Let's look at a business model to get into the right headspace. I want to run a bakery. There's too much work for me to do on my own, and much of the work must be done between 1 AM and 9 the next morning, while much of the interactive trade with my suppliers must be done between 9 and 5. That creates a 16 hour continuous work window, which I cannot be awake for beginning to end, especially because the bakery is likely to be open another three hours, until 8 pm. Plus, to manage my suppliers, and other business issues like advertising and quality assurance, not to mention legalistic problems having to do with a very hot oven operating in a locale that must be easily accessible, most of the time I just cannot even oversee the day to day sales of product.
Therefore, I need at least three persons that I want to hire: a baker, and probably a helper for the baker, but let's call this one person for now. A day person, someone who can arrive at noon and leave at 8, because this person must be able to do the cashout, and therefore must be responsible, and a person who can cover the last of the baker's shift and the day person's... and here is the real big issue with a bakery: the busiest part of the day is between 7 AM and 11 AM... where the third person, the one not doing the cashout and not cooking the product, IS hard pressed. And my business really relies on this person, because this person's attitude to that busy period is going to make or break me.
So, three critical persons, all of whom are doing work that could easily end my business, and I can't practically oversee them, due to my other responsibilities as a business owner. This is why running a bakery is next to impossible... because if you hire a fourth or fifth person to make SURE the business runs well, the cost of labour can easily break me.
It is for reasons like this that authority of any kind isn't about comfort or vague self-expression. Try to go into business as a bakery owner to "find yourself" and you will very quickly find that you're not a bakery owner. There's no room to romanticise your work or your staff, or hedge your expectations... you have to calculate precisely, daily, what needs to happen and enforce structures that ensure it.
This principle, as it happens, does not apply to DMing a game. But funnily enough, DMing a game DOES apply to this principle.
To continue with the model discussed. As a bakery owner, and really any sort of authority we may ever embrace, the more we know about the business we're in, the better. A bakery is always strengthened if the owner is a baker, and knows how to bake if the baker doesn't show up... but all too often, a baker is often terrible with those issues of managing the local authorities, regulations, business associations or providers as they go. If I've worked in a flour mill, I'll see things in the flour I'm given that another baker would never see, assuming that all flour is always the same, given that it's only "flour." The more we know, the more we can see, and the more we see, the more we can adjust for it, plan for it, and fix the problem when it arises.
Yet, of course, people get into business knowing nothing except what money looks like. They start restaurants without knowing how to cook, or start clothing companies without knowing how the wider industry works, or publishing books supposing that when a printer tells them what to do, then that's obviously right. After all, the printer must know what do to.
Except that the printer's concern is the printer, no the buyer; just as the cooks who do know how to cook also know how to steal food from the owner, just as the bartender knows how to water drinks for tips, or the cloth merchant knows how to swindle a rube with third-rate cloth. One reason why that bakery run by eastern Europeans seems never to close or go broke is because those who run it began in a host of industries, when they were young, that supported bakeries. They worked in sugar or flour mills, they carried sacks by the hundreds every day, they made their contacts and they kept them... and they continue to do that, silently, patiently, never trying to open another location, because getting rich isn't their goal. Baking bread is.
So, what does any of this have to do with D&D?
Our attention to detail matters, not in the game world, but in the real one. That said, however, the decision to bend ourselves to rules that we perhaps do not understand at first glance, or commit ourselves to a difficult game structure that we feel certain we can get better at it helps impress skill-sets that repeatedly come to serve us later, often in ways we can't imagine. We might not think that opening a module, reading through it and then presenting it to players is a "skill-set," but we do precisely the same thing when we're given a company policy that we're to present to employees, who must accept the policy as we provide it. Knowing how to present the module in a way that encourages the players to sign on helps with teaching employees that they, too, have to onboard themselves if they want to continue working here.
Of course, all that's ruined when present-moment Hasbro D&D tells the DM to be a dancing monkey. But we can leave that discussion for another day.
Traditionally, DMing has been an authority based role, one in which we manage people. Moreover, apart from the process of answering questions, filling in details, staying one step ahead of the clever player, not letting ourselves get manipulated by a player (in the same way as the baker above not being tricked into thinking a poor employee is indespensible), DMing also builds confidence, a work ethic and a sense of responsibility.
One thing that is rarely discussed in all the questions and answers about how to get players to show up to games is this: the DM always attends. It seems to go without saying, but it does get to the heart of the issue. The players may or may not be turning up because of what the DM says, does or fails to do, but we can at least assume that if the DM is there, and ready to run, then the DM is committed. It wouldn't be the first role in our lives we'll engage in where we're show up ready to run the place, only to find the employees haven't.
DMing, even bad DMing, requires a discipline that players usually don't have. Prep of some kind has to be done, competence of some kind has to be gained, a willingness to adopt authority with one's friends or acquaintances, and in many cases, with total strangers, has to be assumed. Doing so requires grit, tenacity, a vision in what ought or what ought not to be accepted from players and a resolve that, however difficult it may be, we're going to keep at it because we like this game that much. All these traits translate very, very well to the real world, when we're put in a position of authority.
Not that the world knows this.
I have "dungeon master" on my CV because I'm at a point in my life and my career that I'm not interested in working for someone who doesn't know what D&D involves, and I don't have to. It's a luxury I didn't have once. For those who know, it's an eyebrow-raiser... and for those who stare at it, wondering why this person is including a "game" in their resume, it's a fast way of identifying employers I'd never want to work for. But for the employer who knows what that is — well, these past few years, that employer has proved to be a good fit for me.
Point in fact. In 2017, I worked briefly, four months, in a bakery, as a four-hour a day employee, four days a week, which did involve me doing the cash-out. I was trusted not because I was a D&D player (oh, how I was in bad straits those days), but because of my university degree. Point in fact... I learned more as a DM than I ever did in university. Unless you want me to explain at length why the Roman Empire was inevitable.
I can tell you how a bakery functions because I worked in about a dozen restaurants off and on for 25 years, going back to when I was a kid. And I pay attention. That is really it. Paying attention. Effective DMing isn't about listening, it's hearing the phrases behind what's being said... the subtle clues that indicate the player wants to hedge or effectively "steal from the till" when we're not looking. Because just like employees, players will. They can be your very best friends, but where some personal gain is at hand, and you turn out to be a softie, concerned that they're having a good time, they will quietly and consciously manipulate and make you feel that they're presence is completely indespensible to your campaign. And many DMs, knowing they're doing this, will let them, thinking, "Well, it's social, right? It's a game. And I don't really care if they earn what they get."
Sigh.
Well, there are DMs and there are DMs. And while the above describes my experience, it has to be said... there are a great many dungeon masters who should never manage anything. Just like there are many, many people who seem to have money to start businesses they should never be allowed to start.
But of course karma pays this. Because such persons never learn anything, while their money is better in my pocket than theirs.
The advanced-copy September issue of the Lantern will be available tomorrow.
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