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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9455966" data-attributes="member: 4937">Honestly, I've tried to avoid commenting on the video because I think I can evaluate it and well, and I think I can sum up the video with, "I wonder if he wrote a script for the video."I get so tired of this sort of, "It doesn't have to be work!" crap.  I can watch Mercer and see the sort of qualities I associate with high skill GMing.  I can listen to Seth Skokowsky and immediately tell this is a guy who has been in the trenches and leveled up as a GM.  I have watched Ginny Di grow in maturity and understanding as a GM as she gains more and more nuanced takes.  And then someone with no credentials as a GM and absolutely no evidence that they can GM and tons of tells that he just doesn't get it, decides to tell novice GMs that they shouldn't pay attention to the people with actual skills and spends the first 7 or 8 minutes of the video saying literally nothing of consequence and the rest giving bad advice.  It's a video that reminds me of one of those click bait advertisements for weight loss products or how to succeed with women where they go on and on and on about what they are going to tell you without actually telling you anything because they really don't have a product. I really don't know what is worse: if there was a script for this video or there wasn't.You do not want to put yourself in the same position as your players have trying to plan or evaluate or strategize or improvise on the fly.  Because one of the only things worse than a session where the players are facing choice paralysis or really have run out of inspiration is when you as the GM are facing choice paralysis and have run out of inspiration.  It's bad enough when your players are blind and are groping around for direction or just going off on tangents, but if the GM is blind and groping around for direction and going off on tangents then the players are (speaking from experience) in hell - and not in the good "Paladin in Hell" sort of way.I'm really not even sure the speaker has ever GMed a game if he wants to give as an example that the villain doesn't have enough movement rate to beat the players to the foozle and so they get there first, because does he have any freaking idea how much preparation it takes to know exactly when an NPC leaves point A and arrives at point B without winging it such that it's effectively a teleport?  Like that level of attention to detail you just don't improve.  That's Tolkien making accurate maps of his world and making calendars and calculating movement rates so that he can track all of this moving pieces accurately level of attention to detail and preparation.Let me give the untutored a clue.  If you write down what the goal of your NPC is, you've done absolutely no useful prep at all.  About the only thing more useless than that is writing down that your NPC is funny or charming.The product he pitches at the end of the video sure looks like prep to me, albeit the previews look like useless prep and give me more "ick" than the infamous prostitute table in the 1e DMG.</blockquote>

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