After playing with different people, my best advice is that there is no right way to play. The best DM you can be is who you are, not some guy trying to be Matt Mercer or a famous youtuber. I'm not saying that taking advice from other people is bad, though. I think the best games involve ideas taken from a variety of sources, put together by and added to your own imagination and playstyle.
So you want to be a DM hm? Well here are some tips I have for you!
MY TIPS ARE NOT REQUIRED WHATSOEVER. IF SOMETHING SEEMS TOO HARD FOR YOU DON'T DO IT.
1. Describe. Saying "Oh there's a goblin in the room" isn't enough to get the players immersed. In my games I really want my players to get immersed, because if they aren't immersed usually they'll play a game in the background and not pay attention.
2. Roleplay.If you want your players to roleplay, roleplay yourself. Set an example for them to go off of so they get in the habit. If your player wants to talk to the enemy, give the enemy a why. Do they need the money or are they just evil by heart? If your enemies have no story and are hollow ways for the players to fight, your world doesn't feel like a real one. Again, immersive games are always both the most fun to play and the most fun to DM.
3. The Rule of Cool. Honestly, you don't HAVE to follow this one if your players have played DnD for a while. But as a new DM with new players, the limiting rules of DnD are not fun to play with, especially if your players are like "I'd like to move here and attack." If you allow people to do things to make the game feel better, they could go, "I'd like to take out my sword and kick him in the chest, and put my sword to his throat." Its a lot more descriptive and that's the way I like to play the game. Fighting isn't too fun in my campaigns, mainly due to me being a bad DM, so letting the players add more story really does take load off of newer DM's.
Well that's it for this first part of How to be a better DM! Tune in next time if you want!
I want to preface this by saying I started playing and DMing D&D almost 30 years ago.
If someone is good at extemporaneously describing things then have at it. If that’s a challenge then simply saying there’s a goblin in the room can be enough. I will say I tend to add at least one or two adjectives to describe said goblin (well dressed, large, “shady looking,” etc.), but it’s not really a requirement.
I do voices to make the NPCs seem different, but it’s completely unnecessary and by no means any definitive aspect of “role playing.” I do voices because when I was a little kid and my mom used to read to me she did voices, so it came as second nature to me to do the same. If that is difficult for someone they shouldn’t feel pressured to do voices. Half of my players do voices, the other half don’t, but it’s all still role playing. Role playing happens even when nobody does voices.
Following the rules allows everyone to play on a level field. Using the rules means that everyone at the table can count on certain things. Abandoning those rules can lead to people not knowing WTF is going on or what is or is not possible under any given set of circumstances. It’s certainly okay to disregard some rules on occasion if it makes for a better experience, but overall the rules provide a framework for the players shared “reality.” The structure of the rules help people maintain a sense of verisimilitude.
As a self proclaimed “bad DM,” why are you giving people advice instead of asking for it?
My best advice to improve one’s skills as a DM, watch this:
1. Learn how to make dungeons; this is where the bulk of the action takes place, in the “dungeon”. Now the dungeon does not need to be a dank old abandoned tower where a lich has made its lair. It certainly can be, but a dungeon can be any discrete bounded area where the players are set loose to explore and overcome a variety of challenges that make this game what it is.
2. Practice game management and pacing; being a DM feels a lot like public speaking, where the spotlight is on you. Be prepared for that, calm your nerves and run the game smoothly. Pay attention to details and try to manage your game effectively.
3. Learn the monsters; study the monster manual and get a feel for the types of monsters in there. Combine ones of different abilities and learn to fight tactically with them to present challenging and interesting encounters.
As for the OP’s list
1. I disagree with this. Unless you have been doing this for many years and are an improv master, chances are this will go poorly. Be prepared, have a campaign.
2. Sure, why not. I do this one myself. If you are decent at it and the players don’t think it is cringy, it adds flavor to the game. Certainly not a priority though, especially for a new DM.
3. Learn to say yes AND no. Need to strike a balance.
I design the entire game, including wilderness, towns, forests and deserts as if they are “dungeons”. The rooms are whenever something happens, the passageways are the descriptors of what goes on in between.
Game management absolutely, I have seen campaigns die because they slowed to a crawl and the DM didn’t understand insisting “he was letting the players do what they wanted”. This resulted in the party spending entire sessions aimlessly wandering around with no idea of what to do next. Equally I have myself realised I was rushing players through what I thought was a boring part of the game when they wanted to spend a little more time invested in it.
I will expand on you point 3, when I got the monster manual I read through it and then put it down I had a feel for it and what was in it but there is too much there to remember. So when I am planning an encounter I will usually use an online resource to shortlist the kinds of creatures found in that environment and then look them up. Then I will structure the encounter based around there abilities.
I will also add, learn the CR system and then understand it’s limitations, which are many. If you create an encounter based on the CR and feel it is light it probably is, you know your players and the skills and tactics they use. It is not meta gaming to purposely give them challenges that go against how they normally approach problems, that is just making them think.
So you want to be a DM hm? Well here are some tips I have for you!
MY TIPS ARE NOT REQUIRED WHATSOEVER. IF SOMETHING SEEMS TOO HARD FOR YOU DON'T DO IT.
1. Describe. Saying "Oh there's a goblin in the room" isn't enough to get the players immersed. In my games I really want my players to get immersed, because if they aren't immersed usually they'll play a game in the background and not pay attention.
2. Roleplay.If you want your players to roleplay, roleplay yourself. Set an example for them to go off of so they get in the habit. If your player wants to talk to the enemy, give the enemy a why. Do they need the money or are they just evil by heart? If your enemies have no story and are hollow ways for the players to fight, your world doesn't feel like a real one. Again, immersive games are always both the most fun to play and the most fun to DM.
3. The Rule of Cool. Honestly, you don't HAVE to follow this one if your players have played DnD for a while. But as a new DM with new players, the limiting rules of DnD are not fun to play with, especially if your players are like "I'd like to move here and attack." If you allow people to do things to make the game feel better, they could go, "I'd like to take out my sword and kick him in the chest, and put my sword to his throat." Its a lot more descriptive and that's the way I like to play the game. Fighting isn't too fun in my campaigns, mainly due to me being a bad DM, so letting the players add more story really does take load off of newer DM's.
