Does the GM Need To Know the Rules?

[Pbartender]

I knew the rule that said "people roll percentile dice, low is good." On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my rules knowledge was a 2 or 3. My genre knowledge, though, was 7 or 8, and that's what carried me.

My point is that some games (such as CoC) are far more about atmosphere and terror than they are about rules. Rules are largely irrelevant until a fight starts. That's not true in more mechanical systems.

Yep... Simply put, I agree. And that's kind of my point as well. You need to know enough rules to run a game, but exactly what "enough" means can be highly dependent from game to game.

 

[Jhaelen]

In D&D, it's not uncommon for us to have a player who has a more encyclopedic rules knowledge than I do. When that happens, I just use them as a resource for obscure cases. They're like a talking book!

Exactly my prefered approach: using knowledgable players as a resource.

I'd recommend to read the rules at least once to get a general idea, though. It also pays to check from time to time if the knowledgable player conveniently misremembers rules

 

[shadzar]

Which leads me to ask this question: Is it more important that the GM runs a system/setting that fits his style/interests, or should the GM run a system/setting that caters to the players' style/interests, assuming they're different? This is something I wrestle with to this day as a GM.

If the GM isnt comfortable or is using material they dont like it will show in the game and the players will likely feel it and not have fun as the GM isnt having much fun.

Likewise if the players are playing something they are comfortable with or using material they dont like, they wont really care and it will feedback to the GM so they aren't having fun running the game.

Both sides must like the material and be comfortable with it.

If one player is hellbent on playing World X or Game Ybut the others dont like it then there is going to be a problem. You are likely to lose that player whether they are the GM or a PC player.

 

[Rel]

I knew the rule that said "people roll percentile dice, low is good." On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my rules knowledge was a 2 or 3. My genre knowledge, though, was 7 or 8, and that's what carried me.

You're sure as hell good at making a slurping, bubbly noise.









Wait...that sounds all wrong.

 

[Neonchameleon]

As DM, I need to know the rules well enough to feel confident that my calls will be good enough and justifiable within the context of the game. And as a player I need to know the same about the DM.

 

[kitsune9]

It depends upon the group of what how they want to accommodate the GM's style ultimately. If everyone is having fun and it's because the GM is just making it up as he goes along and hasn't read the rules, then that's awesome for them.

However, as a player, I expect the GM to be something of a rules expert. Being a rules experts creates consistency in the game. I don't have to worry about the GM making one rule call for something and then changing his mind in the next session "to fit the mood". The other thing is that when I make the effort to read the rules and I want to play X-type of character and the GM demonstrates no knowledge of how the mechanics work, it can make for an irksome session.

My personal example is that I went to a con game. A friend of mine knew an old buddy of his who was trying to get back into gaming. 3.0 had only been out for a couple of years and the DM said he was familiar with the rules, but he wasn't no expert. Actually, from playing, it was clear that he just glossed over the book and picked up the words "combat", "AC", "hp", etc. and thought it was just like his old 1e days.

It was a terrible game. One player got "backstabbed". The DM didn't allow us to roll for initiative and just said the monsters go first and then randomly picked people to go next, so one guy got his turn skipped. Another guy wanted to do a free action (drop a weapon), move action (draw another weapon) and then his standard action (attack). The DM said no, only one action at a time for him. The DM didn't allow attacks of opportunity because he didn't know what they were. And so on....

As I said, if it works for the players and they are having fun, then that's great, but if situations like the one above pops up, the DM should read the rules.

 

[CleverNickName]

The way the poll is worded, I expect a landslide for option "B."

Learning curves aside, everybody needs to at least have a basic grasp of the rules before playing any game. That's fairly obvious.

 

[Dykstrav]

I'd say that it mostly depends on the group. Some groups care more about consistency in the use and application of the rules than others.

Is it possible for someone to run a game without knowing the rules? Sure, absolutely.

Is it possible that every player would enjoy that sort of game? I don't think so.

For my own two cents, I think the DM/GM/whatever knowing the rules is semi-important. I don't think that sticking to the rules as written is necessarily paramount, but I want to get the impression that the person running the game is informed. They don't have to be an expert, but I also think that there's a broad spectrum between total ignorance of the rules and "expert" status. There's also room for people to change things around as they see fit... But again, I expect that person to know what they're changing and be able to articulate why.

 

[Animus]

The way the poll is worded, I expect a landslide for option "B."

Learning curves aside, everybody needs to at least have a basic grasp of the rules before playing any game. That's fairly obvious.

How would you go about wording it? I was trying to get an idea of people's experience on how much knowledge of a system you need to run a good game.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Rules knowledge is helpful, but it's far from necessary. One of my favorite DMs of all time has remarkably poor rules knowledge. He'll often say "roll XYZ," and we'll say, "are you sure that shouldn't be ABC instead?" and he'll respond, "sure, that sounds reasonable, roll ABC." For lots of rules questions that are complicated, he'll delegate to other people--often to his partner if he's present, other times to whoever the resident rules geek is at a given time. His game is less good because of the lack of rules knowledge--there are times he'll do things in off-the-cuff ways that don't make any sense, or aren't entirely fair to the players--but it's still a great game.

Of course, if you're running a tactical wargame that's all about the combat, problems with rules knowledge can be much bigger. So my basic conclusion is that it depends on the game style (with style of game being more important to this issue than system), that rules knowledge is always helpful and a good thing, but it's not really necessary and is not the most important thing.