Is the DM the most important person at the table

[MGibster]

I've GMed quite a bit of Classic Traveller over the past two-to-three years.

I GMed it back in the day and I didn't find the burden to be more or less than it was for other games. I still had to come up with a campaign, outline adventures, create NPCs, etc., etc.

A referee needs to roll up a few NPCs and worlds, true, but that is pretty quick. Designing starships takes more time but the system comes with a number of prewritten designs (analogous to a D&D MM) that are good enough to work with.

That's the easy stuff. The GM still needs to plot out the campaign and individual scenarios, come up with NPCs, and during game play they need to adapt whatever he's planned to what the PCs choose to do, roleplay the NPCs, and serve as arbitrator. Even when running a prewritten scenario, the GM must prepare by actually reading it and understanding everything. It's a rare GM who can consistently run decent games without preparing for them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I GMed it back in the day and I didn't find the burden to be more or less than it was for other games. I still had to come up with a campaign, outline adventures, create NPCs, etc., etc.



That's the easy stuff. The GM still needs to plot out the campaign and individual scenarios, come up with NPCs, and during game play they need to adapt whatever he's planned to what the PCs choose to do, roleplay the NPCs, and serve as arbitrator. Even when running a prewritten scenario, the GM must prepare by actually reading it and understanding everything. It's a rare GM who can consistently run decent games without preparing for them.

You don't have to do any of that, though. You can run in the moment and let the play direct the game. And, this isn't as hard as it's made out to be, nor does it generate less deep play. It's only hard if you bring pre-writing assumptions with you. If you keep everything not already established in play as fluid, and only generate what's needed to continue the direction of play, then the 'making it up on the fly' is actually pretty tightly constrained and follows naturally from the events in play.

Now, games that don't give the GM levers make it harder. By this, I mean games that present pass/fail checks without grades of success or failure (or both at the same time) make following the fiction a tad harder, but that can be addressed by moving the point of focus. What I mean by this is that games, like 5e for instance, that do pass fail also tend to have a focus on the immediate action. The game generates obstacles like a locked door who's resolution is to unlock the door via a skill check, and that's either passed or failed. If passed, you move to the next atomic obstacle and repeat. If failed, you repeat the check or do another check, or abandon the obstacle, but that obstacle is the focus. This is enormously hard to ad lib, because it feels, on the GM side, like arbitrary roadblocks with no where to go if you faceplant a few checks -- you have to ad lib a brand new direction after you just did that for this one! Yikes, scary, hard, not rewarding. But, this is how you build these games from prep, where you have the time to consider other routes. You can't do this when running in the moment. You have to change focus to the bigger objective. In this example, the objective may be to get into the castle. You then just have to present a number of obstacles to this -- maybe 3 or 4 -- of which a locked door could be one. Then, on a success, you advance, on a failure, you add a complication. You don't need to have guard routes pre-planned or look at your notes, a failed lockpicking results in a guard patrol (or other thing, whatever fits). By putting the mechanics to work, you don't have to make everything up, or ad lib a complete castle, you just need to to the parts that are needed when they are needed. It's far easier than assumed, if you actually let go of all of the assumptions of prep and the idea that you, as GM, have to present a world that is previously defined for the players to interact with.

Now, if you use maps and minis, this does get harder. 5e isn't super easy to have the tactical wargame part mix in with ad libbing. You have to make choices, which goes to my larger point that most of the 'hard' work of 'harder than the players' work in D&D is a choice. You don't have to work that hard to run D&D. You choose to.

 

[MGibster]

You don't have to do any of that, though. You can run in the moment and let the play direct the game. And, this isn't as hard as it's made out to be, nor does it generate less deep play. It's only hard if you bring pre-writing assumptions with you.

I disagree. It's generally obvious to me when the GM hasn't made any preparations for the game and that's especially true for those who I've been gaming with for a while. I accept that your experience has been different from mine, but I still believe a GM needs to do more preparation for a game than a player.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I disagree. It's generally obvious to me when the GM hasn't made any preparations for the game and that's especially true for those who I've been gaming with for a while. I accept that your experience has been different from mine, but I still believe a GM needs to do more preparation for a game than a player.

Yup, if you bring that with you, it'll be impossible. Choices.

 

[GameOgre]

Of course there is a burden on DM's that the players don't have to worry about. While DM's hopefully find that burden worthwhile and perhaps even fun, it's still a burden. Anything else is poppycock in a game even slightly similar to D&D.

It equates to a carpenter spending days framing out a house and finishing it and then making furniture while a friend just waits for the call that it is all done. Then driving out and spending the night in the house.

The Carpenter has more burden. Now hopefully he found it worthwhile and fun and a good time was had by both but only one had to put the time and effort into it.

Now there are some games out there that are different and don't require a lot of time spent doing prep. Even those games however still have some prep to be very good.

I dunno why it is on the internet people will argue anything.