Well that's it for this first part of How to be a better DM! Tune in next time if you want!
Ok first of all well done for trying to be helpful with this list but understand it really isn’t giving any real information.
Not every group is the same, not every groups needs every iota of the game to be described, some groups, in fact more then you realise, just want to roll dice and hit stuff. They don’t want to wait for 10 mins while you “immerse them” in the situation. But also, description can be just a couple of words and lots of DMs I know will write things out and have a script ready.
Roleplay, again understand your players not every player wants to play in the first person, not every player wants to have to spend time thinking about what they want to say. I have had several players who would simply prefer telling me, I want to try and bribe the guard, and have me tell them to roll for it. They don’t want to tell me what they say, or roleplay out a conversation and they never will. I have a group right now which entirely play in the 3rd person, my character says this, my character does that. That is the way these individuals want to play DND, if I wanted to I couldn’t get them to change this, and I wouldn’t. In my experience of 20+ years of DMing and playing many many different systems with many many many players I can honestly count on one hand how many players truly played in the first person. One of those groups where drama students at uni that I DMd for. The only other times players have got into character like this is playing live action roleplay, I was in a vampire masquerade group we met in a pub once a week, no dice rolling, no pen and paper, one adventure saw us actually going around our city in real time chasing a wearwolf. I have also done larpong in fantasy settings with foam swords and plastic shields. But most groups, don’t roleplay like streamers do and the only group that roleplayed idle chit chat round a camp fire, the drama students, no one I know sits and has deep and meaningful conversations in character.
The rule of cool, yes is a thing, but, it doesn’t mean saying yes all the time. Long before Matt Mercer coined it I was saying, by all means give it a try, I will never tell a player they can’t do a thing, I will set a DC so high it might be impossible and players want this, they might think they want you to let them bend the rules but in my 20 years of experience players are like children, they think they don’t want the rules but, take the rules away and they actually get bored really quickly, while making your life harder. Learning to say no the right way is a far better lesson then learning to always say yes.
So I suppose my advice to make someone a better DM.
Talk to your players about the game that they want to play. Don’t assume you know what it is they want, you will probably be wrong and a player not getting what they want from a session will be far more likely to play games. If your players are doing that it isn’t because your not describing properly, it’s probably because they are not enjoying the game overall and would rather be somewhere else.
So I suppose my advice to make someone a better DM.
Talk to your players about the game that they want to play. Don’t assume you know what it is they want, you will probably be wrong and a player not getting what they want from a session will be far more likely to play games. If your players are doing that it isn’t because your not describing properly, it’s probably because they are not enjoying the game overall and would rather be somewhere else.
I mean you're not wrong, talking to your players and having a "session 0" or however you want to do it finds out the game you're going to run with and for that group.
I know you shared some of what groups for you run and how they interact (which I cut out of your quote but it's because were going to cycle around back to what I bolded from your quote) and sometimes the groups one runs into. The only person whos ever been in anything remotely acting heavy at all in the group im running a game for mysef (and I'm not entirely doing voices, its my first major outing and I've been focused on getting things right, I've done one here and there but nothing major and will quickly fall out of it, just because sometimes my focus drifts). I've had two 'majorish" hiccups overall during the thing but the group (which has grown since the start of the module, not by much just a total of two players) has grown since the start of the module and every issue has been dealt with... and this group once spent forty five minutes roleplaying a conversation about giving party members up to a hag... not in voices mind you but in character (which was hilarious because out of character almost none of them remotely thought dealing with the hags would be a good thing).
Which is why your advice, talking to the players to figure out what they want their DnD to be, is one of the best pieces around. Everyones DnD is going to be different... similarities will exist of course but the experience wont be the same..... and that's because different people want different things from DnD... and that doesn't make it wrong for anyone. It does mean that the right people need to be at the right table so that the people playing in the group are all getting what they want and/or offered... which can only happen if you talk it over with them.
So I suppose my advice to make someone a better DM.
Talk to your players about the game that they want to play. Don’t assume you know what it is they want, you will probably be wrong and a player not getting what they want from a session will be far more likely to play games. If your players are doing that it isn’t because your not describing properly, it’s probably because they are not enjoying the game overall and would rather be somewhere else.
I mean you're not wrong, talking to your players and having a "session 0" or however you want to do it finds out the game you're going to run with and for that group.
I know you shared some of what groups for you run and how they interact (which I cut out of your quote but it's because were going to cycle around back to what I bolded from your quote) and sometimes the groups one runs into. The only person whos ever been in anything remotely acting heavy at all in the group im running a game for mysef (and I'm not entirely doing voices, its my first major outing and I've been focused on getting things right, I've done one here and there but nothing major and will quickly fall out of it, just because sometimes my focus drifts). I've had two 'majorish" hiccups overall during the thing but the group (which has grown since the start of the module, not by much just a total of two players) has grown since the start of the module and every issue has been dealt with... and this group once spent forty five minutes roleplaying a conversation about giving party members up to a hag... not in voices mind you but in character (which was hilarious because out of character almost none of them remotely thought dealing with the hags would be a good thing).
Which is why your advice, talking to the players to figure out what they want their DnD to be, is one of the best pieces around. Everyones DnD is going to be different... similarities will exist of course but the experience wont be the same..... and that's because different people want different things from DnD... and that doesn't make it wrong for anyone. It does mean that the right people need to be at the right table so that the people playing in the group are all getting what they want and/or offered... which can only happen if you talk it over with them.
While your general premise is correct, you are not emphasizing enough what is key. While the DM wants happy players, Rule 0 is for the DM to make themself happy. If the players want to play a silly cartoon game based on something like critical role, and the DM wants to play a game rooted in the history of D&D, then the DM had better find a different set of players, because the DM will be unhappy. The DM is not there to make ONLY the players content. After all, you are the one doing the lion's share of the work.
Actually speaking I phrased it right... DnD is a collaborative game.. and frankly where I stand no one person, including the DM, is more important than another. You think a DM is more important than a player and that's fine that's your opinion but I know several people who wouldn't play at a table like that (some of which still think AD and D was when the game was the best)... and again it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. At the end of the day I'm sure we both agree DnD is a collaborative game, right?
