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

[AlViking]

Surely race driving vs everyday driving is actually a closer analogy to 'playing different roleplaying games' than the semi was? If so you seem to have conceded the point.

No. Race driving requires you to understand the physics and handling of your car, useful for anyone that ever needs to handle the unexpected when driving. I would also note that the course I took was with standard production vehicles, not NASCAR or formula 1 race cars.

Can learn something from reading articles, sure. Will learn more from actually doing? Also sure.

I can read dozens of articles in the time I could play a single other game for long enough to really understand how it works.

How could it possibly hurt? The other game cooties infect your brain and kill your D&D cells?

How could it hurt? It takes away time I and my players have a lot of fun playing D&D. It would take time away from something I enjoy, not to mention money on books or pdfs I'd rather spend elsewhere. All for the possibility that someday I could come back and ... what ... have more fun playing D&D?

In my spare time I sometimes read, watch streams and videos to see if I can learn something. It's a far better use of my time and can happen when I want or have a spare 15 minutes. I get far more variety of input, viewpoints and information than I would get from dozens or even hundreds of hours of play. Instead of buying the rules for and spending the time playing Daggerheart, I can watch a video on how to play and an actual play stream while I exercise. I may even do that sometime this winter. If it sounds really cool and something I'll enjoy more than D&D or just want a break from D&D or I thought it might be okay and had multiple players asking about it? Then I'll consider it. I won't play the game because I think I could glean anything more than watching those videos, I'd do it because I thought it would be more rewarding than playing D&D for a while.

 

[Marc17]

Pacific Northwest, yes. Never actually been up into the Canadian portion thereof, but I've been close, did a couple marching band competitions in northern Washington.

Like Honk! Fest or school type marching band competitions?

I will say that driving a semi will probably teach you what not to do while driving a car near semis through lessons of white knuckle fear pretty quickly, and make you a better car driver if you value your life. I've listened to friend that have driven semis and cement trucks. I've also learned some of those lessons just driving my heavily laden pickup with a full trailer.

I also pull things from other games or otherwise come up with new mechanics for my D&D games to fit the concepts. I'm about to use a Blades in the Dark style game play cycle for my urban campaign, as I find D&D players have a tough time dealing with non-active time and need some structure.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

Gonna make one small contribution to the topic of "playing other [non-DND] games will make you a better GM [for DND]."

I've read in various social medias (including this forum) about how DND makes you bad at fiction first games. Something about how difficult it is to get out of DND mindset, even if they spent many hours running games like Blades or make a conscious effort. Heck, I've seen people talk about how Matt Mercer was a bad GM for Candela Obscura & Daggerheart, and it was because of his habits from running DND.

So yeah, I can say this with confidence: doing X doesn't necessarily make you better at Y—it might actually make you worse at Y.

EDIT: Sorry I was unclear. I disagree with the premise playing other RPGs makes you better at DMing. My point is that if playing DND doesn't make you better at games like Blades in the Dark, Candela Obscura, or Daggerheart, why should the opposite be true?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Another thought on the subject: given that I don't currently have the bandwidth (mentally or temporally) to run other systems, I let avid community contributor @SlyFlourish do it for me and glean advice from his podcast on the other games he runs for his players. It's an efficient way for me to learn about other RPG ideas and then potentially incorporate them into our 5e sessions.

 

[AlViking]

Gonna make one small contribution to the topic of "playing other [non-DND] games will make you a better GM [for DND]."

I've read in various social medias (including this forum) about how DND makes you bad at fiction first games. Something about how difficult it is to get out of DND mindset, even if they spent many hours running games like Blades or make a conscious effort. Heck, I've seen people talk about how Matt Mercer was a bad GM for Candela Obscura & Daggerheart, and it was because of his habits from running DND.

So yeah, I can say this with confidence: doing X doesn't necessarily make you better at Y—it might actually make you worse at Y.

Depending on what you mean by fiction first, it is a different approach to games. Different approaches aren't necessarily better, just different. Meanwhile if it's what the group enjoys it's quite common to state what you're doing in terms of the character's actions first. So it's "I slink in the shadows hoping to avoid the guard's attention as I try to steal the keys" instead of "I roll my stealth check". D&D is quite flexible on allowing and even recommends this approach, some games seem to require it.

On the other hand if I'm misunderstanding what you mean, can you explain it?

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

Depending on what you mean by fiction first, it is a different approach to games. Different approaches aren't necessarily better, just different. Meanwhile if it's what the group enjoys it's quite common to state what you're doing in terms of the character's actions first. So it's "I slink in the shadows hoping to avoid the guard's attention as I try to steal the keys" instead of "I roll my stealth check". D&D is quite flexible on allowing and even recommends this approach, some games seem to require it.

On the other hand if I'm misunderstanding what you mean, can you explain it?

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I just meant I disagree with the premise that "playing other games make you a better DM."

My point was if playing DND doesn't make you better at games like Blades in the Dark, Candela Obscura, or Daggerheart, why should the opposite be true?

I'll add an edit to my post to make this clear.

 

[AlViking]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I just meant I disagree with the premise that "playing other games make you a better DM."

My point was if playing DND doesn't make you better at games like Blades in the Dark, Candela Obscura, or Daggerheart, why should the opposite be true?

I'll add an edit to my post to make this clear.

Then I wasn't clear either. I agree, different isn't necessarily better, it's just different. It's fine that some people want to play other games, it's just odd to state that it automatically makes you better at anything.

I've also read up a bit on fiction first and there's some confusion about it, even in games like BitD. One example was a GM with players saying "I roll prowl" instead of my example of describing sneaking past some guards. I'm also not sure what issue people take with Matt Mercer as GM, while it's been a while since I listened to any CR episodes but from what I remember he seems to encourage describing what the characters are doing and then asking for a roll if he thinks it's necessary. I think that's pretty common with old school D&D DMs, combat has always been it's own mini-game but outside of combat actions, going back to TSR days seem to fit the fiction first mold. There were a few things we had explicit instructions on like opening locks, disabling traps or bending bars but most of it was just describe what you do in the fiction - which is my understanding of fiction first.

I haven't gotten around to watching any Daggerheart streams yet, so I'm also curious why people think Mercer is bad at the approach.