13 of 21

Write now Article Tools

The special challenge of Dungeon Mastering for adult gamers

A short while ago, there was quite an interesting discussion going on over a well known D&D Forum about "The Dungeon Masters (DMs) having become the Dungeon Servants".

This discussion gave me some additional insights about a subject that has been brewing in my mind for some time now. You see, my 2 gaming groups (the D&D campaign in which I am the DM and the one in which I am a player) are made up of a total of 7 guys in their 30s (and one in his 40s).

While we don't all have kids (4 out of 7 have kids, all minors) we all have typical busy lives with jobs, houses and spouses. We have precious few free hours to spend and on our non-family oriented hobbies.

A DM who runs a game for adult gamers needs to realize that his friends are investing these precious slices of free time in his game. The players are therefore entitled to expect a significant return on this time investment.

I'm not saying the same does not apply for teenage players, but when I was 15, my free time was not worth all that much and I could afford to have a mediocre streak in my games and still expect to have players show up from session to session.

In the 1970's DMs were rare and the hobby had no real competition. DMs could afford to apply what Gary Gygax said in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons edition of the Dungeon Master Guide. Then, the recently deceased Granddad of my favorite hobby was advocating the actual zapping of troublesome players with divine-sent lightning, the destruction of their hard won bling and saying No' to players asking for such simple thing as playing a non-standard race.

Even really bad DMs had backlogs of players wanting to join.

Now, in the 21st Century, DMs are still quite rare, but they have far more competition for those geek-hours: MMORPGs, console games, blogs, cleverly-written TV shows, etc. A DM therefore has to take this new reality into account when the fun level of his campaign is less then stellar. If not, well players start having other things to do' on game days.

What I'm driving at is that I see a lot (and I mean a lot) of DMs complaining (bitching even) about their players on the net. Just have a look at the "What's a DM to do" discussion thread on the Wizards of the Coast forums, or any DM-related thread on RPG forums.

The thing is, if you are dealing with adult gamers and unless you are dealing with hopelessly selfish ones, I strongly believe that what they collectively want in a game trumps what you

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Dungeons and Dragons: Tips for dungeon masters?
We want to hear your view. Write now!