D&D General The DM Shortage

[overgeeked]

Locally, the problem isn't a shortage of DMs... it's a shortage of available time slots that work for everybody on a consistent basis.

Have you tried West Marches?

 

[Reynard]

I said module not adventure. Reyand.
HEY Players. Drop $5 on one of Season x -01 modules in DM's Guild. There are low level, almost no prep, and most are easy to run. You too can be a dm. .
But remember most modules are generic third shift Denny's ready to serve dungeons.
Come to the bring side.
ADVENTURE LEAGUE NEEDS YOU.

Are you okay? Do you smell toast?

 

[payn]

Oh, absolutely. There's so much to be gleaned, I know that I've improved from such. But to try and carry this analogy, if the woodworker chooses hickory wood for the project, and doesn't go into why because teaching is not their goal, the amateur might run into constant frustration when they try to do the same thing with pine and don't understand why when put under the same pressure it keeps snapping in half. The issue isn't lack of perfection, it's not coming close to the desired result at all. They don't know what they don't know.

This is a good point to make. Culturally, we have become tactical learners. By that I mean we find exactly what we need to know, and nothing more. For example, say your dryer quits heating up. In the past, you called an expert or maybe you yourself learned about appliance repair. You may have taken classes, worked in a shop, etc... You leaned from an expert who had the entire experience to fix the problem. Now, you can simply pull up a video that tells a newb how to fix the heating element in the specific dryer they own. They didnt need to go to appliance school, or work in a shop, they got exactly what they needed from a mins long video.

Problem is there is no short cut to game mastering. Its a nuanced art that requires constant learning and practice to be good at. So, naturally folks here are saying WotC needs to put out a book and offer assistance to do it well. Folks need that bottom to top learning experience so they can handle myriad of game mastering situations. Problem is, nobody operates that way anymore so likely wouldn't use it if was available anyways. Best bet is to make a webpage with like a thousand 1-3 min videos on every aspect of game mastering. That would get tons of use that books wouldn't.

 

[R_J_K75]

One thing I see a lot of on reddit an similar places is groups of 3 or 4 or even 5 friends unable to find a DM. My first thought for this people is: duh, one of YOU be the DM. That's how this works. Then I think about how I learned to DM way back in 1985 with a Red Box that actually taught the skill, step by step, at the same time it taught the players how to play. D&D had "beginner products" but nothing (I am aware of) that actually handholds a new DM through the process from a to z.

To me D&D was always an intellectual game, and if I had to guess that is what drew most of us on this site to the game/hobby. I was drawn to the mystique of DMing, learning how to do it. So I just figured it out and developed my own style. Its a shame that there isnt a step-by-step product these days that shows players how to run games but I wonder if new players are waiting for that book to teach them "how-to" that has yet to come. Perhaps there should be a fourth core book that its sole purpose is to read as a walkthrough of a typical campaign. Two things that come to mind; 1) the section on alignment in the 2E PHB or DMG that runs down a scenario which describes how players of all alignments might react in the situation, 2) the 2E Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms which follows the exploits of an adventuring company from a pseudo game play style narrative AFAIR. So I definitely think theres money left on the table by not releasing books like this. I'd imagine they'd be easily produced and an easy sell. WotC should consult Wu-Tang Clan and diversify their bonds.

So, what do you think is driving the DM shortage? How do you think we (the community) and/or WotC can or should address it?

I believe it is just a supply and demand issue, more players than DMs. I havent read the 5E PHB or DMG through since 2014 so I can't remember how much it doubles down on the "one of the players in your group need to DM" factor. So it makes me wonder if a group of 5 new 12-15 y/o players (as an example) are looking for DMs externally rather than internally?

 

[jasper]

Are you okay? Do you smell toast?

Cinnamon Toast. OOPS forgot to eat breakfast before posting. be right back.

 

[R_J_K75]

I think there is alot to be said about the correlation of this topic and how a player was introduced to the game. I.E., a friend/relative introduced me to the game, or those who came across the game alone with no prior knowledge such as, the old Red Box was under the Christmas Tree from Aunt Gurtie in 1983.

 

[R_J_K75]

Cinnamon Toast. OOPS forgot to eat breakfast before posting. be right back.

IDKW but that made me laugh good. The edibles I had for breakfast might be a factor

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, what do you think is driving the DM shortage? How do you think we (the community) and/or WotC can or should address it?

Numerous factors. Game design can affect some, not all. Things it can't influence include:

1. Reluctance about responsibility. All DMing entails responsibility.
2. Extra expected effort. DMs coordinate stuff and remember information.
3. Investment: books, tools, applications. Many DMs put $$$ into things. That's a barrier.

Intuitively: innate general human worries, inherent to the idea/structure of TTRPGs. Unavoidable.

Things design can influence include:

1. Effort level to use the rules
2. DM tools quality (how fast, intuitive, flexible, etc.)
3. Ruleset effectiveness (does it do what most DMs playing it would want)
4. Balance
5. Advice quality & digestibility
6. Amount of free apps/content

Intuitively: design, discussion, applications/tools. Only indirectly motivation; mostly execution. Hence, I push hard for...all these things. Because designers can influence them. Avoidable barriers. Ideal: low-effort, well-balanced rules that very effectively do what almost all DMs want, with fast, intuitive, flexible tools, all explained sweet and simple. Plus, robust free tools & ample free content to start off from. No game has ever been ideal. Better design lets us get closer.

Note, influence. NOT "determine." Influence. No rule, system, advice, etc. can determine. But influence still matters.

 

[Umbran]

As such, for the hobbies entire history there have always been more players than DMs and probably at any time half the people in the hobby have wanted a game but had no one to DM. That's the nature of the hobby.

In the "fireside chat" thread, we find WotC apparently asserted that GMs account for about 20% of the market, but a vast majority of the sales. From this we can glean a couple of points:

1) Beyond time as a resource for GMs, there's a monetary component as well.

2) If you fill a bag with 80 white marbles, and 20 red marbles, there are enough red marbles to go around in theory, but in practice if you grab any five marbles, there's a goodly chance they'll all be white.

#2 there is a problem - because you'll frequently have local GM shortage, but not an overall shortage. But, raising the number of GMs may not actually help - because then you'll tend to have areas where GMs who go underutilized, and drop out of GMing, and you end up back where you started.

 

[LordEntrails]

How so?

Pretty much what @Paul Farquhar said. They taught me how to run a kick in the door dungeon with an adversarial attitude. Where my job was to try to get the players to tolerate a TPK just enough that they thought the next campaign they might lie through it and so they wanted to try again. Nothing about social interacting, or roleplaying. It was all about roll playing, tactics and stupid (to me) player puzzles and challenges that had nothing to do with the characters.