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

[zakael19]

It seems to me what's often missing is good instructions on how to be a better player. Stuff like trying to roll with the vibe of the game, engage with the setting and characters, be proactive but not disruptive, bring the other players into things, do cool dramatic stuff, don't turtle, etc. Some of this will vary by game, but even the best GM in the world can't operate in a vacuum.

The 5.24 books talk about this a bit, mainly on the social contract side. Daggerheart takes a page from the narrative side of the house and includes explicit Player Principles and Best Practices (the former right up front before you get to character creation rules) to help shape expectations of what it means to be a player in this game and how to make the table successful.

————

Im not sure how hard I’d consider DMing, because I don’t have a really good POV at this point. I’ve definitely gotten better over the years, and did so by searching out ideas and tips and new ways of thinking about what we were doing. The most useful for me was running into discussion about “the game is a conversation” and how to deliberately manage and construct that conversation to achieve the game feel you and your players want. I don’t think I paid for that though.

 

[Umbran]

Your experiences, including how long campaigns run, seem to me to be extreme outliers and don't match the experiences I've had over decades of play.

With respect, your personal experiences are not data, and should not be treated as such to counter arguments.

A major problem we have is that nobody does regular surveys of RPG players to maintain reliable data. But, I'll turn back to the 1999 WotC market research for some idea.

In that research, the questioned folks about how many sessions of play they went through before "reset" - starting over with new characters. The results:

If you've been playing for
less than a year - average sessions before reset 8.8
between 1 and 5 years - average sessions before reset 12.9
over 5 years - average sessions before reset 19.6

So, for what we can call "new" gamers, the average number of sessions before reset was not high - 8.8.
While we don't know the distribution, the basic assumption would be that about half of all campaigns for those new players then lasted for fewer than 8.8 sessions.

For folks in the 1-5 year range, if they were playing weekly, the game lasted - on average, about three months. Maybe six months if they played once every other week.

Thus, games falling apart quickly, for whatever reason, was common. While this was a quarter-century ago (!) I think you'd need to make a pretty compelling argument to push the idea that this still isn't the case.

 

[Umbran]

Your expectations are too high, and your language fits directly into the discouraging, negative attitude I wish would go away.

"All you people are talking about games wrong," is itself hardly a positive attitude.

This is a discussion in which you are likely to reap what you sow.

 

[Reynard]

It would be very interesting to get soem data on how people come to GMing. Is it more common for a group of friends to decide that they want to play D&D, and one of them ends up volunteering or being cajoled into DMing? Or is it more common for a player to decide to "graduate" into DMing and either find a new group or convince their existing group to let them run?

 

[Bae'zel]

• I personallly don't find it all that challenging, except in those rare instances where I have to manage problematic players who are clearly causing issues.
  
  
• Otherwise, the "hard" part is planning, researching and scheduling. For me!
  
  
• After doing this for 25+ years, I've gotten quite adept at winging it. I can pretty much improve at any time, filling in gaps whenever. It's tremendously easy for me.
  
  
• However I've met others who are NOT able to improvise, or they find it really challenging.
  
  
• So... at the core level DMing isn't intrinsically hard, but it depends on the group dynamics, the individual's cognitive space and other factors in the social-mental-complexity space.
  
  
• To instantly handwaive others when they say it is a challenge for them? That's dismissive and... well, ableist. You don't know how others think, feel, process and socialize! Some people DO have trouble with the things others don't.
  
  
• Show some empathy.
  
  
• That being said, YES, some people are claiming that it is SO HARD without buying MY BOOK. I concede to you that point. It's true.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It seems to me what's often missing is good instructions on how to be a better player. Stuff like trying to roll with the vibe of the game, engage with the setting and characters, be proactive but not disruptive, bring the other players into things, do cool dramatic stuff, don't turtle, etc. Some of this will vary by game, but even the best GM in the world can't operate in a vacuum.

The 4e DMG has an extensive section about player personality types and ways the GM can help keep folks engaged, and also problem behaviors to look out for and address before they become major issues.

 

[Umbran]

It would be very interesting to get soem data on how people come to GMing. Is it more common for a group of friends to decide that they want to play D&D, and one of them ends up volunteering or being cajoled into DMing? Or is it more common for a player to decide to "graduate" into DMing and either find a new group or convince their existing group to let them run?

There's a whole swath of good potential questions around that, to characterize how and why people run games.

 

[Reynard]

There's a whole swath of good potential questions around that, to characterize how and why people run games.

Sometimes I wonder why there isn't some sort of TTRPG advocacy group that does this kind of research in the open. I would gladly support such an organization. Companies doing their own secret market research does not help the community or industry.

 

[Reynard]

To instantly handwaive others when they say it is a challenge for them? That's dismissive and... well, ableist. You don't know how others think, feel, process and socialize! Some people DO have trouble with the things others don't.

• Show some empathy.

The rant had exactly NOTHING to do with, or judgement against, people that find DMing hard. It was precisely aimed at grifters.
You can feel all kinds of offended if you like. I can't control how you feel. But don't leverage charges of abelism against me.

 

[Bae'zel]

The rant had exactly NOTHING to do with, or judgement against, people that find DMing hard. It was precisely aimed at grifters.
You can feel all kinds of offended if you like. I can't control how you feel. But don't leverage charges of abelism against me.

Oh yeah?

From your OP, which I'm responding to:

...
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.
...

That sounds like you're claiming that DMing ISN'T hard. That the claim that it is challenging only comes from grifters.

So yeah, I'm calling your statements ableist.

Edit: actually, this isn't the first time I've had arguments with you, I think we'll just ignore each other from now on.