Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SgtHulka 10-17-06, 07:53 PM	Just for kicks and giggles, I thought I'd throw this question out to all of you and see how may of us agree or disagree. I'll start with my own assessment... 1) Firm grasp of the rules and the willingness to use them. -Included in this, I think, is a certain level of confidence and table discipline. I don't like when a table runs rough-shod over a Judge or the villains...I much prefer feeling we "earned" the victory (if, indeed, the result is victory). By the same token, I also don't like it when a Judge gimps character actions because (s)he doesn't understand the rules and refuses to admit it. 2) A strict control of pacing. -We only have four hours to complete a mod. Even if I'm having a lot of fun bringing the whole thing off the tracks through role-play, I will be disappointed if the time ends and I don't feel like I've gotten a fair shot at completing the mod. 3) Setting a scene. -Some of this is role-playing memorable NPC's. Some of this is describing local customs and terrain. Some of this comes from the mod itself -- I'd point to Sympathy for the Baatezu, It Never Rains in Nyrond and Stone Man's Missive as examples of mods that had several memorable set-piece scenes. I like to feel like I, with my character, have travelled somewhere exotic and experienced another world. This is often in direct conflict with number 2), above, which is why the job of the Judge is so difficult, and why the best Judges are so rare. Looking forward to reading how you all feel.
trollbill 10-17-06, 08:23 PM	First and foremost I expect him to want to have fun. Second I expect him to take his role as GM with a certain amount of responsibility and respect for the players, i.e. actually put some effort into doing a quality job rather than having had the mod weeks ahead of time but not even bothering to look at it till he sits down at the game table. After that I look for a good grasp of the rules (good is fine, I don't expect everyone to be the rules lawyer I am) and to be able to tell a good story. But then again, if they actually care about the job they do as a DM, the latter two usually end up as an extension of the first.
JJeff 10-17-06, 09:03 PM	I would like Judges that are not afriad to make mistakes and admit them if they do. It's gives a sense of confidence and authority when they run the game and not one that hems and haws at making rulings and decisions. I like Judges that can adapt the module to the players actions and still make it work. There was one module that a certain person was to be kidnapped from her house by the BBEG. But the players decided to camp outside her house after she went to sleep because they just saved her from an assasination attempt that morning. I had to do so many stunts and tricks with the BBEG to get them out of the way so I could complete the kidnap. Sheesh... I would like judges that can add humour into the game, to enhance the game play and not just read the text and move miniatures. There have been issues where the Judge just ran the game vertiabrum and ignored player-NPC interaction. I would like a Judge that could act out the NPCs well with good fake voices. It is entertaining to be able to make out NPCs just by the voice and tone used. Though my players hate it when i start going into a Irish Accent or some funny high-pitched voice.
ShinAkuma2 10-17-06, 09:09 PM	I like it when judges know the rules well, but I also like it when they know when bending the rules is appropriate. For example, I recently played a mod at APL2 wherein, during the first round of combat, an orc with a falchion got a crit that took a first level Fighter to -9. No one was close enough to be able to do anything to save him. Our GM, rather than let this 1st level guy die in the first round, allowed a "charging wand smack" wherein our Favored Soul could double move AND use her Wand of CLW. By the book? No. Fair to the guy who got ganked with no chance to react? I would like to think so. It was also fairly cinematic, in that the FS had to "dive for it" at the last second.
