DM Shortage?

[TerraDave]

Keeping in mind that its possible for a DM to not find the players who are just a few blocks away that want to play...

I have the feeling that DMs really willing to commit to running regular long running campaigns, and do a decent job of it, have always been scarce. And have been the main constraint on the number of people playing. The fact that 5e is relatively DM friendly has probably helped it.

A big caveat here is I speak specifically of DMs. GMs for other games can have all kinds of problems finding players.

 

[MNblockhead]

In the Twin Cities metro area (Minnesota, USA), there doesn't seem to be a shortage, but I have no hard numbers. I would be interesting to hear from organized-play admins.

The few times I've been to Adventurers League events at Fantasy Flight's Game Center and The Source (two of the better known FLGS in my area), even when more players than expected show up, there has always been a player who takes on the DM role. I've seen the same thing happen a conventions.

I don't know about finding a DM for a home game. I admit it was easy to find players when I started DMing a few years ago. If the player is looking for a home game, say, they are new to the area, I don't know how hard that would be. I would expect though that using Meet-up and by addending AL and PFS games at your FLGS you could find a group to join fairly quickly.

There is also the various VTTs. I've not spent a lot of time looking at them, but I think most of them have a mechanism by which DMs can post games looking for players and when I looked, there seemed to be plenty of games to choose from.

There are also many more resources for DMs to learn from now. Though I worry it will also increase player expectations unrealistically. I love to DM, but I've never DMed at a convention because I'm not comfortable enough in my DM skin to run a game for players who paid to be there. I would consider DMing for organized play, but I don't have time to make an ongoing commitment and the AL system doesn't seem designed for players looking for a one-off game. That and I don't want the additional bureaucractic overhead and AL rules limitations. For now, I am fine running games for my regular group and my kids and am happy being a player when I attend AL events.

 

[MarkB]

I play at a local gaming club of around 30 players. We play four 12-week sessions a year, and generally speaking we have no trouble finding enough people who want to put games forward for the next session.

We've had a couple of times in the last two years where there weren't quite enough and someone had to be encouraged to step up, but we've had more occasions where there were more people ready to offer games than we had tables for. So in general, we have a good balance between DMs and players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

DMs are always in short supply, but it's not like it's a crisis.

The local cons are always looking for DMs and our FLGS charges players but nominally compensates DMs, and still has to juggle to stick to the players/table limit.

It's just flip side of Empowerment, 5e can be very rewarding to run, but can also be intimidating at first or difficult to run well. It's gotten better though - a few years in, new DMs have emerged from the ranks of new players.

How it's almost always been, IMX.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I picked "Other".

I'm mostly playing online and there it's quite visible how many DMs are available and how many players want to join an adventure.

What I noticed here is that there's a shortage of DMs that want to DM the official adventure paths, but there plenty of DMs that are heavy on the homebrew side. It's really noticable. A DM opening a thread saying he wants to DM any of the official adventure paths will get like 30 applications from players in only a few days. A DM opening a thread saying he wants to do this homebrew campaign and he struggles to even get 4 players together. If the DM also adds a long list of house rules, he can be happy to get any applications at all.

So my conclusion is that DMs actually like to homebrew, while players tend to prefer vanilla.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Since 5th edition has come out, I've seen more and more people willing to take a shot a DMing.

While there are still less DMs than there are players, which is a normal thing given the normal ratio of players to DMs while the game is being played, I definitely wouldn't say there is a shortage.

 

[Blue]

There is no shortage of "D&D 5e" DMs in my area.

There is a shortage of GMs for other games.

 

[pogre]

What I noticed here is that there's a shortage of DMs that want to DM the official adventure paths, but there plenty of DMs that are heavy on the homebrew side. It's really noticable. A DM opening a thread saying he wants to DM any of the official adventure paths will get like 30 applications from players in only a few days. A DM opening a thread saying he wants to do this homebrew campaign and he struggles to even get 4 players together. If the DM also adds a long list of house rules, he can be happy to get any applications at all.

Are the DMs running the APs usually AL games? I could see that contributing to the divide.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Are the DMs running the APs usually AL games? I could see that contributing to the divide.

That could be part of it.

To me it just seems like folks are more willing to join a campaign when they feel they have a clear indication of what they can expect.

 

[Quickleaf]

Among my extended circle of 13 gaming friends (not counting myself - a DM obviously), 5 are DMs.