I went to the store, deliberately, with the intention of purchasing the book, for the following reasons:
- As someone working on a similar work, I thought it only "due diligence" to check out the competition and see what was deemed to warrant such rave reviews.
- As someone working on a similar work, I thought it only "common sense" to see if there was anything left for me to ADD with a book of my own, seeing as how this one was designed to take you "right from the beginning of prep to running a successful game" (in the words of one reviewer).
- I needed to do some Christmas shopping at the bookstore anyway.
- I recently received a fat payment and had money burning a hole in my wallet.
So, I picked it up and, after a hearty meatball sandwich lunch, spent the afternoon reading it from cover-to-cover, mainly skimming it (there are a lot of examples and diagrams) but diving into the parts that seemed to present newer info, thoughtful advice, or deep(ish) ideas and "guidance."
Then I drove back to the store and returned it, getting a full refund.
You will notice that I am not naming the author nor the book in question. I have two reasons for this:
- As a person who has written books before, and who is undertaking a similar gargantuan task of explaining how to DM this game I love, it is clear that the author put a crap-ton of effort into this book...a monumental investment of time and energy. While I may have a negative opinion of the work itself, I'm going to give the author some credit just for birthing this thing.
- In general, I don't believe in "bad publicity," and as such I usually don't name things...positive or negative...unless I'm okay with people putting 'em in their shopping cart. That's just a me thing. Yeah, I broke that rule when I wrote about the 2024 DMG, but that was more akin to a public safety announcement...I knew people were going to buy that (regardless) and felt a "warning label" of sorts was necessary.
The bottom line is this: yeah, a book like the one I'm writing is still needed. Maybe I'm not the one to write it, but if THAT thing is considered the pinnacle of "how to DM" books, than the bar has been set extremely low. Most of the information in it wasn't anything more than what you'd get reading Moldvay's Basic book (a lot of the "adventure design" seemed to be taken directly from Moldvay with slight adjustments and a LOT of extra word count) and the NEW "guidance" was...bad. Just bad from the opening chapters. Always saying yes to players, just as a default...um, no. Explicitly stating that the DM's job is EASIER than the players' job? Um, sure...if you SUCK at being a Dungeon Master.
Do we really need a book to explain dice nomenclature? Isn't that on page one of every edition of every RPG ever? And you state right up front that you're not going to teach the rules, so they need to read the instructions so then what's with the elementary intro crap?
*sigh* That's enough. I could keep piling on but that's not productive. And it wasn't a waste of my time to read through it...it gave me solid ideas of what I should and shouldn't be doing with my own book, AND boosted my spirits that I'm not totally reinventing the wheel. That's a comfort.
Now back to work.
; )
I think I’ve seen the book you’re talking about at my local bookstore. Sorry to hear it is going to be a less-than-ideal introduction to fledgling DMs.
ReplyDelete“ Always saying yes to players, just as a default...um, no.”
I’m curious what the author meant by this. I usually take the classic “Well, you can certainly try…” line with my players, but they learn pretty quickly that stupid stuff is not gonna fly. Some folks also really want to fixate on silly stuff for an inordinate amount of time at the table, so you have to learn to curb that too lest the rest of the table become bored as hell. Always saying “yes” is not the way.
"When you use "No," everything is simple: There are no complications. No consequences. You don't have to create anything.
Delete"But that's exactly why you almost never want to use it. "No" stagnates the action. It leaves the situation unchanged. Instead of giving the players a new situation they can react to, you're instead asking them to come up with a new reaction to the same situation.
"What you want to do is almost exactly the opposite: Default to yes.
[examples]
"..."Yes" moves the action forward. It creates a new situation that both you and the players will now be forced to respond to. Now that they're on the other side of the chasm, what will they do? Were are they going to find a supply of holy water? How are they going to hide the orc's corpse?
"At a more basic level, defaulting to yes also makes sense because people mostly succeed at the stuff they do. Walk down to the corner store? Say hello to an old friend? Read a book? If someone wants to do those things, they'll almost certainly have no problem doing so, and that also applies to most of the things that players tell you their characters are going to do.
"Another thing to keep in mind is that the players are generally going to propose doing things they WANT to see happen. So if you default to yes, you're really just giving your audience what they want, which is almost always a winning move. Plus, your players probably already know how they want to respond to success. They wanted to jump across the chasm because there was something they want to do on the other side.
"To boil all that down: Unless you have a specific reason for NOT saying yes, your ruling should always be, "Yes, you do that and this is what happens." "
That's the actual text of the book. It's wrong-headed on a number of levels. Players are not an "audience" to whom you must pander. D&D is a game with rules and limitations that set the parameters of play (even in 5E...in theory). There are also systems to adjudicate certain actions (one of the author's "say yes" examples is a player saying "I stab the orc" and the DM saying "okay he dies")...this is not just an exercise in making stories.
Anyway...
Yeah. It's not good. But who's writing better stuff? Who's PUBLISHING better stuff? Writing informative, no-nonsense text is tough and time-consuming...some of us have dinners to cook and kids to drive to soccer practice. It'll get done...but it takes time. Sadly.
I feel like some of this desire to “please an audience” must come from a lack of faith in the game as it is presented. Certainly for some people, it won’t be sufficient on its own, but in those cases it is probably best to wish them well and hope they find a game more suited to them elsewhere. People-pleasing as a DM is not a viable long-term solution.
DeleteWell, I’m rooting for you in your endeavor. It is a challenge to make the time to create when you don’t have the luxury of retreating from other responsibilities. I fell short of my own creative resolutions for 2025 but I haven’t thrown in the towel; gotta keep on truckin’.