Haro 10-17-06, 09:27 PM	I like it when judges know the rules well, but I also like it when they know when bending the rules is appropriate. <snip> By the book? No. Fair to the guy who got ganked with no chance to react? I would like to think so. It was also fairly cinematic, in that the FS had to "dive for it" at the last second. I'm all for that kind of judging in limited situations (such as your example) but I see WAY too much softballing and such at higher levels, particularly in home games. Having just judged many games at SRDU, the tactical nous of gamers who go to gamesdays and cons vs gamers who mostly played in homegames was extraordinary. The obvious inference being that at cons and gamesdays not knowing how to cooperate with teammates or assess a challenge correctly has serious consequences. Home gamers don't seem to be facing that level of threat (ie: death), thus they never learn those skills to the same level. So I guess I like all my judges to be hard nosed, because I believe softballing players actually hurts them in the long run. Joe
solbergb 10-17-06, 10:31 PM	In rough order I like a judge who is having fun, one that likes the mod and can't wait to share it with the players. Of course, that also implies that his goal is for the players to have fun, not to make them miserable (it occurs to me that a nasty bad judge might love a mod BECAUSE it makes players miserable. Most bad tables though, were a judge who didn't like the module) I like a judge who is prepared, who doesn't waste time shuffling through papers, who doesn't blow the plot junctures or run the monsters contrary to the tactics or (in absence of tactics) who vastly underplays their capabilities because he doesn't understand them. Such a judge is far less likely to let the game fail due to lack of time, which is a consideration, but mostly I like it because the game is brisker, and the immersion better. I like a judge who is consistent in his rulings, even if I don't agree with him or even if he's flat out wrong. Consistency means that what works for the bad guys works for you, and you can always find a way to function in a consistent environment. I prefer a judge who'se got a firm grasp of the rules, but I'll settle for one who plays both sides of the table the same. All other stuff is flavor. Judges have their own styles. But a prepared, consistent judge who is going to have fun sharing the adventure with the players is going to be one heck of a good table pretty much all the time. Even if everybody dies :) (I don't softball, but I do play the bad guys to their motivations and limitations as well as their strengths. I also slow things down when someone dies or is about to die and make sure the death really happened. I've only had one death "called back" (I added the damage wrong, the number I came up with was impossible) but the effort means that when bad things happen, they know it was fair)
Sieylianna 10-18-06, 08:09 AM	Having just judged many games at SRDU, the tactical nous of gamers who go to gamesdays and cons vs gamers who mostly played in homegames was extraordinary. The obvious inference being that at cons and gamesdays not knowing how to cooperate with teammates or assess a challenge correctly has serious consequences. Home gamers don't seem to be facing that level of threat (ie: death), thus they never learn those skills to the same level. What is "nous"? I largely agree, people who are accustomed to playing in a home game are likely to have trouble when they attend cons. Part of it is the judges aren't as forgiving and part is that they're not playing with the customary group. With an established home group, you never have to change your style of play or adapt to the other players. I think con judges tend to be the most hard nosed, followed by game day judges, and finally home games. IMO, part of it is self-preservation, I'm more likely to have one of my players in a home game judging me in another game than at a convention. I also think many judges are more lenient at lower APL's and get tougher as the APL increases: one could argue that this also gives players the wrong impression. Ed
trollbill 10-18-06, 09:51 AM	I think con judges tend to be the most hard nosed, followed by game day judges, and finally home games. IMO, part of it is self-preservation, I'm more likely to have one of my players in a home game judging me in another game than at a convention. I also think many judges are more lenient at lower APL's and get tougher as the APL increases: one could argue that this also gives players the wrong impression. Ed I think part of it also comes from player expectations based on their normal DMs. They are used to where their home judges are lenient and where they are not, and know what they can and can't get away with. But each DM has his own quirks and biases that changes where they are and aren't lenient. Since the leniency is now unknown, the play seems more hard nosed because the players don't know the limits yet.
Lomiat 10-18-06, 11:20 AM	As a player in any given adventure, I enjoy immersing myself in the story. Thus, I most prefer judges who help me do this. As others have mentioned, this requires a judge: 1) who wants to have fun and make the adventure fun for others, and 2) a judge who is prepared. Some judges can get away with less preparation than others, but the more prepared they are, the better they do, regardless. In the meantime, my favorite judges: 1) get into character when they roleplay interactions between PCs and NPCs 2) listen to players and adapt the adventure as necessary. This can mean breaking from box-text. 3) make combat decisions quickly and that feel appropriate to the monsters 4) neither rush nor stall combats. As much as LG adventures focus on combats, and as frequently as 2.5 to 3 out of 4 hours in an adventure are likely to be spent on combat, my favorite DMs make combat feel like an organic part of the story, rather than approach the adventure in such a way that it reaches that disjointed "Adventure-Stop-Combat-Stop-Adventure" feel. 5) help support the feeling that your PCs are heroes in a dangerous time & place, yet (behind the scenes, e.g. in their decisions to attack one PC or another) will try to help the PCs survive, remembering that the point of the game is to have fun. and 6) stay focused on the game as much as possible (versus outside distractions) Conversely, I try to avoid judges who: 1) spend their time talking about mods by recalling how quickly they can run them 2) want to TPK everybody 3) interrupt a PC who wants to take an action by saying, "Stop! You can't do that. We're in box-text." 4) refer to box text in any way during the adventure 5) mention "plot hooks" 6) spend 5 minutes real time, trying to figure out how a 2 INT frost worm, acting in the surprise round, is going to position its cone of cold so as best to hit every PC. Supposedly, such a DM has at the equivalent of an 8 INT, so you'd think if he was to make his decision in less than 6 seconds, it would still be as good as the frost worm's.
