The most important thing is that the game master is the facilitator of the fun. He is not responsible for everyone having a good time, but that is the main concern (and that includes for themselves). A GM sets up situations in game and outside of game so that everyone around the table can have fun.

The big difference between a table top RPG and a computer RPG like WoW or Fallout 3 is the game master. There’s an actual intelligent person facilitating things and keeping things moving smoothly and the way it’s supposed to, so the role is a key one.

However, the whole experience is not just the responsibility of the game master: a lot of it is on players as well. If you show up at the game table with a character that doesn’t fit the setting or doesn’t get along with the party, you’re not playing the game right. Just as the GM is supposed to provide the adventure and setting so everyone can work together, the players need to do their part by providing a character that goes along with that. Players not taking adventure hooks is not the GM’s fault. You’ve got to want to play the game.

Q: Isn’t it metagaming to create a character that just goes along with adventure hooks?
A: It’s slightly different. If you’ve created the character to be disruptive, then you should make a different character. If the roles were reversed, and the GM showed up with a Champions adventure to a D&D session, it wouldn’t fly. The social contract says that everyone works together.

Q: So a GM is like a party host?
A: It really is. You never want to play an RPG with someone that you wouldn’t want to go out to dinner with. It’s all social interaction: if you don’t like them enough to eat dinner with them, why spend 4 hours every week playing with them?

Q: Do you roll the dice behind the screen?
A: Most of the time.

Q: Why?
A: Not because you’re a big fudger and liar. You should want the freedom to fudge something, but almost never actually do it. Smart players (who sit close) do the math and figure out all the math. Don't encourage math-metagaming. Because when you roll behind a screen, when it’s really important, you can roll outside the screen for added drama. When rolling the die in the open, everyone stops and realizes how important it is.

When a player has the dramatic roll, it’s better, but sometimes, the important roll has got to be from the DM. One of those quintessential game moments is when someone is tossing a d20 and everyone’s eye is on it. Shoot for one of those moments not quite every session, but maybe almost every other session.

Q: If the central concept of being a DM as being facilitator of fun: what defines fun? Losing isn’t fun either.
A: There is a balance that can be reached between the fun of succeeding and the tangible perception of failure (or possibility of failure). There doesn’t have to be an actual possibility of failure, just the perception. Ideally you have an actual one. It’s just a matter of gauging that balance. If you can set things up so that when PCs fail, they can look back and say, "I can see here why we failed, and we won’t do that next time." If that failure doesn’t mean TPK, it can just become the setup for next adventure.

Q: The not fun right now moments can turn into moments the players talk about for years.
A: Fiction writers will take characters that readers identify with (like Frodo and Sam) and want to succeed, and then put them through hell. For some perverse reason, that’s enjoyable. The same is true in roleplaying games. Everyone wants to enjoy the game, but they like it when they’re overwhelmed but pull it out in the end. Lose the battles, win the war (and win some of those battles). As long as there a chance or feeling that they could lose, that’s what is important.

This is another point where Game Masters are often good actors because you know things the players don’t know, like how far or close they are to failing. Sometimes you lead them to believe the reverse. A big part of being a GM, and it’s nothing about rolling dice, is to manage the expectation of the players. It can be fun and rewarding to make the players think that they’ve made the wrong choices, but in the end they pull it off (but actually all the choices were the right ones… it leads to tension and drama).