D&D General The DM Shortage

[Paul Farquhar]

In the 'why do you DM' thread, I talked about seeing stuff in the DMG and thinking 'I want to make this happen for my friends'.

But from an outsider perspective, I wonder if people look at all the discourse about DM authority and punishing players and 'training' them to do things they don't like, and think 'I don't want to do this to my friends'.

I think all the theorising and fuss frightens people off, certainly.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Doesn't help that the language used 'YOU ARE IN CHARGE! YOU MAKE THE DESICISIONS! THE OTHERS NEED TO RESPECT YOUR AUTHORITY!' is so Sigma Grind Bro that you expect it to be followed up by a pitch for an NFT project.

 

[payn]

Doesn't help that the language used 'YOU ARE IN CHARGE! YOU MAKE THE DESICISIONS! THE OTHERS NEED TO RESPECT YOUR AUTHORITY!' is so Sigma Grind Bro that you expect it to be followed up by a pitch for an NFT project.

Clickbait without a polarizing stance dont bring in that ad money.

 

[Minigiant]

And the DM turns to the players: "Obvsly Val the wizard offers offers you ten thousand gold to bring her a certain mummified hand and eye."

If the players agree, the genre is Sword and Sorcery. If they refuse it's heroic fantasy.

If genres were so simpy defined or satisfying genre switching was that easy, then this thread wouldn't exist.

There wouldn't be dozens of pages if there wasn't some issue here.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If genres were so simpy defined or satisfying genre switching was that easy, then this thread wouldn't exist.

There wouldn't be dozens of pages if there wasn't some issue here.

Not that I entirely disagree, but this does assume genre switching is a core issue instead of the pile of issues we've been discussing.

 

[Minigiant]

Not that I entirely disagree, but this does assume genre switching is a core issue instead of the pile of issues we've been discussing.

What I'm saying is the pile of issues are caused by (sub)genre switching.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If genres were so simpy defined or satisfying genre switching was that easy, then this thread wouldn't exist.

The thread is about the shortage of DMs. Subgenre is an irrelevance. You play the game an the subgenre happens. You don't need to set out to do any specific kind of fantasy to run a game of D&D.

There wouldn't be dozens of pages if there wasn't some issue here.

And a couple of them are even about things that are relevant.

 

[Minigiant]

The thread is about the shortage of DMs. Subgenre is an irrelevance. You play the game an the subgenre happens. You don't need to set out to do any specific kind of fantasy to run a game of D&D.

And my theory is that the shortage of DMs is due to the high workload of DMing certain popular styles and subgenre of D&D which are low or slow support.

I mean the first page of the thread involves a Youtuber saying the DM shortage fix is to more or less throw random monsters in a random small dungeon and forget story, style, spotlight, and subgenre.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What I'm saying is the pile of issues are caused by (sub)genre switching.

Is the almost criminal lack of support for new DMs due to genre switching though?

Though I suppose it depends on what one considers a genre. If one thinks of 'rulings over rules the DM makes everything up with no guidance or help' to be a genre, then yeah, I guess.

 

[Digdude]

Im on year two of running 5e dnd games after a long hiatus. Since 1e, the game has evolved and continues to evolve. To me, one of the hinderances to running 5e isnt so much prep time as it is managing in game time. Combats are still just a drag of time and I find myself just continually cutting out combat encounters for the sake of game flow.