy reading all the comments, so there’s accountability and friendly competition to be observant.

(Fred) Perhaps what the gaming world needs is a solid, well-attended, well-publicised, well-judged GMing competition.

I’m bouncing this idea off of some of what I wrote in Professional GMing, and I like it. I’m not sure how it would be handled, but it definitely has merit.

(Joe) New gamers, especially women, are the best at telling you your flaws. Women are more open and communicative about what they like and dislike and see no problem in discussing “personal issues”.

Your mention of new gamers providing better feedback makes me think of the cards you sometimes fill out for your convention GMs — do you know the ones I mean? They rate the GM and the event in a range of categories, usually with 10 questions or less.

I don’t know how useful those cards are to con organizers (since I’ve never organized a con ), but it might be an interesting concept to apply to home games. Keep them anonymous, and I bet you could get some pretty good feedback — except that I wonder if not knowing who hated last night’s session wouldn’t actually be a detriment, not a benefit. Hmmm.

(DNAphil) One can describe a truck in winter, making some notes about the snow on the roof, but what about that chuck of ice in the wheel well, that falls off on the ground when the car is parked?

When you’re not crunched for prep time, these are the details that really make a game come alive. Good example!

In a previous topic, you asked what were some of our GM shortcomings, one of mine is that when I get excited, I do not describe the setting as richly as I think I should. So I try to leave little visual reminders in my notes to slow down and describe what the players are seeing.

To practice that, I do what I call verbal portraits, where I pick an object that I have seen or am looking at, and start describing it in as much detail as possible. I do this out loud, and try to listen for things that make an object stand out, or sound more real. One can describe a truck in winter, making some notes about the snow on the roof, but what about that chuck of ice in the wheel well, that falls off on the ground when the car is parked?

Also, after years of playing (almost 25) I cringe when I do a stereotypic Nobel voice, or start speaking in one of those Ren-Fair English accents. So I try, and often when I am alone in the car, driving to or from work, to practice some other voices and speech patters. I will also listen carefully to movie dialog and try to take mental notes of interesting speech patterns or phrases that people use.

So those are both areas where as a GM I think you can do a bit of a workout, and not even need to be at the table.

I’ve been GMing with some of the same players since college in 1989. While I don’t claim to be a good GM, I have many flaws and I make mistakes, I certainly run a game well-enough that some people will stick around for 16 years.

My wife has had to point out to me how much certain people in the group value the game and the group of people that we play with – she’s much better at reading emotions and motivations than I am.

Her viewpoint and those of new people in the group are often the best. They are unfettered by years of bad habits and the close familiarity that forms in a game that makes you ignore certain behaviors and tendencies. New gamers, especially women, are the best at telling you your flaws. Women are more open and communicative about what they like and dislike and see no problem in discussing “personal issues”.

When I wanted to learn D&D 3, I just started to run a session, and like the one commenter, I tried new rules and spells all the time. I would try to break the system and find its limits – try things I was used to doing in other systems and see if it would work.

This improves the mechanical aspects of being a GM, and it has the side benefit of often causing rules discussions and disagreements which help to improve the “cat herding” skills of the GM.

As far as video-taping yourself, that’s an interesting idea, uncomfortable, but interesting.

I mean, how do you tell who’s a better gymnast?

You see how well he impresses the judges. They have scores they tally up and calculate, but in the end, you’re just trying to “please” them… and pleasure is something that’s very problematic to benchmark. Just ask folks who are in the gymnastics community about shifting standards in judging, and how hard it can be, sometimes, to know what it will take to get that lat .05 out of a judge that makes you a medalist.

Perhaps what the gaming world needs is a solid, well-attended, well-publicised, well-judged GMing competition.

A ballet dancer might learn to jump higher by performing with lead weights on her ankles, but ballet isn’t about who can jump higher.
But it is about extensive training and practice, and there are good and bad ballet dancers.

The issue is simply that judging “soft skills” is more subjective. That doesn’t mean one cannot assess and improve.

It’s like, how do you tell if you’re a better interviewer?

How do you tell if you’re a better accompanist?

How do you tell if you’re a better software quality assurance tester?

These are not reliably benchmarkable pursuits.

That being said, if you want to try to stretch your abilities, here are some things you might do:

1> Invite difficult people to your games.
2> Implement problematic and confusing rules
3> Take on the burden of narrating not only your NPC’s actions, but those of the PC’s as well

Of course, you’d ruin the game if you did that.

A ballet dancer might learn to jump higher by performing with lead weights on her ankles, but ballet isn’t about who can jump higher.