D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Aldarc]

So, with respect, there's a big difference between, "this is not as good as it can be," and, "this has actually been a problem we noted, and it needs fixing". Those are not the same motivation.

And with respect to you, it's far from uncommon to hear the former from a company when the latter is the underlying meaning.

 

[pemerton]

The problem with "I knew a guy once back in 2e who was a bad DM" is that perhaps there was just no amount of text, video or personal tutorials that could make them a good DM. Sometimes people are just never going to be good at something.

The problem with this post is that I was there and you weren't. I knew the person in question and you didn't and (almost certainly) still don't. So you're making something up, whereas I'm actually posting on the basis of knowledge of the situation.

The GM I referred to didn't have the tools he needed to run the game he wanted to run. So he ran a railroad instead. And I know it's possible to learn new techniques from reading rules and commentary because I've done so and I've experienced others doing so.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Deleted

 

[John Lloyd1]

So when I think of effective texts (for learning to run and play) I think Stars Without Number / Worlds Without Number is a high watermark for me personally. It lays out very simple recipes for putting short adventures together and a session by session approach to prep that makes running trad games feel much more manageable.

This is an area I would like to see improved. The current DMG has information for putting together an adventure hook and high level structure. But lacks scaffolding for the detailed adventure design. It shouldn't need to be the 'one way' of adventure design. More a playbook style that will produce a simple fun adventure with the caveat that there are lots of ways of doing this.

 

[Oofta]

The problem with this post is that I was there and you weren't. I knew the person in question and you didn't and (almost certainly) still don't. So you're making something up, whereas I'm actually posting on the basis of knowledge of the situation.

The GM I referred to didn't have the tools he needed to run the game he wanted to run. So he ran a railroad instead. And I know it's possible to learn new techniques from reading rules and commentary because I've done so and I've experienced others doing so.

So the guy didn't have the tools in 2E. Would he have them now? What would it look like? How could any game have detailed rules for every possible scenario that someone might think up?

If he didn't have the tools for that particular scenario, did they go on to DM other scenarios? How many times have you seen something like this?

Because 2E was 30 years ago, have you seen a significant number of DMs encounter this type of thing?

You're correct. I don't have all the details. Why do you think this one scenario is indicative of a larger issue?

 

[John Lloyd1]

So this a random collection of my thoughts for improvements:

• I like the idea of a single book to start playing. It is a bit investment curve to go from a starter set or the basic rules to the three books. It would be nice if the PHB would give you enough to DM (ie monsters, magic items and advice). I'm not sure if it would ever fly though.
• Better support for designing adventures for a beginner DM. It doesn't get you there yet.
• Tools for improvising (ie Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master)
• Tools for improvising monsters on the fly.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I guess people are more comfortable with Matt Mercer being the greatest avenue to teach D&D then I thought...

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think it's more likely there's a sampling error. We're a big group of people who learned via years if not decades of trial and error, have become skilled at the trade and everything feels obvious and easy to us. And time has its ways of smoothing things over and we tend to forget just how much we learned from watching other DMs or from catastrophic games that only lasted a couple of sessions.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think it's more likely there's a sampling error. We're a big group of people who learned via years if not decades of trial and error, have become skilled at the trade and everything feels obvious and easy to us. And time has its ways of smoothing things over and we tend to forget just how much we learned from watching other DMs or from catastrophic games that only lasted a couple of sessions.

There also seems to be a strong sentiment that the decades of trial and error are “the way” and any attempt to bypass that is therefore looked down upon.

 

[Cadence]

There also seems to be a strong sentiment that the decades of trial and error are “the way” and any attempt to bypass that is therefore looked down upon.

Haphazardly scrolling back to look at the posts of a few people I thought you might be referring to, it looks like there are several people who don't think making the PHB/DMG tutorials is the way, but that having either starter sets or videos or some other help like that would be a thing.

Do you have particular posts where they want decades of trial and error?