Yes DM's do the lionshare of the work and player etiquette should make them respect that and if they have questions bring them to the DM and etc... and perhaps that table may not be for them if the DM is unwilling to compromise, which again would be their prerogative. But DM's need players, just like players need DM's.... theres a table out there for everyone you just have to find it.
I am afraid that yes, your view of the game is indeed skewed. Players and a DM are NOT equal. The very fact that there is no game if a DM does not show up, while the game can continue if a player or two does not show up, proves that.
This might come off a bit rude, but that is anti-social behavior. When you throw a party at your house, the people that arrive are your guests. You are not superior to them because you are the host and you bought all the food, cleaned the house and arranged the entertainment.
You are not superior to them, but you are (usually) more important than them, in that the party can exist without them but cannot exist without you (this is not always true, a party honoring a specific person can't occur without that person but might be able to change hosts, but it's usually true).
In any case, the assertion that the DM should make themselves happy is not an assertion that the DM is more important than anyone else. Everyone in the game, including the DM, should be having fun. If you can't find a game that you want to run and your players want to play, maybe someone else should be the DM. Or you should find a different group.
I am afraid that yes, your view of the game is indeed skewed. Players and a DM are NOT equal. The very fact that there is no game if a DM does not show up, while the game can continue if a player or two does not show up, proves that.
This might come off a bit rude, but that is anti-social behavior. When you throw a party at your house, the people that arrive are your guests. You are not superior to them because you are the host and you bought all the food, cleaned the house and arranged the entertainment. There is an expected protocol of gratitude and appreciation, but it does not suddenly elevate you to a position of superiority or authority.
This sort of behavior is born from my generation of D&D players and it's one that should remain in the embarrassing past where it belongs along with a lot of other anti-social behavior of that period. The DM is a host for evenings entertainment, your players are guests, but this is not a matter of social status or superiority, the social contract is not one where the players and DM enter into a hierarchy where the DM is superior to the other participants. A DM like that deserves no respect.
D&D is about collaborative storytelling, fighting monsters and "seeing what happens" in a fantasy story. It's a fun hobby, DM's have no authority, they have a responsibility, one that they volunteer for and it earns them respect and appriciation, not authority.
Anti-social behaviour???
A DM runs the show. It is in the name itself. The DM molds the setting, even when running a module.
And yes, using your real world analogy, someone hosting a party DOES have authority. If you want to go down that real world comparison, a host decides who gets invited, if there is any theme to the party, what food is being served, etc, and when it is time for people to leave, and under what circumstances. Further, when attending party it is common practice to ask "anything I can bring?", whereas seldom does a player have to do anything but show up on time, with char in hand.
I have DM'ed enough years to know that yes a DM is god (you yourself stated that in another thread). I don't need someone telling me "I want to collaborate with you on how the backstory of my sex-crazed Tiefling Bard will integrate into the plot of the game", when there are no Tieflings in my world.
Last question: If a DM tells a player "you are no longer welcome at my table", do the players vote on that like a democracy, or does the DM simply get to make that call? If the latter, then the DM does indeed have authority. Or on a lesser scale, when the DM says "no, that class or species does not work in my game", the players don't have any say in that, other than to walk away from the table if they feel strongly enough about it.
For a DM to exist you need to have players, yes as a DM I put in a ton of work but the world is collaborative, when my players created there characters I asked them to name the town they where born in, to tell ‘me about the background and that all fed into my world, my world develops and grows around there actions, I don’t prescribe or tell them what to do I lay out situations and then the world reacts to the things they do. I could not tell that story on my own because frankly I would never think of taking a trip to the water plane to try and farm shells, or going to the big mountains that I haven’t even put on a map because they sound cool.
Even the rules I use are collaboratively defined, I will tell my players at session zero, these are the homebrew rules I am thinking of using. I also always ask at session zero, are there any rules you really don’t like that we can maybe find an alternative for. That doesn’t mean I will always apply the suggestions but it helps the group feel included and involved. This isn’t new it comes after 20+ years of roleplaying many many systems.
A dictator as a DM in my opinion is the worst playing situation, I have left 2 tables that had DMs who sound like you, and both games collapsed soon after I left because the other players felt much the same. No a DM is not god, player comes to me with a sex starved tiefling I don’t say no, I will sit down with them and collaborate on tweaking that character to fit the setting, or, shock horror tweak my setting to fit the character of the story feels compelling, the character is fun or the player really seems invested. Who am I to tell them no, you can’t do that because this is my game so there.
Yes a host decides the theme of the party and who gets invited, and then gets blamed if it is a rubbish experience which, from my experience any party that has a dictator running it is usually rubbish. The best parties, like the best roleplay campaigns come from people working together to tell a shared story. I know so many DMs who think like you and generally there stories start, I had this awful group that I just had to TPK, or kick out, or end the campaign, or they all left, or, I have never started my own campaign, I can never find players who want to play the game I want to run.
Now your way might work for you and your friends, you mig be be able to balance it and find people who want to play the game your way and feel the same way but my experience of every roleplay game I have played (and by my last estimate it was 30+ distinct systems) is that the best games happen when a Storyteller/DM/GM works collaboratively with there players.
And kicking a player out of the group, yes that should always be a group decision. In all the years I have played it has only happened a handful of times for me and every time I spoke to the group as a whole and we came to a collective decision as to what to do.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
Exactly as per my message my experience I meeting such DMs at events, or gaming conventions or even just the pub is that they are usually the ones complaining about player engagement, or bragging about the last on purpose TPK to get rid of a problem group, or missing they always have problem players. I have stopped trying to suggest that if your 4th game collapses maybe it’s time to look in a mirror. Ironically one of the few times I have had to ask a player to leave my game he was a DM who was struggling to find a group, it turned out because he was a dictator, and as a player he was just as bad. Trying to take over the table.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
We should be able to learn something from anyone. Some people provide good examples of what we want to emulate, others provide examples of what we don't want to become.
