D&D General A Rant: DMing is not hard.

[HomegrownHydra]

No, it isn't. It just takes practice. It takes being allowed to fail.

Guidance is also helpful, and can reduce the amount of failure a person has and that is a good thing for both the DM and the players.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

I am not sure why anyone thinks that the metric for being able to do a thing should be measured against perfection.

Perfection shouldn't be the standard, but neither should what 10-year olds do be the standard either.

 

[Belen]

One of the things I really dislike that has come out of the rise of popularity of D&D (and to some degree other RPGs; but let's be honest, it is mostly D&D) is the monetization of convinging people that being a Dungeon master is hard.

Early on as 5E gained steam, we had people like Matt Coville and Matt Mercer conving people that yes, you can be a DM. Coville in particular built a following around explaining how to DM, but never telling his viewers that they could not do it. Others have followed, such as Ginni D, who offer similar advice.

But something I see a lot more of now is an endless stream of products aimed at DMs trying to convince them that Dming is hard and the only way to manage it is to buy this book. There are tons of books of super simplified adventures and advice on how to be a better DM and ways to cut corners, and the marketing is all "DMing is super hard, buy this to make it easier."

DMing is not that hard. We learned to do it when we were 10. We fumbled around and made weird calls and built bad adventures and still had a blast -- enough to still be doing it decades later. We need fewer products marketed as ways to make DMing easier, and more people advocating for letting new DMs screw up.

And part of this, IMO, is the professional DM cottage industry. I get why people would want a paid GM, especially as it relates to scheduling, but pro DMing amplifies the attitude that DMing is some sort of elite skill set that only someone with expertise can do. And that is nonsense. Anyone can DM.

Anyway, I saw an ad that really turned my crank. Had to get that out. Everyone can go back to their regularly scheduled Best of 2025 lists or whatever.

/rant

I agree with you. I do not really get the rise of the professional DM. I could not bring myself to pay to play.

It is not hard although I can burn myself out and I have had a nasty bought of decade long depression and self-doubt that has not helped.

 

[Belen]

Finding people who can schedule you in and allow you to do that as much as needed, feels like it might be hard though...

People are less tolerant these days. It used to be that our geek culture bridged the divide but that has waned.

I am lucky to have a huge circle of people but that happened because of the game and shared geek culture.

 

[HatWearingFool]

I don’t find running game sessions easy. And I’ve been in a lot of bad sessions, enough to make me think it’s not that easy to run a good game.

I agree a big part depends on what game you’re trying to run. Running a prebuilt dungeon crawl isn’t that hard. Building a giant narrative arc from level 1 to 20 that spans 3 years of real time is very difficult.

I find running many purchased modules to be difficult but have discovered newer 1 and 2 page adventures that greatly simplify things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am not sure why anyone thinks that the metric for being able to do a thing should be measured against perfection.

I don't think any of those examples are perfect. I think they are proof that doing something well is a long, long, long way from being able to vaguely gesture at doing it to literally any degree whatsoever.

So, alright. How about: A ten-year-old can write stories. Does that mean every ten-year-old is writing at the level of typical published authors? That even a plurality could do so? A ten-year-old can perform music. Does that mean every ten-year-old is performing Mozart? That even a plurality could do so?

No. It does not.

Ten-year-olds can and should be given the grace to fail. (Everyone should be given the grace to fail, but children especially so.) But that also means they're going to fail! They're going to fail a lot, over a long time, and that emphatically does not mean their failures always lead to superior success over time, because learning from your failures is itself a difficult thing. That they will fail over and over is what means doing the thing is HARD. Like that's pretty much literally what it means for something to be "hard"--inexperienced people will fail at it a lot, and even experienced people still find it challenging.

As I said: Writing a novel is hard. NaNoWriMo exists. These two things are not contradictory.

 

[Zardnaar]

I tend to inherit players from other games that fall apart.

2 somewhat recent ones DMs were a bit A hole.

2 more groups that self destructed. DM was sleeping with one of the players. He was also a dick. Other one DM was sleeping with multiple players. She was into alternative lifestyles.

All 4 groups were younger side of things. 2 just did whatever they wanted screw the rules. 1 didn't know the alternative lifestyle one was apparently good but kaboom.

 

[Sulicius]

What sources are saying DM’ing is hard?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What sources are saying DM’ing is hard?

Can I volunteer?

 

[Sulicius]

Can I volunteer?

Haha of course. I meant the ones OP took offense from.