Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Choices. You can run 5e pretty darned easily, but that requires a lot more from the players than "move into the GM built house." Similarlu, you can do a lot of work. You choose. If your starting point is "I want all these things due to GM prep" then, sure, you're going to see a lot more work on the GM side of the screen. If you don't start there, you'll see something different. The cire point being: don't confuse your choices for necessity.

When I run 5e, both my players and I enjoy heavy tactical play. That rewuires a bit more prep because you need a map and more tightly balanced encounters. My experience makes the latter easy (especially with a tool like KFC), but I really like detailed maps. That's on me, and 80%+ of my prep is maps.
Part of tge issue here is low exoectations of players, or that it's assumed the GM must compensate for low energy playerd. Again, choice. You can expect players to biild strong hooks into their characters and/or lean into the fiction rather than away. This makes GMing sooo very much easier.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I can offer a bit of an example for this, I think. I’ve just prepped for my 5E game tomorrow night. This is an ongoing campaign, the PCs are level 13, and the setting is the greater D&D multiverse. In this case, they’re in the City of Sigil, and specifically headed toward an asylum called Harbinger House, which is in the Lower Ward of the city. The reason they’re going there is that they are looking for people who have information they need, and one of those people, they’ve learned, is in the asylum. We left off our last session with them arriving at Harbinger House.

So my prep for this coming session consists of a handful of bullet points. I’ve listed a few relevant NPCs- a short blurb on how they behave and how they appear. I’ll embellish these during play. A couple need stat blocks, so I’ve made note of which ones to use and page numbers. Indexing the stat blocks was probably the most time intensive element of my prep.

I’ve made a short list of details about the location itself....the look and feel of the place, and different rooms or subsections. I haven’t mapled it out in detail. There’s also an important artifact that keeps those within the asylum from running rampant, so I’ve noted that here.

There’s a situation going on there that I’ve thought up, and I’ve created a list if clues to mention that help indicate to the PCs that something’s not right here.

Finally, I’ve bullet pointed the situation currently going on in Harbinger House. Just what’s going on, why, what it means, and how to stop it.

Most of what I expect to go on in the session is in my head. What I’ve written down is essentially 4 lists of bullet points, each with a header. It all fits on one page. I’ve probably spent about a twenty minutes to a half hour typing it all out and organizing my thoughts.

My lists help me present everything. Exactly what the PCs will do and how things will go during play is entirely up to them. There’s no one way for them to engage this scenario. Anything that comes up in play that’s not in my notes will either be something I can make up on the spot (what are the doors made of? Iron!) or that I can base on the results of a check (what do I hear down the corridor? Make a Perception check!)

I expect that Harbinger House will take up the bulk, if not all, of our session. If it doesn’t, then I have a very loose idea of what may happen next, but that will largely depend on what the players do. If they come up with some clever way to navigate the danger of Harbinger House and get the information they need quickly, then that’s awesome! I’ll wing it based on what they’ve done. I’ll feel less like my prep is wasted if I don’t spend tons of time on it.

I’m sure the above may be quite different from what @Ovinomancer has in mind. But different things work for different folks, and that’s good.

 

[Nagol]

I can offer a bit of an example for this, I think. I’ve just prepped for my 5E game tomorrow night. This is an ongoing campaign, the PCs are level 13, and the setting is the greater D&D multiverse. In this case, they’re in the City of Sigil, and specifically headed toward an asylum called Harbinger House, which is in the Lower Ward of the city. The reason they’re going there is that they are looking for people who have information they need, and one of those people, they’ve learned, is in the asylum. We left off our last session with them arriving at Harbinger House.

So my prep for this coming session consists of a handful of bullet points. I’ve listed a few relevant NPCs- a short blurb on how they behave and how they appear. I’ll embellish these during play. A couple need stat blocks, so I’ve made note of which ones to use and page numbers. Indexing the stat blocks was probably the most time intensive element of my prep.

I’ve made a short list of details about the location itself....the look and feel of the place, and different rooms or subsections. I haven’t mapled it out in detail. There’s also an important artifact that keeps those within the asylum from running rampant, so I’ve noted that here.

There’s a situation going on there that I’ve thought up, and I’ve created a list if clues to mention that help indicate to the PCs that something’s not right here.

Finally, I’ve bullet pointed the situation currently going on in Harbinger House. Just what’s going on, why, what it means, and how to stop it.

Most of what I expect to go on in the session is in my head. What I’ve written down is essentially 4 lists of bullet points, each with a header. It all fits on one page. I’ve probably spent about a twenty minutes to a half hour typing it all out and organizing my thoughts.

My lists help me present everything. Exactly what the PCs will do and how things will go during play is entirely up to them. There’s no one way for them to engage this scenario. Anything that comes up in play that’s not in my notes will either be something I can make up on the spot (what are the doors made of? Iron!) or that I can base on the results of a check (what do I hear down the corridor? Make a Perception check!)

I expect that Harbinger House will take up the bulk, if not all, of our session. If it doesn’t, then I have a very loose idea of what may happen next, but that will largely depend on what the players do. If they come up with some clever way to navigate the danger of Harbinger House and get the information they need quickly, then that’s awesome! I’ll wing it based on what they’ve done. I’ll feel less like my prep is wasted if I don’t spend tons of time on it.