This thread definitely provides a good portion of both.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Are you saying that I have to me empathic and compassionate when a player (or players) comes to me and says "I really want to build a Custom Lineage char using Tasha's" when I have banned everything from that book (for a number of reasons, including most of it is wildly OP). As a DM, I am exercising authority when I say "nothing but PHB and XGTE"
Your kind of missing the point. The tyrant aspect here is that you see it as your world, your game, your rules as an inflexible concept. These things are in fact true, it is your world as such your game and since you are the DM your rules, but the point of that experience is not power, it is to be collaborative, to create an environment of shared creativity. The intention of the role of a DM is to be an assistant in helping players to realize the stories of their characters. I agree with you that sometimes players make this impossible and there are times when I have said no too.. but really the goal here is to say yes.
Let me make my point here with an example.
I run the world of Mystara which was published in the late 80's, early 90's. This world I have worked on, studied and developed for decades. There are no Tieflings in it.
Sure enough, however, fast forward nearly 30 years later and a modern 5e player wanted to join my game and said "I would like to play a Tiefling". Now, I could have done as you and simply said "no not in my world"... but why would I? What aspect of the world is so precious, so serious, so important that I can't as a creative person come up with a reason a Tiefling could exist in my world? Sure the player had to adapt their story to my world.. there is no Tiefling race or nation in the world, so the character was unique.. a white elephant sort to speak, but we negotiated, figured out a way that this character could fit into the story.. hell I had to create a class called Tiefling for my game because I use 1e B/X so race and class are one thing. It took effort but it was a creative, collaborative effort between me and the player...
That is in the spirit of the game, this is what D&D is, a collaborative, creative effort among gamers who share a hobby. Would I have been in the right to simply say no... sure... I don't disagree with that.. but that mode of thought is outdated and unwelcomed in modern D&D culture, it's not in the spirit of the game and this is an evolution based on experience. That tyrannical DM mode of saying no is part of a past that existed not because it was good or there was anything positive about it, it existed because the guy who created D&D was himself a tyrant DM and frankly, a bit of a jerk. Part of the evolution of D&D culture is realizing that players at the table are fellow creators, if a player wants to infuse my world with a new creation who am I to say no? Why is my creativity more important than theirs?
I understand that you don't understand it and I'm not here trying to tell you how you should run your game, you do you. Call it friendly advice and let's leave it at that.
I will expand on this and say all TTRPGs are like this, of all the different terms used for the DM that different systems use my favorite is always storyteller because it doesn’t have the word master in it, yes it is a slight misnomer because we are telling a collective story but systems that use it generally emphasize storytelling aspects over everything else and that leads to collaboration. I am intrigued if those dictator types of DMs also try and railroad to tell there story, do they tell players “no you can’t go to that place to do that thing because the story I want to tell us here”.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
I don't know how old you are or how long you have been playing D&D, but you have to understand that a lot of these "old school" ideas were once instructions in the rulebook. They weren't suggestions or advice, they were instructions that came with peer pressure. The old school guys like me struggle to adapt to modern D&D culture and it's not easy, but some (like me hopefully) are able to make the transition. I might never make my peace with how the game has changed, for example I still use 1e B/X rules and I probably always will, but like any modern DM, my goal is to create a great experience for my players and so adapting to modern gaming culture, while a struggle is important.
The key is not to be elitist about it, guys like Baron_Von_Cart learned the game from a different rulebook, I totally understand his point and how he arrives at it.
I will say that after reading your posts, it seems clear to me that whatever struggles you may have gone through adapting to the modern culture of the game, you have adapted well. You seem to have a firm grasp on the spirit of the game.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
I don't know how old you are or how long you have been playing D&D, but you have to understand that a lot of these "old school" ideas were once instructions in the rulebook. They weren't suggestions or advice, they were instructions that came with peer pressure. The old school guys like me struggle to adapt to modern D&D culture and it's not easy, but some (like me hopefully) are able to make the transition. I might never make my peace with how the game has changed, for example I still use 1e B/X rules and I probably always will, but like any modern DM, my goal is to create a great experience for my players and so adapting to modern gaming culture, while a struggle is important.
The key is not to be elitist about it, guys like Baron_Von_Cart learned the game from a different rulebook, I totally understand his point and how he arrives at it.
I will say that after reading your posts, it seems clear to me that whatever struggles you may have gone through adapting to the modern culture of the game, you have adapted well. You seem to have a firm grasp on the spirit of the game.
I think for me the fact I didn’t come to DND until really late in my game playing life means I never experienced this kind of lesson, my friends and I purposely avoided DND because it was a hack and slash dungeon crawl at a time when vampire, legend of the 5 rings, doomtown, cyberpunk and so many other systems seemed just more fun, they where about making movies in our minds and that is where I learnt to DM, letting players do stupid stuff like leap from a moving truck while shooting a pack of C4 they had just stuck to a bad guys back, or planning out a heist and having the freedom of the city to come up with the best solution. I remember playing and DMing L5R which was all about roleplaying in feudal Japan to the point where having your character commit ritual suicide simply to maintain the honour of your clan, even though you beat the bad guy, became a key roleplay aspect. Knowing that saying or doing the wrong thing in front of the wrong person could bring u dishonor. But the game that taught me the most about the roleplay and collaborative aspects of TTRPGs was ironically paranoia, that game taught me so much about roleplaying a megalomania computer with multiple personalities, and as a player taught me that RPGs can just be crazy fun games.
I think it is about how you came to the world of TTRPGs as much as the people you played with.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
I don't know how old you are or how long you have been playing D&D, but you have to understand that a lot of these "old school" ideas were once instructions in the rulebook. They weren't suggestions or advice, they were instructions that came with peer pressure. The old school guys like me struggle to adapt to modern D&D culture and it's not easy, but some (like me hopefully) are able to make the transition. I might never make my peace with how the game has changed, for example I still use 1e B/X rules and I probably always will, but like any modern DM, my goal is to create a great experience for my players and so adapting to modern gaming culture, while a struggle is important.
The key is not to be elitist about it, guys like Baron_Von_Cart learned the game from a different rulebook, I totally understand his point and how he arrives at it.
I will say that after reading your posts, it seems clear to me that whatever struggles you may have gone through adapting to the modern culture of the game, you have adapted well. You seem to have a firm grasp on the spirit of the game.
