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

[AlViking]

No offense, but that is kind of the response I expected from you. You asked for specific examples, supposedly out of an open-mindedness. You asked:

I predicted your reply, because I didn't really believe you were being open-minded. You just wanted something to try and pick apart. That is why in my response I specifically stated:

Notice that is what you just did with your response:

You see, you making a claim that "it's not required" is a no brainer. No one in this forum said it is required. You saying "nor is it the best way for many people" is just not true. Experience is experience. I can state many analogies but all you will do is poke holes or disregard them. Because you want to be right.

But DMing is like education - the more you know... Talk to someone that just learned Algebra and then another that learned Algebra and Geometry. See which one understands how to apply the math better. Talk to someone that only reads fantasy books versus others that read fantasy, horror, romance, mystery, travel, etc. See which one of them has a better grasp of story structure and literary elements. Talk to someone that understands biology. Then talk to someone that understands biology, chemistry, environmental science, and geology. See which one can apply the science to everyday activities more often.

Go ahead, poke holes. That's what you want to do. But, the more open-minded thing to do would be to consider the claims and logic of those claims, and then re-evaluate your claim.

You have perfectly valid experiences and you learned from other games. Good for you. There's just not anything unique that can only be learned from other games but not from other sources.

If anyone is devaluing experiences it's you. My expertise, knowledge, how I DM and player is worth less to you because I did not follow your particular path.

I am not devaluing what works for you. Why do you insist on devaluing other experiences? We're not talking quantum physics here, we're talking about a game where we pretend to be elves.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you want to run a Cthulhu game because the game itself looks fun obviously you should go for it. While I'm glad it works for you if I wanted to run a mystery game and felt I needed help running it there are tons of options out there that do not include learning, organizing and running a Cthulhu game.

Oh, most certainly.

Separately, though, if you want to run a game where mystery-solving is the draw, the most important part of play, it is not even slightly unreasonable for someone to tell you, "Well, that's not really something D&D was designed for. You should consider running a system that was designed for mystery-solving as the core play experience." Like...that's one of the most natural things to say. It would be like getting mad if someone suggested that instead of trying to find a way to heat up coals in your oven, you probably should use an actual grill designed to use charcoal.

What bothers me is that some people are saying is that I can't be a good DM if I don't run other games like Cthhulhu or that a DM running games in multiple systems matters more than any other factor.

Given the people you're allegedly talking about have repeatedly said that that isn't the case, is that actually being said? Or is it you trying to manufacture a controversy out of something benign?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You have perfectly valid experiences and you learned from other games. Good for you. There's just not anything unique that can only be learned from other games but not from other sources.

If anyone is devaluing experiences it's you. My expertise, knowledge, how I DM and player is worth less to you because I did not follow your particular path.

I am not devaluing what works for you. Why do you insist on devaluing other experiences? We're not talking quantum physics here, we're talking about a game where we pretend to be elves.

Why do you insist on claiming that the trivially true and extremely basic fact--that experiencing a variety of experiences is a valuable activity in and of itself--is somehow an attack against you? Is some how "invalidating" your experiences?

 

[Hussar]

You have perfectly valid experiences and you learned from other games. Good for you. There's just not anything unique that can only be learned from other games but not from other sources.

But, if that were true, and there was nothing unique about what others had learned from other games, then why don't you understand and recognize how the dozen or so specific examples you asked for work? You asked for specific examples of how things learned in other systems could improve a DND game. You were given about a dozen concrete examples. Yet, you didn't understand how a single one of them worked.

If you could learn all of these things from other sources, and there is zero value to be gained from learning other systems, then why don't you understand how these things work?

 

[Hussar]

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
Bruce Lee

And yet, Bruce Lee traveled for years studying other styles and incorporating elements from a broad selection of martial arts traditions.

According to the folks here, he should never have studied anything other than one single tradition and he would be just as good. He learned nothing from studying and training with other styles. It was apparently, according to folks in this thread, a complete waste of his time. Every single thing he developed in Jeet Kun Do he should have been able to come up with 100% on his own without a single minute spent learning any other form of martial art.

After all, there is zero value in learning anything outside of your single sphere. Never minding that if that were actually true, we'd all still be playing OD&D. D&D has incorporated elements from other games for decades. Very, very little in D&D, particularly 5e D&D, originated in D&D. But, according to folks here, again, there is zero value in learning from any other system. Every single element of D&D could only ever have originated within D&D, completely in a vacuum. Totally isolated from all other RPG's.

Now, since that's 100% not true, I would say that the idea that everything you could possibly learn about running an RPG you can learn from running one single RPG and never, EVER learning any other RPG is complete and utter ballocks.

 

[Maxperson]

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
Bruce Lee

Right. People are talking about broad learning being good, and it is. It does help you be better. So does narrow focus, though. Focused repetition and mastery of a skill also helps you be better. Neither way is objectively better than the other, either. It's simply a matter of which way you prefer. The idea that broad learning makes you better and narrow focus does not is wrong.

 

[Lanefan]

Why is it hard? Success is guaranteed since there's no time limit.

The same reason walking 10 miles is harder than walking 100 yards: success is guaranteed, but it takes more effort.

 

[Lanefan]

Why do you insist on claiming that the trivially true and extremely basic fact--that experiencing a variety of experiences is a valuable activity in and of itself--is somehow an attack against you? Is some how "invalidating" your experiences?

For me, it tends to come across as very strongly implying that a metric crapton of experience in one area (say, D&D) doesn't count for anything unless there's a certain level of corollary experiences in other adjacent areas (here, other RPGs) to back it up.

And sorry, but I ain't buying that.

 

[Zardnaar]

For me, it tends to come across as very strongly implying that a metric crapton of experience in one area (say, D&D) doesn't count for anything unless there's a certain level of corollary experiences in other adjacent areas (here, other RPGs) to back it up.

And sorry, but I ain't buying that.

Its coming across as a combination of arrogance (to the point if being deluded), system/edition warring, and onetruewayism.

I dont really care about these other games you cant find players for. I dont care that others like then fill your boots.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For me, it tends to come across as very strongly implying that a metric crapton of experience in one area (say, D&D) doesn't count for anything unless there's a certain level of corollary experiences in other adjacent areas (here, other RPGs) to back it up.

And sorry, but I ain't buying that.

It's not that it doesn't count for anything, it's that there are necessarily, guaranteed, always diminishing returns. The amount of additional learning you can get by going from 20 years of experience with one specific edition of D&D to 25 years of experience with that one specific edition of D&D is minuscule. The amount of additional experience you can get even from just playing any other entirely non-D&D system one single time is quite significant.

Would I think that someone who's run, say, 2e D&D for 30 years is more experienced with GMing than someone who's run 2e D&D for 20 years? Hell yes, absolutely.

Would I think someone who's run 2e D&D for 20 years, and also run three completely different systems a few times, is more experienced with GMing than someone who's exclusively run 2e D&D for 25 years? Yes, yes I would, hands down. That's not, in even the slightest degree, an insult to the person who has exclusively run 2e D&D. It is merely a recognition of simple fact, that diversity of experience matters at least as much as depth of experience. Arguably moreso, because in my experience, once you've run a system for two or three years, you know at least 90% of what there is to learn about it.

I fear the man who has practiced ten kicks a thousand times each rather more than I fear the man who has practiced only one single kick ten thousand times--because the latter is a one-trick-pony. The former has much more ability to adapt.