"Dear JB" Mailbag #10

[I'm not sure how many more of these I plan on doing. A lot of these reddit gripes are fairly repetitive. And, yet, the dumb answers most of these folks get just incense and fuel me to new rants. I really just need to write a "How To" book for the market...but the topic is so LARGE it's easier to tackle it piecemeal through dumb little posts like this. *sigh* I'm lazy, I know...]

Dear JB:

This is my first time DMing, last campaign our DM preferred being a player so I volunteered to DM the next campaign. I was pretty excited and I took a ton of time planning out my campaign. While I was planning the campaign, I wanted some help from the previous DM. She helped me and while helping me she made her own character, Mildred. She told me her character's lore and asked me if I could incorporate some of her lore into the campaign so I said sure but I tried not to incorporate too much of it but before I knew it, suddenly she made her character become the entire campaign. As she helped me build the campaign she just kept putting more and more of her character's stuff into the campaign to the point where I really thought "damn if you like this character so much then just make your own campaign then". I allowed some stuff but most of it I told her I would not be adding. Then when the campaign started, she started adding her own stuff into the world. She made her own npc's for my campaign, she planned out her own fight with a monster she created in MY campaign, she told the other players what to roll for even though I didn't want them rolling?? I talked to her separately saying that this was my campaign, she shouldn't be adding in random stuff without debriefing me first. And she said that she did debrief me, because she kept telling me about her theories on the campaign. I didn't want to confirm nor deny campaign theories because I think it's fun to make theories on the campaign I didn't want to limit her or stop her on doing theories. But apparently, since I didn't say that her theories were wrong she just straight up assumed that what she said was right and she just started adding her theories into the campaign?????? This has made me not like DMing and I hate the campaign now, I no longer want to play dnd anymore because she is just making it so unenjoyable. I don't know what to do! 

 TLDR; First time DMing, previous DM won't stop controlling my campaign even though I keep asking her not to and she has somehow made the entire campaign revolve around HER character 

 Okay sorry for rant y'all I'm just so fed up and I don't know what to do

This Is My First Time DMing

Hey, First Time:

I am going to try to be gentle here...but it's hard. It's really, really hard. The second sentence of your letter states:

I was pretty excited and I took a ton of time planning out my campaign.

Were you? Did you? And now you write:

...I hate the campaign now, I no longer want to play dnd anymore...

Because of someone else's actions. As if you didn't have COMPLETE AND UTTER CONTROL OVER YOUR OWN WORLD.  The "TLDR" bit is the kicker: "previous DM won't stop controlling my campaign even though I keep asking her not to and she has somehow made the entire campaign revolve around HER character." 

You f'ing child. 

Either it's YOUR campaign, and YOU are the Dungeon Master...or it's not. Period. End of story. 

What "help" did you ask your previous DM for? As a new DM, asking for help is a great idea...questions like what's important? What should I focus on? How do I prep? Which rules should I commit to memory? Which rules should I have on cheat sheets or tabbed in my DMG? How do I stock a dungeon? These types of pointers are the kind of helpful advice that an experienced DM can give to a new DM, and a new DM would be WISE to take advantage of any willing mentor.

But it sounds to me like you weren't looking for info on how to run a game and be a competent DM. Instead, you were looking for CONTENT to put in your campaign. Which is a blatant failure.

Why did you want to be a DM? Why? Can you answer that question? For most of us "long-timers" there's a number of reasons, some simple, some complicated. But at the heart of it, there is at least some desire to be a creator...because creation is a large part of the action and responsibility of the Dungeon Master. 

The DM role is not a passive, reactive one. DMs are initiators of action.  Even if your world building chops are poor (and any DM should be working to improve those skills), you must create situations for your players to explore...or else there is no game. 

So...tell me why you wanted to be a DM? Did you have no ideas for situations? No content you wanted to implement?

[yes, I know some will say the urge to DM comes from a desire for power and control, and that's not invalid. But even jackass DMs of the worst sort are creators of situations...bad situations!...for their players]

Now, you say you put a "ton of time" into "planning your campaign." But what does that mean? Because clearly that doesn't translate to much actual effort on your part. Because if it did, you wouldn't be whining and crying like a baby and ready to chuck the whole thing in the trash. In fact, if you had put any real effort into the creation of your campaign, there's no way in hell you'd ever have let your old DM walk all over you in the way you describe!

As with other letter writers, this is an issue of YOU being the asshole in the situation, not the player. The person you're angry with is YOURSELF, because you committed to running a game, and then you half-assed it (at best), and then you allowed an experienced player to write your campaign for you. 

To me, this sounds like you aren't really cut out to be a DM and what you're doing now is looking for an excuse to cut bait and go back to being a player while somehow saving face, i.e. you want your prior DM to take over, but want to bitch about it so that you aren't shown to be the coward and slacker you really are.

Let Me Be Clear: DMs who want to be players aren't doing it because they want to create content 'on the sly.' They're doing it because they want a break from the shackles of being a DM and experience the "other side of the screen" for a while. But we're not trying to "secretly take over, manipulate the DM, and control the game;" if we wanted to run a game, guess what? We'd be running the game as the Dungeon Master! We know how to do it, and we'd do it, and the players would come because there are always people who want to play and who don't want to do the work of being a DM. Your old DM? She's filling a VOID that you are leaving in your game because she knows what's supposed to be there (content for engagement), and you're not providing it. The resentment you're feeling should be squarely directed in the mirror. 

But go ahead and listen to all the idiots on Reddit telling you to show your player the door, or talk her down from providing content, or ignoring her, or punishing her character. Go ahead: kick her to the curb! And then what? Are you (finally) going to put on your Big Boy Pants and create your own content? Or are you going to continue to flounder around until you can find some other lame-ass excuse to disband the campaign.

Because here's the thing: if you WERE doing your job as a DM, this would be a NON-ISSUE. If you were creating your own situations for the players, they wouldn't be worried about concocting "theories" (whatever the fuck that means)...they'd be too busy engaging with your game world. They wouldn't need to come up with interesting scenes or NPCs or monster encounters (!!) if you were creating that content. The way that a Dungeon Master is supposed to. 

Here's the most solid advice I can give you, First Time DM: bow out. With as much grace as possible. Acknowledge that you weren't quite ready to take up the mantle of Dungeon Master. Ask your former DM if she'd be willing to run the game again (and thank her for doing her best to bail your sorry ass out). AND, if you find you still have the bug to DM, then start doing the work...on the side. Write down your own ideas (not all of which you'll keep) for your own campaign, for your own adventures, for your own NPCs and situations. And when you're ready...really ready, ready to work...only then throw your hat in the ring and offer to run a game. And give yourself the patience to learn on the job (because that's how we all do it), while using your own content to run your own campaign. Chalk up this failed experiment as a learning experience (we can learn from our failures) and GROW from it. Humble pie is good for the soul.

Sincerely,

JB