Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Fenris-77]

So go ahead. Give us some advice on this subject grounded in D&D 5E.How should the players be equally responsible? In what way? I just spent four hours making my groups next adventure. How do I get each player to put in there four hours?What do they spend that time doing? How does a player become equally responsible?

I'm going to gloss over the salt in your post and toss off a couple of ideas. In the Dresden RPG, building the city that will be the primary setting for the game is done collaboratively. All the players and the GM take on some sections of the city and building some of the fiction fiction about how they work, who the important people are, and how it connects to the rest of the setting. This allows players to build specific foes or concepts into the setting that they're interested in, and also allows for a better level of area knowledge and also more investment in the setting from the players. The GM takes that initial work and sands off the rough edges. It's awesome for a sandbox urban setting.

An artifact of current RPG design that appears in 5e and mostly doesn't get used, or used to great effect, is the Inspiration mechanic. Mostly because it's a crap mechanic really, but also because it feels bolted on and not terribly useful. However, what it is the most like is some of the mechanics from games like FATE that are designed to leverage the characters' motivations and goals to drive the engine of the fiction. If you buff those rules up, and leverage them harder, both during character creation and in-game, the result at the table is something closer to FATE if you get player buy-in, which is more character driven decision making and pulling player agency to the front of the game, which is useful is a million different ways. To speak directly to your question the increase in character agency tends to mean the characters are more focused on actual goals of their own rather than just following the trail of breadcrumbs left by the DM. This can take the narrative off on lots of different interesting paths where the DM can just let the character decision making drive what happens next.

Exactly what that above idea looks like at an individual table will depend on your goals for the campaign. You can use more or less FATE (or whatever) depending on how much sandbox you want. The stronger the characters the cooler sandbox games tend to be. What D&D lacks is any real motivation for the player to build a really strong character with a well defined set of goals and motivations. Other RPGS have some great tools to make that better.

 

[Nagol]

I'm going to gloss over the salt in your post and toss off a couple of ideas. In the Dresden RPG, building the city that will be the primary setting for the game is done collaboratively. All the players and the GM take on some sections of the city and building some of the fiction fiction about how they work, who the important people are, and how it connects to the rest of the setting. This allows players to build specific foes or concepts into the setting that they're interested in, and also allows for a better level of area knowledge and also more investment in the setting from the players. The GM takes that initial work and sands off the rough edges. It's awesome for a sandbox urban setting.

An artifact of current RPG design that appears in 5e and mostly doesn't get used, or used to great effect, is the Inspiration mechanic. Mostly because it's a crap mechanic really, but also because it feels bolted on and not terribly useful. However, what it is the most like is some of the mechanics from games like FATE that are designed to leverage the characters' motivations and goals to drive the engine of the fiction. If you buff those rules up, and leverage them harder, both during character creation and in-game, the result at the table is something closer to FATE if you get player buy-in, which is more character driven decision making and pulling player agency to the front of the game, which is useful is a million different ways. To speak directly to your question the increase in character agency tends to mean the characters are more focused on actual goals of their own rather than just following the trail of breadcrumbs left by the DM. This can take the narrative off on lots of different interesting paths where the DM can just let the character decision making drive what happens next.

Exactly what that above idea looks like at an individual table will depend on your goals for the campaign. You can use more or less FATE (or whatever) depending on how much sandbox you want. The stronger the characters the cooler sandbox games tend to be. What D&D lacks is any real motivation for the player to build a really strong character with a well defined set of goals and motivations. Other RPGS have some great tools to make that better.

He specifically requested ideas for a running 5e game. That some versions of FATE use collaborative world-building is pretty useless in that context. Buffing inspiration may be a worthwhile endeavour for many reasons, but it isn't going to provide a multi-hour per session outlet for every player. Nor are the players likely to want a multi-hour prep-time to play the game.

5e, like other editions of D&D has game conceits that include player exploratory play. Now you can bend, spindle, and fold the game engine to remove player exploratory play in favour of table exploratory play ("play to see what happens" a la FATE, Burning Wheel, or Dungeonworld), but the game tends not to act or feel the same (pretty much by definition).

You tend to lose site maps, pre-placed encounters, and thus any form of foreshadowing and meaningful player strategy based on discerned context, especially compared to sandbox play. AP play is easier to emulate. Which may or may not be too great a sacrifice for the table. It is for me as a player.

5e provides none of the tools found in games where that is a specific design choice. That makes it a pretty poor cousin in comparison to games where it is the normal play.

