D&D General The DM Shortage

[Bravesteel25]

My son is 13, learned a little from me, from his DnD elective at school (he learned a lot about how not to run adventures), and reads tons and has lots of ideas and such.

Emphasis mine.

That's the most amazing thing ever. My kids are 1 and 3, and I hope they have that opportunity at school!

 

[Belen]

Clue: The DM shortage is not the result of Ardlings with Wings and Darkvision.

Maybe, maybe not. I restrict race and classes in my games to fit the campaign world. There are times when I run a game where everything is open; however, if players want to play a gelatinous cube bard, then it would be a hard "no."

 

[overgeeked]

I guess I have always been a Type 3 DM; however, Type 3 players are very rare. A true Type 3 player gets involved and makes decisions and tried to push the narrative.

Huh. Not my experience at all. Most if not all players I’ve dealt with in 5E are selfish Type 3s. Their character is the star, their backstory is the main plot, their relationships are all that matters, everyone else is an extra, and everything else is irrelevant or a sidequest.

 

[Mort]

Emphasis mine.

That's the most amazing thing ever. My kids are 1 and 3, and I hope they have that opportunity at school!

My son's school D&D club expected maybe 10 kids to sign up and got 30+. They had to find a larger room to hold everyone. It was by far the largest official school club.

 

[bloodtide]

shoots. Suggests an interesting question i don't think we have actually talked about: what do the actual games of these new GMs look like? What are new players playing? Canned adventures? Homemade dungeons? Improv shopping dramedies? Do we know? And if we don't, how can we -- or WotC -- know what would help them?

Well, from my unofficial local sampling of 5E games, they only play the Adventure Paths. The vast majority of the DMs would never even consider using anything "homebrew" and will never make any "homebrew" themselves. There are a few DMs that will make and use homebrew, though a lot of them do so because of my direct influence. Most players also don't use 'homebrew' and don't want it in the game. A few do, but not many.

It's so bad that even when a gamer is unhappy about something in the game, and I suggest they simply change it, they have a bad, hostile reaction. The player does not like the level ability of their class. I say, well here are some alternatives you can pick from to replace that ability. And the player refuses to even look at them: "I don't need to see your homebrew!" It's so bad a player might make an Ice Sorcerer, but then be unhappy there are not enough 'cold' type spells. I offer for her to pick from my list of 100+ cold spells and her answer is "No, I will stick to the books". And you get a lot of the same with DMs. They are sad and complain that the in-the-book goblin encounter is boring. I suggest they add some custom goblins to the encounter, and even offer some copies of ones I have made, and they just say "no thanks".

Everyone seems to have somewhat of a good fun time in such games. Though it's sure not what I would call a good time.

 

[Faolyn]

Huh. Not my experience at all. Most if not all players I’ve dealt with in 5E are selfish Type 3s. Their character is the star, their backstory is the main plot, their relationships are all that matters, everyone else is an extra, and everything else is irrelevant or a sidequest.

You may need new players.

 

[Belen]

You may need new players.

Agreed.

Is this a example of the newer or younger players? I have not had to recruit in years. Personally, I would be happy to teach kids to play. I do it for my son and his friends. I would be wary of adding a late teen or twenty-something person to my normal games. It is an admitted bias that is recent.

 

[Faolyn]

Agreed.

Is this a example of the newer or younger players? I have not had to recruit in years. Personally, I would be happy to teach kids to play. I do it for my son and his friends. I would be wary of adding a late teen or twenty-something person to my normal games. It is an admitted bias that is recent.

Beats me. I can't recall spotlight-stealers even back when I played in college--which was, admittedly, quite some time ago now.

 

[Mort]

Agreed.

Is this a example of the newer or younger players? I have not had to recruit in years. Personally, I would be happy to teach kids to play. I do it for my son and his friends. I would be wary of adding a late teen or twenty-something person to my normal games. It is an admitted bias that is recent.

I've DMd for my son's group (started at 12-13 years old, currently 15). They are MUCH more chaotic than my adult group, but they still really like functioning as a team (most of the time) and working together to solve challenges.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You may need new players.

From previous descriptions provided, they're desperately trying to roleplay and have backstories and related NPCs and their selfishness is not liking that being disrupted and disallowed. Like there was a whole discussion on why it was bad for them to declare they have relatives that aren't immediately merc'd by the DM.