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

[AlViking]

It seems to me that your two lines of argument are essentially:

i) I don't need to read or play anything different to understand what the concepts are

Wrong. Again. I occasionally read about and watch videos about other systems or the ones that talk about how you can apply the mechanics of other games to D&D. For example I was curious about narrative games so found some how-to-play and live stream videos for DW.

ii) I don't know what any of these things are and need someone to explain them to me

That's quite an insulting take. If you say "I got better at X because of game Y" I was asking what rules or subsystems of game Y made it better. I may be interested in learning new things but there are hundreds of games out there.

 

[AlViking]

I might be able to explain. Mercer is an old school trad GM at heart. He's an incredibly nice guy, and has no problem going along with rule of cool or erring on the side of his players, but he's very used to and comfortable with holding the narrative authority himself. Daggerheart encourages you to share the narrative authority at least somewhat (not as much as some other narrative games, it IS a hybrid), including asking your players questions like "You come around the corner and run into your ex engaged in a fight. What are they fighting about, and with who?"

Even when running Daggerheart, Mercer doesn't really do this. He rarely asks such open ended questions where his players fill in entire chunks of the narrative. He sticks to his familiar (and monetarily successful) methods.

I personally don't have the slightest problem with this. Daggerheart can ABSOLUTELY be run in a trad style and you can do just fine. It's not what the game recommends, but it works without a hitch!

There was some reasonable concern that Age of Umbra was not a great example of showcasing Daggerheart because Mercer stuck to his more familiar methods instead of the ones recommended in the Daggerheart book.

There is also a very reasonable group that says running it in the trad style was intentional, and a potentially good business decision if the goal was showing a bunch of D&D players and GMs that they can totally play Daggerheart in their usual style.

The narrative aspects of the game would be slightly different from the definitions of fiction first I've seen then, thanks for the clarification. Game terminology can be pretty fuzzy and dependent on who you ask sometimes. I can understand why some people would take issue with the GM not handing narrative control over to the players enough, although I also think that some of it could be player preference. I wouldn't care for a narrative game myself because I don't want to add significant chunks of lore while playing - it takes me out of my character immersion.

If I ever get around to a Daggerheart dive I'll see if I can't find anyone other than Matt running the game.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I've been poking at this huge thread and only today, while waiting to get a filling put into my tooth, did I bother to read some of it – maybe three or four of the 33 pages.

Anyway, some initial thoughts.

We can offer GM advice without telling GM's that it's too hard. Instead, it's about building out toolkits to help GMs run great game. It's about improvement, not saying one can do it or not. I had presumed with both of the two Lazy DM books, that the readers already had been playing RPGs. I was wrong in many cases. Brand new GMs found these books because they offer a clear system.

That's something I think is missing: having a clear system for prep – even one you might not agree with. I've read a ton of GM guides and books and few of them offer any sort of clear system for how to do prep. It's a vast sea of potential with no raft, life preserver, or even a plank of wood. Most advice is too general to be useful.

People resonate with the eight steps because it offers a system – one refined from the experiences of thousands of GMs (yes, I surveyed the hell out of a lot of GMs when I wrote it and continue to do so).

I can tell you where GMing is hard from those I've talked to about it:

• Finding the right players for your game.
• Scheduling and maintaining consistent attendance at those games.
• Having enough time to prep and knowing what to prep.
• Handling things when the game goes in directions you're not prepared for.
• Knowing how to manage timing and pacing.
• Managing people. Handling all the tricky bits of ensuring a number of high-energy people don't clash at the table and how to handle it when they do.
• Learning how to prepare to improvise.
• Learning how to improvise at the table.
• Learning how to keep the game on track and still ensure eveyrone's having a good time.

There are lots of tricky bits to GMing. It's not for everyone. That's why, since the dawn of the game, there have almost always been more players seeking a game than GMs with a seat avalable. It takes work to GM. It takes effort. Time, creative energy, often money, a lack of self-doubt, some showmanship – lots of other traits.

I think anyone probably can GM if they put in the effort but it does take effort. The new D&D Starter Set does a good job making it bite-size and manageable, but it still takes someone buying the box, getting friends over, reading enough to understand, and be willing to do it.

Someone here asked how people become GMs. I ran a poll on it but I can't find the results but the majority was "because no one else would". I think that's pretty telling.

Anyway, those are some thoughts for now.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've been poking at this huge thread and only today, while waiting to get a filling put into my tooth, did I bother to read some of it – maybe three or four of the 33 pages.

Anyway, some initial thoughts.

We can offer GM advice without telling GM's that it's too hard. Instead, it's about building out toolkits to help GMs run great game. It's about improvement, not saying one can do it or not. I had presumed with both of the two Lazy DM books, that the readers already had been playing RPGs. I was wrong in many cases. Brand new GMs found these books because they offer a clear system.

That's something I think is missing: having a clear system for prep – even one you might not agree with. I've read a ton of GM guides and books and few of them offer any sort of clear system for how to do prep. It's a vast sea of potential with no raft, life preserver, or even a plank of wood. Most advice is too general to be useful.

