Lessons GMs Can Learn from World of Warcraft

Martin Ralya writes "As a tabletop RPG gamemaster, I've been thinking about what GMs can learn from World of Warcraft ever since I first logged in. After close to 200 hours of WoW time, I've come up with 9 lessons GMs can learn from World of Warcraft."

Re:EVE

[TomHandy]

I'm not sure I understand, what specifically do you think EVE needs to take note of in those items? Like item 3, Travel Should be Easy....... given the scope of how large the EVE universe is, I was struck by how useful and easy the tools were for going through the atlas and setting your autopilot (and even having control over whether it plotted a course for you through dangerous areas or not). And for 2, "details matter"; in my time with EVE I thought that it was very detailed and there seemed to be an incredible amount of depth in how the universe's economy had been set up, etc. And 6, "style should shine through"; how does EVE fail in this area in your mind? I thought the UI and "look" of the game was very stylish. Regarding 1 and 7; well, I guess that is a matter of opinion. Does everything have to be "fun"? I don't know, I guess in that case, yeah, you could argue that EvE wouldn't fit the bill. I'm just not sure this should be a rule though, some things can be interesting but not necessarily "fun". And regarding item 7, I would guess though that if you did enjoy EVE, you'd probably leave every session "jazzed" about the game.

WoW is not a panacea.

[Inoshiro]

I already cancelled my WoW account. After level 40, the demands placed on time are really high for someone who doesn't want to do instances with pickup groups, and has no time for a guild. I did play the game for a good 7 months. Here are my thougts on this list:

"Many massively multiplayer games require that you kill endless armies of the same boring enemies to level up. You can do this in WoW, too, but the quest system is so robust and rewarding that you don't actually need to."

No, instead you can either go and kill 1 guy (and bring back some trophy), go and kill several guys until they drop the loot you want, go and talk to someone, go and get something, go and take something, or go and do several of these in a chain. The quests are pretty much the exact some gameplay wrapped up with different names and faces past level 12.

And, of course, once you reach 60, you do these for reputation purely on top of the runs into molten core to get your purple set. I hope you like loot gambling, because it is a week between instance resets, and it can be up to 4 weeks for some people to get 1 extra bit of purple gear if they play all the time.

Seriously, I could sit and play DS or GBA for hours while "playing" WoW (where playing consisted of clicking on an enemy, and then waiting for it to die; repeat). I read several novels while doing it also.

"3. Travel should be easy"

yea, and you should get your mounts at level 30. The level 30 to level 40 slog is very much punctuated by periods where I spent up to half an hour moving from one location to another in order to finish some of the mail-man style quests. That sucked.

"In nearly 200 hours of gameplay, I can count the number of times I've logged off frustrated on one hand. "

Says a person who hasn't been ganked by the elite guards that are around Southshore during a particular quest. I was killed 7 times in the space of a few minutes, and I was level 38 at the time. It wasn't fun.

"WoW's developers tweak the game through patches -- many players would say they tweak it too often, but the principle is sound: Don't be afraid to change things that aren't working,"

You know what's not working for me? Starting alts at level 1. If I'm spent the hours to get to 30, start me with a level 10 alt. If I'm 40, give me a level 15 alt. Max it out at say level 20 alts for level 60 main characters, and make it an option upon character creation. Nothing sucks like having to wade through the 20 hours of repetitive "I'm a newbie who can't play WoW" every time I want to get at alt out of the baby area and into the main part of the game.

Of course, WoW does have strengths as well.

"6. Style should shine through"

  I agree here: WoW gets this right. Everything fits well together. No other MMO I've played is quite like this (except possibly Ultima Online, circa 1999).

Re:What is a GM?

[zerocool^]

GM, at least in the tabletop paper and pens and dice roleplaying world, means Game Master.

He's the person who makes up the quest, who sets up enemy encounters, who is the final authority on what happens. The better the GM, the more enjoyable the game. Creativity is a blessing in a GM.

Re:What is a GM?

[masterzora]

You forget that tabletreasures.org is a site specifically for GMing (in the PNP sense, not the WoW sense) tips and whatnot. The term GM is expected to be used without explanation.

Now, as to why the /. submitter didn't explain it, that's a whole different ballpark.

Re:WoW is not a panacea.

[clydemaxwell]

DKP [wikipedia.org] is not just what your guild calls it :P