 

[prabe]

I'm going to gloss over the salt in your post and toss off a couple of ideas. In the Dresden RPG, building the city that will be the primary setting for the game is done collaboratively. All the players and the GM take on some sections of the city and building some of the fiction fiction about how they work, who the important people are, and how it connects to the rest of the setting. This allows players to build specific foes or concepts into the setting that they're interested in, and also allows for a better level of area knowledge and also more investment in the setting from the players. The GM takes that initial work and sands off the rough edges. It's awesome for a sandbox urban setting.

I tried that, when I ran Fate, and I think part of my frustration with the game was that there were players who ... didn't seem to have ideas they could articulate, and I think part of my frustration was that if/when someone other than me did have an idea they could articulate, it was something that wouldn't have been in my top fifty-ish things I would have put in a setting I was going to run--it felt kinda like a writing prompt, and I've never liked writing prompts, even when I was trying to be a writer.

An artifact of current RPG design that appears in 5e and mostly doesn't get used, or used to great effect, is the Inspiration mechanic. Mostly because it's a crap mechanic really, but also because it feels bolted on and not terribly useful. However, what it is the most like is some of the mechanics from games like FATE that are designed to leverage the characters' motivations and goals to drive the engine of the fiction. If you buff those rules up, and leverage them harder, both during character creation and in-game, the result at the table is something closer to FATE if you get player buy-in, which is more character driven decision making and pulling player agency to the front of the game, which is useful is a million different ways. To speak directly to your question the increase in character agency tends to mean the characters are more focused on actual goals of their own rather than just following the trail of breadcrumbs left by the DM. This can take the narrative off on lots of different interesting paths where the DM can just let the character decision making drive what happens next.

Yeah. Inspiration as presented in 5E is definitely garbage. I've found that if the players give me decent hooks in their backstories, I can set those in the campaign; once there have been some events, I can often tie new things to previous things. I find that to work at least as well as hitting someone's Aspects, and honestly, it seems less predictable to me.

The characters/players in my campaigns have a good deal of agency, I think. In the longer-running ampaign, there are three or four threads wafting about, and they're working on them kinda piecemeal. I think I know where they're going to go after they finish the short thread they're on now, but I could be wrong; if they go outside where I feel comfortable ad-libbing, I'll end the session so I can get some stuff prepared so I feel comfortable running it (mainly a matter of thinking stuff through so it fits, rather than fitting it together after the fact, which always feels kinda retconnish to me). Yeah, I guess one could describe my approach as kinda breadcrumby, but the crumbs go in several directions.

Exactly what that above idea looks like at an individual table will depend on your goals for the campaign. You can use more or less FATE (or whatever) depending on how much sandbox you want. The stronger the characters the cooler sandbox games tend to be. What D&D lacks is any real motivation for the player to build a really strong character with a well defined set of goals and motivations. Other RPGS have some great tools to make that better.

I think the impulse to create a character with well-defined goals and motivations comes from the player. There was a whole large other thread that at least started from about here, but there are several players (I'm one) whose experiences lead them to say something along the lines of "You can do that in just about any system." I think 5E does fine at this, if the players (and DM) want it to.

 

[Imaro]

Then that player is a garbage player who I'd rather not see in the hobby. If you're not willing to put forth the effort in order to ensure that the group has a great game, then, well, go play video games. I agree that this is the tradition way D&D has been presented. I think that it has been a massive disservice to the hobby to present it that way.

So not wanting to take on the responsibilities of a DM... and being transparent about this by choosing not to DM but instead be a player is...a garbage player. Yeah IMO...something seems off with this logic. If I choose to be a player and not run a game... I'm not sure that because I don't want to create fiction, frame scenes, build worlds, decide consequences for characters, etc... that makes me a garbage player... furthermore I think if that became the norm then there would be a lot less players in the hobby than there are now, I'd argue that rather than a disservice D&D probably came up with the best way to introduce the game to and get new people to join the hobby. Just because it doesn't line up with your preferences doesn't make it in any way objectively bad.

Tweet. Foul on the field. False dichotomy. Ten yard penalty, repeat third down. No one said "you're not doing any planning". That's a mistake in interpreting what I said. Allowing the players to take some of the burden does not mean that they take all of it.

Perhaps it would help if you specified then exactly what responsibilities you feel a player should take on in order to avoid being a garbage player...

