D&D General The DM Shortage

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm convinced there's a learning disability for this naughty word, and I have it.

I think you are probably right. Dyspraxia at a glance

 

[Xamnam]

I think this brings up two relevant factors.

The first is the wide range of prep there can be for a 5e game. People have suggested in this thread x hours of prep for y hours of play, or that it can be your only hobby, or you can’t have a full time job and be a DM(!?!?). And while that may be true for those folks, it’s not even remotely my experience. I prep very little compared to that.

Yep. I don't think there's too much value in throwing out numbers other than finding averages, but I personally probably need about 30 minutes of prep per hour of play, on the outside end, so three hours of prep a month for a campaign is very doable on my end.

The second factor is comfortability. You mention Blades in the Dark, which requires far less prep compared to 5e. Yet you stress more about that game than 5e. My guess is because they require different things, they test different skills as a GM. I think, as with any skill, it will get better with practice.

Exactly. I do think I'm improving, especially with how this Blades game is going, versus MotW, but sticking to the GM principles, using the right moves in response, and especially coming up with narratively driven and fiction changing complications means that my brain is actively processing so much more in the moment, and I can quite honestly feel the mental load as I'm trying to narrate. Worse than that though is every second of dead air, as I'm trying to juggle too much and have to halt the game in order to pick the dropped aspect back up.

Now, I'll say, I don't want to just lay out a story with no regard for agency, I actively want to prep in a flexible way, so that I can respond to what the players are doing in a way reminiscent of what PbtA desires, but that's what I did before I read any of those books. I know my table, their desires, their defaults, and what they'll generally find narratively interesting, so I waste little, and can offload the trickier stuff to before the game so I can really focus in on the present.

I don’t think the way to get people to want to GM is by focusing on how hard or time consuming it must be.

Yes yes yes. It doesn't need to be. Different games will feel wildly different to different people. You've got to find the right game and the right approach, and if someone is finding it actively hard, it might be worth searching for changes that will minimize that.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That's genuinely really interesting. Despite being pretty good at art (and particularly drawing stuff in front of me, esp. people), I definitely conjure the world in my mind very easily with words/mental images without needing that stuff, in fact I find detailed colour maps to be an actual problem/distraction (!!!).

I feel like if we really want to make people better at DMing and teach DMing better we're probably going to need someone academic to actually study this kind of thing! WotC's got the money to back studies like that, maybe they should think about it.

Because I suspect we're both decent DMs, but in very different ways, and when learning to DM, very different skills and so on would have benefited us.

I do remember that even when I was brand-new in 1989, I was already better at improvisational DMing than the more experienced DMs I was playing with (which is part of why I ended up as the "main" DM), which suggests maybe an element of talent rather than skill.

Now that guy make some maps I can get along with. Beautiful black and white and not overdetailed but also they do have real vibes to them.

I don't know about academic per se. I've known plenty of academics that were absolutely terrible at teaching.

But I do think that the best person for the job would be a teacher. Someone with a real gift for it.

Growing up, I spoke English, Hungarian, and German. And when I started to learn spelling (American English) my grandmother, who was a very talented teacher, taught me to sound out the English words as if they were Hungarian. That's because Hungarian is a very precise language where you pronounce every letter (barring a few compound letter combinations). It helped me excel in spelling and I still use those tricks decades later, when I need to recall the spelling of a particular word.

The point being, if you want a product that teaches RPGs effectively, I believe the ideal person would be a gifted teacher who has a serious interest in RPGs. Which, unfortunately, is probably not the most common combination of traits out there, but most likely exists somewhere.

 

[Greg Benage]

I think you are probably right. Dyspraxia at a glance

Hmm. That's not me. I was a competent high school athlete, I have no issues with organization, and have high aptitude with both spoken and written language.

I'm inept at even simple mechanical tasks. Like, if I order new wiper blades, I have to stare at those suckers an embarrassingly long time to figure out how they're supposed to fit on the bracket. Whatever aptitudes a "handyman" has, I have the opposite. I have terrible direction sense; I can work in a building for ten years, and I'll probably go the wrong way when I get off the elevator. That kind of thing...

 

[Xamnam]

I'm...let's be honest, I'm technically inept. Like, "last kid who learned how to tie his shoe" inept, "would have tested genius IQ except for those damn shape-rotators and spatial reasoning sections" inept. I'm convinced there's a learning disability for this naughty word, and I have it. And I just don't have any of those problems. It's possible, being more tech savvy (at least minimally competent), you're trying to do more with the tools than I do. Map. Dynamic lighting. Tokens. Maybe some art handouts. Done.

Very possible. But to be clear, I didn't do more than what you're asking. In fact, I didn't include art handouts or dynamic lighting. The fancy bit was some fog of war. It still took me longer to get ready than an identical session at the table would have. In person, all I have to have ready is that my brain understands what I want to do. There, I have to figure out how to translate it into what a computer understands.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hmm. That's not me. I was a competent high school athlete, I have no issues with organization, and have high aptitude with both spoken and written language.

I'm inept at even simple mechanical tasks. Like, if I order new wiper blades, I have to stare at those suckers an embarrassingly long time to figure out how they're supposed to fit on the bracket. Whatever aptitudes a "handyman" has, I have the opposite. I have terrible direction sense; I can work in a building for ten years, and I'll probably go the wrong way when I get off the elevator. That kind of thing...

You wouldn't expect to show all the symptoms, these labels are broad and it's a lot more complex than that. Spatial awareness (which is what you appear to be describing) is folded in. Do you have issues rotating maps and plans? As it's rarely a serious problem it's another thing where there is room for research.

 

[Digdude]

Long time forever DM here, I d like to weigh in on what I have seen many of you touch on. As someone coming back to running 5E after a decade off, I found only three products so far from WOTC that I could grab and run off the cuff, Lost Mines, Tales of the Yawning Portal, and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. The rest just did not sit in my comfort zone without what I thought would be extensive modification. But I game with mostly my grown kids and some friends that are new to DND. I think the lack of DMs comes from two places. Intimidation to get it right and having too high of expectations of the game. As some have suggested already, 5E rules are a constant expanding event horizon of new races, new worlds, and new options. This is not new to DND as all previous editions also expanded. But a new DM, has to consider all these options which can be intimidating. The second issue is that many new players come from watching Crit Role or other online shows and expect that level of game, every time. It just does not work that way on the real world. Players have bad sessions and so do us DMs.

 

[Greg Benage]

Do you have issues rotating maps and plans?

No, I don't think so. In fact, maps and plans make something "click" in my brain. I dunno.

ETA: To elaborate after thinking about it, the spatial image in my mind/memory is probably wrong. Give me a map and it snaps into place. If that makes any sense...

 

[Xamnam]

To what several people in this thread have said, intimidating expectations are a big part of why I hate pushing watching live streams/actual plays as a stepping stone for new DMs to learn from. To get interested? Sure. But if you're competent enough to have a show that's engaging to watch, and it has stuck around long enough to be known, you've probably got higher standards than a new DM should be taking in as normal, and you're likely practiced enough to elide the low level mechanics and principles that are the most important thing to showcase for them.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Maybe it's the two edged sword that is Matt Mercer. On one hand, he brought many new players to the game. On the other, many feel they can never meet up to the standards of DMing if he's what they see as what a DM is, and thus they don't try.