D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[meltdownpass]

The only best practice I can think of that is true for all groups and all styles of play is:

• Ask the players what aspects of the game they liked, and what aspects of the game they didn't like
• Iteratively try to improve your performance. Repeat asking your players if they felt it was an improvement.

 

[Fanaelialae]

First, let's make sure we agree on what is being criticized.

If you see a movie, it may be good. But, you can realize that the movie was carried not by the strength of the script, or special effects, but by the sheer talent of the actors. The movie is still good, but the script lacks interesting structure, has some plot holes, and the dialogue is dull - this is a criticism of the script, rather than the movie as a whole. Similarly, we can make criticism of any given ruleset, wihout criticizing the D&D zeitgeist, so to speak.

There's also a question as to whether "fails to deliver an experience it wasn't designed to deliver" is proper criticism, but I think that's a bit pedantic - the point that the rules give very little support for narrative play is a proper statement about the ruleset, even if it fails to be criticism, that folks would do well to know.

So, maybe "weak criticism" is itself a weak criticism?

Personally, I think it makes more sense to look at D&D holistically. If all someone wants to do is criticize the lack of narrative rules in the ruleset, okay. It hasn't stopped people from running narratively focused games and enjoying the experience.

Sure, a different game might be a better "script". I never suggested otherwise.

In an earlier post, I compared D&D to a multi tool and bespoke games to a set of screwdrivers. If what you want to do is drive a bunch of different screws, then obviously the screwdrivers are the way to go. However, if you want to carry a tool around with you that's good, but not ideal, for a lot of different jobs, you take the multi tool. The multi tool has different utility than the set of screwdrivers. Criticizing it as not being a good screwdriver might technically be accurate, but I would say it's missing the forest for the trees.

 

[Stalker0]

But even then, you're at risk of giving the advice of "you should have a session 0" but having little agreement upon content for that session.

Or you can simple phrase it as “during the first session it’s good to discuss the following:”

while I think creating a comprehensive all encompassing best practice document might be daunting, I think creating a short list is in no ways difficult.

here’s a simple one: “discuss which books the players can use to make their characters”

Is there anyone out there that thinks thst would be a bad thing to discuss?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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

The difficulty is that defining "best practices" in other arenas, such as business, pretty much necessarily involves what is called "onetruewayism" in RPG circles, which is to say, you pick a specific approach and say "this is best". This works better though because the goals of businesses tend to be pretty aligned (i.e. make money, don't upset people, don't rock the boat, don't break the law, etc.). Even then there is often considerable debate, and if they had access to the term "onetruewayism", I'm sure it would get deployed.

I think the only way to do this with RPGs would be to define play-approaches first, then, within each play-approach you might be able to look at best practices for that play approach. But the best practices for some meatgrinder OSR approach are unlikely to the same as the best practices for an RP-heavy modern approach, nor the best practices for a highly tactically-oriented optimization-friendly game, or the like.

There might be some crossover, but I think you'd need to define this all first and THEN look for crossover, rather than trying to start with assuming the crossover or w/e.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Is there anyone out there that thinks thst would be a bad thing to discuss?

I think it would be an unnecessary thing for many groups. Particularly those using DNDBeyond. It also might cause unnecessary work for the DM, and indeed, going by something as hugely granular as "books" is likely to be a bad approach for a lot of groups. I know I've almost never seen a book where I'd ban everything in it (apart from 3PPs), but equally there are few where I'd be 100% happy with absolutely everything in it as a DM.

I think the best practices for an entirely new group of players will necessarily be different from a group who have played together before.

So yeah, I think there are problems with that - the "granular" nature of it is a huge problem frankly, as it doesn't address how a lot of DMs or groups approach things. I certainly think it can't qualify as a "best practice" because of that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, if YouTube says it!

To be fair Morrus, YouTube is no better/worse than the DM/GM/Storyteller guides of the 1990s, and in fact, are kind of more open to peer review, as it were, because people can give them the thumbs up/down, leave comments, and so on. In the 1990s and so on, it was essentially a "bully pulpit" situation, in that anyone who could get a GM advice book published could talk whatever smack they wanted, whereas everyone else had to put up a dodgy website and hope people visited, or post on a forum.

YouTube is a bit of a bully pulpit too but it's more democratic and with the feedback likely less unreasonable.

I mean, GM advice books in the 1990s and '00s really wildly varied in quality, from extremist one-true-way tracts, to just outright bad advice, to extremely good and well-considered advice, to "some wacky stuff we used to do in college and it seemed cool". It was all over the place, and a glossy high-production value GM book often had terrible advice in it, where some relatively low-production value near-pamphlet might be full of gold. Sometimes the same book would contain a mix of gold and trash too - I think of Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads! from Mike Pondsmith, which had some great ideas, some weird ideas, and some bad ideas, all just sort of mixed in together. White Wolf ones often had some serious one-true-way stuff going on, which often boiled down to "ARGH!!! Why do you damn normies even play our RPG for Cool Refined Goths - anyway here's how you should be playing!". Gary Gygax himself published the single worst collection of DM advice I've ever seen outside of parody, advice which ran directly counter to every single thing he's ever said about how he runs his home game, note - but the book came out long before the internet and Gary actually talking about how he actually ran stuff. The only universally helpful one I can think of off the top of my head (though there were probably others) was Robin D Laws' one (the internet has this not coming out until 2002 and in a fairly glossy form, but I would swear I had something on GMing by him in the mid-90s in a considerably less glossy format).

 

[Ancalagon]

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.

I would like to respectfully disagree.

You are 100% right that there is a real danger of "badwrongfun". BUUUT... I think there can be things we all can agree upon are best practices. For example, here are some player best practices:

1: Show up at the game on time, and if you can't make it, advise the DM as soon as possible.
2: Do not threaten the DM with a knife.

Surely, this is not "onetruwayism"...

And no, these are not joking, "this never happens" examples... they come from personal experience.

 

[Umbran]

Personally, I think it makes more sense to look at D&D holistically.

But, no particular use of it is "holistic". So, while you, in a seat of looking out at the vista of games, may find it makes sense to look that way, that mode is of little use when considering actual use for one table.

In an earlier post, I compared D&D to a multi tool and bespoke games to a set of screwdrivers.

Sure. But that means it takes the place of the multi-tool - the thing you use when you don't have your full toolbox at hand.

 

[Stalker0]

I think it would be an unnecessary thing for many groups.

Unnecessary doesn’t invalidate a best practice, in fact thats exactly the point…you take the wisdom of veterans who “know it already” and translate it into guidelines for newer players thst don’t.

and you could shift the language from “books” to “rules content” to work better with online tools, as I agree that’s better in our more online centric gaming styles.

 

[Ancalagon]

I know it's a little controversial, but here's a best practice I've found useful since 3rd Edition...

When rolling dice, roll the highest number possible.

It might not work for every table, but I've found it's worked pretty consistently for me as both a player and DM.

In several games, you need to roll under, not over. so