Hell Yeah, Gamemasters!

Scott Anderson writes:

I want to thank Mike Olsen and Morgan Ellis for spoiling me on the FATE system. Their specialty is the version of FATE featured in Spirit of the Century. They have hacked it into submission and brought my undeserving soul the glorious time I spent with Spirit of the Fist and Spirit of the American Hero. I tried running lesser versions of FATE and found them sadly lacking. I have played the FATE games of other GMs and, again, they were not even close to the standard I was used to. You can experience this magic by attending one of the three annual Strategicon conventions at an LAX airport hotel. Mike and Morgan have inspired me to be a better GM and I hope to rise to meet their standards someday. Hell Yeah!!!

lfr2010 writes:

Screw linear storytelling. Here’s what Rob MacDougall did in our Unknown Armies game: he had us play historical versions of ourselves. He had us play alternate world versions of ourselves. He had us play NPCs we’d only encountered tangentially, through the shadowed glass. He embraced the concept of rewriting history, in a game that was about history. When a player had to leave the game, he took it as an opportunity to reinforce the theme of historical flexibility: did Danny Greer ever exist? Who knows? Each shadow session reflected the “real world,” and sometimes they were the real world, in a Grant Morrisonian parfait of mystery. I’ve never since been afraid to mess around with chronology.

He also taught me how to make a conspiracy game without mapping it all out in advance. I was shocked when I found out how much of the conspiracy was generated from our own musings and backgrounds. Rob makes it look easier than it is, of course: his deep understanding of United States history meant that he could find a match in reality for anything we came up with. But that just means I have a good example to reach towards.

He came to us from the mysterious North, living in the proverbial Cambridge green pastures for far too short a time. I miss gaming with him. Perhaps again someday.

Lillian Cohen-Moore writes:

The first time I met Ryan Macklin I was about an hour out of an ER. Long story. Despite recent medical advice to take it easy, I sallied forth to my friend Jennifer Brozek’s house because she’d set up a one shot game I’d never played before for my fiance, a roommate and one of our friends, ran by Ryan. It was Don’t Rest Your Head.

That was months ago, and it still gets as much beloved air time as shining moments from games that took months, if not years, to run. Ryan is the master of short, intense games, one-shots included. Just like a movie or a book, there’s a clear arc, and like the end of any good horror story, hopes were raised, endangered, dashed, played with, and a whole host of conclusions were left to us players to think about later. It was my first one-shot. Ryan was not gentle, but he was sure as hell amazing. Ryan’s name is a killing word, which suits, because he is a killer GM.

Emily Care Boss writes:

I’m having the pleasure of being GM’d currently by Evan Torner who is hosting three of us through the storms and duels ofSwashbucklers of the Seven Skies. This is the first time I’ve played a whole campaign with Evan, but I’ve been in games he’s run before and it’s no surprise to me that he’s a great GM.

As a regular GM at our local gaming con, I’ve played Inspectres, Misspent Youth and a variety of other games with him at the helm. He always brings something extra to the table. At one con, he ran a game of 1001 Nights and won the Best Dressed GM prize, for his long robe and turban, which along with the brass bowls and glowing jewel tone dice he used, had everyone envious of his players. He was truly running the game in the spirit that the author, Meguey Baker, intended.

What Evan brings to the game is a lot of thought. He has a serious amount of experience running games for folks at conventions, which takes a different set of skills than long term play. I’ve heard him talk about what goes in to choosing a game for a one-shot: good solid prep, hooky characters that players can jump right in on, or games that flow right out of the characters choices so that what the GM isn’t left scratching their head trying to figure out how to shepherd players they may never have met into following a strongly scripted story that might not tickle their fancy.  

And in our long term game, he’s brought that same dynamic. With Seven Skies working beautifully to feed information back and forth between players and GM about what we’re interested in. In game setup, the GM asks what kind of story the players want, Action? Intrigue? So it’s we been a pleasure to see the ideas came up with for our characters become embodied in other people, places and things that we encounter, like the drunken courtier willing and ready to join the revolution to put Eppy’s character back on the throne. It’s a simple thing, but one of the best things in a GM is simply listening to their players, and Evan has that in spades.