D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Remathilis]

That's why you research and invent Wendel's Wonderful Waterproofing so that you can cast it like 1/day or week and keep the book safe from the wets.

Yoink!

 

[Bae'zel]

I don't really trust polls on here, but there is a difference between "I don't like the campaign the DM is running" or something like "the DM's game was boring" and "the DM was abusively using their power".

I agree there are bad GMs. Changing the text in the books is never going to significantly impact on the personality of the GM that is going to abuse the ability to make the final call.

For real.

Regardless of system, some people become jerks with certain games. My brother in law becomes an insufferable a-hole when playing any competitive game, but otherwise is the nicest guy in the world.

Persistently negative experiences like these is part of the reason why I'm a forever GM: I rarely have a good time as a player. As a GM, I've improved by learning what I hated other GMs doing and avoiding those pitfalls.

 

[kermit4karate]

Years ago, I polled here, although I can't find the thread now, what people's overall experience as a player was. About 25% rated their DM's very negatively. Which, I imagine means that perhaps your experience is bit more of an outlier than you might realize.

I completely disagree with this and agree with @AlViking below. I think the poll was the outlier and wasn't representative of most games, players or DMs.

I don't really trust polls on here, but there is a difference between "I don't like the campaign the DM is running" or something like "the DM's game was boring" and "the DM was abusively using their power".

I agree there are bad GMs. Changing the text in the books is never going to significantly impact on the personality of the GM that is going to abuse the ability to make the final call.

Regarding that 25% figure, I bet it's off by an order of magnitude. I'd bet the real life figure is closer to 2.5% in real life.

Forget 40 years of what my eyes and ears have shown me, even my local game stores (that is, more than one) will have 4-5 tables with 5-6 players each on the weekends, and there's no way a quarter of those people are very upset with those GMs.

Doesn't add up.

I wonder how many of the people who voted that way on enworld voted because their last experience was bad and they haven't been able to find another decent DM to play with?

Also like @AlViking, I'm not disputing there are bad GMs, but I'd bet money that as a percentage, there are MORE bad players than there are bad GMs. So, I'm not referring to the aggregate, since we know there are more total players than GMs. I'm suggesting that the percentage of bad players far exceeds the percentage of bad GMs based on the simple fact that GMs are generally required to understand the entirety of a game better. A lot of players are first-timers who have no idea what they're doing. That's far from the case for most GMs.

So if I'm being honest, I'm very unhappy with the players a lot of the time. Some show up with gargantuan egos yet have no idea what they're talking about. They'll fight tooth and nail about something they came across in a rulebook but have never actually seen employed before in a game.

 

[Bae'zel]

Forget 40 years of what my eyes and ears have shown me, even my local game stores (that is, more than one) will have 4-5 tables with 5-6 players each on the weekends, and there's no way a quarter of those people are very upset with those GMs.

Forget 30 years of what MY eyes and ears have shown me, from my own experiences with strangers, friends or work colleagues: I have encountered a LOT of people are just really awful at GMing, whether through inexperience, ignorance or just being pricks.

I think that this debate is going nowhere. Subjective experiences differ right?

And please don't pull the "well YOU must have been the problem". Thanks.

 

[kermit4karate]

Forget 30 years of what MY eyes and ears have shown me, from my own experiences with strangers, friends or work colleagues: I have encountered a LOT of people are just really awful at GMing, whether through inexperience, ignorance or just being pricks.

I think that this debate is going nowhere. Subjective experiences differ right?

And please don't pull the "well YOU must have been the problem". Thanks.

I respect your opinion and accept that we differ. No big deal. I would ask this though? Why are we even here, then? Why is D&D the juggernaut it has become if a quarter of the players are "very unhappy" with the referee of the game? It isn't like DM/GM is optional in a D&D game.

Wouldn't that kind of miserable failure rate doom a game? How'd D&D grow to become what it is if a quarter of the people playing it think their DMs are bad?

I meant that rhetorically. I think I can answer. The answer is that a quarter of them don't.

 

[Umbran]

Years ago, I polled here, although I can't find the thread now, what people's overall experience as a player was. About 25% rated their DM's very negatively.

I think the poll was the outlier and wasn't representative of most games, players or DMs.

I have encountered a LOT of people are just really awful at GMing, whether through inexperience, ignorance or just being pricks.

Getting real statistics is hard, and costs significant money. EN World polling IS NOT a representative sample of gamers. Neither is personal experience.

Which is not to say that individuals should not make personal choices of how to do things based on their experience. But they should be wary of taking the position that the choices they have made generalize or should be norms.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Years ago, I polled here, although I can't find the thread now, what people's overall experience as a player was. About 25% rated their DM's very negatively. Which, I imagine means that perhaps your experience is bit more of an outlier than you might realize. I imagine that you're probably like me and don't actually play all that often and so, generally don't have that bad experience. OTOH, I've seen 3 player revolts (where the entire table stood up and left) (only one of which was my idea), so, IME, the number of truly bad DM's out there is a lot more than you might think. Blaming the player for having a series of bad experiences with DM's is not particularly productive. It's presuming bad faith on someone's part - they are lying about why they left a group.

Instead, why not take what they are saying at face value and presume good faith? After all, you've been VERY vocal about everyone needing to take your preferences at face value and not question any of them. And you've gotten rather hot under the collar at any suggestion that your explanations are less then 100% factual. It might be more productive to extend the same approach to others as well.

was it this one?

Thread 'In Your Experience: How Good are GM's?'

Sep 7, 2010

I'm always very interested in the different experiences that gamers have. I find it very eye opening that we all have such very varied experiences and I think it shines light on why people hold the opinions that they do. I honestly think that a lot of the points of view that people hold have much more to do with how they've interacted with a given game (the people they've played with, age, etc.) than with the game itself.

So, with that in mind, what has been your experience with GM's? Mine has been, up until very lately, almost always bad. Thinking back over the past fifteen years or...

• Hussar
• Replies: 124
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

 

[AlViking]

Forget 30 years of what MY eyes and ears have shown me, from my own experiences with strangers, friends or work colleagues: I have encountered a LOT of people are just really awful at GMing, whether through inexperience, ignorance or just being pricks.

I think that this debate is going nowhere. Subjective experiences differ right?

And please don't pull the "well YOU must have been the problem". Thanks.

Do you think changing the default assumption of the game that the DM makes the final ruling would change anything? Because there's still plenty of text that says the DM should listen to feedback and make the game fun for everyone.

How would it change a truly bad, manipulative DM? What about those of us that prefer the current structure when we play?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Humans have blindspots and bad elements all the time. Humans do. That doesn't mean we don't have teachers, engineers, doctors, nurses, therapists, police officers and auctioneers among us. Flawed people can be good people. Duh, right?

Repeatedly calling out that humans are flawed though triviliazes the differences between them. Yes, some DMs can make bad decisions, as can some players. Now what? What are you suggesting to solve the DM dillema here? What's your idea?

I've already mentioned it, but I think after the mod reaction I'm going to step out of this thread.

 

[kermit4karate]

I've already mentioned it, but I think after the mod reaction I'm going to step out of this thread.

I think we're OK continuing a discussion as long as we're both clearly open to the other's point of view, which probably means eventually getting to the place where we can accept that we've already been heard. Already made our positions known.

These are opinions we have. They aren't scientific laws. We can be both right and wrong at the same time.