Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Fenris-77]

Type of campaign is also a factor. My advice is maybe less helpful for dungeon or hex crawls. That said, lots of people really enjoy Dungeon World, which is D&D done PtbA style, so it's not useless either. What I specifically have been messing around with ideas from FATE and PtbA for is to run urban intrigue campaigns. I wanted more handles for social interaction, I wanted more player knowledge of NPCs and factions off the hop, I wanted a reputation system and I generally wanted the game to be more character driven in general. So I went looking for ideas and mechanics that matched what I wanted to do.

That process is exactly what I would suggest to anyone else - make a list of what you want to be able to do better or differently, and then find ideas that will work for you. In my case it did end up reducing prep in a couple of ways, but I'm not sure that would be the case for everyone, I think it would depend on the exact changes made.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, if you want to use screwdrivers you have to start with screws. If you used nails, stick with the hammer. The suggestions were how to reduce prep, but not how to do so if you want to keep the same level of prep you have now.

Yet that's exactly what we're all looking for: how to reduce the amount of prep work while maintaining the same prep level!

Telling us to reduce the level in order to reduce the work doesn't help, as in theory we're already working at a level we like and are comfortable with. But how to reduce the workload while keeping the prep level where it is...yeah, we're all ears!

These tools to reduce prep require approaching play a different way -- if you keep to your (perfectly good, perfectly workable) current play, then they don't work.

To go back to the tools analogy: we're using nails, and are looking for a less labour-intensive means of getting them into the wood than the hammer we already have.

Which means don't tell us about screwdrivers and all the advantages screws have over nails. Instead, introduce us to a flippin' nail gun and show us how it works!

 

[Fenris-77]

So, and I'm not being sarcastic here, you want to run exactly the same kind of adventures, just have them involve less prep work?

 

[Lanefan]

So, and I'm not being sarcastic here, you want to run exactly the same kind of adventures, just have them involve less prep work?

Once the discussion turned this way, yes - I'm looking for an exchange of ideas as to how to do what each of us already do and get the results we already get, only better and-or more efficiently.

Unfortunately, while there have been one or two useful tidbits go by, most of the discussion has boiled down to different takes on 'do something else that isn't what you already do, and expect different results'.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Once the discussion turned this way, yes - I'm looking for an exchange of ideas as to how to do what each of us already do and get the results we already get, only better and-or more efficiently.

Unfortunately, while there have been one or two useful tidbits go by, most of the discussion has boiled down to different takes on 'do something else that isn't what you already do, and expect different results'.

Did you think, at this point, a new and improved way to run a game like you always have would show up?

I think a terrible job of expectation management has paired with a terrible case of unmanaged expectations.

 

[prabe]

Once the discussion turned this way, yes - I'm looking for an exchange of ideas as to how to do what each of us already do and get the results we already get, only better and-or more efficiently.

Unfortunately, while there have been one or two useful tidbits go by, most of the discussion has boiled down to different takes on 'do something else that isn't what you already do, and expect different results'.

While I think it's possible there are efficiencies to find, no matter how you prep, I'm not sure how one conveys them, and what one person finds efficient another might not.

 

[Lanefan]

Did you think, at this point, a new and improved way to run a game like you always have would show up?

Never say never, my friend. One can always hope.

 

[prabe]

Not setting. Backstory gets confusing between talking about open to players backstory and secret to players backstory. Clearly we haven't been talking about ooen backstory because you don't have to prep that. Secret backstory then?

Eh. Prior events is probably short enough. At least for now it's not likely to get confused with, say, prior events in a character's story.

Ah, then we have two issues here. One, your players absolutely fell down on their job and two, you felt it was up to you to salvage it. I think abandoning this was the right call, it doesn't seem like it was a good fit for your group.

I wouldn't say the other people at the table fell down on the job so much as they and the system didn't fit together. I ran that for like a year, then my frustrations with the campaign and the system stopped building gradually and started building rapidly.

Accepting you do understand this kind of play does leave me confused as to why we're discussing what we're discussing. I mean, if you already know that encouraging player input means you'll have to change how you run, what's the disagreement, again?

It's not really a disagreement, I guess, so much as trying to convey that I wasn't rejecting the idea of getting more player input blindly or ignorantly, but based on knowledge that it doesn't work for my players or for me as a GM. Sometimes it can seem grindingly difficult to get that across.

