D&D 5E DM Theory?

[Zardnaar]

Apparently older players make up 11% of the playerbase.

Not sure what the % is say 30+.

Just wondering however are a disproportionate amount of DMs come from the older players.

By older I mean veteran's of several editions/Pathfinder.

I've read there's a DM shortage with something like a 20-1 ratio between DMs and players.

I've seen several groups either implode or fall apart over the last 18 months. Normally for real life reasons vs anything 5E related.

Obviously we have new DMs, just not sure how many or how stable.

Casuals come casuals go.

 

[Retreater]

I wonder if "super-DMs" have any impact on the numbers? For example, I am running 4 games.

 

[DND_Reborn]

We have our regular DM, myself (who DMs often), another player (who just ran CoS as his first adventure over about a dozen sessions), and another player who wants to try running his first game. The other two have both DMed before as well (one only 5E, the other only 2E for DMing).

So, pretty soon, all six people in our groups will have had DMing experience, but only myself and our regular DM do it most of the time.

As for experience in prior editions, half of us are vets from older versions, and half are new to D&D with 5E only. The last of the "newer" guys will DM soon, probably before the year is over. So, we'll end up with an even split between older DMers and newer DMers.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know if it helps answer your question, but I'm almost 46 years old. I started playing D&D in 1985 with the Basic ("red box") rules, and I ran it exclusively for 15 years until 3rd Edition came out. (I never cared for AD&D.) I participated in the 4E playtest, but didn't care for the finished product...so when 3.5E went out of print, we switched to Pathfinder. I was a Pathfinder DM for a while, then switched to 5th Edition at the first opportunity.

Now I have three different gaming groups. I'm a player in my wife's homebrew campaign, I'm a DM of my own homebrew campaign, and I'm both a player and a DM in an Eberron campaign (we rotate DMs every few months). We dabble in Call of Cthulhu and Dread, but for the most part, we are all 5E, all the time.

 

[muhcashin]

I signed up for enworld back in 2002. Started in 1999, with AD&D, but at the time 3E was coming out and switched over fairly quickly. I prefer DMing, my friends rather be players. Our longest game I think lasted 3 years in early 2000s, when I was in college and had a lot of free time. Recently, I've DMed a campaign (Princes of the apocalypse) for 2 years, but I gave up, I was sick of organizing and getting people to commit to schedules. As my friends and I get older, with kids and life, D&D is unfortunately a hobby that takes too much time.
The arrival of TTRPGs has changed that a bit. We can play from our homes.
I am DMing nothing at the moment, I am playing in one 5E and one Pathfinder game.

 

[TwiceBorn2]

I'm 46 and started playing/DMing with the Basic/Expert (red/blue) boxes around 1985, and I'd say I've DMed the most under that system in the mid-late 1980s, and, over the last decade, using Pathfinder 1.0.

I have also DMed some AD&D 1 (but not a whole lot), a bit more AD&D 2e and D&D 3.5, then skipped 4.0 altogether. I must admit that there have been long stretches in my life where there was very little gaming (hence the limited amount of GMing for AD&D 1 through D&D 3.5).

D&D 5e is currently my preferred version to GM, but I also look forward to trying my hand at different systems in the hopefully not too distant future, particularly Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu/Cthulu Confidential, Symbaroum, The End of the World (if my friends will let me), Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, and maybe even some games that use the Year Zero engine.

My two current gaming groups include a total of 11 players (myself included), 5 of which have current/prior GMing experience (mostly with Pathfinder 1.0 and/or earlier versions of D&D/AD&D). I am presently the only one who has GMed D&D 5e, only 2 of us currently GM anything, even if only on a semi-regular basis.

The age range of my current groups is roughly 30-47, those having GMing experience being found at all points in the range (early 30s, late 30s, mid-40s).

 

[p_johnston]

I'm 28 and am the main DM of our group. Every player in my group has been the DM at least a couple of times, mostly for one shots, but for the most part it is my running the games about 90%-95% of the time. I'm mostly a D&D 5e man. I started with a couple of games of pathfinder long ago but have stuck mostly to 5e for most of my gaming career. Been running games for around 7 years.

 

[Shiroiken]

I can't say, since as an old fart I pretty much only play with 30+ year olds. I started about 30 years ago, and I've been DMing for about 28 years across every edition except OD&D. I've heard about the DM shortage, but can't relate to is. My group has 2 permanent DMs, 3 casual DMs that will run a campaign to give the permanent DMs a break, and 2 who are only players. The 3 casual DMs also run games away from our group, so it's not like they're inexperienced or anything either.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I've been DMing since I picked up a Red Box around 1990. Having recently moved to a new state and city, I joined the community's discord servers for matching players to DMs. You'd think DMs were an endangered species with their rarity. 20-1? I can see that.

And, I gather from meeting players who tried out new-ish DMs, it's not as fun as they were expecting. That's a whole other thread for why.

 

[bloodtide]

I too have been a DM from back in the '80's starting with that Red Box(And Bargle!).

Being a DM is a hard job to do for "fun"....and not everyone can do it. Most people can "run a game", but only a few can run a campaign.

I've been a DM from day one...exploring those Caves of Chaos. Most DM's are older, then what? 18? But the player to DM ratio has always been about 20 to 1.