Again, why are you relying on the DM for that? Why aren't players taking notes? We have wiki's for a reason. It's not 1976 anymore. Every player should be contributing notes (presumably if you have a note heavy game) after a session because every player should be invested in keeping the campaign running smoothly. A player that wants to passively consume D&D is far, far better served by a CRPG than any tabletop game. Pony up time. The free ride is over.

Hmmm.... I wonder how effective it would be to introduce and retain new players if I told them they were responsible for note taking and maintaining a wiki for our weekly game of imagination... I wouldn't play in a game that required that of me and since the DM is the one introducing stuff I would expect him to not only have an account of the game but (due to differences in perception, mistakes, misunderstandings,etc) have the most accurate account of what happened. In my game there are 2 players who generally take notes but even they can miss something important, misinterpret something or whatever and if that happens they turn to the GM's account to correct their own.

 

[Hussar]

So go ahead. Give us some advice on this subject grounded in D&D 5E.How should the players be equally responsible? In what way? I just spent four hours making my groups next adventure. How do I get each player to put in there four hours?What do they spend that time doing? How does a player become equally responsible?

Well, firstly, if the players are actively engaged and responsible, you shouldn't have to put in four hours of work. So, that's a bit of an issue.

But, let's take a standard dungeon crawl. I forget what it's called now, but, I did see a system where the players each contributed a section of the dungeon. As a group. you decide what the dungeon's general theme is, and then each player goes off and builds a section. The DM then takes that and makes changes. Every change the DM makes adds a d4 to a pool (IIIRC, it was 1d4 for a small change up to a 3d4 for a big one) which the players can use to add to any die roll as they proceed through the dungeon.

Poof, ten, fifteen hours of play, 1 hour of prep for the DM. Sure, each player has a pretty good idea what's in the section they designed, but, since the DM has made changes, nothing is for sure.

Now, make that prettier, dress it up with some better language, and away you go.

It's not like these ideas are alien to the hobby. They are there. They just haven't really been incorporated into D&D, mostly because of attitudes like @Imaro's below. ((See my next post for my response to @Imaro))

 

[Maxperson]

If that's confusing the issue, I'm all for an anarchy of befuddlement. I mean, really, it seems your point of contention is that my point undercuts yours by a tad in that you can't start by assuming your conclusion in your premise if you can't ignore that you have to have players to have player roles. I guess I could look the other way and let you have the argument that GMs are unique things that must exist before anything else for a game to form and then later change to a role assigned to a player in a game.

But, that kinda goes against my experience, where I've been in a group that got together to figure out what game we're going to play, and then figured out who was going to GM. Or, after my group has finished up with a game, been part of the discussion as the players discussed what's next and who's up to run it. I suppose we were wrong, and the GM came first, we just didn't notice?

I've skipped some posts, so I have to ask why any of that matters. This thread is a discussion about which person/role in the group is most important or which role in the group is the most difficult. The premise of this thread presumes the DM and players and their respective roles are already present and have been chosen.

 

[Hussar]

So not wanting to take on the responsibilities of a DM... and being transparent about this by choosing not to DM but instead be a player is...a garbage player. Yeah IMO...something seems off with this logic. If I choose to be a player and not run a game... I'm not sure that because I don't want to create fiction, decide consequences for my character, etc... that makes me a garbage player... furthermore I think if that became the norm then there would be a lot less players in the hobby than there are now, I'd argue that rather than a disservice D&D probably came up with the best way to introduce the game to and get new people to join. Now because it doesn't line up with your preferences doesn't make it in any way objectively bad.

If you don't want to contribute to the game, why are you here? If all you want to do is passively lap up whatever the DM is serving, passively sitting there, why are you playing an RPG? You can get a FAR better experience in a video game. It's objectively bad because as we see in this thread, passive players dominate the hobby and the notion of actually having to contribute more than being a warm blooded dice bot is horrific. I'm just so sick and tired of passive players who think that my function, as DM, is to provide for their entertainment.

Perhaps it would help if you specified then exactly what responsibilities you feel a player should take on in order to avoid being a garbage player...

Well, how about ANY. How about doing more than just showing up, session after session, passively consuming whatever the DM has brought that week, expecting the DM to spend 4 hours a week to provide entertainment for the group, all the while contributing nothing more than a warm seat and a waft of Cheetos.

Take notes. Keep a wiki. Track what's going on session to session. Provide material for the DM. Step up with goals, family, ties, enemies, and whatever else for the DM.

IOW, stop being a passive consumer.