There is definitely an audience for books like yours; I found Alexis’ “How to Run” instructive and enjoyable and expect the same from Melan’s coming book. I’m a longtime DM, but I recognize there are many that are better and more experienced that have wisdom to share. The very fact that the subject of your post sold so many copies suggests there are also tons of novice DMs out there that are looking for help, it is just a question of getting the better alternatives in front of their eyes.
One of the FLGS in my area is pretty good about putting non-mainstream books on the shelves, so I can speak with the proprietor about getting these stocked someday if POD/digital is not the only option.
Yeah, that's not great advice there. It's true that a flat "No" just shuts down a line of thought and doesn't offer anything interesting. But "Yes, and..." comes from improv theatre, with an audience, where the goal is to always keep the scene moving and not repeating itself. D&D is not improv theatre. It's essentially the (limited) simulation of another world, where the players are presented with a series of obstacles to their goals and the fun of the game is largely in figuring out how to overcome those obstacles. Simply saying "yes" to everything trivializes those obstacles. Why even have a chasm if you automatically say "yes" to "Can I just jump over it?" It's just scenery at that point. Which is fine for what it is, but it's not really the meat of the game the way a chasm that requires some creative problem solving or the use of limited magical resources is.
DeleteIt's a little odd because the author is generally a simulationist sort of GM on his blog, and maybe the advice gets more nuanced later in the book (I've only read maybe the first third of it so far, which I agree is fairly remedial in its advice).
@ Stairs: Ha! Thank you for the encouragement. I'm working on a chapter today!
Delete@ Jesse: "Broad strokes" is more what you'll find than "nuance." Also, a casual attitude of "just have fun" is on full display, even in the later, nitty-gritty chapters of combat and campaign building.
I don't read the guy's blog...I've never found anything there to be useful or helpful, even if he seems generally competent. But he runs a different brand of D&D from me...he learned to play in the 1990s, and that set a lot of bad precedents for a lot of people.
I think Justin is in an interesting position as his book makes him the Hans Brinker of the "5e Core Rulebooks Don't Really Tell You How to Play" crisis and thus he has the ear of the 5e world. But this makes him the gateway drug to the Old School Renaissance and the Old School propper. Because evetnually you get sent to old school references and texts. On his site he talks about why he does 5e because of network externality: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/53129/roleplaying-games/thought-of-the-day-why-dd.
DeleteI think it is a stronger work if you are coming to it as a completely new player through the StrangerThings/CriticalRole/5e funnel, but still flawed. I go off script from it as I am using it as a framework to teach my own child to run a game. We often compare what Justin says to the wisdom of the grumpy greenwood gamer esposed here. I ask "who do you think is right?" Complex answers are returned which is good.
Haha! I should have called this blog "The Grumpy Greenwood Gamer." That would have been pretty spot on!
DeleteAre you teaching your child how to play D&D? Or how to GM the game? Because those are two different things. Does the book teach a newbie how to run a game? Yesssss...kind of. But it's a very "basic" type game he's teaching you how to run, and it includes some bad information/advice while leaving out a LOT of nuance that would well serve a newb. And it takes him over 500 pages to do it. Moldvay accomplishes MOST of the same in 64 pages...and 5E has their "starter sets" to (just saw a new one at B&N yesterday! Milk that cash cow, WotC!).
A lot of my grump is exaggerated in order to draw folks' attention (just in case that wasn't totally obvious...), but it's mostly rooted in experiential knowledge. When I take a hard stance on something, it's because I've got reasons...good reasons, REAL reasons, not hypothetical ones. Usually. But people are always welcome to experiment and generate their own experiential knowledge.
; )
I picked up Justin's book when I was finishing up the Hungarian version of Gamemaster's Guidelines, and came away disappointed as well. It seems to be targeted at the modern, story-heavy playstyle that is embodied by 5e, and is deeply informed by its assumptions. Which I guess is fair, but there really wasn't much there, and what was, was badly overwritten.
ReplyDeleteSo you are working on a GMing book as well. Interesting! Looking forward to reading it when it is published.
Ha! Thanks...I look forward to reading yours as well (in English, of course).
DeleteMine is projected to be a lot smaller than yours and (knowing me) will probably take longer to write.
Oh! And with regard to Justin's book, I found his whole "5+5" shtick incredibly galling in light of Moldvay's dungeon-stocking formula...perhaps only slightly more so than his "xandering" bit (as Moldvay was not amongst those thanked in the end).
DeleteHey Melan! I am pretty sure I was using (but certainly didn't coin) the term "Melan Diagram" on ENWorld and Necromancer game boards as jester47 loooong before Justin termed Jaquaysing (and then had to invent the verb Xandering at the request of Janell not to name it that). I remember reading "Dungeon layout, map flow and old school game design" and getting my mind blown. That was a seminal paper. You might also have made the argument for 6mi hexes I ran with on the old necroboards. Not sure though.... :)
DeleteHi jester47! Long time no see! Justin's points on dungeon design were building on my post to some extent (he acknowledged this fairly), but they also raised very significant new points, so I would not take it from him. It's well known for a reason, for all the naming confusion involved.
DeleteI could not have made the argument for 6-mile hexes, though, as I have always been using 12-mile ones! :) (And that was actually in keeping with Bob Bledsaw's original intentions for the Wilderlands - 5-mile hexes were a mistake that stuck.)
Books like these are desperately needed. I look forward to reading both of yours!
Delete