I’m sure the above may be quite different from what @Ovinomancer has in mind. But different things work for different folks, and that’s good.

… which is still more than is required of players. As is the amount of scene framing and adjudication the actual session will require.


I am amused by some of the arguments that seem to be "See! It doesn't require more than player! I only do this and this and this using learned techniques players aren't exposed to! But this doesn't really count as more work because I find it easy now that I have multiple years of experience!"

 

[Hussar]

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?

To be fair, in order for the DM to do less work, the players need to step up and take some of the burden. If you have D&D trained players where they are more or less expected by everything published by the game to sit back and passively lap up whatever the DM doles out from the plot wagon, then, yup, the DM's going to have to shoulder much of the burden. It's like @MGibster said - he can "tell" when the DM hasn't prepped. Why can he tell? Probably because his group isn't pro-active enough to take the burden of preparation away from the DM.

Which is why people point to non-D&D games here. Many of the non-D&D games, particularly the indie ones, tend to shift the GMing responsibilities away from any single person at the table. D&D, and other very traditional games, don't. Look at the advice for D&D, stretching back to the first issue of The Strategic Review and you'll see pages and pages and more pages of how the DM creates the adventure, campaign, world, etc. Virtually no advice on how to get the players to be more pro-active and take more responsibility for what happens at the table. Where's the section in the Player's Handbook that tells the players, "Hey, this is YOUR game too. Which means, with great power comes great responsibility. Get off your ass and contribute more than just reacting to the DM." Even things like Backgrounds and whatnot are a tacked on afterthought - a couple of pages AFTER you buy your sword.

In a more player driven game, Backgrounds, Themes, and that sort of thing should be the FIRST thing you develop for your character, not the last.

 

[hawkeyefan]

… which is still more than is required of players. As is the amount of scene framing and adjudication the actual session will require.


I am amused by some of the arguments that seem to be "See! It doesn't require more than player! I only do this and this and this using learned techniques players aren't exposed to! But this doesn't really count as more work because I find it easy now that I have multiple years of experience!"

I didn’t say it was less than what a player does. I said it was less than what many are saying is “necessary.”

None of it is all that hard, either. I haven’t said that GMing is easier than playing. I’ve said that it doesn’t need to be considerably harder.

Nothing other than my knowledge of the setting came from years of experience. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that not taking anything for granted...nothing as a given....was the best lesson I learned as far as GMing goes. I had to unlearn a lot of things that I simply accepted as truth. GMing doesn’t have to be any specific thing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

… which is still more than is required of players. As is the amount of scene framing and adjudication the actual session will require.


I am amused by some of the arguments that seem to be "See! It doesn't require more than player! I only do this and this and this using learned techniques players aren't exposed to! But this doesn't really count as more work because I find it easy now that I have multiple years of experience!"

And, I'm amused by the shifting goalposts -- important -> harder -> does more -- and the counting of things a DM does that a player doesn't as proof of "more". Or is it "harder?"

But, anyway, @hawkeyefan clearly presented how you can do much less than many have claimed and still run a D&D game, and what he lists isn't exactly hard work, either. What he does is still more than the minimum necessary, which is definitely his choice because he enjoys that level of work.

@hawkeyefan -- I do less on the lists and way way more on the maps. My campaign prep for the last three sessions has been the same 10 minutes of jotting down some notes in Onenote, much like your bulleted lists. And, about 2 hours of selecting and populating some maps. We, too, are in Sigil, although my campaign started and centers there. Our trip to the Asylum was a hoot as well, built off of three bullet points and mostly following the play. Ended up with the PCs agreeing to smuggle in some "contraband" in return for some information and then the smuggling effort. All based off of three bullet points that said, essentially, this guy used to work for the person the players are looking for, he's kinda dim, and he really, really wants a signed autograph from his favorite neighborhood pit fighter, who happened to be another PC (and was the "contraband" smuggled in later).

 

[MGibster]

It's like @MGibster said - he can "tell" when the DM hasn't prepped. Why can he tell? Probably because his group isn't pro-active enough to take the burden of preparation away from the DM.

Why would any of us take on that burden? That's not how we roll. I may be the primary DM in my group but when someone else takes the reins they're not joking around. They take on all the duties associated with being the DM.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Why would any of us take on that burden? That's not how we roll. I may be the primary DM in my group but when someone else takes the reins they're not joking around. They take on all the duties associated with being the DM.

I agree for the most part. However, by having people keep track of stuff like note-taking and hit points during a battle, it can help the game run more smoothly.

 

[MGibster]

Even when my group played Apocalypse World, when the GM couldn't make it to the game we couldn't play. When a player couldn't make it we were able to continue playing just fine.

 

[MGibster]

I agree for the most part. However, by having people keep track of stuff like note-taking and hit points during a battle, it can help the game run more smoothly.

I suppose that's true. But what does that have to do with whether or not the DM is the most important person at the table? This thread as really gone off on an odd tangent in regards to the difficulty of running games. Personally, I don't think the ease or difficulty at running a game is what makes the DM more or less important.