Simple Questions: Why the GM?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ok - this question dives into the simple. Why do you GM?

This question's been rolling around in my head for the longest time. Of all the supposed biases on the Internet in gaming, this one's real, too: people do look down on people who won't GM. Player-only players are considered the second-class citizens of role-playing, and GM's are the real creators, second only to game designers.

Fact is, I hate GMing. (Note to my group: It's ok. Really.) I love playing a character, whether I'm using him to create a story, win the game, or try and get in his little made-up head. GMing makes me not only be responsible for everyone else's fun, but spread myself over a bunch of NPC's, giving me no chance to really get into the game.

This isn't a GNS thing - I've seen GM's who really like being the anchor in creating a story, GM's who love to see if they can "beat" their players with tough challenges, and GM's who love creating a coherent world to play in.

My question is: why? Why are you drawn to GMing, and do you enjoy it more than being a player?

[Mike Holmes]

Simple creativity. It's an outlet. I like to detail settings as a form of escapism. Either as a player or GM. Traditionally, though the GM gets to do more of it, so in that sort of game I prefer to GM. But I do like play as well.

Mike

[unodiablo]

For me, it boils down to one thing: I've always been the GM. I really love to play, but at least 90% of the time, from jr. high until now, if I didn't own / read / design / teach the game, pick a night, organize the whole thing, I wouldn't get to play. 'Cept for GROS and the occasional game of Lunch Money.

Playing InSpectres w/ Jared, and later Universalis and Primeval w/ Mike and unheilig was the first time I 'just played' in years. I felt I was a little stumped during Primeval because of it, actually. It took me until Universalis (later in that day) to get into it, tho it could be because I was playing in a more familiar setting (Western on Mars vs. Epic Myth).

That's probably part of why I drifted away from a local group too - I was a player when I'm used to GM'ing, tho that's only a small part of it.

I do like GM'ing tho. I get satisfaction from setting up a scenario and seeing players enjoy playing. I like seeing that a game I designed works well in play. Or that the players remember it and refer to it like a movie they saw.

Sean

[rafael]

at first, i did it because no one else wanted to, and i liked the creativity.  

then came the love of a challenge.  i dislike loose, unstructured games, but i don't particularly care for games where every step is plotted out in advance.  therefore, in order to give players the idea that there is an entire world of events unfolding about them, in which they can be spectators or active participants, i have to move quickly, and am frequently required to embellish like a bastard.  they never look at the thing i want them to look at.  they look at something else.  something i haven't even considered.  they never do what i think they might.

i look at a situation, consider some possible reactions (attack, run, negotiate, seduce, mock, rob, harass, befriend), and write down results for these possible reactions.  they never do any of that.  they do something else.  in retrospect, it makes sense.  but at the time, they're expecting a result, and i have to tell them something.  i tell them, and they ask specific questions.  and they always want a good answer.

i love that.  i love being forced to invent and create on the spur of the moment.  i love it when they feel like they're free to do whatever they want, and when they know that their actions have serious consequences in the world they inhabit.  i love it when i say, hey, you run into your old pal f'thaxhas, the soldier, and they all grin and offer to buy him a drink.  you old son of a gun, they say.  how was that siege at mharringa?  don't ask, he says, and they all laugh loud.  good times with an old friend.  then he follows them to the coast, where he's got a score to settle.  but he doesn't make it.  cut down by an assassin's arrow, meant for one of them.  they avenge him, and then the silence and the elegy.

good old f'thaxhas.  old friend.

and it's there, right there, shared.  they'll never see that guy again.  some good times, though.  some real good times.

that's why i do it.

[xiombarg]

For me, it boils down to one thing: I've always been the GM. I really love to play, but at least 90% of the time, from jr. high until now, if I didn't own / read / design / teach the game, pick a night, organize the whole thing, I wouldn't get to play. 'Cept for GROS and the occasional game of Lunch Money.

It's a similar thing with me. If I wanted the sort of games I wanted to play to exist in the minds of my group at all, I had to GM. It's always been that way. We would have never played Wuthering Heights if it wasn't for me deciding to GM it.

I'd much rather play. But I'd rather GM a game a like than play in a game that I hate.

