The Forge Archives

Quote from: Jared A. SorensenBut yeah, geez don't make me run anything. I suck at it.

For the last time, no, you don't suck (in fact, your reticence actually makes you exceptionally good at knowing when not to interfere, which is an underrated skill).

But I can understand not wanting to GM. FWIW, I want to put together a Hunting Party for Geek Season (an InSpectres supplement written by Sean Wipfli and I, for those who don't know) at GenCon. Sound good? I like GMing, and InSpectres is a joy to run.

Mike

I get first dibs on playing in THAT game Mike!!!
Sean

Simple, heh.  The variety of responses says otherwise.

I GM'ed originally to share my ideas with a GM-rich group.  There were two guys at the pinnacle, Daniel and Sam, known for intricate plotting, and in Sam's case, agonizingly detailed world-building.  In our misspent youth, lacking drugs, we liked to mess with our own heads creatively.  This led to an interesting one-upmanship in trying to deliver intense experiences via RPGs.

Since we had a solid, though totally implicit, social contract, this worked pretty well.  It generated what remains my main goal as GM:  fuck with players' heads.  Consensually, of course.  At the same time, I was developing enthusiasm for the strange back alleys of metaphysics:  Phillip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs, Gnosticism, Chaos Magic(k), Aleister Crowley, etc.  I think I can truly say that if one did not exactly lead to the other, the occult and RPGs have fed into each other for me.  I find a mind-blowing idea and want to share the altered consciousness that comes with it, and I want to share it.  RPGs are one way I can do that.

With a new group of players, I've had to be more modest, and I'm still searching for the right level of grip on the tiller of the game.  Players who don't have any memory of games, even PC games, where of course you examine every damn thing in the room really challenge me to deliver Bangs in more involving ways.  Hard, but so far, very rewarding.

My ambition remains to mess with people.  Thanks to reading on here, I think it might just be possible to do a genuinely surrealist RPG without dissolving into stupid puns.  Sorcerer Nova Express, anyone?  "You're dispatched to Earth, and it looks like the Nova Mob has had the place under Interdict way longer than they should have.  This stinks, and you can see the handiwork of Hamburger Mary and 'Intolerable & Inescapable' all over.  You follow the junk-beam network and have a good candidate to turn into a 'Dr. Benway' you have reports on for interrogation.  There might be better candidates, but this scrawny, pathetic junky would definitely work.  What do you do?"[*]

Hee hee hee.

--JB

[*] When the Nova Police want to interrogate someone, they force a possession by that someone's "image" onto a related party via sympathetic magic.  Games that take inspiration from Naked Lunch should really read Nova Express as well, it's got much more technical detail.

I started as the GM because I was the only who bought the gaming books and bothered to read them. I would always read the book, think of a cool game and then get any of the players to read the book. (This was back in the early 80's when we were young and poor.) Inevitably, I would grow impatient when one of the players would take what seemed like forever to finish reading the book. So I just said "screw it" and would sum up the rules for the players, making me the de facto GM. (Patience has never been my strong point.)

Later on it became a matter of taste. I didn't like being a player because in my eyes few other GMs were good enough for me. Not enough NPC interaction, poorly handled combats, etc. I would end up taking over the reigns because I "knew" that I could do better. Plus I was still one of the few people who bought and read the books.

After a decade or so, I just didn't know how to be a player any more. GMing was like a safety blanket for me. I was the one who knew the rules and knew how things were supposed to work. I was the one behind the curtain. It was hard to give up that level of control and be a player. (And to an extent it still is sometimes.)

Years passed and GMing became a major creative outlet for me. I still create worlds, people and campaigns, even though I know that they'll probably never be played, just because I need to get them out of my head. They almost demand to be born.

Now, I GM because I like creating the bones of storylines and throwing them at the players and seeing where they end up taking them. I love nothing more than when I throw an idea out and someone takes it and runs with it. (My wife detailed an entire culture and belief system for a large tribe of Orcs in a D&D game solely from my saying that they live in many ways like the ancient Mongols and believed in rulership by strength.)

Also, I am definitely a Narrativist (it even reflects in my taste of video games) but most of the people I play with are Gamist in mindset. I'm slowly introducing more and more Narrativist elements into our games but in order to do this I need to guide the existing games and shift them, if possible.

And finally, I GM because most of my players are either relatively new to role-playing or have had only limited experiences ("I played D&D once or twice back in high school."). I'll let them get some confidence before trying to coax any of them into trying to GM.

I prefer GMing to playing for several reasons:

1.) I get more spotlight time. As the GM, I'm in almost every scene; when I play in other people's games, I wind up sitting around half the time, waiting for my turn.

2.) It's the only way I get to create story. My circle of friends is heavily biased toward Simulationist play, whereas I am more of a Narrativist. This makes playing in their games intensely frustrating for me, because I never get to explore my characters' themes.

3.) I'm damned good at it--about tied with one of my friends, and substantially better than the rest.

