“Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering” (referred to as RLGGM) is a 33 page book of game mastering tips and tricks to help you get through your next gaming session. RLGGM is not a complete manual on how to run a game and assumes that you have read the game master section in another book and have role played before.
RLGGM is split into seven major sections: knowing your players, picking rules, campaign design, adventure design, being spontaneous, focus, and improvising.
Section 1 Knowing Your Players:
The first section in the book is probably the most important and is constantly referred to by the rest of the book. The chapter defines different types of players including: The power gamer, the butt kicker, the tactician, the specialist, the method actor, the storyteller, and the casual gamer. From these definitions of players RLGGM suggests catering to the players needs and wants for the game. It gives suggestions on what each type of player may want and decent goals for the players to achieve.
Section 2 Picking Your Rules Set
This section helps the game master decide which game would be best for his players and himself. It takes into considerations of player’s preference (going back to chapter 1) accessibility, and the amount of control which a game master has in the game.
This chapter also defines “Crunchy bits” which is basically players advantage (spells, powers, tech, feats) aspect of the game. It describes how crunchy bits are used and balanced in different games
Section 3 Campaign Design
This section helps you decide on a setting. The advantages/disadvantages of using a published setting versus your own setting. What genre best fits your players. How to mix genres. What the players are suppose to do in your setting.
Section 4 Adventure Design
The adventure section starts off with plot hooks and how to implement them. However, most of this section deals with the structure of an adventure. It defines six types of structures: Unstructured, Episodic, Set Piece, Branching, Puzzle Piece, and Enemy Timeline. The section then goes on to tell you how to implement the structures and what structures work best with different types of players.
Section 5 Preparing to be Spontaneous
This section helps prepare the game master for spontaneous tasks that may come. This deals mostly with NPCs such as naming them, dialogue, and NPC personality.
Section 6 Confidence, Mood, and Focus
Section 6 covers gamemaster/player interaction and player/player interaction. It also covers how to stay focused on the game and keeping a game interesting during lulls. It goes into bookkeeping, rules argument, and judgement calls.
Section 7 Improvising
The final section gives tips on how to improvise including advice on how to improvise an entire adventure.
Overall, I liked this book. I have been game mastering for ten years and though I am familiar with and used many of the ideas and techniques within the book it was nice to see them put into words as something I can refer back to. It also helped as a good reminder as what to focus on.
It is written for the beginner/intermediate game master but assumes that game masters of all levels will be reading the book. It is written in a relaxed manner similar to user friendly technical manuals such as “Dummy” books. Robin Laws never feels like he is talking down to you though he has some annoying “asides” that are jarring.
The book has a couple problems in that it assumes the reader will read from beginning to end and you have to read the first two chapters where Robin defines his core ideas and concepts. The rest of the book is almost useless if you try to look things up for instant advice.
Some of the advice also assumes you have a lot of time on your hands such as making huge lists of names for NPCs. It uses a strange point system based on the type of player you have to help you make decisions. Also, if you don’t like the definitions of player types, or feel that the player types don’t fit your players you’ll have problems using the book. This along with a couple grammatical errors are its major flaws.
The real question is can this book help you be a better GM? The answer is yes but depending on your level of roleplaying and running a game.
Beginning role player – this book will confuse you using terms that are common in RPG lexicon.
Experienced player/beginning Game Master – this book is for you. It assumes you have some knowledge about role playing and will give you the advice you need.
Intermediate Game Master – If you have been having problems specifically with player interest then pick this one up.
Advanced Game Master – perhaps some interesting tidbits and a reminder of what role playing and game mastering is about if you have lost inspiration.
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