Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haffrung" data-source="post: 8077832" data-attributes="member: 6776259">This is a crucial point. I've been DMing for 40 years, and when I look at the dozens and dozens of articles on forums and videos on Youtube about DMing, even I get intimidated. World-building. player engagement, running sandboxes, creating villains, crafting a mystery, etc. etc. Many content creators are providing the equivalent of an advanced film-school course on directing.You don't need to know all that stuff to DM. I sure as hell didn't when I created my first dungeon at age 10 and ran by friends through it. I drew a map. I populated it with monsters and treasure. When my friends told me where their characters went, I described what they saw. When they encountered a monster, we rolled some dice.Many new DMs feel as though they need to become a Matt Mercer or Chris Perkins before they can DM. That's like someone getting into film feeling she needs to learn everything Stanley Kubrick knew when he directed Barry Lyndon before she can pick up a camera. It's bananas.The emphasis on mega-campaigns is part of the problem. Running a campaign is a big, big step up from running an adventure. I don't think I ran anything that really looked like a campaign (rather than a sequence of discrete dungeons) until I had been DMing for 6 or 7 years. New DMs need to be encouraged to think small, and WotC needs to do a better job supporting adventure-based play.</blockquote>