I think they're about that different. I run bith kinds of games, and no myth games are really very different in execution than traditional D&D. The results, though, are both food? As I said, no analogy is perfect.

Yes, I've heard that complaint before. Usually because the person is trying to replicate prepped play with improv and becomes overwhelmed with the details. That may not be your problem, but ut's what I've often seen. And, in the context of D&D, I don't think you're terribly wrong. 5e, for example, uses the4 system for task resolution. This neans that, say, getting past a locked door is going to be tested by which task the player proposes. Bash it down? A strength check is needed which requires the GM to determine how strong the door is, if it's barred, swollen shut, etc. A host of details now need to be determined, and that's just for a door! Yeah, ad libbing 5e isn't easy because the system fights you and that makes your observation true.

But, that's not always true. If you use a system that is built to do this kind if play, it's actually not that hard. You have to accept that your job as GM is tightly constrained and lean into it. The PC builds will give you everything you need to kick things off and to carry things forward. If, through play, there's a door that needs kicking down, you don't beed to know anything about it. If tge PC succeeds at the check, the door was able to he kicked open because it just was. If they fail, then the door was barred, or stuck, or magically sealed, or... whatever works in play. Because you aren't ad libbing details but following play and only providing details to explain events, it's loads easier. Fate can play like this, 5e really can't (without some kludgey hacks).

Eh. It's really not that hard in D&D, either. I ad lib people and places and events all the time. I improvise maps on my battlemat. I guess I make oracular die rolls to help with the improvisation. All that, though, is based on knowing what's going on in the background. I think part of what I've been trying to get across is that it's easier for me (and possibly for others) to improvise if I'm the only one generating content. I prepare so I can improvise, so I can respond to the players and the characters and involve them all in the goings-on.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

How is not wanting to diminish the players' enjoyment of the game (by revealing that it is a frame job in advance) a failure of imagination? Some groups might be fine with knowing the plot of the adventure in advance, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, knowing the plot would completely ruin the experience for other groups with different preferences.

Understanding your group and their preferences is part of the GM's role (IMO). Since ruining the experience for your players is rather counter productive, avoiding things that would ruin the game is also part of the GM's role.

There's nothing wrong with doing things as you suggest provided that your group enjoys playing that way, but suggesting that others do not play the way you do due to a lack of imagination is absurd.

It's a lack of imagination in that with 30 seconds of work, I can add the mystery back into the scenario. DM says, "I need 4 court NPC's". Poof, end of problem. Or, "There is going to be a murder, the Prince will be suspected, I need 4 NPC's that are in the court". Again, nothing there is doing anything to disturb the mystery. Or, "The prince is being framed for murder, I need 4 NPC's" ((DM is lying)).

That took all of 10 seconds to think of. But, instead, @Maxperson comes out, guns blazing, claiming how this cannot possibly work and it's a complete waste of time. My point is, without any sort of effort, I can address his criticisms. Since it took me all of 10 seconds to come up with very, very obvious solutions to his "problems", I am fairly safe in claiming that it displays a rather disturbing lack of imagination.

 

[Hussar]

And if you don't have at least a little context, you don't know what content you need. Or want. Or whatever.

Insisting that asking the players for content will always ease the DM's workload seems like a fallacy to me, kinda like insisting that running published adventures will. If I need, say, a cabal of diabolists, it's easier and quicker for me to think for fifteen minutes and come up with 6, plus the leader (and where he's from and why he's doing this) than it is to get in touch with the players, wait for answers, edit the answers, throw out the edited answers (mostly) and use my own ideas anyway. Especially if finding out that there's a cabal is going to be the point (or part of the point) of the adventure.

Now, this? I totally agree with this. Dumping some of the work load off on the players isn't going to work 100% of the time. It just isn't. But, there are a number of times when it really, really will.

Players purchase an inn (a la Dragon Heist). Tell the players to tell you what the staff of the inn is and give you half a dozen (it's a pretty big inn) NPC's for use in the inn. Right there, that's a load of work off my hands that engages the players. And, frankly, becomes a lovely goldmine of material for further adventures.

Will it work every time? Nope, of course not. No solution is 100% foolproof. But, again, the question on the table is how do we reduce the bar to DMing to make running games easier. Instead of widdling on ideas that everyone agrees that will not work 100% of the time, howzabout suggesting alternative methods?