On GMing Advice

[aco175]

Maybe small changes are best. My group recently introduced the option of using healing potions as a bonus action and roll the healing, or you can use an action and get full healing from the potion. It is a small change and has been used a couple times to good use and no disruptions, but eventually it starts to open other ideas like a bonus action on a potion of flying to only fly for 1 round or 1d4 rounds instead of the whole hour. This example changes greatly once you start using other advice like removing HP above 10th level and not thinking about how this affects things like spells and monsters.

Isn't there some saying about, "The bigger the stone, the bigger the ripples."

 

[nedjer]

I've been guilty of flogging ttrpg tips for quite a while. That has involved sampling widely across gamers' experience, considering what's been put out before and taking account of what education has to say on a range of topics. Education is the social science that offers the best fit for new and young players. More experienced players tend to be working on their own set of tips to apply to their games. They know a GM declaring my system, my world, my plot is unlikely to get a whole lot of investment from the players.

 

[Blue]

There is a sub-category of GM advice that provides it's own context - ones about the rule system chosen.

For example, in D&D 5e you could say that solo encounters without Legendary and/or Lair Actions (to balance the action economy) and Legendary Saves (to allow them to take those actions) are short and boring. Or in PF2 that encounter balance generally assumes full HPs recovery between encounters, not HP attrition like D&D.

 

[Umbran]

There is a sub-category of GM advice that provides it's own context - ones about the rule system chosen.

For example, in D&D 5e you could say that solo encounters without Legendary and/or Lair Actions (to balance the action economy) and Legendary Saves (to allow them to take those actions) are short and boring.

So, this is still missing the context of the type of players involved, which is terribly important. It also doesn't give the reason the encounter exists - we don't know the role the encounter is playing in the adventure, what experience the GM is trying to elicit with that encounter.

I expect you (or others) may exasperatedly say to this, "Oh, you know what they mean! You're being pedantic!" But, I'm pointing out where assumptions lie - if "you know what they mean" is the response, everything that I am supposed to already know is an assumption!

And, the whole point to the OP is that you need to check your assumptions when giving advice, or your advice isn't about their problem, it is about your general approaches.

 

[el-remmen]

As a teacher, I feel the same way about pedagogy. The productiveness of any pedagogical approach is shaped and colored by a variety of classroom factors that cannot always be accounted for and that can range widely from class to class and even from day to day in the course of a semester.

 

[Blue]

So, this is still missing the context of the type of players involved, which is terribly important. It also doesn't give the reason the encounter exists - we don't know the role the encounter is playing in the adventure, what experience the GM is trying to elicit with that encounter.

I expect you (or others) may exasperatedly say to this, "Oh, you know what they mean! You're being pedantic!" But, I'm pointing out where assumptions lie - if "you know what they mean" is the response, everything that I am supposed to already know is an assumption!

And, the whole point to the OP is that you need to check your assumptions when giving advice, or your advice isn't about their problem, it is about your general approaches.

In cases like these, it seems the primary assumption that needs to be checked is the system being used, and that is baked into the part of the advice "If you are playing XX, then YY".

Regardless of the players, pitfalls in the mechanics such as 5e doing poorly with solo encounters are true - maybe to a lesser extend based on your group but still true.

We can come up with corner cases, but trying to say that advice is not generally and commonly useful just because one can imagine nonstandard play is not an argument against it.

I think you have a generally valid stance, but it feels to me like this is taking it to absolutionist levels.

 

[Umbran]

Regardless of the players, pitfalls in the mechanics such as 5e doing poorly with solo encounters are true - maybe to a lesser extend based on your group but still true.

That you continue to assert that is, in fact, an example of the issue I am talking about, and an example of how we tend to read to respond, rather than to learn. For any fact you want to assert, for some cases it may not be true or relevant. That you find it is generally true isn't helpful until you know the person you are talking to fits the general pattern.

For example - if that solo monster isn't intended as a combat challenge, but as a social one, your point ceases to be relevant.

This thread is not an argument about what things are or are not true. It is a discussion about listening first, to be sure, and asking questions when things aren't being said, to make sure your truth is, in fact, relevant. Because giving advice shouldn't be about you, and what you know to be true. It should be about helping a fellow gamer, and you fundamentally can't do that unless you listen first.

In that context, are you going to demonstrate listening, or are you going to repeat assertions?

 

[Blue]

That you continue to assert that is, in fact, an example of the issue I am talking about, and an example of how we tend to read to respond, rather than to learn. For any fact you want to assert, for some cases it may not be true or relevant. That you find it is generally true isn't helpful until you know the person you are talking to fits the general pattern.

For example - if that solo monster isn't intended as a combat challenge, but as a social one, your point ceases to be relevant.

This thread is not an argument about what things are or are not true. It is a discussion about listening first, to be sure, and asking questions when things aren't being said, to make sure your truth is, in fact, relevant. Because giving advice shouldn't be about you, and what you know to be true. It should be about helping a fellow gamer, and you fundamentally can't do that unless you listen first.

In that context, are you going to demonstrate listening, or are you going to repeat assertions?

I am going to demonstrate listening in the "respond to your points" way.

Advice is not always given to specific individuals, such that the context of whom it is being given can be judged. Yes that does not automatically invalidate the advice. Therefore it is a fallacy to say that advice can only be true if the giver is listening to whom the advice should be given. It's an absolute position that does not cover many common cases. The consumer may understand their own context and be able to apply, modify or discard advice regardless if it is not tailored to them specifically.

Sure, it can be beneficial to know the exact situation of the listener. But many, many Robin D. Laws books (to name one author) about DMing show that you can successfully give advice that is generally true without knowing the specifics of the target.

 

[Zaukrie]

I'm curious.....not judging....asking

Are we supposed to write long posts about our every assumption, target audience, and other things to offer better advice? That seems unlikely to work, as posts will get super long, and, frankly, people won't read them. Threads and advice will get super pedantic. People will argue about every word in every assumption, target audience, etc. rather than the actual point being made. IMO.

 

[Dausuul]

In cases like these, it seems the primary assumption that needs to be checked is the system being used, and that is baked into the part of the advice "If you are playing XX, then YY".

Regardless of the players, pitfalls in the mechanics such as 5e doing poorly with solo encounters are true - maybe to a lesser extend based on your group but still true.

You are starting with a mechanical observation which is indisputably true: In 5E, solo encounters without legendary actions can easily result in the PCs overwhelming the monster with action economy.

But then you go from there to a value judgment, that this means 5E "does poorly" with solo encounters. And that absolutely is based on your assumptions. In a "combat as sport" game where cinematic set-piece battles are desired, yes, you probably want legendary actions for solos. But in a "combat as war" game, where the real battle takes place before initiative is ever rolled, legendary actions are in no way beneficial. If the PCs succeed in engineering a solo battle, they are supposed to curb stomp the villain. The challenge is setting up that battle in the first place.

Does that mean you can't advise providing legendary actions to solos? Of course not. But it does make it important to explain why you think solos should have legendary actions, so that the reader can decide whether you are coming from the same place they are.