This started as a reply to a G+ conversation, but grew too lengthy to fit there, so I figured I'd bring it here for discussion. The analogy came up that "how to GM" articles tend to be a lot like beginner drawing books: They seem insightful to newbs, but once you have some experience you realize how specific they are and that you really can't condense all the experience needed to be a good GM into a page of writing.
It occurred to me that maybe we should look at how art CAN be taught, if we hope to discover a way to teach good GMing.
As an artist and GM, I can say the two processes are very similar: There are rules to be obeyed, but some people ignore some rules and still get a good result. A lot of the process is mental and hidden, but it manifests in an observable way. There are a lot of different styles, but most people will agree on certain foundations that make "good" art/games... the list goes on. So, on to art teaching methods!
1) Take your ego out of it
or
You are not your art
This is a part lots of artists and GM’s struggle with, in my experience, and it’s simultaneously the hardest and most important part of the learning process.
When learning art, a person will fuck up. They will be wrong. Not like "I disagree" wrong, but "this is totally incorrect and I can explain why with a fucking diagram" wrong. There are people who are better at certain things and the student needs to accept that and listen to them if they ever want to improve. Even people who aren’t as good as the student can have valuable insight, especially if they are the intended audience.
Honest critique is the core of modern creative instruction, and those who get the most out of it are those who can take a bad critique and not just tolerate it, but honestly study and internalize it. In every art class there is the person who ignores all the critiques and says that any "flaw" is "their style". They don't do well i the long run.
Instead, a student needs to distance themselves from their creations. They need to learn to accept that a person can create something and have it be objectively not good, and that this doesn’t mean they failed. They need to realize that a that a bad critique of work is not a bad critique of a person, it is advice to help improve their next work. The realization needs to happen that if a person takes the time to give a critique at all, it’s because they think the creator is able to do better and greater things.
2) Master Copies
One common way to learn is to study the work of more experienced artists and try to recreate it. Art teachers will tell you that in doing this, it is important to not copy what you see, but to analyze it and try to understand why a decision was made, then make that decision yourself.
In GMing, this might take the form of listening to actual plays or watching a game from outside and trying to figure out why the GM did what they did, then running the same game and trying to stick as close to the original playthrough as possible. Likely the person won't be able to exactly duplicate it (stupid player choice!) but overcoming the small deviations is part of the process.
I will note here that running a pre-written scenario is not the same thing as studying how a GM runs something. I would equate a pre-written scenario as somewhere between a paint-by-numbers and a very comprehensive reference collection, depending on how it is used. It has the stuff that will be in the game, but we're not talking about studying game design, we want to be studying GMing, which is about far more than what happens when or where.
3) Tutorials and Process Workshops
In art instruction it is important to see and study the entire creative process, not just the end result. In painting this means seeing thumbnails, sketches, studies, and reference gathering as well as the final techniques used to make the piece.
In GMing, this might mean being there with the GM while he prepares, asking questions about why he's making various decisions, etc. in addition to watching the actual game.
With art, this is often done in the form of videos where the artist walks you through their entire process, or a specific part of it on several projects at once. A similar set of videos or podcasts for games would be interesting. RPPR approaches this in their theoretical talk about "how to incorporate X into your game" posts, but the real equivalent would be something like an AP podcast where the GM writes the game and narrates their process before the game starts so that you can see their entire thought process and how it carries through into the game.
Highlighting various set-pieces in terms of "I wrote it like this, with these ideas in mind, here's how it played out:" would be good equivalents too.
4) Guided Practice
The most common way to teach art once someone has the fundamentals down is through what I call "guided practice" or "mentoring". The student creates art while an experienced artist looks over their shoulder and gives them advice or corrections. That instructor might assign research materials, tell them to do something or not do something specific, paint over their work to show them how it should be done right, or whatever.
In the context of GMing this could take the form of having a GM mentor while a game is being prepared. They would need to look over the preparation, give advice on it, and be present for the game itself so they could critique the final presentation. The student should be responsible for running things, but during the preparatory phase the co-GM might step in and give changes or suggestions.
It is important during this type of learning that the mentor be treated like an instructor, not a member of the voting constituency. They are teaching, the student is learning from them. If they make a choice that seems stupid... maybe they know something the student doesn't! If they’re wrong and fuck things up? Who cares? Learning will happen anyways and you can always run another game.
5. Audience Critique
This may seem like an obvious one, but I'm always surprised at how few GMs practice it. After each session, ask the audience for a critique. "What did you like, what didn't you like?" is a great way to express it. It's a phrase that invites negative feedback as much as positive feedback, and gives the players an invitation to express themselves subjectively.
I would say with this, the tricky part is to NOT take it personally. It's really hard to sit at a table after a bad game and listen to four people discuss how badly things just went and dissect a failed experience. This is where that first part about "you are not your art" comes into play. In my experience the best way to alleviate the stress is to join the other side. Point out things you did that you didn't like, make fun of yourself a bit. It's hard to feel ganged up on when you're in the gang!
Any ideas on these from the rest of the forums? Things that I have overlooked, or other ideas to draw from?
