Issues in Mentoring

I have to pause today before undertaking the next class, and discuss the structural mess as it applies to the dungeon master's role. This is content that needs to find its way into the preface or forward of a book; but for the moment, it's simply a point I have to clarify.

Presently, a would-be DM is being handed a broken compass.  There are three directional pulls being placed on the DM, two of them hopelessly corrupt, the last hopelessly lost in the chaos, but all three presented with the same apparent legitimacy.

First, we have the "entertainment model," where the DM's role is seen as someone who provides amusement or enjoyment for others, selflessly as it happens, ensuring that the emotional temperature of the game is kept exciting. If the DM senses boredom — and this is something the DM is expected to keep tabs on, like a technician looking at dials in a large factory plant — then it's our place to rush in and, like a casino host whose job is to offer free meals, hotel rooms or show tickets to losing gamblers, make the players happy so they'll keep playing.  Interestingly, the job title for someone in a casino who's focused on identifying and retaining valuable players is called a "player development host"... and is this not a more perfect phrase for a DM nowadays whose expected to act like this?  Shall I stop using DM and just adopt PDH instead?

The pressure many DMs feel is that they're supposed to retain users, to keep them seated, to keep the session "engaging," to monitor satisfaction levels and adjust the content accordingly.  We're responsible for everyone's mood, for everyone's fun, for keeping the energy up, like a tired emcee doing work at a dead wedding.  Whether or not you or I feel this is what our job is, this message is hammered and hammered by site after site, by youtube video after video, as what matters, what we're supposed to do, and that if we do not do this, we're both selfish and irresponsible.

Then, we have the "corporate entity model," where the DM becomes the enforcer of a design philosophy that doesn't work, but must be protected from criticism.  We're expected to balance combats on the fly, incorporate near-perfect equalisation between player characters while providing maximum individualism and uniqueness, resolve inconsistences in the game with arbitrary rulings, and carry the burden of "making the game work" with our own effort, rather than acknowledge or say out loud that the system is a joke.  Meanwhile, it's on us to ensure that our game table is "inclusive," "supportive" or "collaborative."  If a player wants a "combat wheelchair," so that disabled persons can be represented and feel empowered, then as DMs we should want that too, because the company wants it.  Refusing to do so makes us hostile, regressive, or "unsafe" to be played with.

This isn't about our running a functional game, but about absorbing the company's liability.  The rules don't mesh, the setting is inconsistent, the mechanics are absent or nonsensical, but it's okay that the company doesn't address those things because as the DM, they're your problem.  Fix it, invisibly, kindly and in real time, but not in a way that might embarrass the company or suggest that they did anything wrong in their release of the game.  Our role is to be the compliance filter, to enforce the brand experience, and to do so loudly, blindly and with a desire to take full responsibility when the system fails, the players flail and the game falls apart.

And last, there's the "DM as World Function."  The old way.  The way that built everything that exists now.  The one that says the players are responsible for their own fun, the DM is there to make a setting and keep it solid, to adjudicate action, to carry out the consequences existing in the old game rules, and only this.  Except that this method receives zero support, across the board.  Every notable voice, official or unofficial, decries it, disputes its legitimacy, argues that the old game doesn't work, that those who say that it does are deluded, and in any case it's really old and therefore not worth playing now.

It's not flashy. It's not inclusive. The players act, the DM adjudicates. Players don't feel "seen" or supported, they're not special, they're not unique, there's no room for role-playing, or for player creativity, or for player spotlight moments and it's possible for cherished characters to die.  All this, and much, much more that disparages and trashes the old way of doing so, is the favoured message of all those who are bent on systematically erasing the old game... because as a product, there's nothing there.

So what are we to do?

The problem is, for 25 years, between the birth of D&D and the OGL, no official representative undertook to write more than a paragraph on the problem of "how to DM a game."  No one discussed even as much as I have in the previous four posts on this topic, either because they couldn't or they didn't see it as necessary.  And this left a void, which various persons with an agenda eventually, after a long time had passed, and following the ability to collaborate on their agendas through the internet, eventually exploited with the two conflicting yet corrupt versions of DMing above.  And now, there is no text to return to.  At best, we have this:

Is Dungeon Mastering an art or a science? An interesting question!

If you consider the pure creative aspect of starting from scratch, the “personal touch” of individual flair that goes into preparing and running a unique campaign, or the particular style of moderating a game adventure, then Dungeon Mastering may indeed be thought of as an art.

