D&D General Matt Colville on the “Forever DM”

[Saracenus]

Why is that not preferred?? What type of voice and diction would you like?

Does Matt really come across as angry? Opinionated, sure, that's OK, even great, but angry? I don't see it.

Generally he's not angry at all, strong opinions, sure. But in this one there are a few moments where he's clearly frustrated and maybe angry.

Not to get too deep in the weeds, I can handle his vocal stylings just fine, I was briefly a drama nerd in high school (but I struggled with memorizing lines) and was in a show choir in elementary school (then my voice broke ); so I know how to project my own voice to the back of the auditorium.

But, there are people in the world that equate a rise in vocal volume to yelling and yelling = danger from their lived experience. I have learned to moderate my voice because I don't need to invoke a flight or fight response in several people in my life.

So I am not knocking Matt, that is his style of speaking. He is also passionate about the subjects he talks about bringing a certain level of intensity that can make some uncomfortable. It just doesn't work for everyone. So, I listen to his vids with airpods or headphones on out of courtesy to those around me.

PS it is now a running joke with my wife that Matt = Angry Man. She likes his content and thinks he makes great points about RPGs and GMing, she just cannot listen to his voice most of the time.

 

[Saracenus]

I made the mistake of watching some of his Twitch streams for a bit. This video is pretty straightforward.

Think of Matt's live streams on Twitch as a stream of consciousness mind dump that will have some raw gem stones that will be refined into fully cut gems that have coherence and a through line in a later YouTube vid. The live streams are not to everyone's taste.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

The level of commitment you get from a casual player can be down right demoralizing to a DM that at the very least wants players to understand how THEIR character works.
That being said, you would think that people who barely know the foundations of the game that they ARE playing would put up such a wall against trying some other game that they aren't going to really invest it anyway.

TL;DR.....Players ruin everything.

Yep, finding a good D&D group is a lot like finding a good life partner. Oneshots are D&D equaliivent of speed dating.

 

[Ebony Dragon]

I started watching when he was doing his MYMNOS (Movies You May Not Otherwise See) stuff and he streamed, with commentary, the entirety of Casablanca. It took two streams to do it because he was stopping every few minutes or so to break down the scenes, and it was really fascinating and entertaining stuff. It doesn’t exist anymore - the possibility of a takedown meant you either watched it live or you didn’t watch it - but it was one of the best things I’ve seen streamed.

I feel this same way about his music deep dive streams. Sadly, I wasn't able to watch all of them, but his streams about Genesis and Rush were both amazing. I missed out on him doing (I think) Jethro Tull and Yes.

 

[MGibster]

While I'm the usual GM for my group, over the years I've had four other players in my group who would run campaigns every once in a while. I've also had very good luck getting them to try a variety of games. Sometimes we play something and decide we don't like it, Rogue Trader and Cyberpunk Red I'm looking at you, but most of the time we have fun and sometimes we find a new favorite we all love.

I could live with being a forever DM, but not if I was stuck with D&D or any other single game. I want to play other things. Sometimes I have campaign ideas that work for some games and not others. I don't always have campaign ideas for D&D. I've had enough problems with a player in my group who only wanted to play certain types of games. He was just in it to kick down down doors and kill things which is a legitimate way to play but I don't want to do that all the time.

 

[GrimCo]

I don't think it helps the situation to set such a high bar. If the GM is the one who wants to try the game, it is perfectly reasonable to have them explain the thing and bring pregens. i mean, that is essentially how ever con game runs.

From limited experience with con games, DM's at cons usually run games they already have decent system mastery over and they at very least get free entrance to the con (so they are at least in some form compensated).

Pregens are fine. But i think that players reading and learning basic rules and familiarizing themselves with what their characters can do and how it's resolved mechanically (when we talk about pregens) is pretty low bar. It's basic system familiarity. In home games, when trying new system, everyone, including DM, usually doesn't have any system proficiency ( unless it's a game DM already ran/played with different group). DM does most of heavy lifting already. Adding more workload to that cause players are not wiling to read rules is just too much imho, especially if it's DMs first time with the system also. Now, if we are talking about very rules light games, sure, done it with Cairn. But for crunchy games, like Cyberpunk or Gurps, then it becomes problem cause you spend decent chunk of session time to teach them basic mechanics and you get very little play out of it.

TLDR: Trying new system, crunchy one at that, should be group decision, and everyone in group should at very minimal, invest enough time prior to first session to learn basic rules.

 

[BruceWright]

It never occurred to me that people, especially here, would have such a hate on for Matt. He's basically the distilled version of the GenX GM,but who is actually good at it instead of just believing he is good at it.

He’s IMO not even in the top ten most annoying D&D YouTubers. I wish he’d get to the point faster, but Geeze given the alternatives, Matt is at least someone I could stand to be in the seat next to on a transpacific flight.

 

[Reynard]

From limited experience with con games, DM's at cons usually run games they already have decent system mastery over and they at very least get free entrance to the con (so they are at least in some form compensated).

Pregens are fine. But i think that players reading and learning basic rules and familiarizing themselves with what their characters can do and how it's resolved mechanically (when we talk about pregens) is pretty low bar. It's basic system familiarity. In home games, when trying new system, everyone, including DM, usually doesn't have any system proficiency ( unless it's a game DM already ran/played with different group). DM does most of heavy lifting already. Adding more workload to that cause players are not wiling to read rules is just too much imho, especially if it's DMs first time with the system also. Now, if we are talking about very rules light games, sure, done it with Cairn. But for crunchy games, like Cyberpunk or Gurps, then it becomes problem cause you spend decent chunk of session time to teach them basic mechanics and you get very little play out of it.

TLDR: Trying new system, crunchy one at that, should be group decision, and everyone in group should at very minimal, invest enough time prior to first session to learn basic rules.

In the hypothetical presented, the GM is the one that wants to try the new game. All the players have to do is say "yes" and have an open mind.

 

[Zardnaar]

He’s IMO not even in the top ten most annoying D&D YouTubers. I wish he’d get to the point faster, but Geeze given the alternatives, Matt is at least someone I could stand to be in the seat next to on a transpacific flight.

Same o7

 

[Clint_L]

Does Matt really come across as angry? Opinionated, sure, that's OK, even great, but angry? I don't see it.

To me, Colville reads not as angry but as aggressively opinionated, like he's talking at me, not to me. But I'm a Canadian West Coaster with a lot of social anxiety, so take my perspective in context.

I find him almost unwatchable for more than a few minutes - he makes me very uncomfortable and annoyed. He makes me want to disagree with him on principle. I totally understand what someone else posted about his wife calling Colville the "angry man" - I can see how he could read that way.

He comes off like the ultimate mansplainer.