D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[overgeeked]

I hope we can*, otherwise we’re doomed to never get better at...whatever it is we’re doing.

So simple question: how can we talk about best practices without being told it’s badwrongfun or onetruewayism?

EDIT: Changed the title without changing the first line.

 

[Cadence]

I hope it is, otherwise we’re doomed to never get better at...whatever it is we’re doing.

So simple question: how can we talk about best practices without being told it’s badwrongfun or onetruewayism?

Talk about things you prefer or don't like. Talk about things you've found annoy people and how to avoid them. Avoid trying to label them objectively better or worse.

 

[Steampunkette]

By recognizing that outside of a few specific and incredibly loose Best Practices (Don't be Exclusionary, Do some Prep Work whether you're the DM or the Player, be willing to Be Invested in the Game, etc) there are no best practices.

There are only Best Practices for you. Or me. Or a specific table.

Couch your statement with "This is what I do, (statement) and it works really well!" or go for a more general "Hey, how do you folx deal with XYZ Issues in your games? I do PQR."

And then, y'know... go from there.

'Cause it's alllll gonna be based on style, intent, audience, etc. Thinking D&D has a set of Best Practices in how to run it is like thinking all Actors must use "The Method" in order to be good at their job. Every D&D Player and every DM is an Actor and a Director, and they're all gonna have their own ways of getting the movie made.


As long as the finished movie is good, who cares how they got there?

 

[DemoMonkey]

You can only talk about best practices if yours are the best. Are they? ARE THEY THE BEST? HOW DARE YOU SAY YOURS ARE THE BEST!! HOW DARE YOU GATEKEEP LIKE THAT!!!!11alpha

...is how this will go. Every single time.

 

[RFB Dan]

Yeah, it can be tough. I have things that I wouldn't allow at my table that others may find perfectly acceptable (though I don't understand why anyone would be okay with metagaming PCs or overpowered munchkins, but hey, do you boo). I suppose the only thing that can be one is preface your best practice with the phrase "at my table".

 

[Morrus]

I hope it is, otherwise we’re doomed to never get better at...whatever it is we’re doing.

So simple question: how can we talk about best practices without being told it’s badwrongfun or onetruewayism?

I would start by acknowledging that there are no best practices, and that the actual concept is badwrongfun and onetruewayism.

Then we can move on to talk about what works for us individually, and our personal preferences when it comes to gaming.

 

[Composer99]

Insofar as there are such things as best practices for playing TTRPGs, they are general good social practices, such as "don't be a jerk", "make sure everyone is on board with how things are going to go before gameplay begins", "know when to compromise and when to stand firm", that sort of thing.

 

[Yora]

Whenever a player announces an action that sounds nonsensical, don't just roll the dice. Always ask the players what they think they are gonna accomplish with the action. Unless a player is deliberately trolling, the actions that players want to do almost always make perfect sense in their minds.
If players announce something that seems obviously stupid, it's almost certainly because the situation they envision in their minds is different from what you imagine in your mind. Players can't see what their characters can see, they can't hear what their characters can hear, and they don't know what their characters would know. The mental image in the minds of players is based only on what you told them. They have no other way to perceive the environment around their characters. When you said something that they interpreted differently from what you envisioned, they have no way to know.
Only the GM can notice that something a player declares does not appear to line up with what the GM is envisioning. So when a player declares something nonsensical, always ask what the player thinks will happen. Then you will be able to tell if the player needs better information first, or if something insanely risky does actually have a purpose.

 

[Oofta]

What works for me may not work for you.

When I DM I don't plan out plots per se. I plan out immediate threats and opportunities, likely to encounter NPCs, general organizations along with their motivations. Then we just go from there.

So I normally don't have much of anything pre-mapped (there are exceptions) and while I know who knows what and what there motivations are, I don't typically pre-plan any dialog or set pieces.

Along with that, I ask players what they want to do next at the end of a session if we are at a decision point. Do they want to follow up on the job opportunity that the Baron made available, or do they want to explore that abandoned temple someone mentioned? Maybe follow up on some rumor or some other tangent that I'm not thinking of. I always try to have 3 or 4 options people can follow and they can always suggest something different.

I find that works best for me. I'm perfectly okay with high levels of improv, and TBH I have no patience for detailed dungeon mapping or dungeon crawls in general.

 

[Malmuria]

This is interesting because there is so much gm advice out there. Youtube is full of do this, don't do this, top 10 things you should do, etc. Similarly, what makes a good "gm advice" section in a game? Does the dmg, for example, suggest that a particular style of play is best (and if not, does it make the dmg more generic and less useful?)?