Haro 10-18-06, 11:39 PM	What is "nous"? Ed nous (ns, nous) n. 1. Good sense; shrewdness: “Hillela had the nous to take up with the General when he was on the up-and-up again” (Nadine Gordimer).
UMiskatonic 10-23-06, 02:49 PM	Paraphrase. Every chunk of box text says 'read or paraphrase' and yet i've been read to 98% of the time.
Lupo 10-23-06, 03:58 PM	Paraphrase. Every chunk of box text says 'read or paraphrase' and yet i've been read to 98% of the time. yeaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! and the often ignored part "adjust to the party and the circumstances". a sneaking ahead rogue type should not automatically trigger the main encounter, just for being there, but only when he actually is noted and identified as what he is, the scout of a interfering group. certain precautions, "arcane eye", "clairvoyance" etc. should be usefull, not showing an empty scene, because all the foes rush in "just in time", but therefore fully buffed . . . oh, am i to early???? may i just include this in my wish-list for x-mas??? :D ciao martin m.
solbergb 10-24-06, 02:52 PM	One thing I'm known for as a judge is "letting the players attack the boxtext". I have not yet had a party throw me a loop I couldn't improvise, and sometimes I can even anticipate where they're likely to want to chew on the boxtext events and work out terrain, stats and such to give them a fair shot. Some of the most memorable LG moments have been PC's "chasing the boxtext assassin" or whatever. If they succeed, they learn a bit, which they might have had to learn somewhere else in the mod, but it usually doesn't break anything. "A guy in a cloak hired you. Figures." Once I had (last round of last day of con, at end of a long 2 round mod) an interesting problem where a bad guy had been given the chance to escape and had really good ablities to do so, and two party members pursued...with totally different really good abilities for pursuit. They'd all been separated, so it wasn't straightforward - it was the ability of one to obfuscate trail+witnesses and gain resources to move faster than the PC's from a "walking" start vs their ability to locate her and take advantage of their short term mobility advantage. That one I had to abstract - with permission from the players. We added up the pros and cons, turned it into a modifier and had dice rolled for randomness. It was very close, so they spotted her, and had a round to interfere before she made her final escape, and were good enough to lock her down. You can't do stuff like this though unless you have really, really prepped and internalized the module. If you don't understand the framework, logic, setting and motivations, weird PC actions can really throw you off. Whereas if you do, you can normally get the combat encounters to happen, the plot threads to link up and everyone go away happy even if they did it in a totally unexpected fashion. I find that weird PC approaches have downsides as well as upsides, and I just run with an "actions have consequences" approach. An example of that is a situation where normally a party of that level would have a circle of prot evil somewhere didn't happen because they had dominated a melee-type from an earlier battle. As a result several PCs got mind controlled too greatly disrupting their coordination in a very tough later fight (including the dominated guy, leading to opposed cha checks...) Such adventures that "go off the rails" tend to be some of the most memorable, as long as they don't go so far off the deep end as to lose the thread of the adventure or consume all the time available without result.
budleiser 10-25-06, 10:59 PM	#1 Know the rules or look them up. Dont make them up! #2 Try and kill us.
echoota 10-26-06, 10:53 AM	As with other posters, I'd like a judge that can produce a quality performance, both in terms of managing the metagame factors of time and player administration, but also in terms of roleplaying and being flexible with the storyline. Being able to adjust the module on the fly to fit the flow of the game is huge for me. I hate being put on rails and so if the DM can creatively weave the story along when the players break the mod and still make it all work out well then I'm quite happy. I've seen some games now where the players inadverently broke apart the poorly written story but the DM kept it going smoothly and rewarded us with our solutions. I know it's blasphemy to many, but I also want a DM who is going to pull punches. I play roleplaying games to have fun and relax, not be on edge, and so I'd much rather play with a DM who isn't going to go full throttle with the monsters. I'm not really there to feel challenged, I just want to feel powerful and take out monsters. It doesn't need to be a cake walk, but I loathe a distant DM who plays out an encounter with cool deadly logic. I've had a couple of close calls with one DM who, in an annoyingly detached way, just plays out the encounters as hard as he can play them. Bleh. I won't play with him again. The DM I normally play with is totally different, he takes our side and has a great deal of sympathy. People still die in his games, but it's when the situation forces itself (normally because the player was being really dumb) into a corner and there is no way out. I enjoy that, just a moderate amount of challenge, so that I can sit back and relax.
