D&D General The DM Should Only Talk 30% of the Time... Agree or Disagree?

[Helpful NPC Thom]

But if they leave early, haven't you in fact spoken for more than 31% of the time?

Good point. All game sessions will now involve manacles and waiver forms.

 

[Laurefindel]

I'd be curious to see what proportion of the game I'm speaking vs players. I bet it's at least 50% and more.

And to echo many posters above, I'm sure that many games would benefit from less "DM speak time", but I disagree with a DM-speak-30% as a general policy in regards to RPG. That's only my humble uneducated gut feeling, I'd be happy to change my mind when properly demonstrated.

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

I'd be curious to see what proportion of the game I'm speaking vs players. I bet it's at least 50% and more.

And to echo many posters above, I'm sure that many games would benefit from less "DM speak time", but I disagree with a DM-speak-30% as a general policy in regards to RPG. That's only my humble uneducated gut feeling, I'd be happy to change my mind when properly demonstrated.

In a city, say the group is going on a shopping trip, or investigating leads to some mystery. There is no way the DM is talking anything less than 50/50, as they are the NPC's. Of course, players/chars can argue about plans, and I have seen that consume all kinds of time.

In combat, the DM is definitely talking more than 50% of the time, with the percentage increasing with more bad guys/terrain effects/Legendary Actions increase.

 

[Campbell]

I think the better point to make is to pay attention to how long it takes when it is the GM's turn to speak. How quickly do you get players playing again basically. From my perspective it's my job to facilitate play so I should be as punchy and concise as possible when it's my turn to speak.

 

[Lyxen]

I think the better point to make is to pay attention to how long it takes when it is the GM's turn to speak. How quickly do you get players playing again basically. From my perspective it's my job to facilitate play so I should be as punchy and concise as possible when it's my turn to speak.

It can be an objective from your side, but players can also have different expectations, some might want you to be more verbose with evocative descriptions, others might want you to be more precise so that they can polish their tactics, etc.

Just keep in mind that the DM is not only a facilitator, he can also be the lead storyteller, a referee, etc. Depending on which roles he assumes (and this varies depending on the style and phase of play), his objectives might be completely different.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Thinking on it, I have noticed that how often the DM has to talk to move the game along seems to be a function of DM skill. We've got a friend who is a pretty domineering personality who ran a game a few years ago and spent a lot of time in the early game low key dictating how our characters should be reacting to his world and groaning about the weirdos (who are always being weird in all our games) being weird. He wants things to be just right and to go his way because it's 'his' game.

So naturally, two things happened:

The more 'behaved' players stopped talking as much because they didn't want another correction or reprimand.

Meanwhile, the weirdos just straight up rebelled, going AWOL and doing their own thing and ignoring his attempts to bill hook them into doing what he wants.

So what happened was he'd lead us to where he wanted and ask 'what are you going to do?'. There's a beat of silence as the people who normally steer the game forward sort of eyed each other to see who would DARE venture an idea outside of the Plan, the DM starts talkign to fill the silence and try to hint at what we're supposed to do, then the outliers, armed with exactly what they don't want to do now, speak up and now the session is about horse fights while the DM is constantly interjecting and trying to push the game back into his unwritten novel.

So basically, the amount of time DMs should talk is variable, but some DMs dig themselves into much longer times.

 

[CleverNickName]

So what do you think? Is this a strange, quixotic quest with no real benefit? Is this a molehill just I'm willing to die on?

Do you think there's any benefit to a DM speaking only 30% of the time?

I think it's interesting to talk about how much we all enjoy the narrative aspects of the game, whether we are players or the DM. And it's also interesting to discuss how much of the game should be narration, and how much of it should be other things. But that 30% number is going to vary just as much from game table to game table, as it does from classroom to classroom in the original context.

Is there a benefit to examining how much I talk, as a player and as a DM? Yes, I think so.
Is there a benefit to limiting the narrative to X% of the time, for the DM or the player? No, I don't think so.

 

[Lanefan]

Good point. All game sessions will now involve manacles and waiver forms.

You are definitely running a different type of dungeon than I am.

 

[Burnside]

I think the better point to make is to pay attention to how long it takes when it is the GM's turn to speak. How quickly do you get players playing again basically. From my perspective it's my job to facilitate play so I should be as punchy and concise as possible when it's my turn to speak.

This is a great way to put it.

 

[Oofta]

Thinking on it, I have noticed that how often the DM has to talk to move the game along seems to be a function of DM skill. We've got a friend who is a pretty domineering personality who ran a game a few years ago and spent a lot of time in the early game low key dictating how our characters should be reacting to his world and groaning about the weirdos (who are always being weird in all our games) being weird. He wants things to be just right and to go his way because it's 'his' game.

So naturally, two things happened:

The more 'behaved' players stopped talking as much because they didn't want another correction or reprimand.

Meanwhile, the weirdos just straight up rebelled, going AWOL and doing their own thing and ignoring his attempts to bill hook them into doing what he wants.

So what happened was he'd lead us to where he wanted and ask 'what are you going to do?'. There's a beat of silence as the people who normally steer the game forward sort of eyed each other to see who would DARE venture an idea outside of the Plan, the DM starts talkign to fill the silence and try to hint at what we're supposed to do, then the outliers, armed with exactly what they don't want to do now, speak up and now the session is about horse fights while the DM is constantly interjecting and trying to push the game back into his unwritten novel.

So basically, the amount of time DMs should talk is variable, but some DMs dig themselves into much longer times.

That sounds like a DM that needs improvement but seems to have very little to do with the percentage of time they spent talking.

Telling people what they think, how they should act and "correcting" them is just bad form.