New to Sly Flourish? Start Here or subscribe to the newsletter.

Are Actual Play Games Hurting Home-Game GMs?

by Mike on 10 February 2025

A friend passed me a post where someone described how their child, a GM, got feedback from their players stating "I think Matt Mercer would have done it differently".

This comment fired up a common question I've seen discussed for years now:

Are high production liveplay games like Critical Role and Dimension 20 building false expectations among players?

Probably not.

I have three main points on this topic:

There still aren't enough GMs for all the players who want to play.
Players generally enjoy the games they're playing in.
Only your game and the expectations of your own players matter.

Let's start by examining points 1 and 2.

Feedback from 100,000 Players

Whatever people's expectations for a game, there continues to be too few GMs for the players who want to play games.

I asked David Christ at Baldman Games about this topic. Dave has facilitated tens of thousands of games run by hundreds of GMs at hundreds of conventions for decades. He gets surveys on each of these games – over one hundred thousand of them – and had two main points towards this conversation:

He still has too few GMs to run all the games players want to play.
Satisfaction scores given by players about the games he manages average 92%.

These games aren't just hard-core Adventurer's League games either where there's a fixed group of players who play AL differently than everyone else plays D&D. Most players, Dave states, are new to D&D.

Organized play adventures are almost the exact opposite of Actual Play games like Critical Role and Dimension 20. GMs usually don't know the players or their characters. Players often don't know each other. GMs often run multiple games a day which can be exhausting. GMs are limited in what table props they can use because they have to travel with them. The environment is far from the incredible million-dollar studios of actual plays – often a fold-out table in a big area with dozens of other tables.

And still, there are more players who want to play games than GMs able to run them and still their satisfaction with their games is high.

Only Your Game Matters

Now on to point 3.

No one put you in charge of ensuring that players across the world all have the right expectations for any given game and that GMs are sheltered from criticism stemming from expectations garnered from actual play shows. Your job is only to run great games for the players you have around your own table.

It doesn't matter that Baldman Games has a hundred thousand surveys with a 92% satisfaction rate. Only the satisfaction of your players matters.

That, of course, doesn't mean your players won't have false expectations based on actual play, but you only have to worry about them, not the entire hobby.

So how do you manage these expectations?

Talk to Your Players

Ask them what they want in the game. Ask them what they hope for. Ask them about their characters – their goals, their motivations, what magic items they're excited for. Use campfire tales and stars and wishes to get feedback throughout your campaign.

If their drives and expectations go beyond what you can provide – talk to them about it. Let them know what you're capable of. Let them know if you're likely not to hit on every thread of their character's backstory. Set these expectations during your session zero.

Listen to them too. Maybe there are things they want that you can bring into your game. It's not just a matter of telling players how it's going to be. Use that feedback to steer your game as well as manage their expectations about what you can provide.

It's Probably Not the Problem You Think It Is

I suspect the anxiety GMs feel to perform at the level actual play shows is self generated more than brought on by actual players. Most players just want to play. As long as you're not railroading their characters or being a jerk, your game is likely to be fine. Follow the top tips for GMs and things should go well.

Enjoy your time at the table with your friends sharing some laughs and fun tales of high adventure.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Instant Monsters for 5e & D&D and Ziggurat of Thoth-Hermes – Dragon Empire Prep Session 11.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Use long rests to ask players about their characters' backstories.
Mix up easy combat encounters, hard combat encounters, and NPC roleplaying scenes.
Introduce enough gods to keep your world unique but not so many your players can't keep up.
Fill large locations with several factions – each of which might be allies or enemies of the characters.
Mix multiple random encounters to build unique scenes.
Roll a d6 for hostility and distance during random encounters. The lower the number the closer and less hostile they are.
Bait dangerous situations with shiny treasure.

Subscribe to Sly Flourish

Subscribe to the weekly Sly Flourish newsletter and receive a free adventure generator PDF!

Sly Flourish's Books

Share this article by copying this link: https://slyflourish.com/do_aps_hurt_gms.html

Have a question or want to contact me? Check out Sly Flourish's Frequently Asked Questions.

This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only by including the following statement in the new work:

This work includes material taken from SlyFlourish.com by Michael E. Shea available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

This site uses affiliate links to Amazon and DriveThruRPG. Thanks for your support!