D&D General The DM Shortage

[hawkeyefan]

For what it's worth, while I absolutely would agree it requires less prep, I find the process of running PbtA more stressful overall. I enjoy them, and have been running a Blades team as they have availability, but if you asked me which I'd be more willing to run without a ton of notice, it'd be 5e. But maybe I just have a lower perception of what 5e prep is.

I think this brings up two relevant factors.

The first is the wide range of prep there can be for a 5e game. People have suggested in this thread x hours of prep for y hours of play, or that it can be your only hobby, or you can’t have a full time job and be a DM(!?!?). And while that may be true for those folks, it’s not even remotely my experience. I prep very little compared to that.

The second factor is comfortability. You mention Blades in the Dark, which requires far less prep compared to 5e. Yet you stress more about that game than 5e. My guess is because they require different things, they test different skills as a GM. I think, as with any skill, it will get better with practice.

So finding the right combo of prep level and comfortability with the requiredGM duties is something that takes time. People need to learn it by doing, as others have mentioned, but they also need to start simply.

I don’t think the way to get people to want to GM is by focusing on how hard or time consuming it must be.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Same, frankly.

Some people seem a lot more into it though.

There is a trade-off. Prepping for a VTT game involves more work, but you then have more stuff available at your fingertips during the game.

 

[Oofta]

I mean, that's a pretty wild belief given the fact that so many players are happy to play different RPGs. There will be some differences in the profiles, but like, different kinds of orange, not like, different fruit.

It would be incredibly strange and unusual if the perceived effort involved in prepping for and running a game didn't impact the people willing to run it. That would be truly bizarre. So I think we can safely say, based on knowing humans and being a human who lives on planet Earth that the game design is absolutely going to factor into who is willing to DM it. There's never been any product which was magically immune to that kind of thing. It would be unprecedented.

The claim made in the video the OP talked about claimed that the majority of people playing OSR also DMed. They came to this conclusion after doing a survey of a facebook (or was it reddit?) group, so it was a meaninglessly small sample size. But if you're playing OSR D&D? You're in a different category of player than typical.

I think part of the problem is that the culture of D&D is that people think they have to include the kitchen sink. Every class, race, feat, optional book must be included or you're being a no-goodnick DM. If I were new to DMing? I'd limit to the free basic rules until I understood the system. No feats, limited classes, the handful of races in the pdf. You can run a simpler version of 5E if you want but most people want anything and everything.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It you could come up with a way to teach people to DM that doesn't involve about ten times as much work as just playing, then you might have a solution.

But like every other long standing problem that hasn't already been fixed, there is no easy solution.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it is a solved problem, just not for D&D. One of my players just picked up a simple Resistance-based RPG and showed he was an absolutely great DM, for example, having never DM'd before.

I don’t think the way to get people to want to GM is by focusing on how hard or time consuming it must be.

Definitely, but also pretending it's not quite significantly time-consuming if you follow even the most basic guidelines, with a game like 5E is an incredibly bad idea. I could write an entire exciting scenario for Spire in the time it takes me to properly stat out, find/draw maps for and put loot in for two 5E encounters, for example, even kind of hedging it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

OSR is simpler than what I would consider "standard" D&D. And as with many things that are simple, many people don't find it very interesting. Of course, you will always find some people who find boring stuff interesting. After all, train spotting exists.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One of my players just picked up a simple Resistance-based RPG and showed he was an absolutely great DM, for example, having never DM'd before.

As already mentioned, it's a very different sort of activity to running a highly prepped game of D&D, and one I would find about as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist.

Prep is work, but it's also a crutch. I rely on it to make up for my shortcomings both as a DM and as a school teacher.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think part of the problem is that the culture of D&D is that people think they have to include the kitchen sink. Every class, race, feat, optional book must be included or you're being a no-goodnick DM. If I were new to DMing? I'd limit to the free basic rules until I understood the system. No feats, limited classes, the handful of races in the pdf. You can run a simpler version of 5E if you want but most people want anything and everything.

I definitely agree with this point but I would also say this doesn't remove much of the burden from the DM overall. It does remove some - and particularly it makes it easier at the table.

But contention would be D&D 5E's main problem isn't usually "at the table". I think once you have an adventure and are at the table, most people are least basically okay with DMing. Most people understand they're not Matt Mercer, and so on.

Getting them there, though, that's the trick. And 5E wants a ton of prep which isn't significantly easier (or harder) with no Feats, limited classes, limited races. You can get some help by using pre-written adventures, but for whatever mad reasons, WotC has done a poor job here in terms of supporting new DMs (I mean that's almost an entire other discussion, I can certainly rant about it all day), or even just time-pressed experienced DMs. Unless you happen to pick the right adventure, you're going to be expected to absorb a lot of poorly-organised, poorly-presented material, and further, in some cases you'll have to deal with huge and unnecessary gaps in the adventures/campaigns (which again, other RPGs just don't have).

 

[Oofta]

Interesting. I generally find PtbA anti-stressful myself, though Resistance is even better. I don't jive well with Blades itself though, it's just not the right game for me as a player or DM.

D&D isn't very stressful to run either, to be fair (any edition), but prepping is a significant task if I want to do it to even my (low) personal standards. 4E was drastically easier for boring non-replicable factors (digital tools, encounter design, monster design, loot approach including the heretical treasure packages etc.) so that saw me get really back into DMing (esp. writing my own stuff as opposed to running pre-written).

Different strokes for different folks and all, but I never found 4E easier to run. Maybe because I did primarily LFR, but having to deal with umpteen zillion powers with people that would not actually read what their powers did half the time was a huge headache. That and keeping track of everything should have been easy - tell a player they have ongoing fire damage and put a marker on the mini. But did the player ever remember what the marker was for? Of course not, as DM I had to keep track of every condition on every PC and monster. I got better at it after a while, but easier? No. Not for me.

Anyway, aside from complaining about lazy players, it's not a reflection on the edition one way or another. It was just more difficult for me to DM 4E.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As already mentioned, it's a very different sort of activity to running a highly prepped game of D&D, and one I would find about as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist.

If that's true, and you're not just spewing hyperbole for the sake of hyperbole, what it indicates that you value extremely peculiar and specific things about DMing - particularly the hyper-detailed prep and so on.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Definitely, but also pretending it's not quite significantly time-consuming if you follow even the most basic guidelines, with a game like 5E is an incredibly bad idea. I could write an entire exciting scenario for Spire in the time it takes me to properly stat out, find/draw maps for and put loot in for two 5E encounters, for example, even kind of hedging it.

It does take some time. Especially when compared to low prep games like Spire.

However, my GMing has been influenced quite a bit by Blades and Spire, in particular. Even when running D&D. I design a loose scenario much like I would for Spire. I don’t stat up all the participants, but i stead use existing stat blocks (except for truly rare NPC villains). I don’t map ahead of time. If we’re playing with a battle map and minis, I draw the map while my players determine initiative.

So all in all, while the prep is a bit more than a game like Spire, I think it’s much closer to that end than to the kinds of expectations many have cited in this thread.