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

[MichaelSomething]

To try to steer this topic back on topic, has anyone here played with a new DM recently?

 

[Zardnaar]

To try to steer this topic back on topic, has anyone here played with a new DM recently?

Last year count?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No. Not at all. To park a semi takes different skills and involves spaces of radically different sizes. There's nothing there that would help me park a car. My extensive experience parking my cars, though, that helps a ton.

So, needing to carefully consider the size and space of the vehicle you're moving doesn't help you park vehicles generally, which might vary in size quite a bit over the years? Parking a Ford Taurus is going to be quite different from parking, say, a Ford F-150--both vehicles my father owned at some point in his life. Being fully experienced with parking semi trucks has absolutely zero benefit whatsoever for parking future cars that might be all sorts of different shapes?

That argument doesn't make sense to me.

As for RPG claims, I mostly saw people arguing that wider knowledge didn't mean you were better at it than someone who specializes in D&D, not that it wouldn't or couldn't help.

You have very literally just argued that it makes no difference whatsoever. You yourself were one of the people arguing that it both wouldn't and couldn't help! Now you're saying it can. What's the difference?

I personally think that both methods are about the same with regard to DM competency, but will result in different experiences when playing the game.

Competency is not, or at least should not be, the most important standard. Competency can be gotten with relatively basic effort. I would consider it a pretty dramatic failure on the part of any GM who had learned so little in--say--5 years' worth of running some specific system, that they were not even competent at running it yet.

You don't need diverse experience to be merely competent. Merely competent is a pretty low bar. But getting better than merely competent? Yes, that can benefit from a hell of a lot of things, and absolute single-minded exclusionary focus is not going to give anywhere near as much benefit as, y'know...seeking out information from a variety of sources.

Or, if you don't like my words: "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations, will help you become whole. [...] It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful. But it can make you more powerful, too."

Experience with other systems is drawing wisdom from many different places. That's what it is for. It is an antidote to the trap of relying so hard on just one source, one perspective. It is valuable, in and of itself, to embrace and explore another's perspective--even if you never directly use that perspective yourself. A different system is, by its very nature, a different perspective on what is worth making or doing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To try to steer this topic back on topic, has anyone here played with a new DM recently?

I have, yes. It's been interesting. He and I have very different perspectives on play--but we have drawn many similar conclusions despite our differences. It's actually been very heartening that someone who comes at D&D from a very different starting point has reached many conclusions I have also reached, just for different reasons and by different arguments. That gives me more confidence that we really are more alike than we are different, and that there really are paths which could serve most of us--in a very full meaning of "most"--without snubbing or denigrating anyone nor elevating any one way above the others. It would, naturally, be a challenge, but not beyond the pale.

(In life, things are either easy or hard, and either worthwhile or not worthwhile. Hard things that aren't worthwhile, no one does, because seriously why. Easy things that are worthwhile, everyone does--they're basic courtesy. Those two, we don't really care much about. It's the other two: easy but paltry things, which are what we often use to fill idle hours, and challenging but worthwhile things, which we aspire to do.)

 

[AlViking]

So, needing to carefully consider the size and space of the vehicle you're moving doesn't help you park vehicles generally, which might vary in size quite a bit over the years? Parking a Ford Taurus is going to be quite different from parking, say, a Ford F-150--both vehicles my father owned at some point in his life. Being fully experienced with parking semi trucks has absolutely zero benefit whatsoever for parking future cars that might be all sorts of different shapes?

That argument doesn't make sense to me.


You have very literally just argued that it makes no difference whatsoever. You yourself were one of the people arguing that it both wouldn't and couldn't help! Now you're saying it can. What's the difference?


Competency is not, or at least should not be, the most important standard. Competency can be gotten with relatively basic effort. I would consider it a pretty dramatic failure on the part of any GM who had learned so little in--say--5 years' worth of running some specific system, that they were not even competent at running it yet.

You don't need diverse experience to be merely competent. Merely competent is a pretty low bar. But getting better than merely competent? Yes, that can benefit from a hell of a lot of things, and absolute single-minded exclusionary focus is not going to give anywhere near as much benefit as, y'know...seeking out information from a variety of sources.

Or, if you don't like my words: "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations, will help you become whole. [...] It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful. But it can make you more powerful, too."

Experience with other systems is drawing wisdom from many different places. That's what it is for. It is an antidote to the trap of relying so hard on just one source, one perspective. It is valuable, in and of itself, to embrace and explore another's perspective--even if you never directly use that perspective yourself. A different system is, by its very nature, a different perspective on what is worth making or doing.

Your argument makes two fundamental mistakes. One is stating that diverse experiences always leads to improvement over focus on one skillset. The other is that the only diversity of experience that matters for a GM is running multiple different TTRPGs. Neither one is objectively true, nor do those statements have even a shred of evidence to back them up.

