FNF: To DM or Not to DM (Dungeons and Dragons)

TO DM OR NOT TO DM

That is the inner war in my head right now, and I'd like to make it my Friday Night Fight blog post this week.

Recently I've been at odds with myself about continuing to be a DM and to continue to play Dungeons and Dragons altogether.

What is a DM?

To bring things in perspective, for those that don't know what a DM is:  A DM, short for Dungeon Master, is the game's administrator, arbitrator, and referee all in one, with the game being an interactive story where the players (everyone else but the DM) goes about the story as administered by the DM.

This requires a LOT of planning, understanding the game, and having good repour with those at the table.  Some of the aspects of DMing include, but not limited to:

** knowing the game world's basic (and sometimes advanced) mechanics, such as the whos who of the world, the "relative to Earth" time setting, what is and is not in the game world, etc.

** general tabletop wargaming and board game concepts, such as moving a game piece on a grid, facing, range, visibility, and the ability to do at least 7th grade math.

** knowledge of the game mechanics, such as who at the table can do what, when can they do it, and what benefits / limitations would impact based on the next bullet point

** knowledge of the story the players will be interacting with.  Who is who, what is where, how everything would flow together without the player's interactions and a general sense on how the player's interactions would affect the story.

** the ability to administer a group of people in doing an activity.  A DM is not the "leader" of the group.  The DM is responsible for the rest of the world and to administer the world's mechanics to the players.  Admin of the environment, the monsters, the items, the physics, the non-player characters of the story, and the characters.

** Not be, or resist the urge, to be a dick to his/her players at the table that isn't unwarranted by the story.  The bad guy does X, which is what he would do, but not Y because its not what he would do.  In other words, the DM has to have some self-integrity toward everyone at the table.

** Time consumption is normally burn 1-2 hours per day at this on my custom-generated world that I've keep building upon for over 20 years.  

With all of that said, you can get burned out fairly quickly.  There are lots of social aspects to the game that can wear down a DM.  Believe me, I've felt them, and this is what is causing the dilemma.

Shifting Priorities

The first aspect of whether or not I should do it is a shift in priorities.  Maybe its a personal thing, maybe it's not.  As winter wanes, the snow is melting in Interior Alaska, and spring is on the horizon, I feel i've got non-D&D things that need my attention.  

These attention grabbers eat my weekly free time, leave me on a Friday, at lunchtime, trying to scramble and build and prep and map out and outline everything that is going on in game only 4 hours away.

With anything, its all about proper planning.  I've learned over the last decade plus my planning time and routine for a good game, and a 4-hour cram session, which 3/4 of that is me struggling at work, does not cut it.

Mainstream Meta Chasing

The second aspect is the social dynamic of the game.  I try to have a "Session Zero" (a gaming session where only game administration - character concepts, rules, player thoughts and feedback) once at the beginning, and then a shorter (<30 mins) Session Zero at certain milestones of the game.  

Many of games have been abandoned because of this "Milestone Session" for a variety of reasons.  To summarize, most of the abandonment has been due to players being influenced by the uptick in popularity with D&D as it becomes more mainstream.  

With big shows like Critical Role and TikTok influencers like DnDShorts, and the main company kicking out massive amounts of "compendiums", my players are always looking for fresh ideas to try - always mid campaign right when the story is getting good and their current characters are gaining serious fame, gold, etc.    

Also, with my players "meta chasing" (with this mindset that D&D is some kind of online MMO), when these "great ideas" from these mainstreamers don't work (refer to all of my other Friday Night Fights posts for some of these moments where they don't work), emotions arise, which leads into my next point on this subject.

When the "meta" doesn't work for the player, they feel like they are targeted, even after a sidebar, Session Zero conversation on why that particular instance won't work.  I have three particular instances on this subject, but first, a Disclaimer/Side Note.

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Disclaimer / Side Note:  I am a pretty open-minded person when it comes to gaming.  I play all sorts of tabletop games, tabletop wargames, and understand that everything isn't everyone else's cup of tea.  I don't like to impose my will on people in general.  I'm not a "meta chaser" in most games.  I do my own thing and encourage people to do their own thing also.  I have an open table - there is always a seat at the table and the party and the game can adapt to a new player all the time.  Like our world, D&D is a very fluid environment.

