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

[SableWyvern]

Sure, sure.

I've just seen far too many people whose stance is "I've never played anything but D&D, D&D is the best and only game for me, I won't even look at other games" when, y'know, that's a pretty strident stance with zero experiential reference for comparison.

But so what? How about you just let people have fun doing what they enjoy? Why do you need to accuse them of self-sabotage?

If (as seems to be the case for many people who take that stance) the real reason is that you want more people to be willing to play the games you like, then just say that. Don't try pretending that something that's designed to benefit you is really something you're doing for their benefit, to rescue them from their self-sabotaging ignorance.

As best I can tell, more often not, the whole point of these claims is really just to try and create a hostile environment and speak down to people who are just minding their own business playing the game they enjoy.

 

[GrimCo]

TTRPGs are probably only hobby in which people constantly talk about needing to branch out and try other games and it makes no sense at all. If someone is content with only playing one game, cool. Good for them. You can be good dm, good player, have fun, without ever trying another game.

I knew people who only played WoD. They had zero interest to try D&D, or any other ttrpg. They weren't gamers. They were WoD players. I have group of friends that only play PF1 ever since it came out and don't plan to switch or try anything else. They are PF players. To expand on other hobbies. I know group of guys that play texas hold em poker every friday. They only play that one version of poker. They have zero interest to play other versions of poker, let alone another card game. Same with people who only play bela/belot (card game with hungarian/german cards popular in this region). They don't have card nights. They have bela nights.

In short, there are people whose hobby are ttrpgs in general and then there are people whose hobby is one particular ttrpg game. Both of those sometimes overlap.

 

[Hussar]

I hadn't thought of this before!

What is the word for "hard" in the require skill sense as opposed to "hard" in the requiring the ability to persevere doing something boring?

Difficult? Complicated? But, I do get the sense that there is some talking at cross purposes as people are defining hard in one single way or another. To me, if you have to practice something for a significant amount of time in order to gain basic proficiency and then have to continue to work at it in order to incrementally improve, then that thing is hard. The more time and/or effort that is required, the harder it is.

 

[Hussar]

I love when people pushing AI talk about how it means we won't need GMs anymore.

Even if I assume that might be true, in what mad world am I meant to consider it a good thing that I no longer get to enjoy RPGs?

Fortunately, I see no possible future where my players would choose to replace me with an AI, so there are no actual issues there.

Really? The prep work is the best part of DMing for you? For me it's running at the table. Prep is what I have to endure, not what I enjoy.

 

[Hussar]

This may sound controversial, but I actually think it would be harder to design an AI player than an AI GM. Not an AI character. We have seen tons of those in video games already. But AI players would be different: capricious, mercurial, impatient and entitled. Not all players are that way, of course, but if you wanted to design an AI player, you would be forced to include those traits, without much consistency.

Now, I don't think it would be easy to build an AI GM for, say, a West marches campaign. But I don't think it would be terribly difficult -- based on what we have seen thus far -- to design an AI GM that could run a typical WotC or Paizo AP. And -- kind of sadly -- I think most players would be totally okay with that level of proficiency.

I mean, isn't that Baldur's Gate 3?

 

[Hussar]

You can be good dm, good player, have fun, without ever trying another game.

I'm not sure I actually agree with that. There is just so much to learn from experiencing other games. It would be like saying you can be a good cook if you ONLY cook food from one country. Yes, you might cook that country's food really well, but, it's an extremely limited palate. No chef worth the salt would ever claim that only learning to cook Mexican food (as an example) is a good way to learn to cook.

Heck, even the idea of driving. Sure, you can learn to drive only driving one car. You might really like that car. You might even drive pretty well with that car, but, unless you actually experience driving other kinds of cars, you aren't a good driver. You can't be. You can't understand why other drivers do what they do without having any experience with those vehicles.

Variety is, as they say, the spice of life. I've learned FAR more about how to run a game from running other systems and then coming back to D&D than I ever learned from just running D&D. Whether it be stuff I want to do or stuff I don't want to do. Either way.

So, no, I don't think you can be a good player or a good DM without ever trying another game.

 

[SableWyvern]

Really? The prep work is the best part of DMing for you? For me it's running at the table. Prep is what I have to endure, not what I enjoy.

An AI GM replaces all elements of GMing.

As for what I enjoy most... I enjoy both equally, until late in a campaign, when prep may start to feel like a chore and it's time to move to a new game.

 

[Hussar]

An AI GM replaces all elements of GMing.

As for what I enjoy most... I enjoy both equally, until late in a campaign, when prep may start to feel like a chore and it's time to move to a new game.

That's not what he said. He said that you could have an AI do all the prep work. Making the maps and whatnot. Why would I use an AI to replace all elements of GMing? Why would I not just use the AI tool to replace the prep work and I can then enjoy the stuff that I actually like doing? Is the AI somehow holding me hostage?

 

[SableWyvern]

That's not what he said. He said that you could have an AI do all the prep work. Making the maps and whatnot. Why would I use an AI to replace all elements of GMing? Why would I not just use the AI tool to replace the prep work and I can then enjoy the stuff that I actually like doing? Is the AI somehow holding me hostage?

I wasn't addressing the specific point, but broadening the scope of the discussion to people who are excited about GMs being completely replaced as some untrammelled good.

To be clear, I wouldn't use AI for prep myself, other than image creation, but I don't care what others do with it in their own games or at their own tables.

 

[GrimCo]

@Hussar

And i will politely disagree. I think that skills that make good player or DM are system agnostic and lot of them are basic interpersonal skills. Boiled down to bare bones, all ttrpgs do same thing. Dm presents situation or players try something, players or DM react, there is resolution mechanic, world changes based on the outcome. Rinse and repeat. Playing different games exposes you to different paths (mechanics), but all lead to same place.

Same with driving. Skills needed to be good driver don't depend on the car. Awareness, judgment, timing, spatial sense, anticipation - those are skills that make good driver. And you can develop them to high level even if you only ever drive one car.