I think for me the fact I didn’t come to DND until really late in my game playing life means I never experienced this kind of lesson, my friends and I purposely avoided DND because it was a hack and slash dungeon crawl at a time when vampire, legend of the 5 rings, doomtown, cyberpunk and so many other systems seemed just more fun, they where about making movies in our minds and that is where I learnt to DM, letting players do stupid stuff like leap from a moving truck while shooting a pack of C4 they had just stuck to a bad guys back, or planning out a heist and having the freedom of the city to come up with the best solution. I remember playing and DMing L5R which was all about roleplaying in feudal Japan to the point where having your character commit ritual suicide simply to maintain the honour of your clan, even though you beat the bad guy, became a key roleplay aspect. Knowing that saying or doing the wrong thing in front of the wrong person could bring u dishonor. But the game that taught me the most about the roleplay and collaborative aspects of TTRPGs was ironically paranoia, that game taught me so much about roleplaying a megalomania computer with multiple personalities, and as a player taught me that RPGs can just be crazy fun games.
I think it is about how you came to the world of TTRPGs as much as the people you played with.
I agree with this. I came to D&D only four years ago (my join date on DDB) thanks to Critical Role. But I tried getting into it more than 20 years ago in high school. I was denied access to the game by those with this kind of elitist mentality simply because I did not look like I belonged. The way a person (in this case a DM) treats someone at the table can put that person off the game for literal decades or it can cause that person to fall in love.
Yeah...revisionist history there. 20 years ago, same as 40 years ago, D&D players were looked upon as geeks and losers and the cool kids wanted nothing to do with D&D, and us. D&D was always inclusive. There was nothing elitist about it.
Revisionist history there. People being looked down on has never prevented them from being elitist, and certainly did not do so for D&D (for reference: first played D&D in 1977).
One of the players in my group is kind of an "old-school" player. I will say this because he did play old school DnD (well correction advanced DnD, he mentions Gary Gygax a lot and loving that time period, etc... and I know previously in other threads BigLizard mentioned the previous version before ADnD and I can guarantee my friend did not play that) and hes played every variation since ADnD (which is still his favorite, he's trying to mesh ADnD and 5e) and again in his head he would consider himself an old school player.. but from a lot of what I have seen with the way his thinking "mostly" goes.... he really doesn't qualify.
He will go on the fact that DM is god at the table, but he also calls it a collaborative game, from his view point, and if folks arent having fun at his table he needs to find away to adjust. He does hate lots of things, mindsets about the current system, is having a hard time adjusting, and most of our conflicts, since me coming to the table, have to do with trying to find ways that were on the same page and we both consider things fair (the long and short, in his mind I had a session 0 when I didn't and I was introduced to the table by showing off the 5e playerhandbook when a lot of the systems he was using from ADnD.. which I have never read, studied or learned about.. were still working at it, and were both coming to understandings but it takes work).
He also will occassionaly use phrases that don't mean what he thinks he means (last night I he explaiend he loves playing at low levels, which most of the players have told them they don't like that, because he think's its a rush, etc.. and called me a power gamer because I like playing at the higher levels 10 thru 15.. and I wouldn't qualify that's really what it means because it's certainly not why i would enjoy playing at higher levels) but at the end of the day he does think it's our game... versus his game. Oh sure he will reference it as his game.. because he created, runs it, etc... but when he says that he doesn't for a second believe that hes more important than anyone... if his players arent enjoying it... hes not going too.
I once made a thread unsure of whether not I should quit this game, on these very forums.. and if I could go back and never have wrote that thread because I know it mostly snowballed from a place of hurt due to the fact I constantly was thinking one thing and someone was thinking another... and both thought we were always trying to announce our points, we never really realized what the other was saying... at the end of the day we both want the same thing and our trying to find the way to do it... and change is hard... regardless of what anyone says... I mean sure technically as a DM anyone can choose to not change and say "dems de rules" or however youd like to phrase it... but you can (depending on how the group is formed) also lose friends or people who could matter that way.. and some people value that and try to change.
I have been playing D&D off and one since the early 80's. I straddled both the "cool kids" and "the losers" worlds, since I played high school football, but also was in the Gamers Club. I still remember with exquisite clarity the eye rolls from the girls when it came out that I played D&D. Don't talk to me about what group was elitist.
I have been playing D&D off and one since the early 80's. I straddled both the "cool kids" and "the losers" worlds, since I played high school football, but also was in the Gamers Club. I still remember with exquisite clarity the eye rolls from the girls when it came out that I played D&D. Don't talk to me about what group was elitist.
This topic isn't much about the "what was". This is more about "what is".
Being a victim of one elitist barb doesn't excuse generating one of your own, and then perpetuating that attitude forward as part of the "way this should be". If you and your gaming group enjoy the ruleset of OD&D, B/X, 2E, BECMI, 3/3.5E, or even 4E, that's up to what is most fun at your table. What's good for you and your's is great, have the best version of fun that you can conjure up. You want to customise your game, please do! You're encouraged to do so in the DMG. You've been encouraged to do so in *every* DMG. You don't like CR or 5e, that's fine too! Just remember that a rising tide floats all boats. Some of the rules didn't change: be fair, have fun.
What I might point out is, the way that you run your table isn't the best answer for every table, and never was a requirement. Not even back in the 70s & 80s. The DMG was always a guide. Ole' Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson wasn't gonna come hunt people down and take away their DMG if they had "bad, wrong, fun" with their game.
There is a delineation between being authoritative and being an authoritarian. You don't need to be an authoritarian to be a DM. I would also point out that eventually the authoritarian might find themselves isolated through attrition. As, and you may disagree, players will eventually figure out that they can also be a DM, and that the DM is also one of the players of the game. This is potentially why a good many of us have taken up the mantle of being the DM.
