Is the DM the most important person at the table

[MGibster]

Needing a mentor to show you the difficult ropes is another form of gatekeeping.

We're kind of lowering the bar on what it means to gatekeep, aren't we? At this point just needing the rules is a form of gatekeeping.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We're kind of lowering the bar on what it means to gatekeep, aren't we? At this point just needing the rules is a form of gatekeeping.

Not at all. If you cannot learn to GM from the rulebooks, but instead need a mentor to walk you though it, that's a problem. Having a mentor isn't a problem, the problem is NEEDing a mentor to be a GM.

If the only way to learn the job is to be mentored, then there's gatekeeping. Not all gatekeeping is bad, look at being an engineer, but I submit if that a hobby activity that shouldn't require mentoring to play is widely thought to need mentoring, then there's gatekeeping going on that needn't.

 

[macd21]

Not at all. If you cannot learn to GM from the rulebooks, but instead need a mentor to walk you though it, that's a problem. Having a mentor isn't a problem, the problem is NEEDing a mentor to be a GM.

If the only way to learn the job is to be mentored, then there's gatekeeping. Not all gatekeeping is bad, look at being an engineer, but I submit if that a hobby activity that shouldn't require mentoring to play is widely thought to need mentoring, then there's gatekeeping going on that needn't.

A mentor is not required to be a GM. It just helps. There’s no gatekeeping. Nobody is going to stop someone new to gaming from being a GM. It’s just a lot easier if you have someone who can help.

 

[Hussar]

A mentor is not required to be a GM. It just helps. There’s no gatekeeping. Nobody is going to stop someone new to gaming from being a GM. It’s just a lot easier if you have someone who can help.

Different editions approach things differently though. AD&D is extremely opaque from a new gamers POV. To the point where people who have been playing the game for years can still be surprised by hidden rules buries somewhere behind the mountain of Gygaxian prose.

OTOH, if we look at the 4e DMG, probably the most directly useful DMG in D&D history to teach someone how to run a game (not how to run every game, or how to run the perfect game, but, how to run A game) people absolutely lost their minds over the advice that was being given because it was "telling us how to run our games".

Imagine trying to walk into 3.5 edition, cold, with no gaming experience whatsoever, and trying to run games. There's a reason the hobby stagnated so badly for so long, not attracting any new members. 4e made a decent attempt at trying to bring in new blood, but, it was mired so badly behind an extremely strong negative reaction to the way the material was presented and some blindingly bad marketing decisions. 5e, OTOH, has managed to leapfrog over those mistakes, avoiding all of 4e's missteps, while still presenting D&D in the most easily consumable form the game has ever had. The yearly release of Adventure Paths has been a fantastic way to create new GM's.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I somewhat disagree, but assume that you are correct. So what? On the gaming night in question - given how the game progressed - the most important thing that happened all night was the player intervening to help move the story forward.



So I see the issue, you are defining importance as "possessing the most authority. No one disagrees that the DM has the most authority. Instead, I counter that importance is based on what is actually done - not what one is empowered to do but remains undone.

The DM choosing not to intervene is a choice. You chose not to cut the RP short. That doesn’t really demonstrate that the player who did intervene was the most important.

 

[Ovinomancer]

A mentor is not required to be a GM. It just helps. There’s no gatekeeping. Nobody is going to stop someone new to gaming from being a GM. It’s just a lot easier if you have someone who can help.

So, then, you agree GMing isn't that hard and having a nentor is just helping, like with anything else? Like, say, being a player?

We're into a place where there's simultaneously an argument that GMing is hard to kearn on your own and that it's not hard enough to really need a mentor.

Either it's easy enough to pick up from the rules ir it isn't. Which are you staking, here?

 

[Fanaelialae]

Needing a mentor to show you the difficult ropes is another form of gatekeeping.

And, D&D is bad in it's manuals (usually, some older exceptions) at teaching anything useful about GMing. Largely, I think, because a lot of material on HOW to GM would make many returning customers upset. There's already loads of complaints about the 'wasted' space in the 5e DMG that does talk about the basics of GMing. So, yeah, that's gatekeeping as well.

