I thought this was a pretty nice video, and I'd like the Pundit to do more like this one - even though it probably generates less overall interest than the more "business of the day"/"political" videos. This distinction between the "Chronicler" and the "Plotter", I'm going to steal.

I'm a friend of both playing styles, actually: Event-based games/"interactive storytelling based on D&D rules", and location-based games/"sandbox-style games". Both can be fun, both have their place at my gaming table. Like, my raison d'être in the oldschool community is that I've been running pretty effortlessly sandbox-y games for twenty-something years already. Now, I've probably run about as much horror/Ravenloft stuff as that, and I love both forms of gaming equally. That said, I think I'm observing a number of somewhat sad and worrisome trends especially among less experienced DMs that could probably be remedied quite easily:

First, that they think they need to tell a story, instead of playing with one. Second, that their stories need to be simulations. Third, that their stories need to be intricate and sophisticated, as if they are making a professional presentation. They give themselves no room to learn, and they measure themselves against industry pros. -- This creates an atmosphere at the gaming table that I don't like, especially in "half-open" environments like conventions or in new gaming groups. The feeling towards the DM should be one of attention, not one of pressure.

Now, as a grown-ass man, I can manage pressure. As a teen or tween, that was harder. I'd rather not want kids today to perceive gaming, as awe-inspiring as it may well be when you're new, as something that puts them under pressure when they try. - Like, the important thing about all of this should be that it's a recreational activity that creates good experiences for everyone involved. Kids that aren't going to have a good experience are not going to keep gaming.

I had rails, and GMPCs, and plots, and quantum ogres.  It was my very first campaign in grade school and I sucked.  I got better.

Players in general have gotten a lot more passive, expecting to be entertained, or a lot more captured by the meta thinking of storytelling instead of roleplaying.

All I can do is show by example.  New players can get "analysis paralysis", but I never GM all new players.  I always have experienced players there for them to learn from.

Quote from: crkrueger on March 01, 2023, 10:14:23 AM
I had rails, and GMPCs, and plots, and quantum ogres.  It was my very first campaign in grade school and I sucked.  I got better.

Players in general have gotten a lot more passive, expecting to be entertained, or a lot more captured by the meta thinking of storytelling instead of roleplaying.

All I can do is show by example.  New players can get "analysis paralysis", but I never GM all new players.  I always have experienced players there for them to learn from.

Maybe it's a language issue, but a "rail", to me, would be stuff like "Masks of Nyarlathotep", or the "Grim Harvest" books for Ravenloft. Those are fun - but also, different fun than what especially oldschool-oriented D&D is supposed to be about. Especially the earliest editions of D&D simply seem a bad fit for modules like "Dragons of Despair", unless you're really willing to put some serious work in. I tend to think that this is where most newbies get confused: Like in the 80s and 90s, D&D is the game everyone wants to play - just that not everyone necessarily wants to play the game that is D&D.

One of the reasons why I think that even recent games like Symbaroum, Mournblade, Shadow of the Demonlord, or some of the recent Cthulhu variants have been so lastingly successful is just that - you get pretty specific instructions for pretty specific types of games. They simply work as advertised; D&D, especially in its most recent installments, often doesn't. Or, rather than that, D&D tends to be a much less predefined experience than other games, and that might confuse people even if everyone at the gaming table fundamentally still knows what they're doing.