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

[EzekielRaiden]

What if you only play D&D....but you own and read tons of not-D&D because in almost 40 years of gaming.....no one i've ever gamed with ever wanted to leave D&D?

I would argue that playing at least one or two of those games would be helpful, but even just the exposure to the ideas and systems, with or without actual use, is a big difference all by itself.

 

[soviet]

Is this the same if there are two doctors and one only works on brains and the other is a general surgeon? And your loved one need brain surgery. I guess examples can be twisted like statistics, because I can also ask the question the other way and not want the brain surgeon to perform a whatever if all they do is brains.

'You need to be a brain surgeon to run 5e effectively'. Wow that's quite a take!

 

[Eric V]

I mean, this is the thread that includes takes like "Learning doesn't make you better," so...no real surprises, I suppose.

 

[AlViking]

'You need to be a brain surgeon to run 5e effectively'. Wow that's quite a take!

It's quite a take to substitute "running 5e" for being a general surgeon.

 

[AlViking]

Obviously I think that whether or not someone has run multiple games has nothing to do with how good a DM they are for D&D. It could even hurt if they're running their D&D as if it were some type of game I don't care for, after all I'm signing up for D&D not some other game.

But there's also this arrogant conceit that a DM who hasn't played other games is somehow not ... I don't know what. Not creative? Doesn't pull out the Jenga set when it comes time to pass a skill challenge? What actual skill is it supposed to add - not just vague platitudes about "better" but actual examples?

Spoiler: Irrelevant rant on why I haven't run other games

To me one of the biggest factor on whether someone has run multiple games comes primarily down to opportunity. When I first learned the game there weren't other options. I lived in a small town and played with a couple of friends, if there were other games we didn't know about them. In college? Much the same. We knew there were other games out there but it was just me and a bunch of friends who got together and we didn't have a game store anywhere nearby or gaming conventions. At a certain point I did go to game days or conventions but by then I was mostly a full time DM and I wanted to play the game I enjoyed running.

At a certain point I guess I could have found other games to play, but what's the point of playing a 1-shot here and there? I can read up on other games, chat with people I know who play them, get just as much a feel for them as I would playing for a few hours. I'm also not going to take a seat at a table away from someone who's excited about their game just to "check it out" unless it was advertised as a "learn this game". Nowadays though I so rarely have time to go to cons I see no need to do so. If I really want to check it out all I have to do is google a how to play video.

So a simple ask. What do people feel they learn from running other games? Actual concrete examples, not vague "different ways of doing things".

 

[Horwath]

DM is not hard skill wise.
DM is hard time wise.

as a player I need "drive to D&D location" time worth of preparation.
as s DM I may need 5-10hrs per session of preparation.

everyone can be a DM, not everyone has time to be a DM.

 

[Hussar]

So a simple ask. What do people feel they learn from running other games? Actual concrete examples, not vague "different ways of doing things"

From Ironsworn, I have adapted the entire exploration system from Ironsworn into my D&D game in order to make exploration much more exciting and fun. And it has worked very well. My Out of the Abyss game would be far less enjoyable for the table if I ran it D&D RAW as it was written in the module.

From 3:16 Carnage Beyond the Stars I have in the past incoporated their system of developing characters through flashbacks which allows the players lots of flexibility in expanding their characters into the setting.

From ... a damn, I'm blanking on the name of the game - you play a character in medieval europe who is playing a character in medieval Europe. So, basically, you're playing a medieval version of a D20 Modern game, only imagining that you are in the middle ages. It's all a bit meta. Anyway, they had the idea of Backgrounds, which is something I've used in many other games. In this case, Backgrounds doesn't mean where your character comes from. This means that the player can choose parts of his character to be placed in the background. It's true and it exists in the game world, but, the DM is not allowed to affect it or use it as a plot hook. I'm explaining it badly, but, for example, if your character had a horse, you could background the horse which meant that it never becomes a problem. It's never stolen, it is always available, it's just... in the background.

Sufficiently Advanced has a fantastic skill resolution system that incorporates different time scales - a very early precursor to the idea of Clocks in other games. Haven't really adapted it yet, but, I do tend to loosely use the framework when dealing with things in D&D.

Those are three examples off the top of my head. None of these things would have occurred to me had I not spent some time wandering through systems from time to time.

 

[Horwath]

So a simple ask. What do people feel they learn from running other games? Actual concrete examples, not vague "different ways of doing things".

stealing ideas for D&D mostly.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I mean, this is the thread that includes takes like "Learning doesn't make you better," so...no real surprises, I suppose.

Really? Care to quote? Maybe I missed it.

I've seen (paraphrased): "If you don't learn this way, you can't be good."
But I haven't seen anyone explicitly say they don't try to learn in any way.

 

[GrimCo]

Obviously I think that whether or not someone has run multiple games has nothing to do with how good a DM they are for D&D. It could even hurt if they're running their D&D as if it were some type of game I don't care for, after all I'm signing up for D&D not some other game.

As Bruce Lee said, fear not a man who practiced 1000 punches once. Fear the man who practiced one punch 1000 times. Same logic applies anywhere. You get better at D&D by running and playing D&D. DM who ran 1000 hours of D&D will probably have better understanding of game then one who spent 100 hours running 10 games.

To me one of the biggest factor on whether someone has run multiple games comes primarily down to opportunity. When I first learned the game there weren't other options. I lived in a small town and played with a couple of friends, if there were other games we didn't know about them. In college? Much the same. We knew there were other games out there but it was just me and a bunch of friends who got together and we didn't have a game store anywhere nearby or gaming conventions. At a certain point I did go to game days or conventions but by then I was mostly a full time DM and I wanted to play the game I enjoyed running.

I grew up in a city with cca 700k people. In late 90s and early 2000s, ttrpgs were very niche hobby. We had 1 store who sold books in entire city, and books they sold were mostly d&d and few WoD. People who played ttrpg played either V:tM or D&D. That's it. And those 2 were very different crowds, with some overlap. While i played both, way those games are played are way different.

At a certain point I guess I could have found other games to play, but what's the point of playing a 1-shot here and there? I can read up on other games, chat with people I know who play them, get just as much a feel for them as I would playing for a few hours. I'm also not going to take a seat at a table away from someone who's excited about their game just to "check it out" unless it was advertised as a "learn this game". Nowadays though I so rarely have time to go to cons I see no need to do so. If I really want to check it out all I have to do is google a how to play video.

First time i ran into ttrpg that wasn't D&D or WoD was midway into Uni in late 2000s. Friend of mine introduced me to her group who played GURPS. Later, trough magic of high seas of internet, other friend got his hands on big batch of 7th sea books. We started to branch out into other systems late, by the end of university and in first few years of adult life. But D&D was main game. We stopped with trying new systems when all of us got married and had kids. Now, we have almost no time to play in general, let alone try out different stuff.

So a simple ask. What do people feel they learn from running other games? Actual concrete examples, not vague "different ways of doing things".

I learned that for some specific types and styles of play, there are better suited systems that do that type of stuff out of box better than D&D. FE 7th sea does swasbuckling, pirates and nautical campaigns way better since it's designed to emulate cinematic swasbuckling style.