I huge amount of the problem is that we all think that the way we, personally, prefer games is how games should be, and that's been locked in through a few decades of GM's doing the heavy load lifting. But, you don't have to. You can offload a lot of the tracking onto the players. You can using random generated dungeons, either from the back of the DMG or any number of tools online. You can pretty quickly pull encounters straight from the MM that will work, especially with other neophyte players, or you can use an online tool like KFC to do work for you. In game, all you have to do is listen to what your players say and then call for checks when needed. It's not hard, but it would probably not look like a game you'd prefer. But, that's okay, you're GMing. And, maybe that game doesn't need to be like yours.

But, this conception we have that DMing should look like our DMing (and mine doesn't look like the example above) and we know how much work we do so therefore DMing is HARD is really gatekeeping -- it's stepping on games that don't look like ours.

I was guilty of all of these things for pretty much my entire hobby experience. GMing was clearly the toughest job. It's only after I've started playing other games that I realized exactly how much mental overhead I've borrowed in how I've run D&D, overhead that wasn't necessary to run a game of D&D. That that overhead was a combination of how I was "mentored" and the lack of good, clear methods of running in the rules. That I didn't have to do it that way. That let me then choose what I kept and didn't, and the fact that I've chosen to keep stuff I didn't have to is my choice, and not a requirement of GMing.


EMWorld is a great place to be intimidated as a new GM. We climb deep into the gears here, because we're gaming nerds that like to argue arguing about gaming. It's not as friendly and welcoming as you think.

I don't think such a broad definition of gatekeeping is a useful one. Risk is a more complicated boardgame than Sorry. Are the makers of Risk guilty of gatekeeping, or is their game just different from Sorry?

IMO, gatekeeping is when people try to keep other people out of a particular group. The key word there is TRY. The gatekeeper needs to be attempting to make gatekeeping happen, whether through action or inaction.

I don't think that's the general case. Obviously, we can point to specific cases that ARE gatekeeping. For example, this hobby has traditionally been pretty bad with gatekeeping women. However, I don't think the same is true of GMs in general.

Not having the advice that you (Ovinomancer) would give new GMs in the DMG is not gatekeeping IMO. Maybe you're right, and your advice is the perfect solution to onboarding new GMs. Nonetheless, disagreeing with that advice isn't gatekeeping, unless the intent driving it is to prevent new GMs. A different GM might believe that his advice is much more practical and useful to new GMs. Even if he is wrong and you are right, it still isn't gatekeeping, because he too wants to make the new GMs job easier. Confounding the situation further is that not all advice works for everyone. Some people will have an easier time with one approach than another. We could maybe include all approaches and all the advice in the DMG, but odds are it would be so large that no one would be able to lift it.

As for ENWorld, that was an example of GMs not hording their knowledge. I wouldn't recommend it to a new GM either.

 

[Imaro]

Not at all. If you cannot learn to GM from the rulebooks, but instead need a mentor to walk you though it, that's a problem. Having a mentor isn't a problem, the problem is NEEDing a mentor to be a GM.

If the only way to learn the job is to be mentored, then there's gatekeeping. Not all gatekeeping is bad, look at being an engineer, but I submit if that a hobby activity that shouldn't require mentoring to play is widely thought to need mentoring, then there's gatekeeping going on that needn't.

Couldn't this just be about how different people learn in different ways? For some people it's easier to process information from a text for others it's easier to learn in a hands on environment...

 

[FrogReaver]

The DM is still first among equals. Even if the player occasionally does more in session than the DM, he still doesn't take over the first among equals spot. The DM still has far more responsibility, puts in far more work prepping for the game, plays far more roles, etc., than the players do.

What if a player consistently does more in session than the dm?

 

[Nagol]

So, then, you agree GMing isn't that hard and having a nentor is just helping, like with anything else? Like, say, being a player?

We're into a place where there's simultaneously an argument that GMing is hard to kearn on your own and that it's not hard enough to really need a mentor.

Either it's easy enough to pick up from the rules ir it isn't. Which are you staking, here?

Birdwatching is better with a mentor too. It's still too hard for me to bother with. Same goes for knitting. GMing is hard, but I still bother with it even though I had no mentor.

It comes down to what people like to do. Things can be hard and still be personally rewarding. Those get traction. Things that are hard and not found to be personally rewarding do not.