Why I like DMing D&D more than other games.

[MerricB]

Just reading the "why DO other games sell less" thread, and I thought it was worth bringing up the #1 reason I like DMing D&D more than any other game:

It is easy to create adventures for.

The basic D&D experience of the dungeon - monsters, traps and treasure - is superbly easy to create. It doesn't have to be a great dungeon for the players to have fun in it.

Of course, from there, you can expand adventures into many, many areas. However, the core experience doesn't overly exhaust the DM.

This is as opposed to games such as Amber, Shadowrun or Vampire, which have much more complex "basic" adventure patterns. (They can also suffer from the "DM telling a story" rather than "players going on an adventure" syndrome).

Anyway, just my thoughts. I wonder if anyone agrees with me.

Cheers!

 

[arwink]

I'm inclined to agree, although I'd ammend the core statement to "I find DnD easier to run for long campaigns."

There are a lot of games that I enjoy running as much as DnD, but rarely do I run them long-term. I generally find it easier to create variations on DnD's core theme over 30+ sessions than I do with other systems.

 

[Davmeister84]

I have nothing to say besides agreeing with you entirely.

 

[Greg K]

I disagree about Shadowrun . I recall people complaining that early published shadowrun adventures were essentially "dungeon crawls".

Edit: As for DND, I have seen some beginning DMs fall into the telling a preplanned story where the players are merely spectators

 

[Graf]

Haven’t read the source thread but DnD is likable but I think the “there’s lots of existing material out there already” is one of DnD’s major advantages. I would add:

1. You know the rules
2. Your friends know the rules

To that list as well.

 

[Nyaricus]

Considering D&D is the flagship of the RPG industry, it's also likely that the players will be easily adjusted or at least open to playing/trying out D&D. Comfort levels intact means the DM's/GM's job is much easier.

 

[FireLance]

I agree with MerricB.

Last week, it was my turn to DM for my group, and I started preparing Friday evening for a 4th-level game on Saturday afternoon.

I'd already established the campaign story arc as "Entropic Shadar-kai are invading." After a little thought I decided the theme for the game would be "Retrieve the Cup of Golden Light from the ruins of an ancient dwarven kingdom that was overrun by evil."

The PCs were a warforged fighter, a spellscale artificer, and an azurin monk/totemist grappling specialist. So, I figured that I would want creatures that used poison and paralysis, to cater to the warforged, one trap for the artificer, and a few single opponents for the grappler to neutralize. In addition, since our group has a one adventure = one level convention, I wanted the challenges to provide at least 12,000 xp (not strictly necessary, but I do like to follow convention).

Flipping through the MM and some other monster sources, I quickly settled on the following:
1. One wyvern (CR 6, 2,400 xp) - poison
2. Two rutterkin (CR 3, 1,600 xp) - generic fight
3. One carrion crawler (CR 4, 1,200 xp) - paralysis
4. One flesh golem (CR 7, 3,200 xp) - to challenge the grappler
5. Glyph of warding trap (CR 4, 1,200 xp) - for the artificer to disarm
6. One ghast duskblade 2 (CR 5, 1,600 xp) and two ghoul ranger 1 (CR 2, 1,200 xp) - final fight

I worked out the general plan of the game: the wyvern lairs in a cave which is the only known entrance to the dwarven kingdom, the rutterkins were part of the demon forces that destroyed the dwarven kingdom, the carrion crawler lairs in the library, where the PCs must go to find information about the cup, the flesh golem and the glyph protect the temple where the cup is kept, and the ghasts and ghouls are enemy agents sent to ambush the PCs and prevent them from returning with the cup.

I statted them out in the new stat block format and put them on initiative cards to help me run them during the fights in about six hours. It would have taken me less time, but I was surfing ENWorld and CircvsMaximvs at the same time.

Oh, and the players had a blast.

 

[GQuail]

Just reading the "why DO other games sell less" thread, and I thought it was worth bringing up the #1 reason I like DMing D&D more than any other game:

It is easy to create adventures for.

The basic D&D experience of the dungeon - monsters, traps and treasure - is superbly easy to create. It doesn't have to be a great dungeon for the players to have fun in it.

Of course, from there, you can expand adventures into many, many areas. However, the core experience doesn't overly exhaust the DM.

This is as opposed to games such as Amber, Shadowrun or Vampire, which have much more complex "basic" adventure patterns. (They can also suffer from the "DM telling a story" rather than "players going on an adventure" syndrome).

I think this is interesting, and probably true. Certainly, if you're putting together a dungeon, it's a relatively simple process to pick approrpaite encounters and place to suit: you can design more complex encounters and dungeons for spice, but a mundane one is easy enough.

For my group at least, D&D is a "switch brain off and kill Orcs to forget about work" kind of thing. These sort of simple adventures give them what they want, as well as acting as a good staging ground for them to expand out as they wish.

I agree that more "story" oriented games tend to be more complex to prepare adventures for: though you do get exceptions. I'm sure I read about a Vampire campaign which was basically a dungeon crawl ala Cube, and Shadowrun can be a dungeon crawl if you want to make it that way.

Of course, as also mentioned in this thread, familiarity is a big help. If you work with any game system long enough, adventure design will become easier. I've been running D&D now for two years straight, and whilst higher level NPC creation is time-consuming, I'm certainly finding myself a lot more comfortabe with some aspects of theg ame. I don't think it's a system thing (because there are parts of the system, two year son, which grind my gears: I'm still having to look up Turn Undead every time) so much as a "every Thursday I look at these dman books, so some of it is rubbing off" thing. ;-)

 

[MadMaxim]

I completely agree with MerricB on this one. The basic premise of D&D makes for relatively easy adventure design. From there you expand in whatever direction you feel like.

 

[el-remmen]

Seeing as I am having a really hard time maintaining the momentum of my mutants & masterminds - and I have never had campaign of any other game but D&D last more than a few sessions I have to agree.