D&D General DM with too High Expectations - Advice?

[jgsugden]

I make resources available to players outside the game. If a player is not using them, I invite them to show up a bit early to hang out, during which time we talk about a few things, including the stuff I want them to know. However, neither the outside reading or showing up early is required - they just miss out on opportunities if the player knowledge falls too far behind the PC knowledge.

 

[Charlaquin]

To be fair, literally none of the players have asked for him to do this. He has taken all of this on for himself and sent them a video that basically called them out for being ungrateful for all the hours of work he is putting into the game. Again, the players haven't asked for him to do anything like this. They all seem to be casual players who just don't get his "masterful DM mind."

This... Doesn’t seem like someone worth continuing to play with.

As a DM, I get it. We put in a lot of work outside of the game to entertain players who rarely thank us and probably never think about the game outside of game night. But calling your players out as ungrateful and assigning them homework is just taking it way too far. If DMing is really making you feel so dejected that this seems like an appropriate response, it’s probably time to take a break. It’s supposed to be fun for you too.

 

[Oofta]

No, this is second-hand for me, but I have some friends who are considering making the move, and I also follow an actual-play channel who are fairly open about what they do and how they make their money (mostly through Patreon), and one topic on which they are extremely hot is that absolutely anyone they put on screen for a stream gets paid for their work.

If money is coming in directly from the stream, I agree that every participant should be paid. Not sure that's the case here, or if the guy just wants players to help with his advertising. Which I guess even then they should get something.

In any case, I'd probably let this DM know my hourly rate if he's DMing for profit and expecting me to do extra work outside of the session. I also can't imagine doing this as a DM to my group unless everybody was 100% on board from the very beginning and we had figured out some kind of profit share. It's one thing to help a friend out voluntarily, it's another for the DM to just assume they'd all be good with it.

 

[ART!]

Many people have the idea to "start a business" and yet have no idea what that actually means, but just "start a business" anyway and either fail or make a lot of avoidable mistakes along the way because they haven't thought it through, or listened to advice, or done their due diligence.

That's not "starting a business", it's just "wanting something to happen".

In my experience, expecting players to do more than read a page of text is expecting too much - and I don't mean that judgmentally or as a criticism. It's actually smarter to ask your players "If I wrote up a page of intro stuff, would you read it?" before writing it.

 

[prabe]

My approach for setting material and houserules has been to put them in a shared GDrive folder and provide that link to the players (in addition to the occasional handout when we're gaming in-person). The people who are interested in what's there can pursue it; those who aren't aren't obliged to do so. That said, I cannot imagine insisting that the players read that material.

Yes, the GM does a lot of work (in more-conventional TRPGs), but that doesn't give them the right to make those kinds of decisions without input from anyone/everyone else.

Nor can I imagine making a surprise unilateral announcement to the effect of "We're gonna be streaming as of [future date]." I mean, maybe floating it at the table, seeing if anyone's interested, giving people a chance to bail on the campaign (maybe combined with an opportunity to recruit new players if need be).

 

[FrogReaver]

But think of the exposure!

This too. Typically being a face in a growing brand also grows your brand.

If money is coming in directly from the stream, I agree that every participant should be paid. Not sure that's the case here, or if the guy just wants players to help with his advertising. Which I guess even then they should get something.

In any case, I'd probably let this DM know my hourly rate if he's DMing for profit and expecting me to do extra work outside of the session. I also can't imagine doing this as a DM to my group unless everybody was 100% on board from the very beginning and we had figured out some kind of profit share. It's one thing to help a friend out voluntarily, it's another for the DM to just assume they'd all be good with it.

here’s my problem. The DMs been DMing the group for free for the last how many years?

if you all want to view the world in terms of goods and services and needing to pay for them then why are you okay with the DM working for free? It makes no sense.

the issue isn’t compensation for him or for the players. The issue is expecting someone to do something they aren’t okay with doing. Be that putting in extra work into their hobby or being recorded for the world to see

If we do insist making it a monetary issue then I think there is a pretty good good argument that helping the dm monetize himself is just paying the dm to dm, which in terms of a service shouldn’t be expected to be free either, right?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, yeah, something like that is perfectly normal. But it’s also not what I would call homework, since it’s something that can and should be gone over in session zero. If it’s too much material to review together, in-person... It might be too much material. Depends on the players.

I don't think most people would want to go over 12 pages of background material in-person, but maybe that's just me. I do absolutely know I've seen some people who consider any outside reading at all "homework" though, and I have trouble having much sympathy for them.

(This is obviously not the same as "do two hours of campaign support work every week". While I can see games that could benefit from that--I've had games that had fairly extensive bluebooking on occasion, though not to that degree--I don't think they're the routine case even for me.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

In my experience, expecting players to do more than read a page of text is expecting too much - and I don't mean that judgmentally or as a criticism. It's actually smarter to ask your players "If I wrote up a page of intro stuff, would you read it?" before writing it.

Like I said, some of us are running games with enough at least semi-necessary background or rules material on a routine basis that's just a nonstarter. That doesn't make people who are unwilling to do so evil or lazy or anything, but it does mean they're requirements and ours are fundamentally incompatible.

 

[ART!]

But think of the exposure!

This too. Typically being a face in a growing brand also grows your brand.

I think @Laurefindel was being facetious. "Do it for the exposure!" usually translates to something like "Why should I give you my money? Just do it for free, you stupid monkey." There's a whole Twitter account called "For Exposure", whose tweets are quotes from actual people asking other actual people to work for free, arguing that the awesome exposure they'll get is worth more than money. To which everyone should respond "No. Pay them."

 

[Thomas Shey]

My approach for setting material and houserules has been to put them in a shared GDrive folder and provide that link to the players (in addition to the occasional handout when we're gaming in-person). The people who are interested in what's there can pursue it; those who aren't aren't obliged to do so. That said, I cannot imagine insisting that the players read that material.

I don't think I'd ever require someone to read the non-houserules material, but if they don't and then don't like the outcome or persist in making assumptions that are not true, that's on them regarding the trouble it causes them.

People who can't bother to read houserules material are likely people who can't be bothered to read rules in the first place, and I'm a person who's not likely to run game systems where the players can get by without having a reasonable understanding of the rules. I know some people want to do that, but I'm mostly assuming they won't want to play the kind of games I'm running in the first place then (and if they do, bluntly, they can find someone is willing to consistently hold their hand for them.)

Nor can I imagine making a surprise unilateral announcement to the effect of "We're gonna be streaming as of [future date]." I mean, maybe floating it at the table, seeing if anyone's interested, giving people a chance to bail on the campaign (maybe combined with an opportunity to recruit new players if need be).

Yeah, that seems a bit off to me, too.