D&D General Matt Colville on the “Forever DM”

[TiQuinn]

Far to many logical fallacies fllung about for anyone to mistake this for a debate club.

Not to mention, no one is there to hand out an award for supposedly flawless logic.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Let's bear in mind that Matt's not debating, either. That was a comparison.

He IS (in this particular video) making an argument. Stating a case. He's trying to alleviate the unhappiness of Forever DMs (in the sense that he was careful to define them), and taking a stab at diagnosing part of the issue and making a pitch to their players why they should care and should do something about that unhappiness. And how they can help. As well as just generally selling the idea of trying other games or GMs and not simply staying in the rut of one game and one GM.

I don't think most of his videos are debating. They're expressing opinions and sharing ideas, pitched in a way to generate enthusiasm about them and "sell" them as worth trying. Again, like that original Running the Game video. "DMing is fun, easier than you think, and I can help you do it!" is a thing worth selling people on, IMO.

I try not to get into the weeds of "Isn't Debating" and don't tend to approach the concept of debate as discrete from other forms of persuasion or exploration, debate is simply expressing and supporting a position from the perspective of contrasting it with other possible positions.

 

[damiller]

I do think it's important to note that Matt goes out of his way to say that what you describe here is not what he means by a "forever DM". DMing is a lot more intense than playing, and if that's your jam that's great.

To Matt, the "forever DM" he's talking about is someone who is, specifically, very unhappy.

Like you're not using the term wrong (it's always been used both ways) but your meaning doesn't match his. He's specifically talking about either (a) people who want to be a player but nobody at the table will agree to GM, and (b) people who want to GM games other than D&D but nobody at their table will play anything but D&D.

yea, well I did say I had not watched the whole thing through, typical internet person, comment on a video without watching it.

At least I admitted it, right? right!

Thank you for clarifying that bit though because yea, those are quite different definitions. And I am not sure which has a stronger use. For me at any rate "Forever GM" means "the person who only runs games, never/rarely plays" and I have not seen it used as you said he did*. And that, in this topic, is my unexamined bias.

*NOTE: i am not saying you are lying or obfuscating in anyway, I still haven't watched the video all the way through, so I can only comment on your presentation of the material (which I am taking as more accurate than mine, since it seems you watched the video, and would therefore be more presumably aware of the contents there of)

 

[Mannahnin]

I try not to get into the weeds of "Isn't Debating" and don't tend to approach the concept of debate as discrete from other forms of persuasion or exploration, debate is simply expressing and supporting a position from the perspective of contrasting it with other possible positions.

Eh. I think there's a difference between just making a persuasive case for something and debate, which is an oppositional process between multiple people putting forth competing arguments, and often involves attacking the foundations of someone else's position, arguing against.

 

[SteveC]

Eh. I think there's a difference between just making a persuasive case for something and debate, which is an oppositional process between multiple people putting forth opposing arguments, and often involves attacking the foundations of someone else's position, arguing against.

As a former debate coach, yeah, the differences are pretty serious: you have an issue that's resolved to be true or not and then people taking positions, citing evidence, debunking the other side's evidence.

This thread started with the suggestion that people would find the video interesting.

Since then we're talking about many things: is Matt's voice annoying? Does he make universal declarations for issues that are open to multiple interpretations? Are Forever DMs unhappy? Should a group play a game other than D&D if the DM wants? I'm sure there are others. I think the point is that we're just talking about Matt's video, and, as it usually does, the topic drifts as people who don't like him come to say that. And fans (and hey, I'm one of them despite not liking Rush) come out to say that too.

Matt has strong opinions, and if you're going to make videos on the YouTubes, you pretty much need that. I don't know if anyone remembers Dennis Miller, but he used to do rants where he ended each one with "...but that's just my opinion, I could be wrong, let's go have pie." Perhaps Matt needs to do that. Professor Dungeon Master ends each video with "that's what I think. What do you think? Post it in the comments." And that's his way of ending things.

And that's just my take on this thread, what do you think?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Eh. I think there's a difference between just making a persuasive case for something and debate, which is an oppositional process between multiple people putting forth competing arguments, and often involves attacking the foundations of someone else's position, arguing against.

To me, it's a standard of discourse thing, most of the time when I see people drawing an explicit distinction, it's usually that they don't want to be held to the standard of a debate, but to my mind the standards of debate are just standards of validity and soundness-- I don't like leaving the door open for someone to decide that they can make claims that just aren't subject to those standards and I've noticed that when we draw a strong distinction.

To be clear, I don't consider debate club (what @SteveC was talking about) to be debate in the same way-- that is it's own kettle of fish designed to be a sport, it has very different incentives. Debate is just discourse and disagreement, and the standards for that, more like what we do on here than anything with points and judges and "well, you're def wrong, but you still won because your oration outmatched the opposition."

 

[Saracenus]

Teos and Shawn of the Mastering Dungeons Podcast respond to the Matt's video yesterday. I am still listening to it so I don't have much to comment on it yet.