Cross-Class Training II: The Teaching DM

Happy thanksgiving to all my American readers!  Deep friend Turbaconducken anyone?

I tend to have a one track mind, so while I’m done teaching my MS-Outlook/Time Management class, it’s still very much on my mind.

Just so you know, things went so well that the College’s director offered me to teach another course right after he got the participant’s evaluation of my mad teaching skillz.  I now get to teach 5 courses!  Yay!

Earlier this week, I posted about 3 categories of skills that GMs, teachers and managers had in common.  Today I want to discuss specific skills and tricks I use while I DM that came in handy during my 2 day course.  It’s surprising how abilities you mastered in other disciplines help you out when you’re faced with the unexpected.

Establishing Credibility and Trust

My DMing experience has shown me that the average gamer sitting at your table for the first time will give you about an hour to win them over.  During that hour, you can do whatever you want with little fear of revolt/comments/sabotage.  However, that period of time is the optimal one to establish credibility and trust with the players.

Teaching adults (and probably teenagers) is the same thing.  Your first impression is crucial and will set the tone for the rest of the course/session.  In my course, I established who I was and what my qualifications were (but not too much).  I stressed out that I was a working guy like them and that the material I was going to teach them was actually usable and practical, because I had no tolerance for Ivory Tower theories.

By the end of the 1st hour, I had 6 out of 8 students in my pocket. My nervousness was fading and I started focusing on winning the last 2 to my side.

Expectation Management

When I start a new campaign, I write a pitch for it and I present that pitch to my players.  At that point, I ask them to add elements or suggest things to add to the campaign so that their expectations are met.  Gone is the time where I would trust my skills and my DMing telepathy to divine what they wanted to play.  At the point we are in our lives, I want to make sure that all my players get what they seek in our campaigns.  So I manage expectations by checking before and during a campaign that players periodically get what they seek.

During that 1st hour of the course, I put up the course’s outline, listing all the subject that we would tackle.  I told them that I would emphasis some items more (I put them in bold) and others I would cover lightly of skip altogether. I asked the class if there were subjects they wanted to see.  I told them that each of them had, knowingly or not, a ‘I must learn this’ and that if they didn’t tell me about it, they took the risk of not getting what they are looking for.  As expected, they chimed up and told me specific things they wanted (sharing calendars in Outlook, backup of emails, creating new calendars, etc).

I carefully noted down each request and integrated them in my course outline as soon as I got a few minutes.  It worked great as all participants told me they got what they expected.

Reading the group

During a RPG session, I try to monitor the level of excitement, fun and frustration of players.  Over the years, I’ve developed tricks to read other people.  Body language tells a lot about a players’ state of mind.  By doing regular reviews of how the energy level is, I try to make small course correction.  I don’t always manage this because, like all RPG geeks, I tend to become engrossed in the activity and rules of the game at the expense of the human factor.  However, when I start hearing exclamations of frustrations because a player can’t roll over 4-5, 6 rounds in a row, I start paying attention and I try to find ways to help him out.

In my course yesterday, at the end of the 2nd hours (the break) I had one student who was sitting back on his chair, arms crossed. I knew he wasn’t buying what I was saying about productivity and the importance of organization.  I later learned that he had driven 3 hours to come to the class and he wanted Outlook material, which I hadn’t gotten into yet at that point (apart Outlook basics).

During the break I asked him about it and he told me what I just related.  I told him that I would get into the nitty gritty Outlook stuff soon.  I also told him that if I did just that, the course would be a hell of a lot drier.  Finally I asked him to remind me of the stuff he needed during the class and that I would cover it.

One hour later, at lunch, he said “Hey that productivity stuff is interesting!”

Say Yes

A common heard declaration in Roleplaying games is ‘Say Yes” which is a mantra-like declaration to prevent  GMs from reacting defensively to player input by saying “no you can’t” or “no that won’t work”.  A very good description of this concept appears in Vincent Baker’s Dogs in the Vineyards:

Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes. If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs. Sooner or later— sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis— they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes.”

In the last year, I’ve pushed myself past my ingrained resistances and I’ve tried really hard to become a “Say Yes” DM.  I think I have achieved that.  In fact I’m sure of it because it bled in my courses!

During the course, while I was describing an aspect of Outlook, some of the attendees would chime in and ask something that I didn’t plan (or didn’t think) to teach.  Every time, I stopped and fought my reflexes to keep with my plan.  I would then pause the course for 10-20 seconds, reorganize my thoughts, and start explaining what was asked.  This ended making the course more organic and better targeted to the needs of the class.  After I was done with the required subject, I just picked my outline up, looked where I was and returned to the Plan.

So you see… I owe a lot to DMing and it’s really fun to see how all the hours I invested at the gaming table are actually helping me re-orient my career! I love teaching and I may have finally answered one of my true callings.

Okay, I’m done with teaching for now.  Tomorrow I get to conclude my Primal/Within Campaign.  A game report will be forthcoming!