[Gordon C. Landis]

So, I'm planning/trying to GM a lot more than I have been.  Why?  I've thought about it, and . . . harsh as it may sound, I think it's about control.  Control in its' literal, not pejorative, sense.  In my case, I particularly want to control the amount of control - i.e., I want control so I can try and "force" the players to take some control.  But the bottom line is, the GM has more power.  Sometimes, you want power.  You can use it for good or ill and all that, but it's still power.

Thinking back into my dim past, when I did a LOT of oD&D GMing . . . I think it was an important but subtle variation on control.  The thing was, we had some rules, and an Avalon Hill "Outdoor Survival" map . . . but  that was it.  We NEEDED to do something - in our case, a kinda round-robin world-creation  - in order to have a "functional" game, and to do that, someone needed to take control and establish "facts" about the world.  So, those who were interested in that did so, and (looking back on it) we did a surprisingly good job of sharing power amongst those who were so inclined.

GMing provides a particular kind of creative outlet that it seems to me is, at its' core, about retaining control.  Psuedo-paradoxically, in some forms of play you want control so that you can give it up, but it's still control.  At least, that's how I'm thinking about it at the moment.

Gordon

[joshua neff]

I think part of it for me is control. I know what kinds of games I like & it's often easier to run them than to find someone else who's running them. I'm the only person in my group who presently has any interest in running Sorcerer or Le Mon Mouri (plus, Sean asked me to run it) or Over the Edge or Maelstrom.

Also, I have so many ideas for RPG runs, it's scary. There's no way I have time to run them all, so I run what I can. But I always have at least 10 different ideas running through my head at any given moment.

Finally, my Players are very complimentary when it comes to my GMing, which makes me want to GM more. (Similarly, I try to let them know as often as I can how much I appreciate them as Players. Positive feedback is a wonderful thing.)

For the most part, though, I just enjoy it. I love playing NPCs. I love setting scenes. I love presenting conflict & complications to Players & seeing where they go with it. I used to really be into worldbuilding, but I've grown less interested in that now. I'm much more interested in coming up with some interesting conflicts & cool color, using that as a springboard for Players to create a good narrative.

Huh. Good question, Clinton.

[Mytholder]

I want to be God. Is that wrong?

Seriously...it's a great challenge. Create a world, tell a story, balance dozens of NPCs, react to the input of six people, and be entertaining...all at the same time. It's a rush.

I am literally a different person while GMing. I think a lot faster, speak more clearly, express more. It's the only way I can regularly attain that level of, er, clarity I guess.

[Le Joueur]

Ok - this question dives into the simple. Why do you GM?

Fact is, I hate GMing. (Note to my group: It's ok. Really.) I love playing a character,

My question is: why? Why are you drawn to GMing, and do you enjoy it more than being a player?

Why?  How about because my gamemastering scares the willies out of my players.  Any time I ask anyone I play with if they'd like to gamemaster, the answer is always a version of the same; "I'm not as good as you are."  When pressed, some of them believe I will hold them to the standards I hold myself.  A few think you have to have as solid a grasp on 'what players want,' like I appear to.  I guess I make it look too hard (or too easy, depending on how you read the idiom).

Like you, Clinton, I hate it.  I love playing.  I still want a shot at playing Dark Horse (think ghost turned superhero), so I could just once sort out his amnesia (I leave 'who he was' to each gamemaster); sometimes I just love to 'get into the characters head,' sometimes I like to 'beat the odds.'  (He is the 'dark horse;' how about Area of Effect Mental Paralysis in Champions?  Gamist enough?)  But I can always find something that's fun in gamemastering.

Usually my source of enjoyment is 'playing with their minds.'  I love to play around with what is or is not 'on the table.'  I love to challenge expectations.  I love to watch when they get more than they bargain for (in the good way).  For me the 'shake-down' sessions at the start are about as tedious as it gets.  The only game I loved from the onset was one where I had everyone give me detailed histories and I created the game city only from that material (in the weirdest way possible).  I guess it bores me because I am waiting to see what my players want.  (I'm still teaching them how to ask for it in advance.)  Once I have that then I can really get going.  (Whatta ham.)

So ultimately I'm "drawn to gamemastering" the same way water is 'drawn' downhill; I've gotten tired of waiting through the silence of 'who wants to run tonight?'

