Comment on “Fracturing”

[part 2/2]

You of all people don't have to be told that other DMs aren't doing anything fucking like that. I have nothing in common with any of the D&D people I meet outside of your blog and its comments section. I've met DMs who slap themselves on the back for writing a couple thousand words rehashing someone's published "rules-lite" game with a different setting like it's some kind of achievement, instead of just ... yet another pointless rework of the same five ideas, in which people can take on the role of a 100% player-chosen, superheroic Kewl Guy character and roll dice for actions described at an obscenely abstract level of detail -- which would be fine if any part of the gameplay was ever more detailed. But, no: instead of making the game more detailed, more able to afford challenge, over time, they just declare the campaign finished and start playing a totally different, equally shallow game...

Pardon the meandering rant. I just have so much trouble understanding people who claim to enjoy that which we enjoy, despite their partaking in something completely different.

Would the world be so different if TSR/WOTC sold amazing, wonderful game rules, and promoted the training of DMs as an art form, instead of hawking pig puke and running Adventure League? Well, when I put it like that, sure. If "D&D" meant something different, if DMs embraced the need to rise above their own level, if the game's maintainers treated it like an adult recreation instead of a child's pastime ... that'd be great.

But even if all that were true, I think DMs would still need so much time to get good at their craft that, in this hypothetical world, we'd also see people going off and making "easier" games. Games which could be run, or played in, without "wasting time" on the "boring" stuff.

[Am I making sense, man? I wrote everything up to "Would the world" before starting to feel I missed your point, so I tried to loop back.]