 

[Sadras]

Probably not enough advice has been given in the DMG about this, but I generally find that if, using the rather crude example by Ovinomancer, the plot requires a specific door to be opened and no other easy/immediate options are readily available or known, the check would generally succeed but at a cost.
So you open the door, but the lockpicks break or as you open the door it sets off a trap or the opening of the scrapes against the floor creating much noise initiating a wandering encounter...etc

Again this was a rather crude example and I'm not saying hard no's should not exist...

EDIT: I feel this somewhat relates to Manbearcat defining one of the roles of the DM as an entertainer.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Of course there is a burden on DM's that the players don't have to worry about. While DM's hopefully find that burden worthwhile and perhaps even fun, it's still a burden. Anything else is poppycock in a game even slightly similar to D&D.

It equates to a carpenter spending days framing out a house and finishing it and then making furniture while a friend just waits for the call that it is all done. Then driving out and spending the night in the house.

The Carpenter has more burden. Now hopefully he found it worthwhile and fun and a good time was had by both but only one had to put the time and effort into it.

Now there are some games out there that are different and don't require a lot of time spent doing prep. Even those games however still have some prep to be very good.

I dunno why it is on the internet people will argue anything.

Perhaps it’s due to the degree of the difference stated?

I wouldn’t say that the difference in workload between DM and player is that of a carpenter who builds a house and also all the furniture and a friend who just shows up to sleep at the house.

This implies a huge difference in the workload that simply isn’t necessary.

 

[Imaro]

You don't have to do any of that, though. You can run in the moment and let the play direct the game. And, this isn't as hard as it's made out to be, nor does it generate less deep play. It's only hard if you bring pre-writing assumptions with you. If you keep everything not already established in play as fluid, and only generate what's needed to continue the direction of play, then the 'making it up on the fly' is actually pretty tightly constrained and follows naturally from the events in play.

Now, games that don't give the GM levers make it harder. By this, I mean games that present pass/fail checks without grades of success or failure (or both at the same time) make following the fiction a tad harder, but that can be addressed by moving the point of focus. What I mean by this is that games, like 5e for instance, that do pass fail also tend to have a focus on the immediate action. The game generates obstacles like a locked door who's resolution is to unlock the door via a skill check, and that's either passed or failed. If passed, you move to the next atomic obstacle and repeat. If failed, you repeat the check or do another check, or abandon the obstacle, but that obstacle is the focus. This is enormously hard to ad lib, because it feels, on the GM side, like arbitrary roadblocks with no where to go if you faceplant a few checks -- you have to ad lib a brand new direction after you just did that for this one! Yikes, scary, hard, not rewarding. But, this is how you build these games from prep, where you have the time to consider other routes. You can't do this when running in the moment. You have to change focus to the bigger objective. In this example, the objective may be to get into the castle. You then just have to present a number of obstacles to this -- maybe 3 or 4 -- of which a locked door could be one. Then, on a success, you advance, on a failure, you add a complication. You don't need to have guard routes pre-planned or look at your notes, a failed lockpicking results in a guard patrol (or other thing, whatever fits). By putting the mechanics to work, you don't have to make everything up, or ad lib a complete castle, you just need to to the parts that are needed when they are needed. It's far easier than assumed, if you actually let go of all of the assumptions of prep and the idea that you, as GM, have to present a world that is previously defined for the players to interact with.

Now, if you use maps and minis, this does get harder. 5e isn't super easy to have the tactical wargame part mix in with ad libbing. You have to make choices, which goes to my larger point that most of the 'hard' work of 'harder than the players' work in D&D is a choice. You don't have to work that hard to run D&D. You choose to.

Again this feels like the answer is don't play D&D, play something else with the trappings of D&D layered on it... is that really the answer to making D&D easier to DM or is that GM'ing a different game? DungeonWorld I believe does much of what you are suggesting above but when running it (and arguably playing it) it isn't the same as running or playing a game of D&D... or do you disagree?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Again this feels like the answer is don't play D&D, play something else with the trappings of D&D layered on it... is that really the answer to making D&D easier to DM or is that GM'ing a different game? DungeonWorld I believe does much of what you are suggesting above but when running it (and arguably playing it) it isn't the same as running or playing a game of D&D... or do you disagree?

I run 5e, pretty much straight from the book. So, no, that's not what it means.

 

[Imaro]

I run 5e, pretty much straight from the book. So, no, that's not what it means.

But you admit in your own post that it makes some things harder than they would normally be running 5e in a traditional manner... like the miniature combat example you gave... right?

EDIT: As well as utilizing the binary nature of 5e's skill checks... these feel like playstyle choices that affect how a game is played and run.

EDIT2: I guess I would love to see some suggestions on how one can stick to the expected playstyle of D&D or most traditional games that work like it and still make prep easier. Perhaps something like prep major and add details in the moment... That seems like it might make prep easier without assumptions/playstyle/rules changes.