That said, my custom world is many decades old, with several engrained points of how certain people, cultures, cities, races, monsters, and groups act and react with each other.  I discuss this and remind players about these aspects - especially about xenophobia, learned experiences, exploitation of other races, slavery, war, death, and other adult themes.  We're all adults and we agree to this.  When a new person comes to the table, we all as a group explain this to the new person.  As far as in game conveyance of this, I have lore upon lore typed and printed in a binder and a guild specific to gathering and safeguarding information, maps, locations, ancient knowledge - think if Indiana Jones was a guild.  The player says "I go to the library" and I hand them the binder or I ask them "what are you looking for" and read them some excerpts.

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The first story about a very social game being altered/modified by "the Meta" is when we as a group invited one of our other gamer friends (that game being Warhammer 40k, a very competitive tabeltop wargame) to join us on our Friday game.  The player, we will call him Dave for this story, did his research for a week, typed up this elaborate several page backstory that would befit a max level character, and provided me with the materials I requested - a Bugbear Polearm Master Bloodhunter, straight rip from the character in Critical Role.  After some deliberation and integration into the world and the story, he joined the character.

The campaign he was joining was a very sandbox style game of hostile jungle environment, small 'wild west' settlements, and several tribes of sentient monsters all about, with a greater demon having everything all fucked up.  The main story was to unfuck the region, one obelisk at a time.  One of these fuck ups was that if you die in the valley and are not consecrated by the time the sun falls, you become an ever-respawning revenant (so long as the town exists, so do the revenants).  The party was tracking down the undead obelisk when Dave joined them.

The first encounter did not go well, as we all roleplayed it as it should be.  There are no friendly goblinoids in this area.  The players know this.  They've been attacked by goblins since they were level 1.... now they are level 10.  A Bugbear just shows up out of the blue and say "hi."    (Note:  the current players knew nothing about Dave's character other than "Dave was joining us for Friday by Dave's request).  This did not go as Dave expected.  He was a little mad, but got over it.  

Dave played for two Fridays.  The first Friday he got a feel of the zone they were in and a good feel of his character, how the game ACTUALLY worked, and fought some goblinoids as they tracked down the Revenant Hideout.  

On Dave's second Friday, the party caught up with the Revenants and none of them expected to actually be what all the lore and rumors said they were - other characters with actual levels in actual classes and no regards for the living.  This was a boss fight through and through.  When Dave's polearm was forcibly dropped by the Revenant Battlemaster, then said bad guy action surged, took the polearm, and cut his character down before the Sorceress could blast the Revenant, Dave was a little perturbed to say the least.  Some words were thrown, but I diffused the situation by showing Dave, his character now slain, the notes I had on the Revenant.

(Note:  I assign ALL my encounters, man, monster, undead, IDFG what it is, a primary, secondary, and tertiary target priority list, based on the description in the manuals and/or lore.  THIS WAS COVERED IN ALL MY SESSION ZEROS THAT MONSTERS DO THIS!!!!.   These particular band of Revenants were serial killer Texas Chainsaw Massarcre family types, and the Revenant Battlemaster primary was "a worthy opponent equal to his skill.")

Once I showed Dave my notes in an attempt to diffuse the situation, he ramped back up about "that's not how it's done in Critical Role!" and "that's bullshit we're supposed to be the heroes!" concepts.  Another player pulled him aside and asked him to leave.  

We still play Warhammer 40k with Dave, but he has not asked to return to my table since.  He is more than welcome though if he ever does ask.

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My second story is a shorter one, and one that can be found on Facebook and YouTube.  Another Warhammer 40k friend of ours, we will call him Steve for this story, heard from another friend about our Friday Game Night and insisted that he join us, as he had his Fridays free.  Now, I've been friends with Steve for a better part of ten years, so I know the content of his character.... or so I thought.