4.) I am extremely good at learning and applying rules. When I'm playing in a game run by a GM who is not as adept with the system as I am--and that's most GMs--I get very frustrated. Sometimes this comes out as rules-lawyering, sometimes as simple impatience.

If there were a Narrativist GM with good scene-framing skills in my gaming circle, I'd play more and GM less.

I GM for a lot of different reasons, absolutely every one of which has been mentioned by someone else already so I won't go into everything.

I love to play, too.  But I don't often get the chance.  People come to me, asking me to GM the game and the advantage of being a GM is that I can establish a time & place that fits in with my crazy schedule.   I love to tell stories and create worlds.. everything that propels me as a writer, propels me to GM.  

Laurel

I like GMing, but I haven't done it in years. It seems like you naturally float to the GMs spot, Clinton. Next time we game, go ahead and bully me into the GM position!! Heck I'll even GM our Wild Talents game if you like!

Why do I like GMing? Heck, for all I know, I hate it now, I haven't done it in so long. When I was GMing Planescape, I loved coming up with the crazy settings, situations and characters. It was a chance for me to create. The other big reason is the enjoyment had by everyone involved. I guess that means I'm a serviceable GM, which feels good.

I GM, because if I don't, I don't play. I've tried in the past to champion other GMs for my roleplaying games, and everytime the game has fallen apart after 1 or 2 games. The best run I had was an GURPS Atomic Horror game, where two different people GM'ed besides me (one who killed the game with their boring GMing style).

Which really amazes me because I don't consider myself a very motivated person. All it takes is to call everyone and make sure they show up on time. Rarely am I prepared to the point I should be for a session.

I think this is a worthwhile thing to consider: for a game to progress, does it have to be instigated by the GM? In, oh 5 years, I might have played as a Player in half-dozen times, but have GM pretty much every couple of weeks. I've never seen a player instigate a game. It's pretty much been me or nobody.

I think that's starting to change. Maybe I should become that player. To do that, I gotta kill one of the games I'm GMing currently.

Ah, such is life,

Steve Dustin

If my gaming group has another skilled GM, I'd much rather play than GM.  But, when I do GM it's usually because no one else wants to, or because I don't dare give the reins to someone I deem unqualified.

I've discovered that most of the people I game with (Forgites like Moose, Paul and Tom excluded) are just no good at GMing.  Even the ones that have gamed for 20+ years are still no good at it.  So, rather than experienceing a misserable campaign, or walking out on a game, I simple volunteer to run.

,Matt G.

Quote from: Steve DustinI think this is a worthwhile thing to consider: for a game to progress, does it have to be instigated by the GM?

In my experiences, most often the person who ended up being the GM was also the most organized and motivated of the group. The GM was the one who called everyone and found who was going to make it and where they were playing. By nature, it was the GM who instigated the game to progress because they pushed the group into action.

Otherwise it would be like trying to get a large group of people together to go see a movie. Or as my wife would say, "Like trying to herd cats."

I GM whenever I can because not only is it a great creative outlet it is much more satisfying than playing.

Most of the GM's I have been under lack the ability to characterize effectivly, build interesting worlds or even do the kind of compelling stories that make gaming worthwhile to me.

If I have a good GM playing a character I like is Fun but those GM's are few and far between.

I love to GM and I agree with basically everybody here.
 I love writing stories, but don't have the patience to finish most of them- they mostly exist as a bunch of characters, settings, plot outlines... which is perfect for running an rpg with;).
 Also, I've played way too many videogames, while most of my players haven't.  So, I copy some brilliant situations from great games like Final Fantasy 3/6.
 I've also been trying to steer my friends away from traditional AD&D adventures, and the only real way to do that is to run the adventures yourself.
 But, of course, this past decade or so, I've easily had more fun GM'ing than playing.

Well, my story is frighteningly similar to the vein above.  The only comment of note is that by moving and joining other groups, I encountered other active GM's and had somd good long player spells.  But playing would only make me want to GM more.

I GM because I love to see that look on the players' faces in that perfect beautiful moment when they are really 'there' in the game-world; the dining room becomes a dungeon and the dice in their hands have transformed into swords or rayguns.
 
Jeff

Most of the replies here are frighteningly similar to why I GM: the most common one is either "no one else will" or "no one else is good at it," or variations of the above. I did see a high amount of "I like to create the world/game/whatever" which is great - you people should be GMs.

In reference to the former reason, though - do you think GMing is an innate skill, or something that can be taught? (I vote for it can be taught.) If it can be, why aren't your players GMing? It seems selfish and irresponsible to me - much like that guy who always bums a ride with you or smokes your cigarettes, but never does anything in return.

Outside of gaming, if we know this guy, we normally stop being friends with him. But in gaming, it seems perfectly acceptable that someone would be the GM every time "because no one else wants to."

I call bullshit on this. One of the reasons I like my current group is that I know I could e-mail one of them and say "Hey - you want to run something this week?" and it would happen. If I thought otherwise, I'd have a real problem with them.