It’s a broad topic, and everyone is out there telling each other the “right way” to be a game master, but something that has come up in conversation is what is important in a game.

If you go looking at all the advice online it’s research, it’s engaging players, it’s letting them live, it’s letting them die, it’s fudging dice, it’s never fudging dice. Anything and everything that contradicts another idea is the “most important.” I don’t buy that.

So I wanted to just cut things down to basics. What do you need to play a tabletop RPG?

#1. You need a group, and someone willing to GM. That is literally the most important part. Even things I have stood on the soup box and called the most important part, are several rungs on the ladder below having these 2 things.

#2. The second is respecting each other’s time. People will play games they hate, with people they can’t stand, if the schedule works out. I should know, I play 5th edition and even write supplements for it now. Schedules that work allow the first item to continue. Constantly being late, or switching days on someone who works 2 jobs that donated their little precious free time to your unique take on the fluxuation of the good and evil balance of magic of the universe, is straining.

#3. Excitement. This means something different to everyone, but no matter how much I love playing a berserker dwarf, somebody is going to want to play space cowboys. The group needs a thing to engage them. Thankfully the power of the shared torch gets through a lot of things. As long as the fun is unfolding with group input and concequence, excitement is sure to follow.

#4. Player expectations. The system and mood. This is the one I preach as the most important. Players need to be invested in something. If they all like racecar vampires, play racecar vampires, and make sure the racing and blood sucking have fun core mechanics. Get the setting, game, and style of progression right and you’ve got a long term group.

#5-9. Snacks, conversation, ease to join, similar interests, and access to chairs are all above #10.

#10. Funny voices. The game master is not there to entertain the table. Sure some acting can be fun, but this is not even the icing on the cake. This is those silver ball sprinkles that are like tiny jaw breakers that don’t even stick to the icing, and most people will just spit out anyway. Not even the plot of the campaign goes above this rung. You are playing a cooperative game with a referee. Respect people’s time, and play the game, instead of practicing your bad radio drama.

Now I have to say I disagree with the OSR crowds quite a bit, but what I found it is that most of them are smarter than me, and great GMs. My opinions on story telling and player agency are nothing more than that, opinions. I will always provide the advice to try something other than D&D as your first game, and to focus on story and humor, but I don’t have to be right. Because the top 3 represent what really matter, the people playing the roles, not the roles themselves.

So stop reading those trendy articles about how to play as a gender swapped batman if she were an empathic gerbil-wolf hybrid, that might as well have been written by AI, and start looking at the basics. Schedule a game. Have a conversation. Pass the torch.