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

[TheSword]

We’re at a time where there are more game systems then every before and more people playing D&D than ever before - by country mile. The only way this is possible is if there were also more DMs than ever before. We know from the figures that most of these players are young and new.

It’s never been easier to get into DMing, more free advice, more examples of live play, more pre published campaigns, more players available than ever before. Modern VTTs even put the rules and stats at your fingertips.

I just don’t see anything to indicate that folks are being put off DMing more now than before. By anything going on in the hobby. I would say it is quite the opposite.

It does require effort though; and a certain amount of dedication; a fair amount of free time; and a willingness to put your creative work on display for others to poke and prod; and a need to make quick decisions, and a certain degree of selflessness and willingness to put other first. Oh and a degree of resilience for when things go wrong. I mean it’s not for everyone is it. Some people burnout from it, so it’s obviously not a cake walk.

The more I think about it the more the OPs argument seems strange. Objecting to books teaching you how to do things? I can’t imagine another subject where someone would object to a book trying to share advice. I mean really that argument basically states you shouldn’t try to learn from other people’s mistakes. Do we object to cookery books now because we should be just throwing ingredients in a pot and seeing if it works. What about travel books because we should be getting lost and missing the best things to see. Sharing experiences to help other people learn from your mistakes is not a bad thing.

I recently read So You Want To Be A Game Master by Justin Alexander. Mainly to help me write my own content (something I do consider to be hard). The book was great. So great I read it again when I’d finished and took some notes as I went. Yes I paid £10 for it, but I don’t feel like JA was out of line by offering me the advice garnered by his wisdom.

I feel like the underlying objection is to someone making money out of something, or in some cases just covering expenses.

 

[soviet]

It seems to me what's often missing is good instructions on how to be a better player. Stuff like trying to roll with the vibe of the game, engage with the setting and characters, be proactive but not disruptive, bring the other players into things, do cool dramatic stuff, don't turtle, etc. Some of this will vary by game, but even the best GM in the world can't operate in a vacuum.

 

[AlViking]

I think DMing is both easy and hard. Most people can DM and be at least adequate. But even though I've been DMing forever and have received plenty of positive feedback over the years, I still feel like I could be better and getting there can be hard. The good news is that there are more tools than ever before to get better. As long as you don't expect to be Matt Mercer, or even run games in his style, watching CR streams along with dozens of others can give you ideas. There are blogs, forums like this one, and yes books that can help you out if you need it. It's never been easier in many ways to be a DM and it's only harder if you or your players expect to be a professional DM.

Speaking of expectations of players, I always encourage people to try DMing and I'm pretty forgiving of new DMs. We were all newbie DMs at one point and we all had to find our style, our way of DMing. The attitudes of the people at the table can make a game with a mediocre DM a lot of fun. If everyone expects perfection, no DM can live up to it. On the other hand if people are enthusiastic, helping the DM move the story along and playing off the other players it can make all the difference. In my experience there have been very few truly bad DMs, DMs that seemingly are going out of their way to make the game less enjoyable for players. Most DMs? Unsurprisingly most DMs are just average.

 

[Reynard]

We’re at a time where there are more game systems then every before and more people playing D&D than ever before - by country mile. The only way this is possible is if there were also more DMs than ever before. We know from the figures that most of these players are young and new.

It’s never been easier to get into DMing, more free advice, more examples of live play, more pre published campaigns, more players available than ever before. Modern VTTs even put the rules and stats at your fingertips.

I just don’t see anything to indicate that folks are being put off DMing more now than before. By anything going on in the hobby. I would say it is quite the opposite.

It does require effort though; and a certain amount of dedication; a fair amount of free time; and a willingness to put your creative work on display for others to poke and prod; and a need to make quick decisions, and a certain degree of selflessness and willingness to put other first. Oh and a degree of resilience for when things go wrong. I mean it’s not for everyone is it. Some people burnout from it, so it’s obviously not a cake walk.

The more I think about it the more the OPs argument seems strange. Objecting to books teaching you how to do things? I can’t imagine another subject where someone would object to a book trying to share advice. I mean really that argument basically states you shouldn’t try to learn from other people’s mistakes. Do we object to cookery books now because we should be just throwing ingredients in a pot and seeing if it works. What about travel books because we should be getting lost and missing the best things to see. Sharing experiences to help other people learn from your mistakes is not a bad thing.

I recently read So You Want To Be A Game Master by Justin Alexander. Mainly to help me write my own content (something I do consider to be hard). The book was great. So great I read it again when I’d finished and took some notes as I went. Yes I paid £10 for it, but I don’t feel like JA was out of line by offering me the advice garnered by his wisdom.

I feel like the underlying objection is to someone making money out of something, or in some cases just covering expenses.

What a shock: TheSword disagrees with Reynard. Hooda guessed?

I don't object to GMing advice books (although I do object to Justin Alexander in general). What i object to is the whole marketing genre of GMing being this impossible task and you can only manage it if you buy (or worse, back) my crappy book of crappy one page dungeons, etc. Mostly by people that have only gotten into the gaming industry to make a buck.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

When I look at the reaction to ads or products framing GMing as “hard,” I see something deeper than a disagreement about difficulty. The way people enter the hobby today isn’t the way many of us entered it decades ago, and that difference creates tension in how GMing gets talked about.

