D&D General D&D "influencers" need to actively acknowledge other games.

[Oofta]

You're not everyone. I can promise doing so, especially in an organized fashion, is indeed a brand new idea to a fair number of people.

Fail forward is already in the DMG. It's just called success with a cost. If people aren't making the time to read the DMG, what makes you think they'll make the time to play other games?

 

[lolsworth]

So, I want to make this clear: if your job, that you have decided for yourself, is to tell people how to D&D better, then doing your job well absolutely requires you acknowledging the decades of development in the RPG space, both within and outside D&D.

Nothing inspires less confidence than an "influencer" actively telling you that they have been running D&D for 5 years and they have it all figured out. (Note: I am NOT saying GinniD does that.)

My thesis for this thread is simple and right on the tin: if you want to give advice on how to GM good, look at the whole scope of GMing, from Elusive Shift to Apocalypse World.

This may have been addressed elsewhere in the thread but I haven't read the whole thing.

Do you really think their job is to teach how to d&d better? An influencer can say their goal is whatever, but like a corporation who has a mission statement to "bring buzzword to generic term", their actual goal is to make the most money possible. And an influencer's primary goal is to win followers, and ideally convert followers into money somehow.

When the biggest audience is d&d, by orders of magnitude, it makes sense to talk about d&d. To mention other games might cause diehard d&d fans to go elsewhere, so it's not worth the risk for many influencers.

And when the kickstarter you inevitably launch implements "exciting new mechanics for your 5e game!" but which are just repackaged apocalypse world or fate mechanics, it is in your financial interest to pretend those other games with those mechanics don't exist

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fail forward is already in the DMG. It's just called success with a cost. If people aren't making the time to read the DMG, what makes you think they'll make the time to play other games?

Because any number of people do? There are plenty of people who play multiple games who don't read GM guidance in detail. Always have been.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This may have been addressed elsewhere in the thread but I haven't read the whole thing.

Do you really think their job is to teach how to d&d better? An influencer can say their goal is whatever, but like a corporation who has a mission statement to "bring buzzword to generic term", their actual goal is to make the most money possible. And an influencer's primary goal is to win followers, and ideally convert followers into money somehow.

In practice, you're correct but it doesn't mean all of them see it that way, and not everyone has reached the point where they're only pursuing one goal over everything else.

 

[Oofta]

Because any number of people do? There are plenty of people who play multiple games who don't read GM guidance in detail. Always have been.

If they don't have or take the time to read the DMG, I see no reason to believe they're going to play multiple games.

But that's not what is being proposed, so it isn't relevant to what I was asking. Success at a Cost is Fail Forward by a different name. It's not an example of something we could glean from other RPGs and apply to D&D, specifically easy to pick up or one page RPGs that need little to no effort. It's already there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Fail forward is already in the DMG. It's just called success with a cost. If people aren't making the time to read the DMG, what makes you think they'll make the time to play other games?

Pretty much anything is more readable than the DMG?

 

[Reynard]

Pretty much anything is more readable than the DMG?

No, people who have been playing D&D for years or decades don't think the book can teach them anything, and people who learned how to DM from YouTube and Twitch just don't think reading is how you learn skills like that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If they don't have or take the time to read the DMG, I see no reason to believe they're going to play multiple games.

Because I just told you I've known multiple people it applied to? There's no connection; a new game can be generally interesting without someone finding GM-specific advice interesting.

But that's not what is being proposed, so it isn't relevant to what I was asking. Success at a Cost is Fail Forward by a different name. It's not an example of something we could glean from other RPGs and apply to D&D, specifically easy to pick up or one page RPGs that need little to no effort. It's already there.

Specific approaches to it, however, could. I didn't like most of the takes on that I saw, but I liked the one I referenced.

 

[Oofta]

Because any number of people do? There are plenty of people who play multiple games who don't read GM guidance in detail. Always have been.

Your personal experience is not necessarily representative. Do some people play other games on a regular basis? I'm sure they do. I've played with a lot of people over the years I'd put the percentage that does at less than 10%. Probably far less. Most people are casual gamers.

But fail forward is already covered by D&D, it's hardly a unique concept. In addition the claim is that these learning moments can be gained by playing one page or simple to pick up games.

If they're so easy to learn I'd rather spend my time reading blogs or watching streams because they discuss options and alternatives all the time. Those are things I can do by myself which is far easier for me than trying to get a group together to play a game we may not enjoy much when I know that same group enjoys playing D&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Your personal experience is not necessarily representative.

Given I've seen dozens do that over the years in multiple groups, you're going to have to excuse me if I don't buy I've somehow managed to find the small subset that does that.