Fang Langford

p. s. Really, I'm an easy player to satisfy, avoid sudden 'explosive deprotagonization,' don't sell the game as having directorial stance for players when it doesn't, and god help me, I'll find some way to enjoy it.

[Sidhain]

I GM because I have a need to create stories (note "not tell" stories) I do write fiction. Yet gaming is a different flavor of creating stories alltogether, it's cooperative nature make is both better and worse than book fiction.

I also GM because very few gamers I know do so, and of those many of them just don't have a passion for it, some act like their whole purpose is to oppose players and take delight in maiming the PC's in creative ways. Others want to create stories but become mired in the mechanical nature of the games they use. So more often than not I get asked to GM because other players recognize the above situations.

[Bankuei]

Hey Clinton you shoulda let me know... :P I'll GM something sometime :)

I GM mostly because I was the only one who would do it, plus being the only person to bother to learn the rules :)  But also, until I checked out the Pool, Donjon, and the whole lot of games that throw narrative control into the player's hands, it was the mass of visuals that I wanted to make happen that I never realized that it was about authorial control.

There's also the other fact that after playing "I check for traps" every 30 seconds, I knew I had to have framing control to cut out the boring stuff and get to the action.

Chris

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Ah, the lone voice in the wilderness (aside from Clinton).

I HATE running games. Yes, even InSpectres (tho' that's been an easier pill to swallow than most). I'm pretty much in the same camp as Clinton as far as the reasons go.

In fact, one thing I want to do at GenCon 2002 is to have the InSpectres demo run by someone who has never GM'd or played the game before -- just a simple hand-out detailing the basic rules and me over their shoulder to throw a life preserver in time of need.

I think it could work.

But yeah, geez don't make me run anything. I suck at it.

[Rich Forest]

I GM for a lot of the reasons that have already been mentioned: I did it first, I've done it most, it's kind of just become my job in the group.  Then there's creativity, control probably as well, and getting to come up with a lot of the ideas about what we're going to play.  All those things.  

And I enjoy it.  In fact, I can't really compare it to playing a character because I've hardly ever played one, and I've never played any character more than once with someone else as the GM.  On top of that, I've probably played less than five times in the last twelve months, and that's way more than it used to be.

And there's another reason.  I love RPGs.  I'm obsessed with them.  I know, I know, I'm not alone.  But if I didn't GM, I wouldn't know what to do with my obsession.  I think that's the main reason I GM.  I'm probably the only person in my group who is thinking about RPGs on the ten minute walk to class.  In the car.  While watching TV.  When people are talking to me and I'm not really listening.  Before I go to sleep at night and while I'm eating breakfast.  GMing is a way to apply this time to something.  I guess I could be creating RPGs with this time, and I do that too, but I'd be creating them to play them as much as anything else, and probably to GM them.  

I guess I GM because I am a GM.  Not the best, hopefully not the worst, but "I am a GM" is my most defining characteristic.

Rich

[C. Edwards]

Wow...  well, I began GMing because nobody else was willing to give it a shot.  One reason I keep GMing is due to the fact that I've moved often so I usually have to either introduce people to role-playing or pull people that haven't played in ten years back to role-playing just to get a game going.  

 I love to play (as opposed to GM) but I rarely get the chance.  Being "The GM" doesn't really bother me too much.  I've found that I have a passion for playing games that most people don't seem to posess so I'm willing to put in the time required to get a game going, be it board game, rpg, or whatever.  GMing is also a fantastic opportunity to stretch my creative wings.  It's like daydreaming out loud, distilled concentrated imagining.  The best part is that there are other creative minds involved during play to help keep things interesting and dynamic.

 Like anything else, not everyone can GM worth a damn.  That's another reason why I GM, and maybe the most important.  I don't consider myself a great GM, good maybe but not great.  Someone has to be the instigator though, the catalyst that connects everyones minds together in the world of imagination.  Even though I may bitch and whine about it at times I know being the GM is more than just work and responsibility.  It is quite often a privelage.  

 -Chris

[Balbinus]

It's the only way I've found of getting at least some of the ideas out of my head.

I can't really stop having ideas, I get them constantly.  I'm not an author so this is what I do.