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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3654968" data-attributes="member: 2067">Don't insult the kid's skills. ANY DM needs the ability to command a player's attention. How to get someone's attention is something every 2 year old knows how to do. DMs probably need a subtler understanding, but middle schoolers aren't known by and large to be particularly deficient in the area of "having people listen when they talk." They certainly understand raising hands and the like. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If that's what they want, give it to 'em. The POINT is that history is not what they WANT. They certainly shut up and paid attention when the DM started describing what was important to them (namely, what the item could do).The letter didn't ask for advice on how to make an item relevant. The letter complained that what he created was ignored. The article told him WHY it was ignored, and, in a general way (as those constrained by word counts often do) how to fix it. Yeah, okay, it could have been more useful, but we're all pretty much agreed that the article wasn't the greatest response to the letter (even those who generally agree with the article's message).At least for me, seeing my players have fun is infinitely more fun for me, as a DM, then having them digest my little pet world history.Perhaps that's the advice the article should have given? "If you don't have fun seeing your players blast away your bad guys, maybe you should go write a novel"? I don't think that would have been as useful. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Seriously, if the DM's idea of fun is reading his little backstory aloud while all his friends listen in awe to his creative ability, I think the DM is being, as the article implies, far too self-centered about it. There's a very small minority of people who would derive any kind of amusement from that, and I think that if the article were to say "Loose the players and find some that suit you!" it would be sending the kid off on a very quick trip to Disappointment City, not to mention reinforcing his self-centered feeling of entitlement, rather than telling him something useful (and "Stop thinking of your creation as the coolest thing since the One Ring and start delivering what your players want!" is pretty good advice, even couched in some pretty condescending tones). The advice is "make it relevant." If the kid makes his history relevant, he will find it fun, because the players will be interested in his lovingly crafted history (which seems to be what he wants). I don't really want my players to have to tolerate or indulge me on any sort of a regular basis, especially when we're playing a game and supposedly having some fun. I mean, they tolerate me enough when we're out drinking or when I bring around my newest weird girlfriend. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If the kid wants people to pay attention to his lovingly crafted item history, he might be better off being a writer....though even there, he will get the same advise: "Make it relevant!" He'll find much more audience members willing to just sit and absorb dense blocks of text there, though. And yet you still judge the players as "gimmie gimmie gimmie." Based on nothing but the DM's letter, which is obviously biased to support his own case that the players should sit down, shut up, and listen to his long paragraph of boxed text.It's not over-greedy grasping if the DM is going on for longer than three sentences about the ancient carved elven wood and the eldricth runes that spell out words long-forgotten and the dwarf-forged steel on which you can see the particular fingerprints of the Nordwarves of Nordland that glisten in a particular light due to the dwarf's unusual metalic sweat that comes from their diet of partially-ground-up silver and gold, first started at the Feast of Dungumd, where Eric the Brave slayed the Lava Children and blah blah blah...The player was EXCITED about the item! That's great! USE that excitement! Don't squish it by telling them to sit down and shut up!</blockquote>

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