 

[AlViking]

Meanwhile if you want to be really good at parallel parking, here's an informative video (you probably don't want to unmute).

 

[Maxperson]

So, needing to carefully consider the size and space of the vehicle you're moving doesn't help you park vehicles generally, which might vary in size quite a bit over the years? Parking a Ford Taurus is going to be quite different from parking, say, a Ford F-150--both vehicles my father owned at some point in his life. Being fully experienced with parking semi trucks has absolutely zero benefit whatsoever for parking future cars that might be all sorts of different shapes?

That argument doesn't make sense to me.

An F-150 is a pick up truck, not a car. Driving a semi will also not help you be better with an F-150, though.

You have very literally just argued that it makes no difference whatsoever. You yourself were one of the people arguing that it both wouldn't and couldn't help! Now you're saying it can. What's the difference?

No. I literally argued that a semi wouldn't help you drive a car better. My point is that widening your skills doesn't always have a cross over, despite superficial similarities. An airplane also has an engine, wheels, a steering wheel, fuel, etc. Learning to fly one is also not going to help you drive better.

With RPGs, though, you aren't learning a semi over here, a car over there, and how to fly a plane. You're learning to drive different models of car. This car might have automatic windows. That one manual windows. The third car is electric. The fourth might have a proximity sensor in front and back. They have different features that you can learn and figure out which features you like, so you can have a car that eventually has everything you like. But what you like may not be what I like, so using those extra features doesn't make your car a better car than mine, just different.

Learning different RPGs doesn't make you a better DM if you use different techniques. Just different.

Competency is not, or at least should not be, the most important standard. Competency can be gotten with relatively basic effort. I would consider it a pretty dramatic failure on the part of any GM who had learned so little in--say--5 years' worth of running some specific system, that they were not even competent at running it yet.

You don't need diverse experience to be merely competent. Merely competent is a pretty low bar. But getting better than merely competent? Yes, that can benefit from a hell of a lot of things, and absolute single-minded exclusionary focus is not going to give anywhere near as much benefit as, y'know...seeking out information from a variety of sources.

You're using the wrong definition of competent. I'm not using it to mean acceptable and satisfactory, but not outstanding. I'm using is as efficient and capable. Having the ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully. i.e. a highly competent surgeon.

Or, if you don't like my words: "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements and the other nations, will help you become whole. [...] It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful. But it can make you more powerful, too."

D&D isn't one place. It's 5 different editions with different rules and techniques to learn and draw from. There is no stagnancy or staleness happening if you don't step outside of D&D. You don't make D&D fresh if you bring in rules or techniques from some other game.

You just make it different. Not better than a specialist. Not worse. Just different.

Experience with other systems is drawing wisdom from many different places. That's what it is for. It is an antidote to the trap of relying so hard on just one source, one perspective. It is valuable, in and of itself, to embrace and explore another's perspective--even if you never directly use that perspective yourself. A different system is, by its very nature, a different perspective on what is worth making or doing.

What's wise about ruining the game for others? Your "wisdom" could very easily be something I dislike and won't play a game with. That's not wise.

You aren't gaining wisdom by learning other systems. Confucius wasn't wise because he learned how to play 20 different RPGs. You're just learning some different techniques/skills that or might not improve the game for you or someone else, and also might or might not ruin the game for someone else.

 

[Maxperson]

I thing @Maxperson here has perfectly encapsulated exactly my point.

He has, with zero experience or training, decided that learning to drive a large vehicle will in no way improve his skills at driving a car. It is not possible that learning to drive a large vehicle will improve his driving. Now, he believes this despite being directly told by people with experience and training driving large vehicles that learning to drive large vehicles will improve his driving. But, because he has zero experience or knowledge, there is absolutely no argument that can be made that will change his belief.

Prove it then. How specifically will it directly and objectively translate into increased ability to drive my car?

And folks want to claim that you can be a really good DM this way?

That's absolute fact. You can in fact be a great DM that way. I've played with great DMs who haven't played an RPG outside of D&D. You do not need to even read a single other RPG to be a great DM. It might help you or it might not.

 

[Scribe]

 

[Seramus]

Prove it then. How specifically will it directly and objectively translate into increased ability to drive my car?

Increased awareness of roadway threats in general, increased knowledge of traffic flow, and specific experience of how a semi maneuvers so you can anticipate their behavior on the road and what they need from you.

A semi reacts slowly and poorly, requiring you to scan far further ahead and use more advanced anticipation skills than the vast majority of 4 wheel drivers exhibit. You have a higher vantage point as well, giving you a better viewpoint to see other vehicles and how they move.

There's also some more niche skills you learn more often, like skid training and black ice training, and just learning to effectively pre-trip puts you ahead of most 4 wheel drivers.

It's certainly not impossible to pick up those skills just driving a 4 wheeler, but it's a level of awareness usually only found in other professional drivers like state troopers.