Earlier generations learned in an environment that was quiet, narrow, and consistent. There was one ruleset, far fewer supplements, and very little public play to compare yourself to. Most groups were isolated pockets figuring things out as they went, and that made experimentation feel normal. A new GM could fumble through a session without any external pressure shaping expectations.

The modern hobby is a different ecosystem. New players walk into a landscape filled with multiple editions, third-party expansions, high-production actual plays, and constant streams of advice. That creates a sense of noise and comparison that didn’t exist before. When someone feels uncertain, the market naturally fills that uncertainty with tools that promise to make things easier. The products aren’t inventing the anxiety; they’re responding to it.

What often gets lost is that these two environments produce very different assumptions. For many long-time GMs, the idea of “needing help” runs against the culture they grew up with, where the role was something you simply picked up through doing. For newer players, the expectation is almost the opposite—they start from a place where GMing is framed as a skill supported by visible examples and structured guidance.

That doesn’t mean one approach is better. It means the center of the hobby has shifted toward the audience that entered through the modern ecosystem. Companies speak to that audience because that’s where most new growth comes from. Someone who learned the role decades ago isn’t the target for those products, not because their experience is invalid, but because the hobby no longer assumes a single shared entry point.

The point about “letting new GMs screw up” still matters. People learn best by trying, and the role has always been accessible. But the context surrounding that accessibility has changed, and the messaging around it changed with the context. Understanding that shift helps explain why these ads exist without needing to assume that the hobby is claiming GMing has become inherently difficult.

 

[TheSword]

What a shock: TheSword disagrees with Reynard. Hooda guessed?

I don't object to GMing advice books (although I do object to Justin Alexander in general). What i object to is the whole marketing genre of GMing being this impossible task and you can only manage it if you buy (or worse, back) my crappy book of crappy one page dungeons, etc. Mostly by people that have only gotten into the gaming industry to make a buck.

I don’t actually disagree with most of what you say - including here. Players should be given the space to make mistakes. I also don’t think DMing is hard. Routes in can and should be easy.

Probably doesn’t help that you didn’t give examples and threw anyone who DMs for a fee into the mix. Kinda felt a bit indiscriminate. That was always gonna get pushback. Ironically three out of six players in my paid game are regular forever DMs trying to enjoy the game as a player.

I also don’t particularly like JA or the way he talks to people but his book is bloody good.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For some players, DMing in general is easy.

For some players, DMing in general is hard.

For some DMs, performing at a level they feel is competent is easy.

For some DMs, performing at a level they feel is competent is hard.

For some players, finding a DM that they think is competent is easy.

For some players, finding a DM that they think is competent is hard.

For some DMs, finding players that allow for an easier time running a game is easy.

For some DMs, finding players that allow for an easier time running a game is hard.


This is the universal truth. There's no set value. Some DMs think they themselves are good, some DMs think they themselves are bad. Some players think their DM is good, some players think their DM is bad. Some DMs think their players make them better DMs, some DMs think their players make them worse DMs. And on some objective, top-down level... some DMs are good and some DMs are bad. But none of us have any capability of seeing that top-down view of the entire Dungeons & Dragons worldwide player base to be able to make any statements of fact on it.

Basically... everyone has opinions and many people do not like it when someone espouses a differing one.

 

[Distracted DM]

You know, it just occurred to me that ads are personalized. You’re probably only going to see GM book ads if you are already interested in GMing… because the vast majority of the DnD ads, particularly WotC’s, are aimed at getting players.
I see the “forge your character, tell your characters story”-type ads for DnDbeyond all the time. They don’t have ads aimed at GMs so GM book ads are even more niche!

 

[Umbran]

DMing is not that hard. We learned to do it when we were 10. We fumbled around and made weird calls and built bad adventures and still had a blast -- enough to still be doing it decades later. We need fewer products marketed as ways to make DMing easier, and more people advocating for letting new DMs screw up.

So, with respect, DMing isn't hard for you, or me. EN World is loaded with folks who have found RPGs easy and fun. But, I don't think we should be claiming that running games is going to be everyone's cup of tea. To be direct - EN World is probably not loaded with people in the target audience of the products you're referring to.

GMing can be a lot of work, and if you are new, and if you're used to games that don't exercise the breadth of choices and imagination, it can be downright daunting. There's going to be a wide range of ability out there, and folks who have some difficulties managing it all deserve to have products that support them.

I don't really buy the 10-year-old argument, for a couple of reasons:
1) When many of us were 10 was a different age, with different expectations and demands on our time.
2) 10-year-olds are not a particularly discerning entertainment audience. They will accept flubs and discrepancies far more easily than someone in, say, late teens or early 20s.

 

[Stalker0]

No, it isn't. It just takes practice. It takes being allowed to fail.

Yes…that’s what being “hard” means.

If Dming was easy I would do it right the first time and need little to no practice.

Dming is a skill that takes time and practice to get good at, so yes dming is hard. It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy