DM fun vs. Player fun...Should it be a compromise?

[Doug McCrae]

Ah, well yes, bad article. I doubt anyone here will really disagree with that.

I love the Save My Game guy. I love how he kicks the sh:t out of every DM who writes in. It is a little harsh but improving reading, I think, in the Victorian sense.

 

[maddman75]

Agree that reading exposition about your imagined world isn't going to wow anyone. If you want to be a good or great DM, your goal should be to run awesome games. That's what I'm in the hobby for.

Exposition sucks. Its boring. No one cares. But you need to get that information out there somehow. Show, don't tell is the primary one. If they find the sword talked about upthread and the GM reads off that paragraph in response to a lore roll or something, no one's going to care. They're going to go "uh, okay, +1 flaming bastard sword" Why? Because it doesn't matter. On the other hand if they'd been hired by one tribe to find it, fought off assassins from another tribe to stop them, had a third tribe try to bribe them, and fought through the Frost Giants who lair near the great hero's tomb to stop anyone from getting it. Nor does all this need to be laid out all at once.

First tribe - "Hey go get this sword. Our great hero killed the Frost Giant king. We'll give you cool stuff."
Second tribe - "Grrr. You aren't giving that sword to them, whoever wields it will be King of the Barbarians! Die!"
Third tribe - "Dude, we'll totally give you cooler stuff. We really want that sword! We need it more, its flames rise higher with the wielder's sense of purpose. Our chieftan is awesome and will make it glow the best!"
Giants - "The sword of the barbarians will not slay us again, it will stay in its tomb! Die puny humans!"

By spreading out the exposition and combining it with conflicts and action, it becomes not only palatable but interesting to the characters. Set up like this, there's every chance the players will be chomping at the bit to get ahold of this sword. At the same time, be prepared that they might not care at all about this sword, the barbarians, or the giants. In that case it is better to forget it and go onto something else - don't drag the players through something boring just to stick with what you have planned. Some of the best, most enjoyable sessions I've ever ran came from the players looking at the plot hooks and saying 'Naw, none of that really looks interesting. Let's head west and see what's over there."

 

[Shining Dragon]

Perhaps the DM in question should supply the details of the item as a player handout? Including both game stats and detailed history. Then merely summarize it for the benefit of all Players and give the handout to the player who's character gets it.

 

[maddman75]

Perhaps the DM in question should supply the details of the item as a player handout? Including both game stats and detailed history. Then merely summarize it for the benefit of all Players and give the handout to the player who's character gets it.

Again, they'll only pay attention to what matters. If the exposition matters, they'll pay attention. Otherwise no matter how florid your prose, its nothing but a +2 long sword. A handout can be cool, but if its just presenting the same information with no other context just in a different format this isn't going to change anything. You should never make your players feel like they're doing homework, and that's what expecting them to learn a bunch of background information that isn't immediately relevent feels like.

Now the subject of the thread is should DMs get to have fun too. Of course they should. I'm not getting paid for this GMing gig, so if its not fun I'm not going to do it. But what is fun to a GM. The OP suggests that for him creating a world is fun. That's fine, if the creation of the world and little details are really your payoff, then what's the problem. Create to your heart's content, and if your players don't care, who cares? You still got to have fun creating it, right?

Because the real issue is what I think most if not all GMs are going for, to run a really awesome game. To see their players get all interested in the scenario put before them, to fervently plan how to deal with it, to see them pump their fists when the villian finally falls. To have everyone excitedly talking about what happened in your game. Now the creator GM I believe is in a fallacy. He creates all this detail because he thinks that will make for a good game. And it can. But the delivery falls flat, the players never see it, and he feels resentful. He's done all this work, and they don't appreciate it. It isn't good to feel unappreciated.

