Wish It, Want It, Do It

Most readers here will know that I have very little that's good to say about the Angry DM.  I think that he talks in big purple self-promoting sweeps of his ego, but on the whole, I think he has very little to say that's meaningful.

However, I was asked by Jon Gazda what I thought; so here goes.

Jon Gazda writes,

"I'm interested in how you see products like the following compared to Monte Cook's.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theangrygm/the-angry-gm-the-website-the-book 

"The author seems to accept the idea that learning and growth is required, and doesn't really hide the fact that he's just organizing information on his website into a more usable format."

I would agree with that, to some degree.  Except that the information he's organizing is, well, the sort that doesn't need organizing.

Some things about The Angry DM.  First of all, it is his schtick to say, "I'm not going to do this" ... and then to do it within three or four paragraphs of his post.  He does it so often it isn't worth finding an example.  Read his blog; you'll find him stepping on his own declarations with frequent reliability.

I have yet to hear any "actual, practical" or "useful" anything coming out of the man; though he claims, continuously, to do this.  There is a TV Trope called, "Informed Ability."  The Angry DM is guilty of it.  He will make sure to explain, in detail, all the things he is capable of doing ... he just won't actually do it.  In that way, he's like Will Riker ~ we're constantly told what a great officer he is, we just never get to see it.

Take this first post, which he then quotes as very important with this second post.  The first post got 68 comments, and it is clear in the second post that he considers this to result from his amazing powers of getting the point across.  The thing is, however ... he doesn't actually make any real points with the first post. He talks all around it, yes.  He introduces five conflict ideas he has, and defines the terms for each conflict ... but he never actually explains how any of these things ... "conflict."  Yep, sure, tradition isn't progress.  And freedom runs contrary to security.  And idealism is a big non-pragmatism.  But where, where, I ask you, is the line that explains to you how to create game conflicts out of these terms.

See, what I think the Angry DM does is that he identifies a bunch of words, which he then loosely associates with role-playing.  He talks about the words, and encourages the reader to believe these words matter to role-playing ... and then he steps out the side door when the room starts talking.  He's quite good at this.  And his readers enjoy it: "Yeah, right, freedom and security.  That would be a great conflict for role-playing."  With 17 years of continuous social debate on the subject of those two things since 9/11, pervading every political action in the country, it's not that hard to figure out how that conflict would work.  We already know.  Ol' Mr. Angry DM doesn't have to do the work.  He's just Mr. Obvious, pointing out to Mr. Head-in-the-Sand, that this thing exists.

And Mr. Head-in-the-Sand cries out, "Brilliant!  I never thought of applying that to my role-playing game."

The Angry DM is friendly.  He's relaxed.  He sees the game with a slacker's attitude, as evidenced by the last paragraph of the first post:

"Now, I’m not going to build out the gods for my system today. If there’s demand for it – let me know – I’ll do it in a future article. It’s creative, fluffy bulls$&%. I hate wasting time on that. And I need some time to work out what to do with those gods. In the meanwhile, though, I encourage you to take a stab at doing your own thing. Either with my gods or with your own."

So, yeah.   None of this actually worked out.  And hey, you're going to do your own thing anyway.  I've said all the words, man.  Now go on and do whatever you want with those words.

And 68 comments later, he's more than willing to step up and take the applause for having created that.

The Angry DM has his finger on the pulse of the RPG community, much more so than I have. He's friendlier, he asks for less, he doesn't burn his readers with a lot of clear cut cold arguments that are hard to refute.  He's flexible.  This works, but hey, so does that.  So whatever.  Make it work anyway you want.  I'm just here to put down all the words.

So when The Angry DM says, "This book does not fuck around," he means yes, this book fucks around, but it will sound just as important as that sentence you just read there so you won't really notice.  When the Angry DM says, "It doesn't give you any of that touchy-feelie, hippie-dippie advice about 'making players happy' and 'always saying yes, and ...' "  He means that he's going to be all touchy-feelie, hippie dippie about making yourself as DM happy, because "Do Your Own Thing" is his watchword, just as it was the mantra in the 1960s hippie dippie era.

And when The Angry DM suggests that "Always saying yes, and ..." is touchie-feelie, he means that he really doesn't know what it means, or where it came from, or why it works, or how it is essential to making communication happen ~ and that he can't be bothered to learn, or create a rational argument for why it isn't so.  Easier to slap a label on that and move on.

When The Angry DM says his book is "like being punched in the gut by an actual, practical, useful advice," he means that his advice is going to come nowhere near your head, because it isn't going to be about thinking, it's going to be about feeling.  When the Angry DM says he's going to give advice about "how to actually narrate a scene," he doesn't mean he's going to tell you how, or walk you through it, he means he's going to give advice ... which is about the same as saying, "I wouldn't do that," and then moving on.  Because you can be very sure he isn't going to explain what he means by "actually" narrating a scene, as opposed to narrating a scene.  "Actually" just sounds like a really powerful word that will tell you, Dear Reader, that he is really, really serious about gut punching you with this unidentified scene narration advice.

When The Angry DM tells you that "how to know when to use dice" is actual, practical, useful advice, it's time to realize he doesn't have a second thing for his list of useful advice, and that he's phoning in that second thing on his list.  And when The Angry DM says that he'll punch you in the gut with the knowledge of "when it's time to tell your players to stop screwing around and get serious because its taking way too long to get through this combat," he means that he's had a lot of experience with players screwing around, and long combats, and learning that he has to eventually tell them to stop.  It's not really all that gut punching.  I'm pretty sure we already all know when it is time to do that.

Jon Gadza is not wrong when he says that The Angry GM seems to accept the idea that learning and growth is required.  I'm sure that he does.  It's just that he doesn't know what the learning is, or how the growth is accomplished ... he just knows that if you throw a lot of words at it, and you sound like you really care, and you replace the word fuck with f$&%, things are going to stick.  If you don't make your readers feel stupid, or inadequate, or threatened, like I do, then so long as you keep writing posts every day that will reliably fill up the first ten minutes of their work shift, talking about role-playing and stuff, you'll find popularity.

That's all most popularity is: writing every day, and not offending anyone.  And The Angry GM has the formula.  He's great at not offending anyone, while sounding like a lovable jackass who defies the system, by informing the reader constantly that he's definitely not a part of the system.  He's his own voice.  And he has all the words.

Not that I had to write this post. Someone else did already: