Is DMing its own reward?

[OnlineDM]

Yes, I DM for the love of DMing. I've never received anything from my players other than smiles and thanks, and that's more than enough.

 

[Elf Witch]

As both a DM and a player I enjoy longer running games. I love world building and coming up with interesting NPCs.

I enjoy when players have a great time in my game that is very rewarding to me as a DM.

What I find that just kills the joy for me is when I have players who whine a lot. I feel really sorry for my current DM because she is getting a lot of grief. If I was her at this point I would quit.

 

[S'mon]

I like DMing. I love it when players occasionally praise my DMing, or even buy me a beer. *mm*, beer...

 

[S'mon]

I'm one of those that loves FR as a campaign setting, I've always felt it was very diverse in what it offers with the terrain, history, factions, etc. The last campaign I DM'd to 30th in 4E was in FR the whole time and my players seemed to like it as well.

I'm currently DMing FR for the first time, and there certainly seems a lot of potential there. I'm finding the 4e FR player book & campaign guide to be great resources in play, my players love the Loudwater stuff, especially that Lady Moonfire!

 

[Dice4Hire]

To me DMing is its own reward.

It had better be as I have never gotten paid for doing so D)

But I enjoy DMing and going through a story with my players because none of us know how it will turn out, not exactly.

Though to answer the questions that is already leading this thread off topic, I prefer 8-12 level stories, rather than an epic 1st to whatever game. It is nicer to mix things up more.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I'm currently DMing FR for the first time, and there certainly seems a lot of potential there. I'm finding the 4e FR player book & campaign guide to be great resources in play, my players love the Loudwater stuff, especially that Lady Moonfire!

Yep, a lot of great stuff to draw from in the campaign setting. I am a bit of a rebel when it comes to the settings (I like to house-rule stuff) and incorporated some 3E campaign setting stuff into my previous 4E FR campaign. I had some of the older heroes that I loved still around who have died between settings. I figured it was my world and my prerogative to do what I wanted to make things as fun as possible for myself and my players. It was actually the first time that any of my players had been in FR so I could pull out all the stops.

 

[Barastrondo]

I love closure, but I don't actually plan D&D games out to 20 (or 30, these days). Rather, I enjoy running a game for about a five-level arc or so, getting to a major climactic point, and then seeing where the group's energy level is. If they want to go on for another five-or-so arc, usually it's because enough has happened that the next arc should write itself.

"Not long for this world" is really a matter of personal taste, I guess. I can see lots of characters hitting extremely satisfying milestones in about five levels of play. When I have to be taking level 20 into account as I'm setting the stage for a level 1 adventure, that starts getting into thousand-yard-stare territory.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I can see the appeal for planning the shorter adventures as a DM so that you don't have to spend so much time on a 20 or 30 level campaign that they may or may not complete. I've always just tried to talk to my group and feel them out when first getting together on what their appetite is for - whether they want to try to go all the way (unless there's a TPK) or if they'd rather do a series of adventures that may or may not become cumulative into say a 5-10 level adventure. A lot of times I'll even start my players out at level 2 or 3 as opposed to level 1, giving them a few more abilities that will allow them to "feel" like a hero starting out instead of a farmboy or some such. Just my personal preference to do that since to me level 1's are common people and a PC is above that in terms of their abilities.

I've also ran 1-shot adventures with some pre-made characters that I rolled up ahead of time and given to players who were around level 5-7 just to give them a fun semi-powerful character to test out the waters with.

 

[S'mon]

I love closure, but I don't actually plan D&D games out to 20 (or 30, these days). Rather, I enjoy running a game for about a five-level arc or so, getting to a major climactic point, and then seeing where the group's energy level is. If they want to go on for another five-or-so arc, usually it's because enough has happened that the next arc should write itself.

"Not long for this world" is really a matter of personal taste, I guess. I can see lots of characters hitting extremely satisfying milestones in about five levels of play. When I have to be taking level 20 into account as I'm setting the stage for a level 1 adventure, that starts getting into thousand-yard-stare territory.

I don't like plotting out long campaign arcs, or anything above a couple sessions really. But I'm coming to like it that the Forgotten Realms CG has a bunch of suitable campaign-ending villains I can use if we wanted to go to level 30 say.

 

[Barastrondo]

I don't like plotting out long campaign arcs, or anything above a couple sessions really. But I'm coming to like it that the Forgotten Realms CG has a bunch of suitable campaign-ending villains I can use if we wanted to go to level 30 say.

I should actually clarify: I don't like plotting out long campaign arcs, myself. It's more sort of a bit where I consider what a good, way, 5th-level enemy would be, place some sort of hint to said enemy's existence in the first adventure, figure out a few of his schemes and where the PCs might (or might not) cross paths with them, and then fill in all the rest of the gameplay with organic stuff.

I'm not exactly the opposite of an Adventure Path GM, but I'm pretty much on the opposite end. I enjoy spikes of difficulty and interesting set pieces, so Final Confrontations are great; all the rest of the stuff, though, that's best resolved in the context of "okay, what did the PCs do last session?"