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

[AlViking]

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.

So how does that work?

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.

I've seen that suggested for D&D over the years. It's not something I incorporated, if someone wants to add to their backstory or if it matters for the ongoing campaign we do that fill-in-the-blank offline because there are some people who would have a deer in the headlights reaction to having to some up with something on the spot.

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.

Not sure how that makes much of a difference or how it would work. I have seen issues with someone with a noble background who just wanted to run to daddy and use their political influence to solve an issue but that doesn't sound like what it is. Depending on the campaign and players, we do talk quite a bit about background and the mechanical benefits are only a small part of it.

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.

Again, how does that actually work? Complex skill challenges that can take a variable amount of time and/or have timed events isn't new.

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.

I'm not saying any of these ideas are better or worse, they're just different and focus the game on different things. That's why it's hard to discuss. Is it better if I have detailed exploration rules? Because right now I simply hand-wave a lot of exploration with narration to give flavor and focus on dangerous or interesting incidents. Would my game be better if I had a transparent political influence mini-game? I don't think so, because I'd rather just use my judgement and I don't want mechanical resolution most of the time but it might work better for someone else.

We all pick up bits and pieces of how to handle things over the years. Some from other GMs, some from non-game fiction, some from blogs or videos, for you from other games. There are more resources of new ideas and approaches out there than anyone could ever ingest. For that matter I just used Copilot what other games would do for a skill-challenge scenario I recently ran. It gave me answers for narrative-focused games, mechanics-heavy games, storytelling & drama systems, rules-light/indie games. It then gave me a quick summary and comparison and asked if I wanted more details. I know AI is new but it's just one more venue, one more way to think outside the box. I simply don't think there is one true way.

 

[AlViking]

stealing ideas for D&D mostly.

Thank you, Mr Vague Platitude.

 

[BrokenTwin]

It's not about "this makes you better than all the pleb GMs who only run D&D". It's about expanding your toolbox of options so you can run more styles of games, either because you want to, your players want to, or both. Knowing how Blades In The Dark handles flashbacks doesn't mean that I'm going to slap that system into every game I play, but it does mean I now have that option in my mental toolbox in case the game I want to run next could be improved by it. Or, in one of the many cases that the current system doesn't have explicit rules for something we want rules for, I have additional reference points to work from.

Nobody's judging you as a person because you only want to run D&D. You might be running the perfect game for you and your table! But if you are struggling with some aspect, seeing how other games handle it can really help give you an additional perspective.

 

[AlViking]

...

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.

I get that various games do specific genres better. But unless I picked a very specific and narrowly focused game where all you do is swashbuckling pirates or went totally orthogonal with a PbtA game (that I wouldn't enjoy from what I've read), I'd likely end up running campaigns very similar to what I run now. The set dressing would just be different.

Different people focus on different aspects of gaming and what they value. I don't put D&D on a pedestal, but it works for what I want and I don't have the bandwidth or opportunity to spend on other games sufficiently to make it worth the time and money if I could even convince my players to try them.

 

[AlViking]

It's not about "this makes you better than all the pleb GMs who only run D&D". It's about expanding your toolbox of options so you can run more styles of games, either because you want to, your players want to, or both. Knowing how Blades In The Dark handles flashbacks doesn't mean that I'm going to slap that system into every game I play, but it does mean I now have that option in my mental toolbox in case the game I want to run next could be improved by it. Or, in one of the many cases that the current system doesn't have explicit rules for something we want rules for, I have additional reference points to work from.

Nobody's judging you as a person because you only want to run D&D. You might be running the perfect game for you and your table! But if you are struggling with some aspect, seeing how other games handle it can really help give you an additional perspective.

But the implication always seems to be that people can't learn about flashbacks from BitD or come up with something similar and consider using them without actually playing the game. It's not a radical concept even if it's not included in the PHB or DMG.

 

[BrokenTwin]

But the implication always seems to be that people can't learn about flashbacks from BitD or come up with something similar and consider using them without actually playing the game. It's not a radical concept even if it's not included in the PHB or DMG.

It's not that you can't, it's just that there's nuances you might miss if you don't see it in action. Theory vs application. And for some of us, exploring different game mechanics is part of the draw of the hobby. IF you have the interest and IF you have the time, playing other systems can greatly expand your understanding of the hobby as a whole.
If all you want to do is be a sculptor, sure, skip the painting classes. But you might miss out on something you didn't know you found fun.

 

[Warnavick]

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 have learned in no particular order:

Call of Cthulhu and Vaesen: Run better mysteries and be better at telegraphing clues, characters and events. Also I learned how to narrate and emphasize horror tones in my plots.

Worlds without Number and Stars with Number: Run better sandboxes and dungeons.

Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars : Run better cinematic and dramatic plots.

Warhammer fantasy/40k and pathfinder: learned make tactically interesting combats.

Of course there are plenty of games I've played but didn't really learn anything from. Though mainly that is because I already learned most of what it had to offer from something else. Symbaroum, Lamentations of a flame princess , and Mork Borg , while each unqiue in their own way, taught me similar lessons to the Words Without games. Warhammer Wrath and Glory was an interesting mix of ideas. It was still mostly warhammer 40k with some extra meta currencies. I also didn't run or play enough of Shadowrun, Fate, or Lancer to get anything.

While I was typing it out and thinking about it, I would say that the primary reason that these systems helped me develop as a DM for DnD was because they had focused more on a specific style than I was used too running in a general fantasy game. That focus and repeated play sessions really drove home those lessons. Such as in my typical dnd game I might run a mystery once in a blue moon ,but in call of cthulhu every campaign is a mystery nearly all the way through. So that time running that game gave me 10x the experience of running mysteries than I would have using typical dnd. Call of cthulhu also was designed with being played with a focus on the mystery. The tips and tricks in the GM section were a lot more specific and expanded than another games guidance I have read about conducting and running mysteries.

 

[Maxperson]

Ummm.... that's the literal definition of hard.

Not really. Moving 10,000 one pound rocks from one side of the road to the other takes a lot of effort, but a toddler could do it. It takes a lot of effort, but isn't at all hard to do.

 

[Maxperson]

If the AI is good enough to be a DM, should it be more than good enough to be a player? (Card games online have had...

Nah, I can't do it. No AI in RPG playing for me.

I don't know. AI seems to be able to hallucinate rules as well as a lot of players I've known over the years.

 

[GrimCo]

But unless I picked a very specific and narrowly focused game where all you do is swashbuckling pirates or went totally orthogonal with a PbtA game (that I wouldn't enjoy from what I've read), I'd likely end up running campaigns very similar to what I run now. The set dressing would just be different.

Yep, revert to main. You love what you love and have fun, so it's your go to. That's why my PF1 group for last 10 years plays PF1 in pretty much same style. All the campaigns are in essence combat heavy, role play light, tactical h&s. There are variations in story and characters, but bare bones game structure is the same. That's what they like to play, that's what DM likes to run.