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

[Lanefan]

Sigh yourself, oh Condescending One.

I am, at the moment, mostly discussing gamers who were new in the hobby, under one year.

And in so doing you're dredging up faulty data - data that IMO was manipulated to help WotC make the exact point you're making - to help prove your point.

How many of those do you figure were over 35 in 1999, before 3e was published?

Irrelevant.

 

[Zardnaar]

There are self-driving cars and all sorts of other types of cars as well.

Trucks and vans are not cars; they're trucks, and vans.

So reading, discussing, and listening about other systems isn't enough to give perspective?

To turn the hose of hyperbole around, that's like saying only those who have been in politics can have any perspective on such, or only those who have recorded and sold music can have any opinions on such.

Sorry, but that's ballhockey.

The saying "ignorance is bliss" is not without merit sometimes.

It's a funny thing. Im not into what you like so insult them. Then act offended when for some strange mysterious reason they dont support your view.

Applies to any activity, politics, life etc.

If someone's not interested in your thing they dont need to justify why. If its a commercial product you want to succeed you need punters to buy it. If they're not interested.....

 

[Umbran]

Irrelevant.

You are going to have to actually present a case for that. You do not hold authority to dismiss without support.

If those 35+ year-olds would not have been in the group of gamers playing for less than a year, their exclusion would not change how many sessions that population played before resetting.

 

[Lanefan]

You can have someone else help organize. My wife is the planner in our family, so she does the scheduling.

There's also the hosting piece, which in home games IME also falls on the DM 99% of the time.

I know the rules better than most but if someone knows the rules better I ask for information. There's no shame in someone other than the DM being the expert.

For common stuff, the DM ideally should have it nailed. For anything else, the trick is not to know it but to know where to quickly look it up. Have the rulebooks close to hand (or in pre-opened tabs if using online rules), bookmarked for things you find you often reference.

I think sometimes DMs put too much pressure on themselves. Make a decision to keep the game moving and have a discussion later. It's not that DMs don't have to make decisions, it's that DMs should go easy on themselves about the decisions they do make. If you're doubting yourself talk to people outside of game time and get feedback - I've been DMing for years and I still do so now and then. Like everyone I make mistakes or think about how I could have done something better after the fact, just remember you aren't a failure if you make a goof or ten.

Mistakes are going to happen but once you've learned the ropes, ideally you'll keep them to a minimum. I'm a huge fan of getting it right the first time, even if it means the session grinds to a halt for a bit while we talk it out, mostly because the ruling made now should set a precedent for the rest of the campaign.

An important thing to remember is that you can't please everyone. Sometimes one individual will want something you as DM don't want (e.g. play an evil character) and it's just not going to work out. It's been rare for me, but it does happen every once in a while and there's no reason to feel bad or guilty if it doesn't work out.

Here I'm a lot more...subservient is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one. I'm there to DM whatever characters or personalities or whatever that the players want to play, within the bounds of PC-playable species in the setting, as a neutral referee and arbiter; and I expect the same of any DM.

Telling me I can't play evil characters is a gigantic red flag. What else aren't you going to allow? Just how much freedom will I have with my character and what it does?

It's your world and setting, sure, but it's my character and - even as DM - you don't get to tell me how to play it.

 

[Lanefan]

You are going to have to actually present a case for that. You do not hold authority to dismiss without support.

If those 35+ year-olds would not have been in the group of gamers playing for less than a year, their exclusion would not change how many sessions that population played before resetting.

The only case I can present is anecdotal, which I know you'll dismiss out of hand.

Of such few people who were still playing D&D in the late 1990s, I have to assume our crew was at least somewhat representative or at least somewhat common: that being, people who started in college/university the late 1970s or early 1980s and just kept at it.

And it's the "just kept at it" piece that matters here: the odds are high those tables would skew hard towards longer campaigns and skew somewhat toward other things WotC didn't want to design for e.g. larger parties a la 1e-2e, perhaps a more West-Marches style of play, and so on.

People of high school age in 1979 or college age in 1982 would be over 35 (not by much, but by enough) in 1999. The early-80s boom time was largely driven by high-school and college/university types but for some reason WotC didn't want to hear from those people, even though that's the group to whom they seemed to want to market 3e with all the "Back to the Dungeon" advertising.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

While I’ve dabbled as a player in a few other systems on a limited basis, I would not consider DMing/GMing any other system for the foreseeable future. The main reason: I don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to invest in a new system. If that makes someone here think I’m “not good”, I guess I say: I don’t care. Players keep showing up and we all seem to enjoy our game sessions.

Running other systems, I suppose, is just one tool in the DMing/GMing toolbelt for honing one’s skills. There’re plenty of other less intensive tools available to keep me from stagnating.


Back to the OP:

Does one need to buy any of the various aides being hawked out there to get good and make running games easy? Certainly not (although, I must say, Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is excellent, IMO).

Is DMing hard work? Sure. But the output is worth the effort.

 

[Belen]

Is starting a TTRPG advocacy group hard?

No. I could get started on organizing it fairly quickly if we could get a core group to help get it founded.

 

[Zardnaar]

The only case I can present is anecdotal, which I know you'll dismiss out of hand.

Of such few people who were still playing D&D in the late 1990s, I have to assume our crew was at least somewhat representative or at least somewhat common: that being, people who started in college/university the late 1970s or early 1980s and just kept at it.

And it's the "just kept at it" piece that matters here: the odds are high those tables would skew hard towards longer campaigns and skew somewhat toward other things WotC didn't want to design for e.g. larger parties a la 1e-2e, perhaps a more West-Marches style of play, and so on.

People of high school age in 1979 or college age in 1982 would be over 35 (not by much, but by enough) in 1999. The early-80s boom time was largely driven by high-school and college/university types but for some reason WotC didn't want to hear from those people, even though that's the group to whom they seemed to want to market 3e with all the "Back to the Dungeon" advertising.

If anything i think the 1999 data woukd trend towards even shorter games now.

I strongly suspect the average gane is a few sessions in the lvl 1-7 range. WotC has basically told us this.

Then as now I also suspect the vast majority of gamers are casuals.

 

[Marc17]

I agree with those that have said that DMing is much like any other hobby and some people find it easy and some don't to some degree and that it takes learning to be really good. I look back and thank my friend James for putting up with me in one summer campaign where I tried out the way I wanted to run games, as a wide open sandbox where the players could control things. It eventually gained some structure and started rolling with some other friends playing and they commented on how they liked it, but James also commented on what a boring slug fest it started out as, and I would have to agree. Even then, different people like different things and style of games. That's why I try and prepare a good elevator speech for the concept games I want to run and try to let them know what they are in for.

Still, there are plenty of DMs I can't stand and think are bad who find it way too easy to DM. I can tell they are enjoying it, and some of the other players seem fine. These are usually railroad DMs with lots of DMPCs running around trying to tell their story, and if my character's actions mean anything, he'd tell me what I do.

As for Monster stats, I'd say it would be better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them. The real culprit would be the explosion of modifiers stats gave everything starting with 3.0. Just because they're big doesn't mean they need high Terminator-like CONs. Even PCs could start with +4 or +5 which would just swamp any class bonuses for several levels.

On the topic of paid DMs, I was aghast at that until a friend told me that he was in some such games and basically said: "It's 5 or 10 dollars which is less than I'd typically spend for snacks for the table anyway. There are some costs involved in running a good game, and I find when DMs are getting paid, they do put in the extra effort. I also find that when players are all paying for a game, they are all more likely to not only show up, but show up wanting to play rather than just hang out and talk." That all made sense to me and although I have not tried any paid games yet, I'm now much more willing to do so.

 

[HatWearingFool]

If anything i think the 1999 data woukd trend towards even shorter games now.

I strongly suspect the average gane is a few sessions in the lvl 1-7 range. WotC has basically told us this.

Then as now I also suspect the vast majority of gamers are casuals.

The previously linked thread with demographics data from enworld and watch seems to indicates this for sure. The drop off in numbers over 35 was really eye opening to me.

We know sales for systems tend downwards over time and then a new version is released (let’s say on a roughly 10 year cycle). I always figured most people stuck with their old system and just didn’t move on, but it looks like they just leave the hobby. So does that mean the slow loss in sales over the life of a version isn’t because people just have enough material but instead have just had enough of the hobby?

Sorry for diverging from the difficulty topic