Yes, there is shit that gamers need to be good at. Here are some of 'em. I'd like us to list with a small explanation for each but if it needs to get deeper than that please take it to another thread and please do link to that thread from here if ya please. Also, links to other techniques or AP examples of techniques in action are great.

Thanks!

Scene Framing: Setting up scenes that flow and not playing the scene before you play.

I.E. Yes to this: "In the next scene, you are at the door to the Sorcerer's sanctum and his demon is grinning at you."

And not: "I want to set up my next scene. I want to jab my dagger down that demon's throat, kick down the sorcerer's door and behead that bastard while screaming my now dead lover's name and trashing his most precious books!"

Organizing Friends to Meet: I honestly didn't realize this was a skill gaming taught me until I had to get people together for my girlfriend's birthday a month or so ago and it was just like gathering people for a game.

Pitching Game Ideas that Excite Friends: This is a big ole deal. Via e-mail or in person, it really is like an elevator pitch.

Constructing Situations that make for rich gaming: Examples: you are knights at a tourney all there to swear allegiance to secret society, orcs caught behind enemy lines in elvish lands, Naval investigators aboard a warship that is circling a top secret island known as Ry'leh, etc.

Finding good bangs on a player's character sheet: Looking at those character sheets and the NPC's the player infers and finding the hand-holds, like rock climbing.

Creating good opposition: I think back to my D&D games and how shitty I was at this.

Supporting another player by taking a back seat once in a while: We really can give another player a big boost, even by just knowing that they have the trait, BAD-ASS Swordsman and acting a bit in awe of their skill rather than being a flippant jerk.

Also just sitting back at times and letting the conflict that you know is important to a different character play out, while still having a part and adding your bits to the mix is a real balancing act, I think.

Being a proactive player: This has become synonymous with engaged and bought-in player to me but I find that this isn't everyone's experience. This one might become its own thread.

Others?

A touch more on any of these without any one becoming its own thread?

Also see for:
* Kickers and Bangs
* Flags
* One-Sheet
* Say Yes or Roll the Dice
* Relationship Maps
* Scene Framing
* Conflicts and Conflict Resolution
* Fishing AKA "The Mountain Witch Trick"
* I'm Gonna Make You Awesome
* Shocks, Issues, *tagonist, Praxis, Minutiæ and Links
* A short summary of the PDQ system
* Fanmail

Compromise - being able to put your awesome game idea aside so that your friend who rarely volunteers to GM can run their awesome game idea

Group Dynamic Management - looking at your group and seeing where the 'ouch' point is and quietly, calmly and effectively dealing with it. Introducing a new member to a group and easing their passage into being an accepted member of the group. Recognising changing life priorities within a group and dealing with them maturely

Thinking On Your Feet - I think this is a wholly underappreciated gamer skill but how many of us can just spring stuff time and time again to keep a game going that is consistent, thrilling and worthwhile?

Insta-Character - the ability to instantly create compelling NPCs for players and adopt their persona at the drop of a hat. This leads to my all time favourite gaming anecdote. I was at GenCon UK one year and the late Micheal Sheard was there. You will know him as Hitler in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Admiral Ozzel in ESB, but all Brits of my age know him as Mr Bronson from Grange Hill. Anyway, he perennially got involved in the LARPS that were held and he mentioned to a group of us that he was STUNNED that we could just be given a piece of paper with a few lines, a few numbers and maybe a paragraph of background on it and then, five minutes later, engage in a four hour long, 100 person mass improvised theatre production. He said that he knew actors who had been professionally trained who would baulk at such a challenge and yet we paid money to do it and did it effortlessly. Insta-Character.

Neil

Helping learn rules: I know Burning Wheel only because I had great players, namely Jim and Aaron who helped us all learn it better while we played. It was the table's committment to learning the game that helped us learn it and start to master it.

Being the player who isn't involved in a scene who is willing to look up a rule is a big deal as is learning the rules concerning what your character can do so that you don't slow down the game.