paigeoliver 10-27-06, 01:59 AM	I always explain to my players at the beginning of the module that NOTHING is sacred about box text, that they may feel free to do whatever they want, and are not constrained by the box text or the railroad tracks. They can go off and hunt wolves for all I care, they won't get any XP if they do that, but it is always an option.
amnuxoll 10-31-06, 03:17 PM	6) spend 5 minutes real time, trying to figure out how a 2 INT frost worm, acting in the surprise round, is going to position its cone of cold so as best to hit every PC. Supposedly, such a DM has at the equivalent of an 8 INT, so you'd think if he was to make his decision in less than 6 seconds, it would still be as good as the frost worm's. Shame on me for picking at an example but a pet peeve of mine is the belief that intelligence not wisdom is at play here. A frost worm is not learning anything by deciding where to put that cone. I have other pet peeves too. I'll try to keep them in their kennel. ;)
amnuxoll 10-31-06, 03:20 PM	The most important feature in a judge (or player): enthusiasm. Just about every other flaw can be forgiven if the judge is simply excited about the story that is being told. :AMN:
garyjohnson 10-31-06, 10:47 PM	What I like the most in a LG judge is someone who works within the constraints of the written module to provide (a) opportunity for character interaction, both within the PC group and/or with NPCs, and (b) reasonable levels of character risk. Some players get their enjoyment out of an adversarial relationship with the judge - from having to work hard to survive the challenges presented. I get my enjoyment from collaborating with the judge to have interesting and fun interactions, and overcoming the challenges presented. D&D isn't the best game system for what I enjoy in gaming - any game system where the default combat system assumes "defeat = death" isn't a good match for my preferred play style - but in any game, the game mechanics are one of several different tools used to make the game fun, so it's not an enjoyment-breaker for me. I certainly have fun playing LG - but I have more fun when the judge shares my play style preferences (no surprises there). IME, some judges remove opportunities for character interaction so that the players can get to the next combat more quickly - and those judges are often the ones who don't take any measures to set the level of character risk at a reasonable level. That is, they're the judges who don't let characters interact with events in box text; who place opponents within 30 feet of the characters at the start of "combat time" when, by the rules, the characters would have spotted them 100s of feet away; who have all opponents fight "smart", and avoid the front-row fighters in favour of the back-row characters. IMO, such judges exacerbate problems introduced in the writing of the scenario, such as not factoring environmental modifiers into ELs or assuming that the characters will kill all opponents. Cheers, Gary Johnson
_m_ 11-01-06, 12:01 AM	I'm all for that kind of judging in limited situations (such as your example) but I see WAY too much softballing and such at higher levels, particularly in home games. Having just judged many games at SRDU, the tactical nous of gamers who go to gamesdays and cons vs gamers who mostly played in homegames was extraordinary. The obvious inference being that at cons and gamesdays not knowing how to cooperate with teammates or assess a challenge correctly has serious consequences. Home gamers don't seem to be facing that level of threat (ie: death), thus they never learn those skills to the same level. So I guess I like all my judges to be hard nosed, because I believe softballing players actually hurts them in the long run. Joe i agree. i like a hard'er' dm, because frankly, if you're never in danger of dying, it really does get pretty boring. theres only so many times you can walk through again before you loose interest. i also like alot of other things, but they've mostly been covered. good looking dm's are a plus too :D
Mommy was an Orc 11-01-06, 09:43 AM	I like the following: Strong sense of pacing. Makes it feel like all the encounters had enough time to be real without getting stuck on one. I hate reading an AR and having no idea where an item on an AR could have come from. Know the rules, make your decisions, and stick with them. Unless a character is going to die as a result if you're wrong. Plays the NPCs effectively enough that when the DM needs to give a hint, it feels like part of the mod, not the DM throwing up his hands. And the DM needs to know the mod well enough to have that happen. Plays the monsters appropriately. Some monsters should be super tactical, some monsters shouldn't be. When everything feels like I'm playing a wargame or I could play up 4 and wipe the mod out, that's bad.