I will never understand how being a victim of elitist and gatekeeper attitudes is best served by adopting the same principle of kicking down at someone because they don't share the same beliefs as you. If your version of good DM advice comes out as: "you're having bad, wrong, fun", I would highly suggest that you take a break from behind the screen and spend some time as just a player again. Maybe try to remember what it's like to be the one that has to find a DM worth playing with.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Yeah...revisionist history there. 20 years ago, same as 40 years ago, D&D players were looked upon as geeks and losers and the cool kids wanted nothing to do with D&D, and us. D&D was always inclusive. There was nothing elitist about it. And the fact that you have come into the game via pop culture like CR, when the game is now "cool and mainstream" speaks volumes. 20 years ago, how did "you not look that you belonged"? Were you too good-looking, wore the current fashion trends, what was the trigger that the typically ostracized looked you over and said "no" to you?
I am beginning to see that this is not just how you DM. While being inspired to give the game a chance again through an amazingly fun, inclusive, accepting culture of people may speak volumes of me, trying to dismiss my own lived experience as 'revisionist history' speaks volumes about you. D&D may have always been an inclusive game, but the players do not necessarily get to claim that label. This post is dripping with resentment.
Since you asked, yes, I was and still am a gym rat. Being an elitist does not mean someone who is part of the 'cool crowd', which I was not even part of anyway. Gatekeepers can be emotionally stunted, maladjusted people on the fringe of society as well. I have always been a nerd. From Star Trek and Pokemon to X-Men and Chrono Trigger. That's who I was and still am to some degree. I had heard about D&D in some way at the time and I knew of some kids who played it during lunch period in one of the school hallways. One day I worked up the courage to ask them if I could join. This was difficult for me because I am an introvert and at the time, was extremely, cripplingly shy. They looked me over, looked at each other, and one told me that they didn't think the game was for me and then turned their backs on me until I left.
I do not think that mine was necessarily a common experience, but I do think this exclusionary, argumentative mindset, which can bleed over into insufferable, authoritarian DM behavior is one that persists in certain circles of people who have maybe been harmed and choose to visit that harm on others by telling them that they are not good enough, or perhaps seek to control every aspect of play at their table at the expense of player fun. I can only guess at why you feel compelled to tell me that my own experiences, which you were not present for, never happened. Even going as far as to suggest some character defect because I enjoy something (CR) you apparently do not enjoy. I encourage you to look inward and maybe be open to some of the advice given in this thread. I genuinely feel it will be helpful for you in the long run.
I like that be yourself always
I want to preface this by saying I started playing and DMing D&D almost 30 years ago.
My best advice to improve one’s skills as a DM, watch this:
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I design the entire game, including wilderness, towns, forests and deserts as if they are “dungeons”. The rooms are whenever something happens, the passageways are the descriptors of what goes on in between.
Game management absolutely, I have seen campaigns die because they slowed to a crawl and the DM didn’t understand insisting “he was letting the players do what they wanted”. This resulted in the party spending entire sessions aimlessly wandering around with no idea of what to do next. Equally I have myself realised I was rushing players through what I thought was a boring part of the game when they wanted to spend a little more time invested in it.
I will expand on you point 3, when I got the monster manual I read through it and then put it down I had a feel for it and what was in it but there is too much there to remember. So when I am planning an encounter I will usually use an online resource to shortlist the kinds of creatures found in that environment and then look them up. Then I will structure the encounter based around there abilities.
I will also add, learn the CR system and then understand it’s limitations, which are many. If you create an encounter based on the CR and feel it is light it probably is, you know your players and the skills and tactics they use. It is not meta gaming to purposely give them challenges that go against how they normally approach problems, that is just making them think.
Ok first of all well done for trying to be helpful with this list but understand it really isn’t giving any real information.
Not every group is the same, not every groups needs every iota of the game to be described, some groups, in fact more then you realise, just want to roll dice and hit stuff. They don’t want to wait for 10 mins while you “immerse them” in the situation. But also, description can be just a couple of words and lots of DMs I know will write things out and have a script ready.
Roleplay, again understand your players not every player wants to play in the first person, not every player wants to have to spend time thinking about what they want to say. I have had several players who would simply prefer telling me, I want to try and bribe the guard, and have me tell them to roll for it. They don’t want to tell me what they say, or roleplay out a conversation and they never will. I have a group right now which entirely play in the 3rd person, my character says this, my character does that. That is the way these individuals want to play DND, if I wanted to I couldn’t get them to change this, and I wouldn’t. In my experience of 20+ years of DMing and playing many many different systems with many many many players I can honestly count on one hand how many players truly played in the first person. One of those groups where drama students at uni that I DMd for. The only other times players have got into character like this is playing live action roleplay, I was in a vampire masquerade group we met in a pub once a week, no dice rolling, no pen and paper, one adventure saw us actually going around our city in real time chasing a wearwolf. I have also done larpong in fantasy settings with foam swords and plastic shields. But most groups, don’t roleplay like streamers do and the only group that roleplayed idle chit chat round a camp fire, the drama students, no one I know sits and has deep and meaningful conversations in character.
The rule of cool, yes is a thing, but, it doesn’t mean saying yes all the time. Long before Matt Mercer coined it I was saying, by all means give it a try, I will never tell a player they can’t do a thing, I will set a DC so high it might be impossible and players want this, they might think they want you to let them bend the rules but in my 20 years of experience players are like children, they think they don’t want the rules but, take the rules away and they actually get bored really quickly, while making your life harder. Learning to say no the right way is a far better lesson then learning to always say yes.
So I suppose my advice to make someone a better DM.
Talk to your players about the game that they want to play. Don’t assume you know what it is they want, you will probably be wrong and a player not getting what they want from a session will be far more likely to play games. If your players are doing that it isn’t because your not describing properly, it’s probably because they are not enjoying the game overall and would rather be somewhere else.
I mean you're not wrong, talking to your players and having a "session 0" or however you want to do it finds out the game you're going to run with and for that group.
I know you shared some of what groups for you run and how they interact (which I cut out of your quote but it's because were going to cycle around back to what I bolded from your quote) and sometimes the groups one runs into. The only person whos ever been in anything remotely acting heavy at all in the group im running a game for mysef (and I'm not entirely doing voices, its my first major outing and I've been focused on getting things right, I've done one here and there but nothing major and will quickly fall out of it, just because sometimes my focus drifts). I've had two 'majorish" hiccups overall during the thing but the group (which has grown since the start of the module, not by much just a total of two players) has grown since the start of the module and every issue has been dealt with... and this group once spent forty five minutes roleplaying a conversation about giving party members up to a hag... not in voices mind you but in character (which was hilarious because out of character almost none of them remotely thought dealing with the hags would be a good thing).
