D&D General Being a DM is like being a cook

[prabe]

Certainly. My point was that writing is not the best medium to communicate how to cook. This may be analogous to games--we depend on written game products, but actually sitting down at table and playing with people with experience is actually the best way to learn.

I learned to cook mostly from books--reading, then applying the text. I ... didn't learn GMing the exact same way, but my GMing improved substantially after setting out to do some reading about it--and then applying things in games I was running.

Is a book the best way to learn to, say, chiffonade basil? Nah. Is a book a good way to learn to put flavors together, and to learn the sequence of a given process? Yeah. Does having someone to ask questions of help if you're a new cook (or a new GM)? Absolutely, but it's not mandatory.

As for the OP's analogy, I think that whether you enjoy a given home cook's food comes down more to whether their tastes and preferences match yours than to their technical skill; and I think that whether you enjoy a given GM's game comes to the exact same thing.

 

[Malmuria]

Really, now? I've found it quite well-written. Not really sure what purpose the broadside serves here tbh. Particularly because Dungeon World is the game that taught me how to GM.

fwiw It was a pointless broadside at Apocalypse World, not DW

 

[Malmuria]

I was a vegetarian for years, and when I started to eat meat I tried to cook using Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. While the book is comprehensive, from what I remember, he often gives sort of vague instructions, or at least difficult for me to parse; he might tell the reader to cook a piece of fish "until it's done." This was very frustrating...I hadn't eaten fish in years, how was I supposed to know when it's done! There were some failed experiments. This is similar when a recipe tells you to "salt to taste." Now I can both not overcook fish and salt it to taste, but it took actual doing. That said, YMMV, with either cooking or ttrpgs, I guess...

 

[prabe]

I was a vegetarian for years, and when I started to eat meat I tried to cook using Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. While the book is comprehensive, from what I remember, he often gives sort of vague instructions, or at least difficult for me to parse; he might tell the reader to cook a piece of fish "until it's done." This was very frustrating...I hadn't eaten fish in years, how was I supposed to know when it's done! There were some failed experiments. This is similar when a recipe tells you to "salt to taste." Now I can both not overcook fish and salt it to taste, but it took actual doing. That said, YMMV, with either cooking or ttrpgs, I guess...

I checked out one of Bittman's books from the library, once, and it was useless for me, as well--so useless that if another writer praises Bittman my expectations for them sink below my ability to sustain interest.

"Season to taste," though, is not at all a useless direction. At least, it's a step best not skipped--and my thinking is it's the step where the cook's taste and preference get the chance to show through.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Don't dis the Matt Mercer effect!

but for many it's the only medium they get that gives them the information they need. And it a medium where they can get data without watching some 30 year DM do a perfect job and make them feel useless.

Or are you saying we need to find some terrible DMs and get them to stream their games?