Hmmm.... I wonder how effective it would be to introduce and retain new players if I told them they were responsible for note taking and maintaining a wiki for our weekly game of imagination... I wouldn't play in a game that required that of me and since the DM is the one introducing stuff I would expect him to not only have an account of the game but (due to differences in perception, mistakes, misunderstandings,etc) have the most accurate account.

Yup, and that's the problem right there. The notion that there is a "most accurate account". The expectation that the DM is the one to do all the work introducing stuff. Why aren't you introducing things? Why aren't you triggering actions? Why aren't you the one driving the action in the game? The whole point of playing an RPG is the freedom to choose. Yet, if all you want to choose is whatever the DM is placing in front of you, you're far better served playing a video game than an RPG.

You have the freedom to do virtually anything in an RPG. Yet, most players figure that it's far better to passively consume the game and expect the DM to provide everything. It's such a poison in the hobby. So much wasted effort.

Look, I'm not saying that the DM should do nothing. Of course not. That was the misinterpretation I pointed to earlier. But, I am saying that good players get off their asses and actually contribute and lift some of the work load off the DM. I have very little patience anymore for passive consumer players. They just suck all the air out of the game.

 

[Imaro]

But, let's take a standard dungeon crawl. I forget what it's called now, but, I did see a system where the players each contributed a section of the dungeon. As a group. you decide what the dungeon's general theme is, and then each player goes off and builds a section. The DM then takes that and makes changes. Every change the DM makes adds a d4 to a pool (IIIRC, it was 1d4 for a small change up to a 3d4 for a big one) which the players can use to add to any die roll as they proceed through the dungeon.

Poof, ten, fifteen hours of play, 1 hour of prep for the DM. Sure, each player has a pretty good idea what's in the section they designed, but, since the DM has made changes, nothing is for sure.

So now instead of just scheduling time for the game we need to also coordinate time to get together for prep... I still have to modify the dungeon (which I have to ask isn't this the same as pulling a dungeon of the internet an modifying it?)... with the added detriment to exploratory play that my players collectively have a pretty good idea of what's in 3/4ths of the dungeon... unless I modify heavily which in turn takes more time. Also how far does this go? Do players decide what monsters are in the dungeon? What treasures they get? Where or what traps are located there? Do they set up social encounters? And if so I now need time to familiarize myself with the things they've set up...and that's ignoring the issues around consistency that could arise.

In other words I am failing to see how this greatly diminishes the workload in an exploratory game without it again morphing into a different playstyle...

 

[jasper]

Generally the GM attempts to organise a table, hosts, invites/introduces people into the hobby, purchases the necessary RPG books, introduces new RPGs to their playgroup, is involved in some sort of prep for sessions, perhaps updates an online page about the campaign, keeps notes, attempts to build a cohesive story, keeps the momentum going by organising dates, runs the game and is the referee. Yeah, not the most important.

Feel free to provide us with your anecdotal evidence in an attempt to reflect something contrary to the use of my word Generally.

Well the General (Never mind not in the army any more. ) Note to nitpickers. If you see the own freely swap out with one or more of the following. Borrow. Steal. Access to.
As Adventure League DM
1. Organize and announce on FB my tables for the week.
2. Own the module/adventure. 2B. Have notes on the adventure due to season changes, bad writing, my piece of mind.
3. Own All books necessary to run AL PC. And carry them to game. Note. On some I just photocopied the necessary chapter and left the hardcover at home.
4. Own DM supplies. AKA DM screen. Any other supplies the dm need but player does not need.
5. AL Newcomer supplies. Extra Dice. Minis. Pregens. Handouts.
6. The ability to take input from 3+ people at the same time.
All the other stuff General Sadras mentioned can be pushed off onto other gamers. Speaking of pushing off to other gamers. I try to have one player be the monster keeper who tracks the AC and HP of monsters.
I do for my own creative outlet do post about a 3 page write up of the game. I could just post Module name. Advancement choice. Magic Items and GP.

 

[Maxperson]

If you don't want to contribute to the game, why are you here?

Players contribute to the game in many ways. YOUR way is only one of them and you are not a "crap player" if they don't play YOUR way.

If all you want to do is passively lap up whatever the DM is serving, passively sitting there, why are you playing an RPG?

Tweet! Foul on the field! False Dichotomy. 10 yard penalty. Doing things your way and equally building the dungeon or whatever, and sitting passively there are not the only two options. I can as a player not build jack, but still inform the DM that my PC is going to go north to take over the barbarian tribes and become the high chief of them all. Then I can go about taking steps to get there. I don't need to spend as much time as the DM on the game to actively take a role in the game and improve it through game play.