Whose Enjoyment Matters Most?

[ThoughtBubble]

My enjoyment matters the most. In our particular group dynamic, my mood tends to set the tone for everything else. Plus, if I'm having fun, then I can help make sure everyone else is having fun as well.

So I guess my answer is 'everyone' but also 'me'

 

[Iku Rex]

The GM's enjoyment is more important.

Happy, dedicated GMs means that the players get to choose between well developed and varied campaigns. This leads to player happiness as a convenient side-effect.

Even if you assume a limited one-group game the GM is still the most important participant. If one player no longer wants to play or only plays half-heartedly that won't necessarily have that much of an impact on the campaign. The same isn't true for the DM.

The people answering "everyone equally" seems to forget that it's not an either-or situation. The players can always leave, so if the DM is enjoying himself he'll makes sure, for completely selfish reasons, that the players are enjoying themselves too.

(I would have answered "Me", but that's ultimately the true answer for everybody to any question of this sort, so I went with what I perceived as the intent behind the question.)

 

[Uder]

I'm with Iku on this one.

Everyone should be having fun, but I have never seen a game where the GM isn't having fun end well.

Of course, if the GMs idea of fun is making people miserable, or stroking his ego, or bullying a single person, then... well, that's a subject for another thread.

 

[dren]

If I'm DMing the players...if they have fun, I have fun

Nuf' said.

 

[Cyberhawk]

Hmmm..

At first I put in "Everyone Equally" on this one, but now that I think about it I should have put "The Players". Not that the GM shouldn't have fun...he/she should. But I think the Players should be the beneficiaries.

This is becuase the games are really for the players to triumph (or resist in a CoC game) against the adversaries against them. And who are the adversaries that get stomped, smashed, outsmarted, cajun-fried and evaded? That would be the DM's people.
The DM is setup to fail. Oh sure, he can make things challenging, maybe even score a few TPKs here and there. But at the end of the day the DM has to lose, and losing can diminish the fun a tiny bit.

Personally I like DMing. It's a lot of fun, but I always see it as creating a story for my players, and as such that means they will probably triumph and my devious monsters, well-crafted traps and insidious plots that I spent all that time on must fall. So be it.

Anyways, that's my 2 coppers

 

[IronWolf]

I went with what everyone else is saying - everyone equally. This in the end leads to a fun game with fewer inter-party (IC or OOC) conflicts. Now to say everyone should have equal enjoyment, doesn't mean there won't be some compromise from folks to reach that point, but hopefully not to the point that someone has to over compromise to the point of being unfun.

 

[Granger44]

Everyone equally. If the GM stops enjoying himself, things will usually unravel on their own. And players who stop enjoying themselves will usually find something more enjoyable to do. You alienate too many players and you may soon find yourself GMing a party of zero.

 

[S'mon]

50-50 GM-players. That means unless you only have 1 player, the GM's fun is more important than any single player.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

While I think that everyone deserves to have fun equally, I also think that the person who puts the most constructive work into the campaign so that everyone has fun deserves the most fun. They work the hardest at it. Now this might sound like I'm talking about the DM, but that's not always the case. Sure the DM makes the world, adventures and such, but we've all had DMs who've done this and still killed the fun while there was that one player who got everyone involved, hyped everyone up, and generally made the play environment more enjoyable for everyone. THAT'S the dude (or dudette) who enjoyment matters most.

 

[Henrix]

The players, really. I'm making an effort for them to have fun, not the other way round.

On the other hand, if I'm not having fun, then I'll probably not be able to help them have fun, so....

But if a session ends and I think that wasn't very fun, but later hear that the players had fun, then I'm happy again!