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Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering is a pamphlet by Robin Laws designed to aid gamemasters in working with players and designing campaigns and adventures. Robin Laws knows a few things about running and designing games as shown by his work on Feng Shui, Dying Earth, and Hero Wars and through his columns in Dragon and Star Wars Gamer. As shown in his games and columns, Laws favors a dramatic approach to gaming, structuring games according to the rules of each genre and with the intent of having fun.

His first law for gamemasters is that a GM’s goal is to make games as entertaining as possible for all participants. With that in mind, Laws lays out a method for identifying seven types of players: the Power Gamers, the Butt-Kicker, the Tactician, the Specialist, the Method Actor, the Storyteller, and the Casual Gamer. Each type of player seeks their own goal or emotional kick from gaming. Power Gamers seek a sense of reward. Butt Kickers are out for the thrill of martial victory. Tacticians want to feel clever. Specialists want to play out their characters’ distinctive and defining traits whether it is a ninja’s sneakiness, a druid’s nature worship, or a decker’s mastery of computers. Method actors want to play out their characters’ motivations. Storytellers seek a narrative storyline within the game. Casual gamers are primarily in the game to socialize, often having been brought there by another player.

Laws next offers advice on picking a rules set for a game, focusing not on what rules work best for the GM but on what works best for the players. He describes rule sets based on their “crunchy bits.” The crunchy bits are a game’s extraordinary abilities - the feats, spells, cyberware, psionics, schticks, skills, hero points, and other bits that provide a player with a means to influence results within the game. Laws asserts that rule sets with powerful crunchy bits that are tightly defined favor players; whereas, rules with weak crunchy bits or where the bits are vague or abstract favor GMs. A GM is then encouraged to look for a rule set that strikes a balance between his own desires and the desires of the players.

Laws then turns to campaign and adventure design. The virtues of published and home-brewed settings are discussed and backed-up with notes on the importance of tone and the need to clearly communicate what it is that the PCs are expected to do during a campaign. Laws provides a structure for designing adventures and for determining how much structure each of the player types favors (Storytellers thrive on structure; Tacticians hate it). Various structures are then discussed: episodic, set-piece, branching, puzzle-piece, and enemy timeline. The design discussion concludes with a worksheet intended to ensure that each adventure includes an element that will fulfill each player’s emotional kick.

The pamphlet continues with advice on how to prepare to be spontaneous and the importance of reading the room, monitoring the mood and attentiveness of the players. One of the key ways to do this is to track the focus of the group. The focus can favorably be held by dialogue between PCs, dialogue between PCs and NPCs, resolution of events/die rolling, and a GM’s description of people, places, and events. The focus of a game can be distracted by dialogue between NPCs, bookkeeping, rules arguments, debates over GM decisions, dead air, and out of character or off-topic digressions. Advice is included on how to handle specific focus problems.

The purpose of Robin’s Laws is to improve the quality of the gaming experience for everyone by improving a GM’s skills at preparing and running games. A worthy goal, since improving players is a much more difficult prospect. The writing throughout the pamphlet is peppered with references to both well-known game systems such as D&D and Vampire and to movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and TV shows like Law and Order. Robin's Laws is well worth the low cost of $10. I wanted it to be longer only because I was enjoying the discussion so much.

The pamphlet has a bare-bones design marked by headers, sidebars, and charts. The text is laid out with 1.5 spacing, which work fine until a bullet list of items is used, then there is not nearly enough white space. The bigger problems, though, are that some of the charts are not clearly linked to the text and that the text references a chart which isn’t included.

Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering
Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering Capsule Review by Jeb Boyt on 27/03/02 Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 4 (Meaty) A worthwhile guide to improving your gaming. Product: Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering Author: Robin D. Laws Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games Line: Cost: $10 US Page count: 33 Year published: 2002 ISBN: 1-55634-629-8 SKU: SJG00995 3009 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Jeb Boyt on 27/03/02 Genre tags:	Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering is a pamphlet by Robin Laws designed to aid gamemasters in working with players and designing campaigns and adventures. Robin Laws knows a few things about running and designing games as shown by his work on Feng Shui, Dying Earth, and Hero Wars and through his columns in Dragon and Star Wars Gamer. As shown in his games and columns, Laws favors a dramatic approach to gaming, structuring games according to the rules of each genre and with the intent of having fun. His first law for gamemasters is that a GM’s goal is to make games as entertaining as possible for all participants. With that in mind, Laws lays out a method for identifying seven types of players: the Power Gamers, the Butt-Kicker, the Tactician, the Specialist, the Method Actor, the Storyteller, and the Casual Gamer. Each type of player seeks their own goal or emotional kick from gaming. Power Gamers seek a sense of reward. Butt Kickers are out for the thrill of martial victory. Tacticians want to feel clever. Specialists want to play out their characters’ distinctive and defining traits whether it is a ninja’s sneakiness, a druid’s nature worship, or a decker’s mastery of computers. Method actors want to play out their characters’ motivations. Storytellers seek a narrative storyline within the game. Casual gamers are primarily in the game to socialize, often having been brought there by another player. Laws next offers advice on picking a rules set for a game, focusing not on what rules work best for the GM but on what works best for the players. He describes rule sets based on their “crunchy bits.” The crunchy bits are a game’s extraordinary abilities - the feats, spells, cyberware, psionics, schticks, skills, hero points, and other bits that provide a player with a means to influence results within the game. Laws asserts that rule sets with powerful crunchy bits that are tightly defined favor players; whereas, rules with weak crunchy bits or where the bits are vague or abstract favor GMs. A GM is then encouraged to look for a rule set that strikes a balance between his own desires and the desires of the players. Laws then turns to campaign and adventure design. The virtues of published and home-brewed settings are discussed and backed-up with notes on the importance of tone and the need to clearly communicate what it is that the PCs are expected to do during a campaign. Laws provides a structure for designing adventures and for determining how much structure each of the player types favors (Storytellers thrive on structure; Tacticians hate it). Various structures are then discussed: episodic, set-piece, branching, puzzle-piece, and enemy timeline. The design discussion concludes with a worksheet intended to ensure that each adventure includes an element that will fulfill each player’s emotional kick. The pamphlet continues with advice on how to prepare to be spontaneous and the importance of reading the room, monitoring the mood and attentiveness of the players. One of the key ways to do this is to track the focus of the group. The focus can favorably be held by dialogue between PCs, dialogue between PCs and NPCs, resolution of events/die rolling, and a GM’s description of people, places, and events. The focus of a game can be distracted by dialogue between NPCs, bookkeeping, rules arguments, debates over GM decisions, dead air, and out of character or off-topic digressions. Advice is included on how to handle specific focus problems. The purpose of Robin’s Laws is to improve the quality of the gaming experience for everyone by improving a GM’s skills at preparing and running games. A worthy goal, since improving players is a much more difficult prospect. The writing throughout the pamphlet is peppered with references to both well-known game systems such as D&D and Vampire and to movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and TV shows like Law and Order. Robin's Laws is well worth the low cost of $10. I wanted it to be longer only because I was enjoying the discussion so much. The pamphlet has a bare-bones design marked by headers, sidebars, and charts. The text is laid out with 1.5 spacing, which work fine until a bullet list of items is used, then there is not nearly enough white space. The bigger problems, though, are that some of the charts are not clearly linked to the text and that the text references a chart which isn’t included.

Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering