What Makes a Gamemaster Actually a Master?

What makes a great escape room gamemaster? Discover the key skills, mindset & behind-the-scenes insights from Fluchtweg Hamburg’s game experts.

How does a gamemaster of a live escape game actually become a true master of their craft? Talent? Passion? Years of training? All or none of the above? These are questions many enthusiastic live escape fans ask us. Here we’d like to try to give you an answer.

Heart and Brain  

A masterful gamemaster loves their job.
But even more: they love live escape games. And they live them. They know about the entire cosmos of live escape games. They know their own games at least as well as the back of their hand. They passionately enjoy playing at other providers in their city and surroundings. They never tire of the thrill of getting locked in themselves, and hardly anything satisfies them more than cracking even the toughest nut to escape from an escape room in time.

Only one thing makes them even happier: seeing the beaming faces of their guests when they escape the perfidious puzzles and traps of a room. They know the coolest new rooms, can talk shop with puzzle-addicted players, and always have an insider tip and exciting dates and events (e.g., the Hamburg Live Escape Championship in September) in store. In short: a life without live escape is possible for them, but meaningless.

Communication and Service  

A masterful gamemaster loves their guests.
Good mood is their middle name. They are as cheerful, friendly, and eloquent as they are competent, and take care of every player from the first to the last second like the passengers of a first-class flight to Dubai. All of this, of course, in German and fluent English and ideally in other languages too. Because as in any good relationship, this applies here too: talking helps.

Nerves of Steel  

A masterful gamemaster loves their game rooms.
They could run games even tied up, gagged, and blindfolded, during power outages, fire, and storm floods. Their top priority is: their guests’ gaming fun. For this, they need not only nerves like steel cables but also a lot of empathy, a good sense of timing, and as almost everywhere: experience. They meticulously prepare the rooms, and even the most creative solution approach from their players can only elicit a tired smile from them, so focused are they on the game flow. If in the heat of the moment players accidentally break something in their enthusiasm, they quickly grab the glue gun or cordless screwdriver, and when new guests arrive a few minutes later, the room looks like it’s being played for the first time.

Drama  

A masterful gamemaster loves a good game.
They know about the difficulties and pitfalls of their game rooms. They know how to keep their guests at a comfortably tingling adrenaline level. They guide their guests through a game with sleepwalking certainty. Ideally, they do this quietly and unnoticed like a good spirit. They can almost physically feel how their group is doing, suffer with them, cheer with them, and have to hold their hand over their mouth to avoid cheering when their players crack another puzzle. To keep frustrations low among the players, they know when a hint is needed, and when they’d better silently enjoy and grinning observe the drama before them on the screen in the control room. And they know when a hint must work as if it came from the Oracle of Delphi personally, or whether they’d better quickly unpack the sledgehammer and a few fence posts to wave with.

Summed up in one word: as in many other things in life, here too the answer is that small great word with 4 letters. Because only what you truly love, what you burn for, and what you do with all your heart and full passion can you bring to true mastery.

You can learn more about our gamemasters under Fluchtweg Team. Whether they’re truly masterful? Try it out. We’d love to lock you in! And if you think you can be as enthusiastic about this job as we are, then write to us and become a masterful gamemaster yourself – all info about that can be found here: Jobs