[D&D/Rifts Style Games] DM burnout- what's a DM get out of it?
Caldis:
Yeah I think I agree with Contra, mission based play may work better for what you want than dungeon crawls do.
Take a look at this link.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=21227.0
It's a very gamist game, mission based, the GM is getting a bit of drama and a lot of design and critiquing of the players abilities.
Roger:
Well, I can speak for myself. I've been DMing a D&D game for, oh, six months now or so, roughly once every two weeks (down at the Sentry Box -- woo!); the PCs just hit level 4.
I've flirted with burnout now and again. The thing that really strikes me about your description is:
During an encounter his (the DM's) role is to just run the monsters.
On one level, yeah, that's obviously what the DM does. It's obvious too that the players' role is to just run their characters. That's objectively what an encounter consists of.
What's missing there, of course, is the Agenda of the people involved. That, I suspect, is where this sort of burnout comes from -- being substantially frustrated in one's attempts to pursue a meaningful Agenda.
Unfortunately lots of games give a lot of really worthless advice about how a DM is supposed to pursue his own Agenda. (For a rare example of one that gets it right, consider Apocalypse World.)
Speaking for myself, outside of combat I find I tend to pursue a certain amount of Right To Dream and a certain amount of Story's Around Here Somewhere, at various points. Within combat, however, I'm probably as much a hardcore Step On Up kinda guy as any of my players.
I'm saying that purely descriptively, though -- don't take it as a prescription. My prescriptive advice is this: think about what sort of Agendas you want to pursue, and when. This positions you to be better-informed about what to actually do in order to meaningfully pursue those Agendas.
Cheers,
Roger
Chris_Chinn:
Hi Nate,
Quote
2- Actual Play Step - Put on your Angry DM hat, dedicate yourself to the PC's failure and try to destroy them every chance you get throughout the game. The DM "wins" from a play perspective if the PC's fail the quest.
Nope! Who said anything about angry? Playing hard isn't playing angry.
You don't use "omnipotent power" to win, you use the encounter rules given to you and then you play hard within those restrictions.
4E balances itself such that a single encounter is weaker than a party of PCs. The PCs are expected to go through several encounters, which means a DM can play hard and is unlikely to get a TPK.
And, as I said, if everyone's on the same page for gamism, they're expecting you to play hard so they can play hard. Ever play a competitive game with someone who was half-assing it? You don't have fun because part of the point of play is to challenge each other.
The DM's gamist kick is in playing hard which produces challenge but isn't the same as "just winning".
Chris
Natespank:
Quote
Nope! Who said anything about angry? Playing hard isn't playing angry.
Sorry, reference to a blog somebody linked to earlier:
http://angrydm.com/2010/07/winning-dd/
I really used to get a kick out of running encounters that scared me I'd TPK the party, but I was curious to see if they could do it so I rolled in the open, no fudging.
It was a lot of fun seeing the players step on up for the challenges- however, the stat blocks matter so much that it's more a matter of encounter design than how you run it.
I'm considering a house rule where situational combat modifiers are doubled- ex, +4 w. combat advantage, -8 vs heavy cover. That would make in-game decisions matter more.
As for DM Goals- I wonder if some arbitrary point system could be conceived of. +1 point if a PC spends a healing surge, +5 if a PC is incapacitated, +20 if a PC dies, -50 if 2+ PCs die, etc.
It would give the DM a clear goal that won't TPK the party; also, he could compare points at the end and try to "beat" the PC's points. They'd get a minor quest reward if they got too hurt during their adventure- you could build it into the fiction too in the form of some time restriction or some obviously hard fight they might lack the resources for near the end.
In terms of specifics... I'm dry. My friend agreed to DM tomorrow so I've spent all week on Calculus! Sorry for slow replies!
Chris_Chinn:
Hi Nate,
Quote
It was a lot of fun seeing the players step on up for the challenges- however, the stat blocks matter so much that it's more a matter of encounter design than how you run it.
Encounter design is part of it, but if you have a good design and don't play the monsters strategically, you basically cut their effectiveness by half or more...
Here, useful links:
http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/4e-tactics-pt-1/
http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/4e-stunting-and-fight-sets/
http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/dms-dilemma/
Chris
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