robus
Lowcountry Low Roller
I once had an idea to write a DM’s companion to LMoP, but then I had a lie down and the feeling passed…
D&D General The DM Shortage
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
robus
Lowcountry Low Roller
Agreed, but it really would be nice if WotC or a big publisher produced an “Introduction to DMing”.
We can see all kinds of people doing all kinds of things on YouTube, but that doesn’t mean we can acquire those skills just by watching, because we’re not seeing inside the process, just inputs and outputs and that can appear magic.
I’ve said it before, but @iserith‘s action adjudication guide should be in the DMG because it breaks down the process from the inputs (player action declaration) to the outputs (DM narration of result). The AngryGM‘s book is also very good for new DMs (despite his many issues).
But your average new DM is never going to find either of those. And definitely not on youtube.
Relocated to: D&D 5E - People don't read the 5E DMG for a reason
Last edited:
I've seen both. Everybody that plays pays a couple of bucks to play and the money goes to the store and then the DM gets store credit. Asking people to DM seemed to work better, even if I did get a lot of books at the cost of DMing.
First off I am not convinced that the lack of DMs is something new. It may be an artifact of the expansion of the player base due to the current surge in popularity but to my memory it is something I have head about over the years, though, perhaps not since the earlier days of 3.x.
The first issue with DMing is that it is harder than playing. Nothing can really change this but it is going to stop some people wanting to do it.
The other is a form of "imposter syndrome" the new DM looks at more experienced DMs or Matt Mercer and thinks my game is not as good as that and fails to recognise that those other DMS have struggled with their version of feeling not good enough and not recognise that their players may be perfectly happy with the game they are getting.
What can the DMG do to help. Well, let potential DMs know, upfront, that there are different playstyles and player types and point them at resources with further information for those that are interested.
Explain the basic play loop explicitly and give examples. I.E. the DM lays out the scene, the player stated an interaction with the scene, it may require a D20 test (and what that is) and based on the result the DM narrates an outcome.
Show different iterations of how that scene can be adjudicated and concepts like "Fail Forward".
Introduce location based play, with resource management as a challenge and alternative ways of doing location based play. Point them to the relevant chapter/resources.
Do the same with Trad-Story based play and the importance of NPCs as agents of engagement. Point them to plenty of online resources and examples.
They do, That is why we got the Hickman revolution and all that other stuff much debated here and elsewhere.
None of this makes a damn bit of difference to a lack of DMs in my opinion.
The first issue with DMing is that it is harder than playing. Nothing can really change this but it is going to stop some people wanting to do it.
The other is a form of "imposter syndrome" the new DM looks at more experienced DMs or Matt Mercer and thinks my game is not as good as that and fails to recognise that those other DMS have struggled with their version of feeling not good enough and not recognise that their players may be perfectly happy with the game they are getting.
What can the DMG do to help. Well, let potential DMs know, upfront, that there are different playstyles and player types and point them at resources with further information for those that are interested.
Explain the basic play loop explicitly and give examples. I.E. the DM lays out the scene, the player stated an interaction with the scene, it may require a D20 test (and what that is) and based on the result the DM narrates an outcome.
Show different iterations of how that scene can be adjudicated and concepts like "Fail Forward".
Introduce location based play, with resource management as a challenge and alternative ways of doing location based play. Point them to the relevant chapter/resources.
Do the same with Trad-Story based play and the importance of NPCs as agents of engagement. Point them to plenty of online resources and examples.
Celebrim
Legend
IMO, not really.
The base rules in the PHB are far less complete than are generally realized by most DMs and even apparently the writing team. So the DMG is adrift, but it really shouldn't be.
I run a D&D 3.25 game that forked off of D&D 3e prior to D&D 3.5 and which largely rejected most D&D 3.5 revisions. It has it's own version of the Player's Handbook that is 95% complete and available for players to use that is based off the 3e and 3.5e SRD.
But I still have a ton of ideas for a DMG that I will probably never get around to finishing. Briefly, aside from giving advice on how to run the game, a DMG needs to tell a novice DM how to run different environments and how to adjudicate the sort of hazards that will arise in those environments. So my DMG focuses on rules for falling, drowning, fatigue, roughing it, heat exhaustion, hypothermia, weather and weather effects, poison, diseases, addictive substances, avalanches, quicksand, lava, traps, and so on. It also has advanced rules for underwater and aerial movement and combat, and rules for running chases - situations where the normal round-based combat rules tend to break down and could use some modification. It also has the guidelines for awarding experience points, treasure tables, and all the other classic features
Just because the combat rules moved from the DMG to the PH, doesn't mean there isn't a ton of things left to cover. The thin content in modern DMGs is not a requirement. A well done DMG should feel essential to a DM. I still reference the 1e AD&D DMG a ton when running games just because I don't feel a modern DMG has surpassed it.
I think that B/X has the reverse problem. If B/X had come out not with the thin rules supplements for a partial game, but with something like the BECMI compendium from the start, I think it would have been more highly regarded. Or better yet, if there had actually been a unified game and the basic rules were actually an introduction to it.