Which is why your advice, talking to the players to figure out what they want their DnD to be, is one of the best pieces around. Everyones DnD is going to be different... similarities will exist of course but the experience wont be the same..... and that's because different people want different things from DnD... and that doesn't make it wrong for anyone. It does mean that the right people need to be at the right table so that the people playing in the group are all getting what they want and/or offered... which can only happen if you talk it over with them.
Actually speaking I phrased it right... DnD is a collaborative game.. and frankly where I stand no one person, including the DM, is more important than another. You think a DM is more important than a player and that's fine that's your opinion but I know several people who wouldn't play at a table like that (some of which still think AD and D was when the game was the best)... and again it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. At the end of the day I'm sure we both agree DnD is a collaborative game, right?
Yes DM's do the lionshare of the work and player etiquette should make them respect that and if they have questions bring them to the DM and etc... and perhaps that table may not be for them if the DM is unwilling to compromise, which again would be their prerogative. But DM's need players, just like players need DM's.... theres a table out there for everyone you just have to find it.
You are not superior to them, but you are (usually) more important than them, in that the party can exist without them but cannot exist without you (this is not always true, a party honoring a specific person can't occur without that person but might be able to change hosts, but it's usually true).
In any case, the assertion that the DM should make themselves happy is not an assertion that the DM is more important than anyone else. Everyone in the game, including the DM, should be having fun. If you can't find a game that you want to run and your players want to play, maybe someone else should be the DM. Or you should find a different group.
For a DM to exist you need to have players, yes as a DM I put in a ton of work but the world is collaborative, when my players created there characters I asked them to name the town they where born in, to tell ‘me about the background and that all fed into my world, my world develops and grows around there actions, I don’t prescribe or tell them what to do I lay out situations and then the world reacts to the things they do. I could not tell that story on my own because frankly I would never think of taking a trip to the water plane to try and farm shells, or going to the big mountains that I haven’t even put on a map because they sound cool.
Even the rules I use are collaboratively defined, I will tell my players at session zero, these are the homebrew rules I am thinking of using. I also always ask at session zero, are there any rules you really don’t like that we can maybe find an alternative for. That doesn’t mean I will always apply the suggestions but it helps the group feel included and involved. This isn’t new it comes after 20+ years of roleplaying many many systems.
A dictator as a DM in my opinion is the worst playing situation, I have left 2 tables that had DMs who sound like you, and both games collapsed soon after I left because the other players felt much the same. No a DM is not god, player comes to me with a sex starved tiefling I don’t say no, I will sit down with them and collaborate on tweaking that character to fit the setting, or, shock horror tweak my setting to fit the character of the story feels compelling, the character is fun or the player really seems invested. Who am I to tell them no, you can’t do that because this is my game so there.
Yes a host decides the theme of the party and who gets invited, and then gets blamed if it is a rubbish experience which, from my experience any party that has a dictator running it is usually rubbish. The best parties, like the best roleplay campaigns come from people working together to tell a shared story. I know so many DMs who think like you and generally there stories start, I had this awful group that I just had to TPK, or kick out, or end the campaign, or they all left, or, I have never started my own campaign, I can never find players who want to play the game I want to run.
Now your way might work for you and your friends, you mig be be able to balance it and find people who want to play the game your way and feel the same way but my experience of every roleplay game I have played (and by my last estimate it was 30+ distinct systems) is that the best games happen when a Storyteller/DM/GM works collaboratively with there players.
And kicking a player out of the group, yes that should always be a group decision. In all the years I have played it has only happened a handful of times for me and every time I spoke to the group as a whole and we came to a collective decision as to what to do.
This thread goes a long way to show why players struggle so much to find tables to play at. As a DM, I do not consider myself a god of the players at my table, but rather, I am their guide. I like to think that it is this mindset that has contributed to the fact that no player has ever quit my table. I wonder how many ‘god DMs’ can say the same.
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Exactly as per my message my experience I meeting such DMs at events, or gaming conventions or even just the pub is that they are usually the ones complaining about player engagement, or bragging about the last on purpose TPK to get rid of a problem group, or missing they always have problem players. I have stopped trying to suggest that if your 4th game collapses maybe it’s time to look in a mirror. Ironically one of the few times I have had to ask a player to leave my game he was a DM who was struggling to find a group, it turned out because he was a dictator, and as a player he was just as bad. Trying to take over the table.
We should be able to learn something from anyone. Some people provide good examples of what we want to emulate, others provide examples of what we don't want to become.
This thread definitely provides a good portion of both.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I will expand on this and say all TTRPGs are like this, of all the different terms used for the DM that different systems use my favorite is always storyteller because it doesn’t have the word master in it, yes it is a slight misnomer because we are telling a collective story but systems that use it generally emphasize storytelling aspects over everything else and that leads to collaboration. I am intrigued if those dictator types of DMs also try and railroad to tell there story, do they tell players “no you can’t go to that place to do that thing because the story I want to tell us here”.
I will say that after reading your posts, it seems clear to me that whatever struggles you may have gone through adapting to the modern culture of the game, you have adapted well. You seem to have a firm grasp on the spirit of the game.
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I think for me the fact I didn’t come to DND until really late in my game playing life means I never experienced this kind of lesson, my friends and I purposely avoided DND because it was a hack and slash dungeon crawl at a time when vampire, legend of the 5 rings, doomtown, cyberpunk and so many other systems seemed just more fun, they where about making movies in our minds and that is where I learnt to DM, letting players do stupid stuff like leap from a moving truck while shooting a pack of C4 they had just stuck to a bad guys back, or planning out a heist and having the freedom of the city to come up with the best solution. I remember playing and DMing L5R which was all about roleplaying in feudal Japan to the point where having your character commit ritual suicide simply to maintain the honour of your clan, even though you beat the bad guy, became a key roleplay aspect. Knowing that saying or doing the wrong thing in front of the wrong person could bring u dishonor. But the game that taught me the most about the roleplay and collaborative aspects of TTRPGs was ironically paranoia, that game taught me so much about roleplaying a megalomania computer with multiple personalities, and as a player taught me that RPGs can just be crazy fun games.
