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I'm sure there are people coming to D&D without good mental models of play. I've interacted with some of them. Why should people new to the game now make the same mistakes we did thirty or more years ago? Why should WotC offload actual DM assistance and instruction to Sly Flourish or The Angry...

I can absolutely believe that was your experience and I agree that what your players prefer is going to be harder get from Story Now play.

Something to keep in mind about Story Now play is that long-term consistency is not as high a priority of the games. You get more immediacy in exchange which might make it a thing to consider in the situation you've found yourself in.

My experience and perception has been that the materials are fine if the DM is new to Fifth Edition but otherwise has some experience with running D&D. Where they fall flat is if the DM has never run a game before. Where they absolutely implode is if the person who wants to DM hasn't ever played...

To an extent it depends on how literally you mean "zero prep." I prep a situation once and it takes a few sessions for the players to work through it and that leads to another situation which takes a few more sessions. These days I barely write anything down unless I'm generating a new...

That's fair. I omitted the thought the settings were elements in a game and that they were fiction and "consistent with" is probably too strong. When I GM a homebrew setting I am honest with the players that the setting will reflect my values and my understanding of how the world works to the...

There seems to be enough overlap between "useful for teaching new DMs how to DM" and "useful as a resource for new DMs" that there's little profit in arguing over the difference. While they aren't exactly the same I have a hard time imagining a book managing to be entirely the one and not at all...

I agree with your last paragraph that we project ourselves into the setting but I think that is perhaps true to the extent we are the audience for the game. To the extent we are the authors of the game I think we are perhaps attempting to create a setting that is consistent with our values and...

Thank you for the tip and the link.

The point of possible is that the DMG says rolling for everything means anything is possible. That implies that the limits of the possible are different if you roll than if you don't. That is a false implication and I think it means the statement "rolling for everything makes it so anything is...

Looking at stuff I'm poking around in and have handy The Cypher System Core Rulebook is about 450 pages. It contains player rules and a small bestiary and a pretty good GMing section with advice on setting up a game in a number of genres and settings. The Zweihänder Core Rulebook is about 670...

Both the PHB and the DMG seem to have the same number of like-sized signatures. While I'm sure those were chosen with some thought there's no reason to think either of them is metaphorically set in stone. I agree that most people who were coming to 5e when it was new were not coming without...

If one had actually read the conversation one might have noted that particular bit of the DMG was specifically chosen and that the poster who chose it had in fact read it. I agree that reading comprehension is a problem.

If the limits are not different then neither is what is possible different. Yet some people prefer one and others prefer the other and I do not think the dozen or so sentences on the topic in the DMG are adequate or particularly good.

If the DM calls for a dice roll it's possible. If the DM decides it happens it's possible. The limits are not different.

If the DM decides it's possible it's possible. It doesn't matter whether dice are involved.

I do not think there's any difference in what's possible between a game where the DM decides based entirely on their sense of realistic or narrative sense and a game where the DM calls for rolls all the time. There are real differences between those games but what's possible isn't among them...

I am neither a game designer nor a technical writer. What you get is not and should not be taken to be suggestions for actual text. I want the section on using the dice to talk about how to use the dice. I do not want a sentence of "you might do this" and a sentence of "players might think...

I agree it's not just about using more words and brevity has its merits. How about "The Cypher System uses its words better?" It actually tells a GM new to the game how to run the game. It has real advice for handling the game's peculiarities and for handling players. Unlike much of the 5e DMG...

I think it could do with more detailed examination. For instance the Cypher System Core book has approximately twice as much text about handling the dice in that game. The "running the game" section is actually longer than the one in the 5e DMG. It's not trying to be as anything-goes as 5e and...