Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Nagol]

I think you're defining "hard" by "things I don't really want to do."

Nonsense.

Birdwatching is hard because I get stiff sitting in one position for long periods and am colour blind making species identification difficult.

Knitting is hard because my manual dexterity isn't the best and despite repeated coaching I am incapable of achieving a good pearl.

Could I pursue either or both? I guess, but they are too hard compared to the personal reward.

 

[Maxperson]

Also, harder does not necessarily mean hard. Take walking and running. It's more difficult to run than to walk, but it's still pretty easy to run. However, there's a big difference between the minimum skill at running(average person) and being able to run a marathon or be a world class sprinter.

Even with something simple like running, people with natural gifts and/or training(having a mentor) will be better at it than the vast majority of us. Being a DM is the same way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think the real question is whether it's as hard or harder than just playing (since this is the alternative to participate in the game)... My thoughts are for the lion share of ttrpg games out there it is

I also notice, though I could be wrong in my interpretation, that you seem to be inferring that only a minimum bar achievement in GM'ing is necessary and I find a few things wrong with this...

1. If that is the bar and the GM consistently stays at that bar... he probably won't have a game for very long.

Why not? If they're having fun, this is fine. If they aren't having fun, that's a completely different question from how hard GMing is. Again, this goes to the accretion of expectation and tradition built up in certain segments of the hobby rather than an actual evaluation of how hard it is to run a game of D&D. Sure, it can be very hard to live up to this table's expectations, but that's that table, not GMing.

2. It's still MUCH easier to attain the minimum bar for playing a TTRPG than running it.

Oh, that very much depends on the game system. For D&D, I'll agree that there's extremely little expected of the players in the tradition of play that has built up. But, that's not actually in the rules as such. The rules say that player should be actively engaging the situation and coming up with actions which the GM adjudicates. Depending on the fiction, that can be very demanding. Or not. The tradition is usually to put all of the effort on the GM's shoulders, but that's not required.

3. You seem to assume that your method of running games (I'd be interested in seeing you lay this method out in actual concrete terms as opposed to just countering individual points) will be easier for a GM when in fact there seem to be hints that it probably won't be... or at least only for specific DM's. As an example your method seems to rely on alot of improv, but that's a skill not all new DM's may be good at or even have (again why I'd like to see this "easy" method laid out in concrete format).

Oh, no, I work very hard for my D&D games. I work that hard because that's the expectation of my table and because, usually, I enjoy it. But, I recognize that that's my choice, not a requirement of running a D&D game. And, when I GM Blades in the Dark, I show up at the table with no prep, I wait for the players to start driving the action, and I react to each thing individually, building up the game by pieces. It's super easy, and my players end up doing as much work as I do. So, no, the difficulting in GMing is largely due to choice and the traditions and expectations built up around the games played rather than an actual, required, difficulty increase.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nonsense.

Birdwatching is hard because I get stiff sitting in one position for long periods and am colour blind making species identification difficult.

Knitting is hard because my manual dexterity isn't the best and despite repeated coaching I am incapable of achieving a good pearl.

Could I pursue either or both? I guess, but they are too hard compared to the personal reward.

Choice, then, not innate difficulty.

 

[Nagol]

Choice, then, not innate difficulty.

Um, I've tried both. I stopped because they're hard. Did I stop because I chose to? Yes. Was it because they're hard? Yes.

Did legislation pass preventing people from choosing not to pursue activities they deem hard? I must have missed that.

 

[Maxperson]

Why not? If they're having fun, this is fine. If they aren't having fun, that's a completely different question from how hard GMing is. Again, this goes to the accretion of expectation and tradition built up in certain segments of the hobby rather than an actual evaluation of how hard it is to run a game of D&D. Sure, it can be very hard to live up to this table's expectations, but that's that table, not GMing.

You are going to be far more likely to be having fun with a good DM(very likely) than with a minimum quality DM(unlikely). You just need to be able to put in monsters to fight and treasure to get, and know the rules to combat. As long as you supply a way to level up, the game doesn't break and you are DMing. Roleplaying NPCs and such doesn't actually need to be in a game.

The minimum it takes to run a game results in a rather crappy game.

 

[macd21]

So, then, you agree GMing isn't that hard and having a nentor is just helping, like with anything else? Like, say, being a player?

We're into a place where there's simultaneously an argument that GMing is hard to kearn on your own and that it's not hard enough to really need a mentor.

Either it's easy enough to pick up from the rules ir it isn't. Which are you staking, here?

It’s hard to learn on your own, but you don’t require a mentor to do it. Hell, it’s hard to do it with a mentor. But that doesn’t constitute gatekeeping. Something being hard isn’t gatekeeping.

 

[Ovinomancer]

OK here's a very specific case that is true in any game I've seen that has a GM:
Adjudication of an action and consequence is harder than declaring that action.

Is it? Am I, as GM, taking a risk to my character? Am I, as GM, weighing all the option available and trying to meet my character's goals alongside my goals as player? Do I not need, as player, to have a fair grasp of probabilities to determine the riskiness of my action declaration?

As GM, to adjudicate, I have to determine if the outcome is in questions. That's not hard, I could, according to the DMG, default to 'yes.' Then I ask for a check. Again, according to the DMG, I should be asking for an ability check, so I only have 6 options. The player should be suggesting a proficiency, if one applies, so that's a pretty easy yes or no. I set a check -- the DMG again recommends that almost all checks be 10 (easy), 15 (moderate), or 20 (hard), and that's according to the fiction, so should be easy to pick if the thing attempted is easy, moderate, or hard. Then the player has to role, the mechanics tell me if it's a success. I narrate the oucome according to the dice. The hard part of this might be the part where I decide how I narrate a failure -- fail forward, success with complication, or no progress.

This conjecture only applies if you really think the players do not care about what's going on and not declaring actions with full intent. IE, that the situation is one where the action declaration is trivial for the player but complicated for the GM, and I really can't come up with a non-ridiculous example of this.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It’s hard to learn on your own, but you don’t require a mentor to do it. Hell, it’s hard to do it with a mentor. But that doesn’t constitute gatekeeping. Something being hard isn’t gatekeeping.

But, it's not hard. That's the gatekeeping. It's not harder than playing, really, as you need to know the same general things to do both: how the mechanics work and the idea of a shared fictional space.

 

[macd21]

Then I think I’ve proved my point.

Now I can get behind the idea that the DM is typically the most important - just not always so.

Not really, no. In the example where the player ‘does more in session’ than the DM, the DM is still more important - it’s just that it’s possible the player would make a better DM.