Obviously, this kind of stuff is a bigger deal with denser games ala BW, BE, 3.X, maybe Ars Magica

Posted By: Jason MorningstarI thinklisteningdeserves its own bullet point, personally. Just listening.

Agreed! I wrote a post about that last year, back when I was still bothering to blog.

Posted By: Ryan StoughtonPossessiveness needs to be in this thread somewhere. Like, "well, fine, you can LOOK for traitors on the ship but there aren't any - let's stick with my idea because I'm the GM, OK?"

That sounds like a thread all its own.

Some other techniques:

Teamwork

Naming

Gesture

Jared's Rule of Three

Previously, Meanwhile, and Later

Thanks, Thor.

I added the following to the OP:

Also, links to other techniques or AP examples of techniques in action are great.

Posted By: cydmabHmm, you know, my reaction to many of the items on this list is that in a perfect world, a well designed game should negate the need for these skills, or make them trivially easy, or at the very least spread the work around.

Another thread about this here.

Posted By: Brand_RobinsLetting Go and Having Fun -- Because when you're too busy trying to play better, you often play worse.

Oh dear god yes.

The ability to support someone else's fun.

Players are traditionally awfully good at pursuing their own fun; not so many are good at giving someone else space to pursue theirs. My very, very best players have always understood how to support another player's fun -- helping set up great in-character situations, playing along with someone else's riff: basically being enthusiastic about playing harmony/rhythm to someone else's solo.

p.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonFiguring Out When a Given Rule/Game Is Not Right For You and When You're Just Fucking It Up

…and when it's just plain messed up in its own right.

This is a really hard one to develop. I have a friend that I play boardgames with who is really quick to proclaim a game broken just because an element or strategy has proven strong once.

Posted By: Judd
Organizing Friends to Meet:I honestly didn't realize this was a skill gaming taught me until I had to get people together for my girlfriend's birthday a month or so ago and it was just like gathering people for a game.

I think this is the thing that I'm absolutely the worst at. I've only managed to get a full game together *once* in the last five months or so. (Aside from a handful of character/world generation sessions for an epic Sword & Sorcery campaign that never happened.) Similarly, it's nearly impossible for me to arrange a board gaming get-together outside the established days and hours at various stores around town. Heck, we have trouble getting our weekly improv troupe rehearsals regularly scheduled, and that's only half a dozen committed people.

I know that this has all been discussed before, and we're all responsible adults and so forth, but dang. My gaming needs are not being satisfied, on a purely logistical level, and I'm at a total loss with regards to how to remedy the situation. This is something that I need to learn how to do better, and I suspect that I'm not alone.

Posted By: Ajax AldwyneAccept to reset your plansKnow when and dare throw away any plans that are still in your mind only, keep what is already in-game, and restart from there. (Of course some thrown elements can re-integrate the new program if theyreallyfit.)

I'd go a step farther with this.

Don't make plans; plan situations: Make antagonists with goals and a situation that is a boulder on the edge of the cliff and the game begins as the players push the boulder down the mountain.

The evil Sorcerer is going to do A, then B, then C and then D isn't my style.

The evil Sorcerer is going to try to get the demon he is in love with to respect him, protect his tower with his minions and thwart the royal wedding is more to it.

Posted By: Judd
I'd go a step farther with this.

Don't make plans; plan situations: Make antagonists with goals and a situation that is a boulder on the edge of the cliff and the game begins as the players push the boulder down the mountain.

The evil Sorcerer is going to try to get the demon he is in love with to respect him, protect his tower with his minions and thwart the royal weddingis more to it.

That's included in what I meant by plans. Accept to throw that away also. (The real difficulty is knowing when/why.)

Learn how to ask for what you want: don't hint, don't whine and wheedle, and don't just sit there like a grumpy dick and fume about it, just openly ask for the things that you feel you need for the story to work.