Is the DM the most important person at the table

[pemerton]

The GM still needs to plot out the campaign and individual scenarios

That was really my point. In Classic Traveller the referee doesn't need to do these things.

I started my campaign with a few NPCs and worlds rolled up. I rolled up the starting world after the players had rolled their PCs. We worked together to come up with some backstory that explained - in light of their "lifepaths" revealed by the PC gen process - what they were doing on the world. One of the players suggested that the world itself was a gas giant moon.

I then rolled a random patron on the patron encounter table, and connected her to a couple of PC backstories. And we went from there. (Eg I established some more backstory for the mission she gave them when one of the PCs - the ex-diplomat - seduced her (good reaction roll modified by Liasion) and then succeeded on an Interrogation roll.)

Classic Traveller supports this sort of thing well because it has so many systems for content generation, and has a lot of default elements that suggest interesting situations (starships, strange worlds, etc).

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

My own view is that more important than this - which reminds me very much of PbtA - is robust conflict resolution. That's not to say anything against the PbtA approach, but the reason I rate conflict reolution as more important is because this is what creates the impetus to action - situations arise and are resolved one way or the other, with new situations emerging out of them; there's not the "stalling at the locked door" that you rightly identify as a possible roadblock. And Classic Traveller, at least, supports "fail forward" pretty well and even has it built into some of its resolution frameworks, like working with vacc suits and travelling between worlds.

(As I've posted more than once in the past couple of years, the exception to this in CT is the syste for onworld exploration. It has some reasonable internal components, like rules for vehicle breakdowns and repairs, and for animal encounters and natural phenomena. But it has no overarching system for resolution beyond we get there when the referee says we get there. It's not a coincidence that my current campaign has featured only one episode of onwolrd epxloration, namely, the one where I realised that the system was weak.)

5e D&D has far more mechanical moving parts that CT, and so while your explanation of how it can be done "no myth" and "fail forward" seems compelling to me, I can see how some D&D players/GMs might find the prospect challenging. That's why I especially called out Traveller from the list of games in @McGibster's earlier post.

It's a rare GM who can consistently run decent games without preparing for them.

It's generally obvious to me when the GM hasn't made any preparations for the game

It was no secret to my players that I was rolling up a starting world, rolling a patron, etc. We were all there talking through the process.

When I've run Cthulhu Dark we've likewise played no prep, no myth. The first time I had reviewed an old CoC scenario, The Vanishing Conjuror, but it was pretty weak and I think the scenario we came up with (involving a freighter carrying a shoggoth in its hold from Scotland to Boston for reasons that never emerged in play, and then trying to take it on to Newfoundland but sinking after being driven onto rocks by a tug under the command of a PC) was just as compelling. And required no prep other than me printing out a copy of the Cthulhu Dark rules (two sides of A4) before we played.

Our Prince Valiant campaign started with no prep - once the players had generated PCs, I chose what looked like an easy starting scenario from the Episodes Book. Since then it has never involved prep beyond me reviewing some Episodes to work out which would be fun to run.

Although different people take different approaches to this, as a GM I do like to know the rules of the system - especially if I'm the one introducing it to the group (as was the case for Prince Valiant, Classic Traveller, and our Dying Earth oneshot). But that's different from a constant burden of prep.

I tend to agree with @Ovinomancer that running without story prep is not as hard as is often suggested. To a significant extent it's attitudinal - about being comfortable relinquishing control over the direction of the fiction.

 

[The Green Hermit]

It is a tangent, but it answered a specific point that was brought up. How much work a DM does could infer importance, depending upon your definition.

 

[Fenris-77]

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 definition of 'duties' is what's at issue. You obviously have one specific idea what that is, but other people have very different ideas. The fact that someone else has a different idea there doesn't mean they're 'joking around' either. It is, in fact, very possible for an example of DMing that's different from your's to be perfectly legitimate and useful without that invalidating your personal idea of what DMing means.

You can shift back to numbers argument as often as you like too, it doesn't get any better or more useful. NOt a shot at you, but I'd that one asked and answered at this point.

 

[MGibster]

I think we just have different ideas on how to best run games. Which is fine. I think we've answered the question presented in the OP as best we could have expected. I'm gonna go ahead and bow out of the discussion now.

 

[Nagol]

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.

It's hard enough I've seen GMs step down from the role to play in essentially the same style of game because they couldn't maintain their current situation whether that's because of physical infirmary, emotional turmoil, or overwork. They stepped down to player because it was easier than continuing to run. In some cases, they returned to GM when their personal situations changed. Other times, they happily remained players even when the direct causes had been dealt with because they found it more fulfilling and easier. I have never had a player say "Playing is too hard right now. How about I GM instead?"

When I prep for 1e, I know I'm going to spending a fair amount of time pre-game mapping, establishing foreshadow clues, and placing items, clues, treasure, and creatures.

When I prep for a Champions campaign, I know I have more up-front world development than 1e, and probably just as much pre-game prep -- it is just moved to relationships, NPC involvement, PC highlighting, and antagonist development.

I have little to none of that when I run Dungeonworld or FATE. But I find running Dungeonworld or FATE hard compared to the first two games.

The adjudication is a lot tougher because I have entirely different considerations: narrative flow, framing constant action, establishing and maintaining pressure without being overwhelming, not pigeon-holing the group or leading it to my desired outcome, off the cuff presentation of interesting situations full of levers for the players to use, and reading the audience are tougher than the disinterested adjudication I need to pursue in 1e or the PC focused reveals and relationship highlights performed in Champions. I find the extra control I need to take over scene framing and consequence assignment much more draining.

Part of that is inexperience: I've only run a dozen of so Dungeonworld and FATE games compared to the decades of experience I have in 1e and Champions. Part of it is personality: I prefer the roles of designer, adjudicator, and audience to being the group foil and scene framer.