If you consider the aspect of experimentation, the painstaking effort of preparation and attention to detail, and the continuing search for new ideas and approaches, then Dungeon Mastering is perhaps more like a science—not always exacting in a literal sense, but exacting in terms of what is required to do the job well.

Esoteric questions aside, one thing is for certain—Dungeon Mastering is, above all, a labor of love. It is demanding, time-consuming, and certainly not a task to be undertaken lightly (the sheer bulk of the book you hold in your hand will tell you that!). But, as all DMs know, the rewards are great—an endless challenge to the imagination and intellect, an enjoyable pastime to fill many hours with fantastic and often unpredictable happenings, and an opportunity to watch a story unfold and a grand idea grow and flourish. The imagination knows no bounds, and the possibilities of the game of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS are just as limitless. Who can say what awaits each player, except a cornucopia of fantasy and heroic adventure? So much is waiting, indeed!

This book holds much in store for you as a DM—it is your primary tool in constructing your own “world,” or milieu. It contains a wealth of material, and combined with the other works of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (the MONSTER MANUAL and PLAYERS HANDBOOK) gives you all the information you need to play AD&D. But, as always, one more thing is needed—your imagination. Use the written material as your foundation and inspiration, then explore the creative possibilities you have in your own mind to make your game something special.

Dungeon Mastering itself is no easy undertaking, to be sure. But Dungeon Mastering well is doubly difficult. There are few gamemasters around who are so superb in their conduct of play that they could disdain the opportunity to improve themselves in some way. Fortunately, this work addresses the matter at length, and gives you plenty of suggestions on all aspects of Dungeon Mastering (as well as some of the finer points) in order to help you improve your own efforts. Take heed, and always endeavor to make the game the best it can be—and all that it can be!

Which basically says, hands in the air, "Huh? No idea. Your problem."

The great originators of D&D, faced with the central issue of their game, the presence of the dungeon master which they lauded as the thing that made their game "GREAT, UNLIKE ANY OTHER GAME!!"... phoned it in when talking about what the DM actually does.  And kept phoning it in, even as game edition after game edition was released.  The Dragon Magazine never really addresses it.  No "core DM" ever addressed it in a single book designed just to explain the role.  And while the silence continued, while the matter sat and mouldered, like cabbage left open in a basement for decades, no mass of players ever rose and said, "What the fuck?"

And what do we have now?  Overwritten politically driven pandering.  Sanitised jargon.  Theories of play designed to serve a brand.  Rot.

I believe intrinsically, from the way people struggle with and discuss the game, there's a sense that what they're doing isn't working.  DMs feel the pressure being dumped on them.  One after another, they talk about not knowing what they were supposed to do, about not having the skills, about not being sure what the game is, about the confusion brought by the resources they read, about their inability to handle "weird game stuff" that the rules don't cover, about unrestrained cheating and lying, about the irrationality of excessive role-playing and posturing... the list really does just go on and on, and all of it is tainted with this sense of "I just have no fucking clue what I'm doing."

Yet, they sense that others do know the answer to this, but they're just not telling.  Because there's money to be made in "seeming to know" what running is; even when the lack of knowledge is so painfully on display, it's used as "evidence of status."  It's a content economy running a confidence game, where the DM's confusion is being harvested, turned into monetisable insecurity, clicks, videos, advice columns, patreon tiers, affiliate links, endless guides that promise certainty while never giving it.

I know how to do it.  And I can explain it.  But anything I say is going to be lost in the maelstrom of internet distraction and disruption that's already learned to make money from those who don't know how to do it.  Not knowing is more profitable than knowing; therefore, there's no motivation left to mentor a DM. It's better to let them slowly rot, like that cabbage, while continuing to pay out.

My next class means to address the mental pressure of setting presentation, fielding questions, decision making, managing game mechanics and rules, while retaining one's equilibrium, sense of self and enjoyment of the DM experience, while under stress.  This is so removed from the game's culture, so absolutely beyond the game presence that exists in any capacity online, that my only choice in addressing the matter is to turn to source material having nothing to do with gaming or role-playing, such as business management and danger-based situational awareness heavy occupations, such as fire-fighting and the military.  The very idea of role-playing being discussed in actual concrete terms has putrefied out of existence.  It's very sad.  Particularly when I have no expectation that anything I write can have the least influence on what my favourite activity has become.  It is interesting to be a self-aware expert in something that millions of people want to do... and yet be unable to teach them, for free, because the surrounding structure cherishes ignorance for the money that ignorant people are willing and able to spend.