amaranth-witch
@amaranth-witch

This is a basic one but I want to get it out there (partly to settle my head to allow for a second attempt at sleep, here's hoping!)

In the modern traditionally-understood RPG setup - the DM/Facilitator-and-Players split, where one party or small group controls "the world", "the story", "the game" and "the NPCs" and multiple other single-persons each control one (or sometimes more) avatar apiece - there's a lot of ink spilled about various "DM tools" and "DM practices" and the like, and there's people on one of the many sides going "oh you have to follow all these rules" and people on another side going "rules elide, get used to making rulings instead" and there's 4, 5, 6, more other sides out there

(character-players are rarely subject to such advice-bombardment, in a lot of ways, the ideological petty war of the 101 class is fought over the facilitators)

rarely do people get at the heart of the matter. Sometimes it's because they haven't realized it, or because they don't believe it could be so simple, or because they have a vested interest in keeping it mysterious, or any number of reasons. I have no such reasons. I want people to eagerly and lovingly engage with one of my favorite hobbies and art forms. And so I am going to share it, based off a long journey of realizations over almost 4 decades of actual play.

Ultimately, the key element to the DM/Facilitator role in tabletop RPGs is not a rule or set of rules contained in the book(s). Those rules are important, but they support the real key element, which is that the DM exists in a state of balance between
CONSISTENCY <- and -> CREDIBILITY.
And draws on the one to build the other. I shall explain.

The facilitator, perforce, operates on a different rules implementation than the character-player. They're given fictional power which is important to the perceived function of the game: they design (or generate) the stage where the play happens, they interpret actions, they set up the other actors the character-players will encounter, often balanced against those players' capabilities, often not balanced against them, they adjudicate rulings as needed, they provide intrusions to keep things interesting. They do all of this without a rules-balance which is accountable to the character-players, with game-specific exceptions.

In many ways, the facilitator does not need the game. Before you take me out of context, I shall provide some.

One of my good friends, Elle, ran a weekly D&D 5E game at her local game shop from about 2015 through early 2020, and then in the pandemic's early days, started a new one online with some trusted players. She did a great job. Everyone loved her game.

Elle did not look at a 5E book until 2021, when she was gifted her first copy. (She is welcome to correct me on this; it's not the exact date that matters, but the fact that "Elle didn't really know the details of 5E at all" which matters here)

She knew enough about D&D from previous editions to speak with confidence, and provide a substrate for the game to run, and let her players do all the rest. The rules worked consistently; she just didn't need to know them herself in order to run the game.

I am not saying "you don't need to learn the rules to run the game", that's a different essay. What I AM saying is that if you have enough credibility, when you make your pronouncement as Facilitator, the character-players will accept it, because it is coming from you.

There are many ways to build credibility. You get some just from picking up the Facilitator role; part of this specific social contract includes those permissions, includes "the DM gets to make things happen or say they don't happen", and so on. But you can burn through the automatic credibility really fast if you're not careful.

Enter consistency.

A big way of building credibility is by demonstrating consistency. The rules of the game help here: by following those rules, even if you're technically not bound by them, you demonstrate that you know how the game "should" work and how it is "supposed to" go. You demonstrate the ways in which you are likely to make rulings. Once you're called on for an ad-hoc ruling, which will happen in every single game I've ever played, you can further demonstrate consistency by following your own precedent (or if you veer from precedent, by presenting convincing reasons for the difference, rather than just saying "hey trust me y'all" on it). Consistency builds credibility.

The reverse is also true: credibility is an avenue for consistency. They feed each other in a positive spiral, so much so that when you do have to draw heavily on your store of credibility to say "ok, so this is a big ask, but trust me on the powerful adversary" (or whatever) it's fairly quick to refill, if you're consistent!

All of the rules of the game, of any game with a DM/facilitator role, are supported on this balance. It underlies everything. It is the reason the DM can roll the dice unprompted, look at a player and say "your character takes 15 damage". It is the reason the DM is not expected to announce every single move they make (you know, for accountability's sake, like a character-player usually is). It is often the reason the facilitator doesn't have to announce why they're rolling the dice until they feel like it. It's definitely the reason that the DM gets to say "and the ceiling begins to fall" or "the king disbelieves you" or "you arrive to find your heist target already stolen, as the Kabuki Gang of Five introduces themselves like a flock of seagulls, each different but all the same".

All the tools we are provided assist with this relationship.


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in reply to @amaranth-witch's post:

Hidden in the comments:
"So you're saying system doesn't matter if you're a good DM?"
No, the opposite, in fact. I'm saying that if you're a good DM, you learn to understand how much your system-of-use DOES matter, and by making it matter, build up the trust and credibility necessary to make proclamations that the system does not support, and give yourself the social-group "currency" (imperfect metaphor but I've been awake far too long) to temporarily escape the systems in big ways, but in so doing, are still defined in reference to the systems in use.

Alternate response: "yes, because the more the skilled GM creates a unique consistency with the skilled and eagerly consenting group, the more that consistency itself forms a unique system of art in that group. A preponderance of such a system will perforce be based on the unique social relations of the particular group, more than any particular game's rulebook. However,"

And then segues into the answer already given here.