I have mixed feelings about starter sets. You could do a beginner's box that had just the rules for running 1st-3rd level characters, maybe simplified class options, a set of dice, and a good introductory adventure as a budget way to get into the game and try it before investing in $160 worth of books. But it would have to be really well done. And the trouble is that I think a starter set made much more sense in 1980 than it does in 2020 when hardly anyone was familiar with RPGs.
My biggest problem with where D&D is at in terms of publication schedule is D&D doesn't ever seem to fill my needs as a DM. The books I want are never published. Instead WotC invariably publishes books that lack focus and are essentially bundles of supplemental rules touching every aspect of the game but which to me only add bloat and not value.
Fourth Book - Crafting Guide. I want a book devoted to how everything in the game universe gets made that has actually functional rules. And it should have a comprehensive price list that makes sense from an economic perspective and within the rules it lays out. This should include an actually balanced guide for pricing magic items, as well as extensive rules for alchemy and optional advanced rules for reagents that get rid of the handwave that in a major metropolis you can just buy blue dragon hearts or whatever else you need for your puissant creation. The rules should also discuss the cost of labor and different assumptions about currency to help new DMs understand how much a gold piece is worth or more to the point how much they want it to be worth and how to scale the prices on the basis of different assumptions about what is a daily wage. The rules should go on to describe typical businesses and how to stock a typical town with businesses and stock those businesses with goods depending on the wealth and technology level of the area. The rules should further contain rules for establishing and running small businesses and running games centered around that. Rules for abstracting out a business empire would just be bonus. There is just a massive amount of material to cover and it's rarely covered well and it's often scattered around a bunch of books. Note that all of this material is useful to both PC's and DM's.
Fifth Book - Tome of Magic. I want a book that covers all the magic that isn't part of the daily life of a spellcaster, but which touches on how magic works at a deep level in the game. This would include explanation and rules for familiars, holy sites, shrines, magical libraries, researching new spells, sacrifices, sacred worship, magical rituals, nodes of power, astrology, ley lines, artifact creation, magical pollution and taint and all the stuff that shows up in adventures as magical weirdness and all the things that show up in the story that NPCs do and why they are doing it. Also include discussion of what magical apprenticeships are like and different ways that magic might be treated in your campaign world depending on level of acceptance, ubiquity, and how mature magical knowledge is in the game world, and so forth. This is also a good place to dump all the narrow spells that you wouldn't want to bloat a Player's Handbook with, particularly spells NPCs might love but which PCs wouldn't prepare except during down time. As a bonus, variant magical systems could be discussed here.
Sixth Book - Tome of Battles. This is the mass combat supplement with rules for running battles at different scales, fortifications, naval combat and so forth. It's also something of an end game campaign guide, with discussion of reputation and rank, with rules for different ways of raising armies and the cost of maintaining armies in the field, and operational rules for armies degrading from poor supply, disease, bad weather, etc. Discussion of systems of government, taxation, and dissident action and revolts with an eye toward the players being on either end - either as the rulers or as the revolutionaries.
But no, instead we get a bunch of random supplements that have like 5 pages of material each I might use and as such aren't worth the cost.
Sacrosanct
Legend
I think when we talk about people in general, when you say "Here's a version that's easier to learn, less rules for you to memorize, and there's a social contract that says since you're putting in most of the work and are running the game, you can build the world as you want and aren't forced to include things that you don't want in that game.", that's going to be more appealing than the opposite to someone who is thinking about DMing. You might think "it doesn't make a damn bit of difference", but I think it makes a pretty big one. Easier to play + empowerment are carrots, so-to-speak for DMs. Especially when you factor for a lot of players, time is precious, and we don't have all weekend to play games.
And we know this. How? From all the DMs who will refuse to DM certain editions for those reasons.
I think that when we get to people rejecting editions for any reason, we are dealing with experienced DMs.
It really depends on the people. I was not happy with Basic 30 years ago and I was a fan of crunchy rules until Rolemaster and 3.x cured me of it. I still favour fairly rules heavy system like 5e.
I do not think that 5e is that hard to grasp, the basics are not all that much but Basic (of BECMI fame) hid much because it only covered a few levels and was dungeon focused.
I think that instruction on how to utilise the task resolution system and how to adjudicate the expected scenarios (Combat, environment, and NPC interaction) is more important than the complexity of the rules.
I would agree that beginning in location based play is a better place to start before tackling complex story type play. I am for instance a big fan of the "Return of the Lazy DM" as DM advice and a firm believe in don't over prep but I concede that some people find that terrible advice.
like:
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Yeah, exactly. If I can’t run the game without a computer doing the work for me, it’s way, way too crunchy.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
It’s not overlooked. We talked about it early in the thread. The point isn’t that no resources exist to help newb DMs. The point is that WotC isn’t doing much of anything to help newb DMs.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
D&D General
Sandbox and/or/vs Linear campaigns
