# Choosing a DM **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 13, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446 "2014-08-13T16:39:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/21 "2014-08-15T17:42:19Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Cool. What did you have to do to get a spot at his table? Just random luck, or what… 1. I was one of the people running the convention. 2. Due to a major f\*\*\*\*p in the publicity department, it was WAY underpopulated. Anybody who wanted to could get a spot in one of his games, as he hosted several. That particular convention has never seen the light of day again. ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/22 "2014-08-15T19:52:27Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I thought about Tolkien and decided no. Tolkien is the kind of GM who spends the first session reading four hours of painstakingly detailed backstory for the town you just passed through. > > That might be a little unfair - all that backstory and notes made for excellent novels once it was properly edited down, but does a GM at the table have time to appropriately edit himself? I guess I’d have to see, but my guess is that he’s too much in love with minutia for him to translate novel writing into gaming. > > I favored Lovecraft because he’s used to leaving things unexplained and to working in a short-story format. You make a good point, I’ve had a DM whose devotion to minutia really got in the way of a good time. That probably would be a real risk with Tolkien. Plus **Johnny Bravo** mentioned Moss from _IT Crowd_, and now I want to change my answer to that. Ruddy mysterious indeed! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/23 "2014-08-16T00:40:40Z")
Slightly off topic, but I’d love to play a card game like _Dominion_ with Penn Jilette, with the stipulation that he use every trick he knows to cheat as hard as he can. Just to see how completely he could dominate the game. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/24 "2014-08-16T10:10:10Z")
> [@orangeapples](#): > > J.R.R. Tolkien. It pretty much all goes back to him anyway. 🙂 I think you need to refer to the person who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh. Or is Homer the first attributed author of myth and legend? ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/25 "2014-08-19T16:32:30Z")
I’m wondering how a game would go with Robert Bloch or Stephen King at the helm. Both borrowed pretty heavily from Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany. Ambrose Bierce might have a pretty interesting dungeon as well. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/26 "2014-08-21T19:40:06Z")
Drew Carey – original host of _Whose Line is it Anyway?_ “Okay, okay…I just thought of another cool situation for you guys…” …and if Robin Williams was in the game too, I’d just hand him a case of beer and say, “You lead. I’ll either follow, play the straight man, or mop up when you’re done.” –G!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/27 "2014-08-21T21:22:06Z")
C-3PO. He could do all the voices, and \*\*always \*\*knows the odds. Plus he’d always be taken amusingly off-balance when you’d say “I hit it. With my axe.” ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/28 "2014-08-21T21:35:22Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > I can’t think of anybody I’d rather have as GM than Neal Stephenson. He can tell a story in a richly developed realistic world… …and segue seamlessly into a clever dick joke. Great choice, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/29 "2014-08-21T22:37:43Z")
A lot of these suggestions sound like really bad ideas. Tolkien, for example, was a wonderful writer - but would he be willing to give up any of his creative control to his players, or are they just following the plot he lays down like rails? Robin Williams was great at improv, but how good was he at sharing the spotlight? I kind of suspect a game he ran would basically be a Robin Williams stand-up routine, with minimal participation necessary from the players - still plenty entertaining, I’m sure, but not the best RPG experience. Joss Whedon, for example, strikes me as someone who would make a good GM. I’m not just saying that as a fanboy. The actors he works with often talk about how much input he takes from them on the subject of characterization and occasionally even plot direction. I think that’s what would make for a really amazing _roleplaying_ experience, as opposed to a really amazing experience watching a celebrity perform for you. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446/30 "2014-08-21T22:57:44Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I think you need to refer to the person who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh. Or is Homer the first attributed author of myth and legend? I think he meant that fantasy roleplaying settings all go back to Tolkien. D&D is pretty much Middle Earth with the serial numbers filed off. Elves are tall, slender and serious, not short and pesky. Dwarves (spelled with a v in the plural!) are totally different from goblins (short and green) and orcs (tall and green), and the three spend much time fighting each other because they all live underground. Halflings/hobbits exist, and they’re ideally suited to be thieves, which every party must have. And so on. Very few RPGs harken back to mythology or fantasy that existed pre-Tolkien. Even as competitors to D&D came along, or D&D settings like Forgotten Realms, most of them were still Middle Earth with the serial numbers filed off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/choosing-a-dm/695446.md?page=1)