I welcomed Steve to the group.  We as a group didn't know what to run, as he has never played before, but seen a little bit of Critical Role.  We decided that we would do the Tyrany of Dragons Campaign Book from the beginning, with some level one characters, make things easy for Steve.  The players have all done this before and know what to expect.  

After our Session Zero chat and character creation, Steve insisted that we film this, put it on the internet, and that I "get into character with some method acting."  To be honest, I expected that since the man's first hobby is the local LARP group.  I didn't expect the "let's go livestream" with it..... but I went along a bit, but he kept ramping up wanting more and more acting into this, not realizing I still had to facilitate the game fully.

Near the end of the night, I was spent.  The players could tell that I was spent.  The chapter's boss fight was too easy for them.  Post game the next day, we were in our group chat and he was excited, but wanted to go to a "full online experience" so he didn't have to come over and that his wife could join us.  To be honest, I did give it a consideration, but I took the whole of the group into consideration and put it to a vote.  The group voted no, and some choice words, although kind, were said about Critical Role comparisons.  Steve has never been back to our table, and its been over a year.

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My third story involves a man i've known almost 15 years and call my brother, his wife my sister, and his kids my nieces and nephews.  Either case, his eldest boy, we will call him Jack for this conversation, was a "meta chaser" through and through.  Any time conversations about D&D came up, he always referenced DnDShorts or similar Streamer/Influencers pimping amazingly OP ideas, and he was always pitching them at me.  Now, I don't mind building to an OP status, but I definitely disagree with starting out in that status if its not part of the story.  

He played with us for several years, and ended up leaving our group on bad terms.  This came about due to the awkward blending of his social life and that of the tabletop life.  Without bringing too many people into the story, Jack incorporated his girlfriend at the time to the group, but then broke it off with her to go with another chick.  His girlfriend has become a good friend to my wife and kids and the rest of the group.

Either case, on Saturday my brother and I alternate campaigns - he runs one until its done, then I run a campaign until its done, and so on.  About 8-10 weeks a piece give or take because of life, jobs, travel, summertime, etc.  

However, that is past tense, thanks to Jack.  I was running a campaign and Jack used one of these "meta tricks" without a Session Zero about it - but the basics of game mechanics and dice rolls fell not in his favor and even after all the buffs and the tricks that this character pulled out.  In the end, his character fell in an epic and badass way.  His next character was a similar scenario as well.... and then the drama started off table that spilled into on table.

For one reason or another, he didn't like "my playstyle" and that I "was a horrible DM" ... I had to hear this from his dad in a private conversation.... and this is after weeks of, in our Saturday game, him showing a Superhero Complex at the table and me resisting this type of behavior.  In two weekends, I went through three characters.

In their family dynamic, he is the Golden Child, and now that I have been decreed a "horrible DM" by Jack, now two people that I have known for close to 15 years now no longer want me to be a DM.  When his dad is the DM he can get away with anything he wants and his parents (both DM and player) show favoritism to Jack when the other players at the table, Jack's sisters included, do not.

The off table drama of Jack has also spilled into his dad's game, and so now we just don't play like we used to.  Jack's antics and his need for Superpower on table have kind of ruined the experience.

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The three stories above are just over the last couple of years.  However short it seems, it's still not any helpful to the decision to DM or not to DM.

I've talked it over with my current group, and they like the way I DM.  I might not change my DM style any time soon, and its a bit sad that my group is slowly falling apart due to life choices outside of the game.  

However, with the three stories alone, it makes me question my "open table" policy that I've grown into.  Should I maintain this policy and welcome any friend, or any friendly player, that wants to join our group?  Should I close the group off, and have some more restrictive measures before introducing new players to the table?

Or should I just quit DMing altogether?  I've shared my experiences, and those three stories above, on D&D Facebook groups and been completely roasted by it.... called a lot more than a "horrible DM" for them and some choice words of "I feel sorry for your players having to put up with you as a DM."

My players haven't revolted yet, but it's still a blow to the ego that leaves me wondering....

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.....  To DM or not to DM ...