GM Styles by the Holy Snail Knight

 Riley Silverman did a post on D&D Beyond about GM Styles that later Ginny Di tweaked into a Youtube video . Let's take a quick look and update our MEGA GM STYLES LIST & FUTURE ITINERARY from the first post. This will not be the full posts on these styles, necessarily, so much as a time to figure out how I want to keep the list updated and choose where to differentiate. It's especially nice here because I have Ginny's tweaks to Riley's framework to consider and decide to agree or disagree with. I can further explain and establish my methodology by comparing to others'. Riley's Styles Riley lists two "classes" and six "subclasses", which can presumably be mixed and matched like a 2x6 alignment grid, with "panster rules sage"s and "plotter vibe checker"s. Classes: Plotter - prep heavy Pantser - prep light, improv heavy Subclasses: Number Cruncher - RAW (Rules as Written) GM - focus on following the rules Rules Sage ...

 This is one of the big, hotly debated ones, so we'll probably be coming back to it. To keep things clear, I'll version these--this is version 1--and link back to the previous and forward to the most recent version on all versions, so you can follow the logic along or just skip ahead to the most updated one. The TL;DR: OSR play is like an escape room or murder mystery party--there's a theme, you have a character, and there's puzzles to solve so you can feel smart. You're not expected to be very emotionally invested in your character, though you can ham it up if you want.  A lot of it is low fantasy, entry-level warriors who were peasants yesterday and just picked up their first sword trying to survive in a horrible death trap dungeon, looking for magical treasure that will change their life. Also the main thrust of OSR culture is very accepting, but there's some weird regressive corners, so watch out for that. The Post: At this point, the most defining aspect of...

       This blog's purpose is to explore GM styles and game descriptions, in part to just prattle on about different parts and aspects of TTRPGs (because it's fun), but most importantly to help solidify and clarify certain terms so that we can better communicate to our players what we're doing and they can better understand what they're in for. I was inspired by Matt Colville's video about DM styles .      It can be really hard for people to align on what a game and game group will actually be like, without just joining the group and playing awhile. That can be really scary, often for social reasons--personality clashes, odd group dynamics, and just general social anxiety.      But it can also be tricky for game reasons--some of which we could bypass if we had better language to talk about what kind of games we like and what games we like to run.      In indie spaces, the games or gaming engines themselves often become a s...