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

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

Pick him up and plonk him down in northern Michigan in February and he's got a problem. Because he has no experience with this kind of driving. Which means that he cannot actually drive outside of the southern part of his state for several months of the year. Driving to Nevada for Christmas is difficult because you get snow and ice in the mountains at that time, which he doesn't drive in.

Drop anyone in New Jersey, they will come out a significantly worse driver than before. Trust me.

 

[Hussar]

Drop anyone in New Jersey, they will come out a significantly worse driver than before. Trust me.

Heh. Having spent some years driving in South Korea, I'm pretty aware of just how bad drivers can be. Wow. That was eye opening.

 

[Maxperson]

Which, to me, perfectly encapsulates the point I've been making. @Maxperson may very well be a fantastic driver. But, he's only a fantastic driver in Southern California. He admits that he doesn't deal with ice or snow. He drives in Southern California, a pothole is a mythical beast he's never seen. He has never really seen any inclement weather - it rains like what, twice a year in Southern California. (that's meant as a joke btw) He has never driven in an ice storm. Or a monsoon. Or serious fog. He's always driving on very well maintained, paved roads in virtually always perfect weather.

Weeeeelll, I live in the pothole capitol of the world, so I see those aplenty. Lots of experience with potholes. And it gets pretty foggy here a few times a year, so I'm not unexperienced with fog, but also not the best with it.

Do truck driving schools have fog machines that cover a large enough area to establish high skill with fog? Also, the infrequency of rain here actually makes our roads MORE dangerous when it rains, because the oil and other things rise up out of the cement/asphalt to make the roads more slippery than in places where it rains more often. When it rains here I generally pass several accidents every rainy day.

Pick him up and plonk him down in northern Michigan in February and he's got a problem. Because he has no experience with this kind of driving. Which means that he cannot actually drive outside of the southern part of his state for several months of the year. Driving to Nevada for Christmas is difficult because you get snow and ice in the mountains at that time, which he doesn't drive in.

So, @Maxperson is a fantastic driver so long as he stays (ahem) in his lane. Stays in his comfort zone. Driving a car he is very familiar with in conditions that he is very familiar with that are very rarely more challenging than a light rain. I mean, as a perfect example, I ask my Japanese students, and I live in the south of Japan where it never snow, how to open a car if the locks are frozen. They'd never even heard of locks freezing, let alone know what to do. Two centimeters of snow and they close the highways. :wow:

Right. So long as I stay in D&D, I'm an amazing DM.

Actually, I have run multiple systems and read many more. My position is based on the amazing DMs I have played with who never ran anything other than D&D. I know that it's possible to be every bit as good as someone who has run/read multiple RPG systems.

This is why I argue that single system DM's aren't very good DM's. It's too self limiting to stay with one single system and never get outside of that comfort zone. You get better at something by challenging yourself. By constantly trying new and different things. It's easy to be a good at something when you never step outside of that comfort zone. If you want to be great at something, you have to challenge yourself. Constantly try to learn new things.

This is where you run into trouble. There's nothing objective to back up this opinion. It's possible that for it to be more likely that you'll be a good DM if you have experience with multiple systems, but there's no objective "You will be better than a single system DM." involved.

That's how you get better.

One way to get better. There isn't one true way.

 

[Mecheon]

This isn't a case of multiple systems being better. It's a case of the DM not doing his job. When it comes to 3e, you're far better off with a DM who has mastered that system and can explain it, than be with a DM who only sort of knows it, but also sort of knows 3 or 4 other systems.

As for grapple rules, that can be an improvement for some or even many, but not an objective improvement. I'm sure there are folks who liked the grapple rules for the various editions. There's no rule or technique from another game that can objectively improve D&D if brought over.

If they had some experience with other games, though, could have explained it better using what the system was being used for, as someone who knows that 'hey, advantage exists' wasn't exactly taken with the idea of a narrative control based system. May not be for you exactly, but I'm sure you can agree the wider knowledge base is going to have more wider grab points for new players. Which, frankly, is where the car metaphor really falls down because playing RPGs and driving cars are nothing alive, given one's a group activity and the other isn't.

And, look. If they make a D&D themed comedy night, just saying "3e grapple rules" is going to be enough to get raucous, terrifying laughter, let's be honest.