The work he's done beforehand, honestly, is irrelevent. Just because you spent hours writing up NPC descriptions and magic item histories does not obligate your players to be fascinated by it. The only way to fascinate your players is during delivery. The manner in which this exposition is laid out, the context, the previous events of the game, the interests of the players, and even the time of the night where it is described all contribute to how well it is recieved. Its better to deliver minimal uninspired information well than to have the most creative stuff put out badly.

Make it matter, and where possible show, don't tell.

 

[Glyfair]

then i issued an in game newsletter, which was ignored. Until i stopped doing it and then i got nagged incessantly by some of the players

It helped when i started to throw a few game clues into the newsletter - the defining moment for me was a few weeks ago when they were trying to decipher a clue and the wizard demanded all the old newsletters so he could try to find out whose initials were on the letter they'd found

I agree. If you want players interested in the background you worked hard on you need to do two things.

1) Keep it brief

Use only a sentence or two to get a point across. If you have a long amount of information, spread out giving it to the players.

2) Use it.

Make it relevant to the game. Don't just give this long history of how the sword was stolen from a wizard centuries ago and then list all the places it's seen, and then drop it. Have the wizard appear as a lich and try to get it back.

Also, don't wait 3 months until the players have forgotten. Do it quickly so the players don't forget. Once you suck them into the story, then you can start occasionally forshadowing an event 4 months down the line.

 

[Arkhandus]

......I think I'm in the minority, as one of those who actually agrees with the OP. :\ If I'm going to the effort of running the game and handling all the prep work and miscellaneous details and monster stats and junk, I should be allowed to have some fun with the experience. Likewise I don't expect to be catered to when playing under another DM/GM.

Personally I wouldn't mind a DM like the one in the article, but then I also don't mind exposition on campaign material.

And you can't always pick your group, y'know. It's not like another gaming group or another group of friends is just around the corner, and easily joined or something. And there's no guarantee that you'll find a group that fits your preferences. It's often easier to try adjusting to the gaming group, or getting someone else to DM, than it is to find another group in the area that you can join.

 

[delericho]

two possibilities, depending on how "into" the details of breaking in they are (do the players really want to make a plan out of the raw data or get the data then skip to the exciting part?)

If they aren't into the strategic planning, I would make gather info checks or diplomacy with appropriate role playing (bonuses for a good strategic ideas of who to ask) Then have them make a few knowlege, profession or just int checks as apropriate to the task. Possibly use the alternate complex skill check rules....

If they want to figure out the weak spot themselves, but you are worried about the info dump, I'd write down all the relevant info (and some irrelevant info, of course ) and split it up into several sections with different info going to different players...

Those would be my suggestions at least. The "distributed info dump" method has worked relitively well for me in running one shots...

Good advice on all points. Thanks.

 

[Hussar]

I remember playing Baldur's Gate and the subsequent games. In every game, there were shelves full of books with expository tidbits showing off the Forgotten Realms. When I first started playing the game, I read every book because I thought they held clues to things in the game. Within a very short period I realized that the books served no practical purpose.

I stopped reading them completely. They weren't that interesting to begin with, I'm not a Forgotten Realms fan particularly (don't hate the setting, but, also don't know a whole lot about it) and it was a complete waste of time for me.

Lengthy info dumps on the background of the party's latest acquisition are the same thing. Who cares that the sword was used to kill the Grand Poobah decades ago? Unless the Grand Poobah actually features in the campaign in some way, it's completely unimportant. Sorry, but, I don't get all squishy learning that your imaginary magic sword killed your imaginary character at some point in your imaginary world's history.

If you want to engage the players in the setting you have to make the information relavent.

 

[DragonLancer]

In my experience, players never care enough about the setting beyond what they need to know to play. It's unfortunate, but not every group is going to be prepared to read a history and geography essay just to play D&D.

 

[Hussar]

In my experience, players never care enough about the setting beyond what they need to know to play. It's unfortunate, but not every group is going to be prepared to read a history and geography essay just to play D&D.

Why do you consider that to be unfortunate? I'm not being snide here, I'm really curious.