March 2010 RPG Blog Carnival: How to be a Better GM?

Wow, time really flies and it's already March. I remember signing up to host the RPG Blog Carnival back sometime last year and now the RPG Blog Carnival is pitching their tents for the first time at the Questing GM.

As for this month's topic, it is something that I have chose much earlier because it is something that is close to my heart and one of the reasons why I started this blog; Gamemastering.

I started GMing the same time I started gaming and even after more than 10 years of so-called GMing experience, I still think that I haven't learn all there is to GMing.

Not all GMs are not made perfect to handle every kind situations that comes out from the chaos that is called roleplaying and every day we might encounter a new situation that we have never been in before. Even with the same group of players that you've been playing for decades.

As GMs, I not only have to keep running the game smoothly, I also have to find new ways and ideas to keep my games fresh so that my players would keep coming for more. I always want my players to have fun in my game and that is one of the greatest rewards that I can ever have as GMs.

The reason why I chose the name Questing GM was because I believed that as a GM, I'm always finding out new ways to improve my game for me as a GM and for my players whether it's the way we run combat or how the setting was designed.

It's a learning process that never ends and I believe that we can all learn from each other.

So for this month's blog carnival, I invite, fellow bloggers to do a post on;

How to be a better GM?

Shares your anecdotes, your advice, your own reflections on whether you have improved as a GM, how do improve your game or any other posts that can be helpful to your own or someone else's game. There's just so many aspects in GMing that I'm sure you can chime in on something.

Once you have posted up your post, kindly leave a link at the comments section so that I can do a roundup at the end of the month.

Let's keep the flame from dying, people. I don't want this to be the last blog carnival.

Getting back on track

It's been ages since I've last posted here and I'm putting this post to remind myself that I need to start getting back to blogging. To explain my absence, I can only say that I've started a full time job in the past few months and, as expected, it has taken its toll on my game and blogging time.

Now that I'm gradually getting used to the fast-pace and long hours of the job and knowing what to expect out of it, I'm finally able to settle down and try to strike a balance between my personal life and gamer life.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to refurbish the furniture around here, so I hope you also like the new theme I've put up.

Another reason I'm putting up this post because during my hiatus, it has given my plenty of time to reflect on what I want to do and set new directions.

When I started the blog 2 years ago, I already had in mind a few things that I wanted to focus on, particularly about GMing, my personal styles and preferences with the occasional sprinkle of gaming news to inform my local gaming community.

After joining the RPG Bloggers Network, that focus shifted to almost the opposite direction. There I read numerous posts with great content that contained pieces of advice on gaming that it had become almost like every gamer blog should be done this way.

That's where I made my mistake, I conformed; conformed to the high standards that is the RPGBN that was just too high for me to reach with my limited experience, both as a GM and as a gamer.

To be honest, I took it like it was a competition amongst bloggers to produce the best content or to attract the most readers when you are surrounded by peers that emphasised on these things.

Over the course of time, I realized that I don't have the financial, skill and knowledge to make the cut which lead to the slow death of my enthusiasm and attachment to the community.

During my hiatus, I still continued lurking around forums and other blogs and I came to a realization. RPGs is not a game where everyone can have an equal opinion, the same goes with every arguments about editions, old school vs new school and or what rule is broken or unbalanced.

Every gaming experience on one table is unique for its own existence. We can discuss similarities between our games but we don't necessarily share them.

There were many things I wanted to say about various subjects but was too afraid that I would be disagreed by my fellow RPG bloggers, I was too careful with my opinions which partly became a barrier to express myself.

I don't intend for that to happen again.

So I hereby set a new course for the blog and what you can expect to see more and less in my future posts.

• The direction will be more personal than communal from now on, which means that you'll see more 'I's and 'my's than 'We's and 'our's. Every post that I make from now on is more likely to be a personal opinion, despite how controversial or stupid it may sound and is not trying to conform itself to any kind of acceptable standard (if there was any). What I say is my own and only applies to me.


• Post schedule is, at the moment, still uncertain but will try to stick along the lines of once weekly.


• Due to my work schedule, I'm planning to drop some features namely the Questing's Readings because my time to read, decide and compile which post makes it to the post is limited.


• On the other hand, I want to see how my personal and gaming life is progressing, so features such as the {Quest Log} might be back more often. New features are also in the works but you can be sure it's something more personally relevant.


• I'm adding a rant label so to anyone who wish to avoid the occasional bile that comes out from a rancid gamer, I have placed the labels at the top of my posts so that you won't be caught unaware. You have been warned.


• I'm adding comment moderation. Partly to have control over the spam that I'm starting to get, partly to avoid all out war in my blog based on my discretion.


• Gaming news might appear once in a while but as far as I'm concerned, Word of Wizards is dead in the water from now on (if it wasn't apparent months ago). This has something to do with my severed detachment with 4E in terms of news (I'm sure Wyatt will understand).


• I might get really frustrated at times and might incline towards trolling. If I make any rude remarks with links or mentions to names, blogs, forums, organizations and thereof, please be ensured that all is done in good faith with tongue in cheek. You don't have to take my personal opinions too seriously (.......yet).

That's all for now and I will inform you if I do add more but I think these are sufficient to inform my fundamentals and the expected change of tone and content that this blog is going to have from now on.

So now that this is off my chest, it's good to be back and roll some initiative.