Honest. I Don't Know Why I Have to Write these Posts from Time to Time, but Feel Free to Skip this One if You'd Rather Wait until I Get Back to Writing about Teaching DMing

Undertaking the task of teaching someone how to play D&D, who never has, requires the courage of one's convictions.  To write anything important, one must experience the matter at hand, one must gather evidence and then come to a conclusion, even if others may not agree or approve.  It's not possible to teach something from any other position.

I have many definite opinions about how to play D&D.  I've been doing this a long time and during that time, I haven't "dabbled."  From my introduction, I fell so hard in love with the game that I threw myself into hours of play every week.  When I was given the books for Christmas in 1979, I read them cover to cover.  And then I read them again ... and went on reading them regularly, over and over, examining every line, for the next twenty years.  In and around that time, I began rewriting them, which I continue to do until this day.

I disagree strongly with many commonly-held beliefs that people embrace, which have in turn become standard within the D&D community.  Many of the things I despise are absolutely cherished far and wide.  Modules.  DM screens.  Pregenerated characters and pro-forma character sheets.  D&D as a tournament.  Background stories.  Official adventuring.  It's a long, and in my mind, a sordid list.

Were I to write a book teaching someone how to DM, I wouldn't pay lip service to these things.  I wouldn't recommend that the reader of the book try running a one-off campaign.  I wouldn't suggest they should run dungeons for awhile until they have enough experience to run the outdoors, or a town.  I don't accept the argument that a new DM needs to walk before he or she runs.  I believe in making big mistakes and learning from them, not in taking tiny nibbles for fear of making a big mistake.

That said, crash courses are, in my opinion, failing to teach well.  I think most would imagine that teaching a new person how to DM would amount to a simple pamphlet, a mere 64 pages.  After all, what's there to know?  It's not like DMing is a difficult thing to do, is it?  It's not like there's a lot of nuance, or creativity involved, right?  No, oh no.  Let's slap 32 pages together, hit the high points and get on with playing!  After all, that's what this is all about, isn't it?  Playing.  Mustn't waste our time with details and actually learning how to do something.

JB and I went back and forth yesterday fairly hard.  No big deal.  We've done that two dozen times or more since our association.  He sells the popular model, I kick hell out of him, he compromises, I compromise ... he thinks clearer, I think clearer.  It's not the conflict that matters; it's the value that comes from the conflict.  People who fear conflict; who worry that conflict might create hard feelings; who hesitate before pulling the trigger, or who back away when voices rise and disagreement takes hold ... these are not people who have the courage of their convictions.  They're more concerned with how everyone feels than they are with FIXING the problem.

JB got me started on this project with the acknowledgement that (a) there are a great many people who have been left to flouder, unaided, with regards to DMing this game; and (b) that "there's a lot of bad D&D being played right now."  JB jumped back after saying that, taking out the word "bad," but I won't.  There is a lot of bad.  It's bad that was taught, it's bad that was perpetuated, it's bad that's been overlooked and excused and even defended under the banner of "fun." 

But what you think is bad and what I think is very different.  Most think "bad" D&D is that which isn't fun, or isn't played well, or doesn't work.  I think that all D&D that isn't "incredible" and "great" is, by definition, less than what it could be.  And that which is less, is bad.

As a teacher, I'm not interested in teaching people how to play "okay" D&D.  Or hobby-form D&D.  I want to teach people how to play fucking amazing D&D.  Not that people reading the book will.  They won't, because they won't listen to what I tell them.  They won't accept what I say as true.  They'll find excuses to cut down the amount of work or make concessions or otherwise act abusively towards their players or like simpering panderers.

I can't help that.  What I can do is make sure that the person reading my book who has the potential to be great won't be let down by my half-assing the work.  Out there, there are thousands of young souls who find reading and self-discovery a breeze, who can't get enough learning ... and can't find a single gawddamned book that'll tell them the hard details they must know to do this thing well.

The reason I write posts offering pedantic details on why certain phrases and word choices led to the demise of D&D through internal dissatisfaction and selfish author entitlement is because I know people are going to disagree with me.  This is the point in my writing it.  It's not a tremendous shock when someone doesn't "get it."  Or thinks I'm "going overboard."  I'm arguing things on this blog that no one argues.  That take a position that no one takes.  And because of that I have to dredge up every ounce of evidence and proof that I can muster, pointing at the failure of this thinking, or that belief, or this other practice.  Because apart from what I experience personally at my gaming table, I rarely find good, solid evidence of someone playing well.

Recently, JB has described his running of Castle Ravenspire ... explained in his first post, here.  The story follows here and here.  An epilogue has been promised, not available on writing this line.  For the traditionalist, it's as good an account as you're ever likely to find.  It hits all the right buttons, rings all the bells, catches all the brass rings.  And I'd be as impressed as hell, if it wasn't that I encountered play of this quality forty years ago.

And that's a problem for me.  If you told me that hey, you'd just made and released the film Escape From New York with a young Kurt Russell, I'd agree that it was a pretty fun movie and that I'd enjoyed it.  But I think I'd notice it was made forty years ago.  And that in film, there's a lot that's been released since, and the bar is a damn bit higher for a good movie than when I was 18 and cheap set pieces were good enough.  Understand.  I'm not saying that because I'm old and jaded, I'm not that impressed.  I'm saying that because I'm still conscious and aware of what's going on RIGHT NOW, I'm not nearly as blown away by a 1982 film, or a 1983 module, as I used to be.  For you readers out there old enough to have been 18 in 1982, can you imagine what it would have been like to see John Wick Parabellum then, the exact movie recently released?  Or even something more benign like Nobody?  omg.  What would it have been like to watch Infinity War, all 5+ hours, in a theatre in 1982, exactly as it appears today.

Fuck Star Wars.  I mean, seriously.  Release Mad Max Fury Road, as is, head to head with The Empire Strikes Back and the latter's theatres are empty.  Tumbleweeds.  I get that because I'm not old.  I see the world through new eyes, not old ones.

Where are the D&D equivalents?  Fucking critical role?  Seriously?  JB's Ravenspire looks stunning and amazing next to the dreck that's new.  Because for D&D, this is where the bar is.  On the ground.  Under it.

If we're going to discuss writing a book teaching new entrants how to DM, we've got to start by ditching the old garbage arguments from 40 years ago and raising that bar more than a little.  We can't have our nose in the dirt forever.