[skalchemist]

As an afterthought; that one Missions game I played was a lot of fun!  Pretty straightforward scenario, a lot of action, I played a fun pre-gen.  At the time the rules (4E?) were not my thing, but it was still a good time and the GM had the skillz. 

The GM was a physically large guy (as in tall and wide and muscular) wearing one of those "utility kilts" and either a Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys concert t-shirt.  He seemed like a regular feature of the scene from his easy rapport with the other people in the Shadowrun room at GenCon, so I suspect at least someone here might know who he was (or even BE him!)

[Lormyr]

Thanks for sharing that Skalchemist!

7/10 games being good is awesome, and I am glad that has been your convention experience! Mine has not been so fortunate, but my sample size might also be small compared to many die hards. We're talking like 10 Marcons, 5 Cincicons, 12 Origins, 6 Gencons, ish. Mine has been about 50/50 on good or decent vs. bad.

I personally differentiate bad game from bad GM though. A bad game is one that was either not prepared well, written badly, or where the GM didn't know the rules very well.

A bad GM to me only has one definition, and that is someone who is some combination of antagonistic, unfair, punitive for you playing/character building what they consider "wrong", or ones that want to "teach you a lesson". I have run into a LOT of teach you a lesson sorts at cons. It was happening frequently enough that I finally just quite going to them - why pay for that experience when I get the fun version with home games and Missions game days for free?

Edit: How do you find the quality and attitude of gamers in Canada vs. the states?

[skalchemist]

A bad GM to me only has one definition, and that is someone who is some combination of antagonistic, unfair, punitive for you playing/character building what they consider "wrong", or ones that want to "teach you a lesson". I have run into a LOT of teach you a lesson sorts at cons. It was happening frequently enough that I finally just quite going to them - why pay for that experience when I get the fun version with home games and Missions game days for free?

Edit: How do you find the quality and attitude of gamers in Canada vs. the states?

Fortunately, that exact form of bad GM'ing has been almost non-existent for me.  I can actually only think of one case out of what by this point must be 100's of convention games I have played where that attitude was present; one of my very few D&D sessions at a convention. 

I HAVE seen that in non-convention based public gaming, like when I spent some time doing Living Greyhawk and was desperate for gaming after I had moved to Canada.  The connection between Living Greyhawk and Missions makes me wonder if that is something that is particularly associated with Organized Play GM's? 

My circle of gamers in Indiana was so much smaller than the one I have now, so it is hard for me to answer that last question.  I can only say that in my opinion the Golden Horseshoe area of Ontario (e.g. Niagara Falls around the end of Lake Ontario to the bedroom communities east of Toronto) is a veritable paradise of all types of gaming, not just role-playing.  You can't throw a brick without hitting a gamer that is fun to play games with, as far as I can tell.  Board/card games, LARPS, indie RPGs, old-school renaissance D&D, even just bog standard D&D 5E, you name it, there are cool people playing it within a 45 minute drive from my house nearly every weekend.

[Shinobi Killfist]

If my choice was depend on the whims of the DM or have a rule that costs a minor action I'd take the rule. It is a role playing GAME. games have rules.

Pretty much this.

You see, I've never had such bad GM's so frequently that I feel this strongly.  But I still agree with Lormyr and others that this should be in the rules.  I don't think it has anything to do with GM whim or how good they are.  It has to do with the rules explaining themselves.  Several folks on this thread have indicated that the GM is somehow supposed to know when they should be flexible on all this, but how?  The last time I played Shadowrun was back in 1E, so "how it was done in 5E" is meaningless to me.   If you read the current rules text, other than some general "rules zero"-y text, there is nothing in the initiative sections I can see that indicates that a GM should somehow be flexible in the way Banshee described in an earlier post.  So how does a GM know they should be, especially a new GM? 

The rules should explain themselves when they expect you to not follow them, or there should be a rule.

That's a good way of putting it.  I wasn't trying to use the word whim to indicate the DM was being mean or capricious. It's just they are making a quick call on the spot, even good GMs and experienced can be inconsistent or make bad/weird calls when there is nothing in the rules to help you.