I think it is about how you came to the world of TTRPGs as much as the people you played with.
I agree with this. I came to D&D only four years ago (my join date on DDB) thanks to Critical Role. But I tried getting into it more than 20 years ago in high school. I was denied access to the game by those with this kind of elitist mentality simply because I did not look like I belonged. The way a person (in this case a DM) treats someone at the table can put that person off the game for literal decades or it can cause that person to fall in love.
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Revisionist history there. People being looked down on has never prevented them from being elitist, and certainly did not do so for D&D (for reference: first played D&D in 1977).
Story time.
One of the players in my group is kind of an "old-school" player. I will say this because he did play old school DnD (well correction advanced DnD, he mentions Gary Gygax a lot and loving that time period, etc... and I know previously in other threads BigLizard mentioned the previous version before ADnD and I can guarantee my friend did not play that) and hes played every variation since ADnD (which is still his favorite, he's trying to mesh ADnD and 5e) and again in his head he would consider himself an old school player.. but from a lot of what I have seen with the way his thinking "mostly" goes.... he really doesn't qualify.
He will go on the fact that DM is god at the table, but he also calls it a collaborative game, from his view point, and if folks arent having fun at his table he needs to find away to adjust. He does hate lots of things, mindsets about the current system, is having a hard time adjusting, and most of our conflicts, since me coming to the table, have to do with trying to find ways that were on the same page and we both consider things fair (the long and short, in his mind I had a session 0 when I didn't and I was introduced to the table by showing off the 5e playerhandbook when a lot of the systems he was using from ADnD.. which I have never read, studied or learned about.. were still working at it, and were both coming to understandings but it takes work).
He also will occassionaly use phrases that don't mean what he thinks he means (last night I he explaiend he loves playing at low levels, which most of the players have told them they don't like that, because he think's its a rush, etc.. and called me a power gamer because I like playing at the higher levels 10 thru 15.. and I wouldn't qualify that's really what it means because it's certainly not why i would enjoy playing at higher levels) but at the end of the day he does think it's our game... versus his game. Oh sure he will reference it as his game.. because he created, runs it, etc... but when he says that he doesn't for a second believe that hes more important than anyone... if his players arent enjoying it... hes not going too.
I once made a thread unsure of whether not I should quit this game, on these very forums.. and if I could go back and never have wrote that thread because I know it mostly snowballed from a place of hurt due to the fact I constantly was thinking one thing and someone was thinking another... and both thought we were always trying to announce our points, we never really realized what the other was saying... at the end of the day we both want the same thing and our trying to find the way to do it... and change is hard... regardless of what anyone says... I mean sure technically as a DM anyone can choose to not change and say "dems de rules" or however youd like to phrase it... but you can (depending on how the group is formed) also lose friends or people who could matter that way.. and some people value that and try to change.
The answer is both. It's not an either-or.
This topic isn't much about the "what was". This is more about "what is".
Being a victim of one elitist barb doesn't excuse generating one of your own, and then perpetuating that attitude forward as part of the "way this should be". If you and your gaming group enjoy the ruleset of OD&D, B/X, 2E, BECMI, 3/3.5E, or even 4E, that's up to what is most fun at your table. What's good for you and your's is great, have the best version of fun that you can conjure up. You want to customise your game, please do! You're encouraged to do so in the DMG. You've been encouraged to do so in *every* DMG. You don't like CR or 5e, that's fine too! Just remember that a rising tide floats all boats. Some of the rules didn't change: be fair, have fun.
What I might point out is, the way that you run your table isn't the best answer for every table, and never was a requirement. Not even back in the 70s & 80s. The DMG was always a guide. Ole' Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson wasn't gonna come hunt people down and take away their DMG if they had "bad, wrong, fun" with their game.
There is a delineation between being authoritative and being an authoritarian. You don't need to be an authoritarian to be a DM. I would also point out that eventually the authoritarian might find themselves isolated through attrition. As, and you may disagree, players will eventually figure out that they can also be a DM, and that the DM is also one of the players of the game. This is potentially why a good many of us have taken up the mantle of being the DM.
I will never understand how being a victim of elitist and gatekeeper attitudes is best served by adopting the same principle of kicking down at someone because they don't share the same beliefs as you. If your version of good DM advice comes out as: "you're having bad, wrong, fun", I would highly suggest that you take a break from behind the screen and spend some time as just a player again. Maybe try to remember what it's like to be the one that has to find a DM worth playing with.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I am beginning to see that this is not just how you DM. While being inspired to give the game a chance again through an amazingly fun, inclusive, accepting culture of people may speak volumes of me, trying to dismiss my own lived experience as 'revisionist history' speaks volumes about you. D&D may have always been an inclusive game, but the players do not necessarily get to claim that label. This post is dripping with resentment.
Since you asked, yes, I was and still am a gym rat. Being an elitist does not mean someone who is part of the 'cool crowd', which I was not even part of anyway. Gatekeepers can be emotionally stunted, maladjusted people on the fringe of society as well. I have always been a nerd. From Star Trek and Pokemon to X-Men and Chrono Trigger. That's who I was and still am to some degree. I had heard about D&D in some way at the time and I knew of some kids who played it during lunch period in one of the school hallways. One day I worked up the courage to ask them if I could join. This was difficult for me because I am an introvert and at the time, was extremely, cripplingly shy. They looked me over, looked at each other, and one told me that they didn't think the game was for me and then turned their backs on me until I left.
I do not think that mine was necessarily a common experience, but I do think this exclusionary, argumentative mindset, which can bleed over into insufferable, authoritarian DM behavior is one that persists in certain circles of people who have maybe been harmed and choose to visit that harm on others by telling them that they are not good enough, or perhaps seek to control every aspect of play at their table at the expense of player fun. I can only guess at why you feel compelled to tell me that my own experiences, which you were not present for, never happened. Even going as far as to suggest some character defect because I enjoy something (CR) you apparently do not enjoy. I encourage you to look inward and maybe be open to some of the advice given in this thread. I genuinely feel it will be helpful for you in the long run.
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