DragonLancer said:
As for your example, I have to agree in some respect to the GM. If one of my players came forward and said that they wanted to play in (insert whatever) and it was something I had no interest in I'd have to say that I wouldn't want to do that. I know I couldn't do it justice due to a lack of interest.
Very true. I've had times when a player has asked if I'd consider running something in a pre-existing universe, for example The Wheel Of Time, that they're fond of. But if I know sod-all about it, or don't like it much, then if I did try to run it no-one would really have much fun.
Of course, I would also say "Do you want to run it?", because if you really want to play a paticular game that bad, sometimes it's the only way. That's just the way it goes, though for some players it's apparently an inconceivable idea, because
they're the players and
you're the GM!
At heart, a GM needs to have fun too, so they shouldn't run something they don't enjoy. That doesn't mean the groups sole reason to run something should be "The GM likes it", of course.
(Tangent: I also have not run games because, despite being keen on them, I had players who were more so. My girlfriend is quite the Discworld geek and as much as I'd like to try out a game there, I dunno if her obsessive-compulsive nature would permit her to ignore me if I say the wrong two watchmen are patroling Sator Square or whatever. Similarly, despite being a huge Transformers fan, the first person who wanted to play was also a huge fan, and I knew from the kind of people we were it would only degenerate into arguments about if the comic death of Megatron took place before X cartoon episode, and what about the UK comics, blah blah blah the other five players don't care a monkeys about this geekfest. )
Back on topic: I think everyone has hit th emajor points. If I started a new game I knew something about the rules for, I'd probably ask a few key questions, i.e. "Does X feat stack with Y in your game?" or "What's your policy on using non-core spells?" or suchlike. But as long as they're clear on me exactly what kind of game to expect, I'd be fine with that. As long as you tell me it's a totally serious, dice-fall-as-they-may, psychological horror where we can never succeed in defeating the Dread Emperor of Remusia, then we're on even ground: just don't assume anything is "obvious" about your game.