People resonate with the eight steps because it offers a system – one refined from the experiences of thousands of GMs (yes, I surveyed the hell out of a lot of GMs when I wrote it and continue to do so).

I can tell you where GMing is hard from those I've talked to about it:

• Finding the right players for your game.
• Scheduling and maintaining consistent attendance at those games.
• Having enough time to prep and knowing what to prep.
• Handling things when the game goes in directions you're not prepared for.
• Knowing how to manage timing and pacing.
• Managing people. Handling all the tricky bits of ensuring a number of high-energy people don't clash at the table and how to handle it when they do.
• Learning how to prepare to improvise.
• Learning how to improvise at the table.
• Learning how to keep the game on track and still ensure eveyrone's having a good time.

There are lots of tricky bits to GMing. It's not for everyone. That's why, since the dawn of the game, there have almost always been more players seeking a game than GMs with a seat avalable. It takes work to GM. It takes effort. Time, creative energy, often money, a lack of self-doubt, some showmanship – lots of other traits.

I think anyone probably can GM if they put in the effort but it does take effort. The new D&D Starter Set does a good job making it bite-size and manageable, but it still takes someone buying the box, getting friends over, reading enough to understand, and be willing to do it.

Someone here asked how people become GMs. I ran a poll on it but I can't find the results but the majority was "because no one else would". I think that's pretty telling.

Anyway, those are some thoughts for now.

A lot of that cones naturally. The harder part from that list

Attendance
Venue
Time slot.

Most of the rest is organizing. Not super hard but more than being a player.
Finding players is easy. Finding great/reliable ones are harder.

 

[Seramus]

The narrative aspects of the game would be slightly different from the definitions of fiction first I've seen then, thanks for the clarification. Game terminology can be pretty fuzzy and dependent on who you ask sometimes.

Oh absolutely. Ask 5 people on a forum, and you'll get 7 different definitions of fiction first. I've even had people use it in a discussion with me and I had no idea what they meant because of how they were using it (not that my understanding of the phrase is any better).

 

[soviet]

Oh absolutely. Ask 5 people on a forum, and you'll get 7 different definitions of fiction first. I've even had people use it in a discussion with me and I had no idea what they meant because of how they were using it (not that my understanding of the phrase is any better).

If only there was some way of reading an implementation of such ideas in a text, and then engaging in some sort of play based on that text! No, sadly it is impossible to learn from such endeavours.

 

[Seramus]

If only there was some way of reading an implementation of such ideas in a text, and then engaging in some sort of play based on that text! No, sadly it is impossible to learn from such endeavours.

Why would it be impossible?

 

[Hussar]

There is a huge excluded middle between "best" and "stagnant".

Stagnant is an insulting, loaded term and, though you've said in the past you don't mean it when you say a one-game-gamer will be a bad GM, the fact that you keep using terms like that and presenting them as absolutes makes it hard to believe you.

Well, see, here's what happened. You and I had talked quite a lot about what I meant, and yes, I do think that a one-game gamer will not be as good as a gamer with broader experience. That's absolutely true. But, then my words got endlessly brought up out of context, any further explanation completely ignored. So, instead of fighting it, I just went with it since there appeared to be absolutely nothing I could say that would clear up the misconception.

IOW, I'm simply working within the framework enforced on me by other people's repeated insistence on interpreting what I said in a very narrow, specific way.

Do I think a one-game gamer is a bad gamer? Not really. I think they will be less flexible and will be unable to contribute to conversations outside of that very narrow focus, but, will they be a "bad" DM? Probably not.

 

[Hussar]

I don't see how it can. Turning, braking, accelerating, changing lanes, parking, etc. are all different for a semi than for a car. Driving a semi will make you a better truck driver, but it's not going to do squat for your car skills.

And right there. There we have exactly what I was talking about. Someone with absolutely no experience with something proclaiming that doing that thing could not possibly help, despite not having any experience with that thing.

You don't think being able to parallel park a semi-trailer using only your mirrors might just make you better at parking? Just a tiny bit?

Now, where the analogy falls apart is getting your truck license is a pretty extended process. This isn't something you can do in 3 hours. Yet, you could pick up an RPG, read the rules, and play a session, for many RPG's, in three hours. How long do you think it takes to learn Dread? There's THOUSANDS of one page RPG's out there. Spend 10 hours and you've got a session on Trail of Cthulhu or Savage Worlds under your belt.

Yet, we see repeated claims that learning another system cannot possibly help you play D&D. Could not possibly improve your game.

 

[Hussar]

Being a good GM is a function of many inputs. Two of those inputs are depth and breadth of experience. Ceteris paribus, if I have two GMs of otherwise equivalent ability, where one has 25 years of experience exclusively with one and only one system, and the other has 20 years of experience with that one system and 5 years of experience spread across (say) six other systems? I don't see the slightest problem in saying that the latter GM is going to be better at a variety of skills useful for GMing: creativity especially in the space of developing new rules content (e.g., new spells, new treasure), flexibility in adjudication, preparation for unexpected interactions, patience for dealing with seeming conflicts, ability to adapt to changing circumstances, etc.

Or, to win the thread - This.