Now, as I continue to run Dungeonworld and FATE, will it get easier? Almost certainly. But that's because it is hard right now.

 

[Nagol]

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.

I tend to agree, GMs are more important because if you want to put a new table together, one of the first questions needs to be "Who's running?" thus the first person you need to recruit is a GM. If you put together a group of players none of which want to GM then you still don't have a table.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I tend to agree, GMs are more important because if you want to put a new table together, one of the first questions needs to be "Who's running?" thus the first person you need to recruit is a GM. If you put together a group of players none of which want to GM then you still don't have a table.

I find that asking 'who's going to play' is really the first question.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

You couldn't play, or you chose not to?

 

[Ovinomancer]

That was really my point. In Classic Traveller the referee doesn't need to do these things.

I started my campaign with a few NPCs and worlds rolled up. I rolled up the starting world after the players had rolled their PCs. We worked together to come up with some backstory that explained - in light of their "lifepaths" revealed by the PC gen process - what they were doing on the world. One of the players suggested that the world itself was a gas giant moon.

I then rolled a random patron on the patron encounter table, and connected her to a couple of PC backstories. And we went from there. (Eg I established some more backstory for the mission she gave them when one of the PCs - the ex-diplomat - seduced her (good reaction roll modified by Liasion) and then succeeded on an Interrogation roll.)

Classic Traveller supports this sort of thing well because it has so many systems for content generation, and has a lot of default elements that suggest interesting situations (starships, strange worlds, etc).

My own view is that more important than this - which reminds me very much of PbtA - is robust conflict resolution. That's not to say anything against the PbtA approach, but the reason I rate conflict reolution as more important is because this is what creates the impetus to action - situations arise and are resolved one way or the other, with new situations emerging out of them; there's not the "stalling at the locked door" that you rightly identify as a possible roadblock. And Classic Traveller, at least, supports "fail forward" pretty well and even has it built into some of its resolution frameworks, like working with vacc suits and travelling between worlds.

(As I've posted more than once in the past couple of years, the exception to this in CT is the syste for onworld exploration. It has some reasonable internal components, like rules for vehicle breakdowns and repairs, and for animal encounters and natural phenomena. But it has no overarching system for resolution beyond we get there when the referee says we get there. It's not a coincidence that my current campaign has featured only one episode of onwolrd epxloration, namely, the one where I realised that the system was weak.)

5e D&D has far more mechanical moving parts that CT, and so while your explanation of how it can be done "no myth" and "fail forward" seems compelling to me, I can see how some D&D players/GMs might find the prospect challenging. That's why I especially called out Traveller from the list of games in @McGibster's earlier post.


It was no secret to my players that I was rolling up a starting world, rolling a patron, etc. We were all there talking through the process.

When I've run Cthulhu Dark we've likewise played no prep, no myth. The first time I had reviewed an old CoC scenario, The Vanishing Conjuror, but it was pretty weak and I think the scenario we came up with (involving a freighter carrying a shoggoth in its hold from Scotland to Boston for reasons that never emerged in play, and then trying to take it on to Newfoundland but sinking after being driven onto rocks by a tug under the command of a PC) was just as compelling. And required no prep other than me printing out a copy of the Cthulhu Dark rules (two sides of A4) before we played.

Our Prince Valiant campaign started with no prep - once the players had generated PCs, I chose what looked like an easy starting scenario from the Episodes Book. Since then it has never involved prep beyond me reviewing some Episodes to work out which would be fun to run.

Although different people take different approaches to this, as a GM I do like to know the rules of the system - especially if I'm the one introducing it to the group (as was the case for Prince Valiant, Classic Traveller, and our Dying Earth oneshot). But that's different from a constant burden of prep.

I tend to agree with @Ovinomancer that running without story prep is not as hard as is often suggested. To a significant extent it's attitudinal - about being comfortable relinquishing control over the direction of the fiction.

Yup. And, letting go of a long held tradition is hard. It's a big mental shift to go from decades of D&D to realizing that you don't have to. Other games can help this, but I see lots of people bounce off of other games because they don't make the shift. And, that's okay. Took me a good few tries before it clicked, and, honestly, I think a lot of that was due to arguing around here, at least a reasonable chunk of which was against you. It appears we still disagree on some things, which is good, but at least I understand where you're coming from whereas before I really didn't.

Oh, is this one of those things that never happens when discussing theory or on message boards? Someone says, "hey, you helped change my mind!" Should we tag @Umbran?

 

[Hussar]

/snip
@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. /snip

Ahh, it's good to know that I'm not the only one with this disease. There are just SO many beautiful maps out there. I MUST collect them all. Save them all. USE them all.... ahem. Never mind. Nothing to see here.

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.

Well, you would take on that burden in order that DMing is no longer so much of a burden on a single person. I would have thought that was obvious. Trad games, like D&D, tend to have everything done by the DM up front - you pick the setting, the campaign, etc. Other games, like Fate, for example, create the campaign and the setting (for the large part) as part of character generation.

To put it another way, it would be very difficult to have an Adventure Path for Fate. It just wouldn't work. In Trad games, you start with the adventure/campaign and the players are expected to create characters that fit that campaign. In other games, it's reversed. The characters come first and the campaign is developed FROM those characters. Meaning that the workload is spread out pretty broadly amongst the group, instead of all resting on one person.

So, yeah, that's why you, as a player, as a good player, should ALWAYS be looking at ways to take the burden off the DM. Because, the best group is the one where everyone is proactive, creating the campaign together, rather than as passive consumers, sitting back while the DM shoulders nearly all the workload and only reacting when the DM rolls up the plot wagon.

My advice is to be a good player.