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I created a questionnaire for myself in order to take a look at my strengths and weaknesses as a DM as well as asking tough questions to my players on ways to improve my game style in their eyes.  I didn't post this on the forums because I feared that it could create arguments between posters.  I posted it here so that if you wished you could look at yourself as a DM and hopefully it will help you too.

Grimli's Short DM Questionnaire

1. Why do you DM?

2. When you are running a game, what in your opinion is one quality that you are most happy with?

3. When you are running a game, what in your opinion is the one quality that you feel you could improve upon?

4. What is the one positive quality that your players most enjoy and talk about your DM style?

5. What is one negative quality about your DM style that your players feel need improving.

6. Of the following, what is your most favorite part about running a D & D game: Role-playing, Combat, Skill Challenges, or Narration? Why?

7. Of the following, what is your least favorite part about running a D & D game: Role-playing, Combat, Skill Challenges, or Narration? Why?

8. When running do you prefer home made adventures and campaigns or pre-designed adventures and campaigns? What do you think are the benefits and problems with your preferred choice?

9. What type of player motivation do you most identify with: Actor, Explorer, Instigator, Power Gamer, Slayer, Storyteller, Thinker, or watcher? Why?

10. What type of player motivation do you least identify with: Actor, Explorer, Instigator, Power Gamer, Slayer, Storyteller, Thinker, or watcher? Why?

Today I went to the memoral of the mother of someone that I used to game with.

In November of this year, that gamer whose name was Anicka Mihalik will have been dead for ten years.

She perished in a vehicle crash on the San Mateo bridge.

While at the memorial I was doing just fine.  Until I reached the dessert table. I picked up a light brown brownie with chocolate chips in it, and it all came flooding back to me...

Anicka would on a regular basis bring cookies to the game.  Anicka and her mother would make them for us.

 Those brownies were my favorite, they always brought me comfort.   Today all they did was remind me that no matter how long it's been you will always miss the people that you most care about.

I now post Kenzer & Company's poem The Empty Chair for those who like me have lost those who have lost fellow roleplayers:

The Empty Chair
Eulogy for a Gamer

There is an empty chair,
at the table this day.
A hallowed place where,
a friend once played.
The roll of his dice,
my ears long to hear.
Or perhaps it would suffice,
if he should suddenly appear.
With character sheet in hand,
and a bag of Cheeze-doodles to share.
All his friends would stand,
as he sat in the empty chair.
I hear his voice a-callin’,
and it ties my heart in a knot.
For he cries, “Though a comrade has fallen,
You must play for those who cannot.”
We conquered worlds on the run,
he and I in the name of fun.
And as others may come and go,
I make both both friend and foe.
But what I long for most,
is our past now long a ghost.

I've played so many different RPGs its almost insane.  But some of these game taught me important things about gaming in general as well as important things about my running style.  Here are the top 5 games that changed the way I saw gaming in least to most important order:

# 5 Big Eyes, Small Mouth

In my opinon Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) taught me one thing:  Simple systems can be just as enjoyable as complicated RPGs.  When I ran the system I ran a bunch of Space Pirates. Based much off of Tenchi Universe the game mechanics allowed the players to do what they wanted and opened the door to entire sessions being about the game without argument about mechanics.

#4 Changeling the Dreaming

This game was symbolic in the World of Darkness System.  It was the only game they made at the time that had pages in color.  There was reason for this, most of the other "races" saw the world as black and white.  Changelings did not, they saw color in the world.  Changeling was a light-hearted change of pace to the backstabbing court intrigues of Vampire, or the Combat Orgy of Werewolf.  It also gave characters useful powers that didn't have the severe restrictions of Mage.  Games could be as innocent or as violent and they could also have a happy ending that didn't involve the end of the world.

#3 Hackmaster

Make no mistake when I first heard about this game I was skeptical.  But Hackmaster taught me a great lesson:  Never take a game too seriously.  More players characters died in my Hackmaster campaign than any other game I've ever ran or participated in...combined.  But you wouldn't know it because the players didn't mind.  Most of the time the characters died due to their own character flaws, and in the end since character had "problems" it wasn't such an issue to see them go.

#2 Cyberpunk 2020

After a hiatus in gaming, this game was unique at the time that everything wasn't black and white.  This game was gritty, realistic, and brutal beyond anything I had played in before.  In this game also it wasn't about winning as it was about how you looked and acted.  Players were encouraged to be like Marilyn Monroe or James Dean.   It was about what you did but more about how you looked when you did it.  It took a concept of superficiality of monty haul campaigns and showed it for what it really was, superficial.  Characters motivations made them legend in their own minds.  Even if your character wasn't a total badass it didn't matter because they believed they were in their own minds.

#1 Dungeons & Dragons

It started gaming for me.  It was the beginning of it all for me.  Even now as I look at my first character sheet I remember entering the world of RPGs with it.   Fantastic worlds, amazing races, magical powers are simply a few of the things that drew me to the game.  It was a game based on being social with your friends that didn't require me to be good at sports or popular.   It only required me to have an imagination and a few friends to share that imagination with.

So I hear that Wizards of the Coast is making Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition!



I understand they have to make money but this just gets tiresome.


I felt that 4th Edition is a milestone (no pun intended...ok mabye a little one) for the game.  I felt it focused on teamwork and positioning like a sports event.  Taking the game in a bold new direction between a Role-Playing Game and a Minatures game.


Now a new one.  With these tough financial times I am leery of prchasing such stuff.  I don't even feel they managed to make all the books and products for 4th Edition that I loved in the older systems (Ravenloft for example).

I feel that WoC is jumping the gun here.   But perhaps I am the only one.             

So while running the module Keep on the Shadowfell.  My players characters got captured by the Hobgoblins.

This was due to a few things in my opinion:


Players:

- Bad Decisions
- Bad Rolls


DM:


- Being a Consequensal GM
- Good Rolls


Instead of allowing the players to attempt escape.  Only a few players (Psion & Druid) would really have a chance the rest to most likely perish in the attempt, since the hobgoblins wouldn't allow to sleep enough to get surges back.     


I decided that they would made a new team to save the old team.  I was hoping that they group would make the same type characters but different characters.  This was to allow players to switch out character if they liked the new ones instead.


Unfortunately my players decided to have some players pick different types completely.  This means if players like the new ones then its possible certian types of character positions will be completely unfilled.