Is the DM the most important person at the table

[Nagol]

If the game doesn't happen, the other people, individually or as a group, will go find something else to do. There's a ton of other things for folks to do these days. Heck, they could also just find or play another game! This somewhat puts a hole in the idea of "no game" without the GM.

There won't be the particular GM's game if the GM isn't there. But there will be something else. There will be no unfilled void in anyone's life.

Go to the library (or, maybe your own bookshelf), and pull any one book off the shelf. The author is important because without them, that book would not exist? Now, look at all the other books in the library. There are tend of thousands of them! If the author/GM is only as important as the book/story they told... how important is it, really?

Important enough I seek them out to spend time with their works.

Does time continue to tick if something doesn't happen? Yes. Does that make my choice of what to do with my time less valuable? No. It makes it more valuable. Opportunity cost is a thing. If I seek out a game to play in and the game doesn't happen (especially with little notice whereby I am afforded no chance to reschedule), am I disappointed? I better be or I've done myself a disservice scheduling to be in the game.

Which participant is most responsible for that activity moving forward? The DM. Which participant is most responsible for me agreeing to play that particular game out of all the games available? The DM. Which participant has the greatest chance of driving me away from that game? The DM. Which participant is most important to that activiy? The DM.

 

[S'mon]

Another thread has me thinking about this. On one hand the DM tends to be the person who arranges the game and puts in the most work. He plans things and runs the game. On the other hand everyone is there to have fun and most times these people are your friends and family. Everyone is giving up time to play and social norms tend to make things 'fair' to everyone.

I tend to think that everyone needs to be having fun at the table. I also think that the table needs to be a partner in making the fun. This means that players should help the DM and play PCs that are part of the campaign that the DM is making. Nobody wants to play with the player that is trying to disrupt the game and derail the plot. Now if that person is your brother or best friend, things become harder.

Not sure if you all are going to have vastly different opinions, but thank you.

The GM is the most important single person at the table.
Everyone should play to have fun and so that the others have fun too.

 

[S'mon]

So we have a group of 5 and the DM leaves.... now we have a group of 4 with a new DM.

IME this is pretty rare. More commonly there is no group anymore.
And a GM who cancels at short notice wrecks everyone's day. A player can usually cancel with minimal disruption, only if several cancel at once is it game-wrecking.

 

[Hussar]

IME this is pretty rare. More commonly there is no group anymore.
And a GM who cancels at short notice wrecks everyone's day. A player can usually cancel with minimal disruption, only if several cancel at once is it game-wrecking.

Dunno how common it is.

I've almost never, even from day 1 at the tender age of about 10, played in a group with only one DM. It's totally outside my realm of experience.

 

[pemerton]

The DM is even more important in those cases, as he has to be able to adapt on the fly. It requires a greater familiarity with the rules and setting than even the usual high standards expected of a DM, and an ability to apply that knowledge quickly and well.

The players also have to adapt on the fly, picking up on whatever material the GM is offering them. They may also need to know the rules so they know how they can meaningfully react. As far as the setting is concerned, the players may be helping with that as much as the GM.

I don't think I'm as strong down the @FrogReaver, @hawkeyefan path as those two - the GM does have a distinctive and in some ways demanding role - but I agree with them that there's no need to exaggerate it, or to build into a whole lot of stuff that is not inherent to it.

a GM who cancels at short notice wrecks everyone's day. A player can usually cancel with minimal disruption, only if several cancel at once is it game-wrecking.

Which participant is most responsible for that activity moving forward? The DM. Which participant is most responsible for me agreeing to play that particular game out of all the games available? The DM. Which participant has the greatest chance of driving me away from that game? The DM. Which participant is most important to that activiy? The DM.

I think this is why I don't quite go all the way with FrogReaver and hawkeyefan. The structure of (traditional) RPGing is such that one person plays a special/distindtive role in coordinating the shared fiction and the group's interaction with it, and it's a role that often benefits from some advance prep. So once a groiup has allocated this role to a particular person, that person takes on a key function that is not trivially displaced.

I don't think this makes the GM the most important person at the table, though - it's more of a precondition aspect than a run-time aspect.

 

[MGibster]

If the game doesn't happen, the other people, individually or as a group, will go find something else to do. There's a ton of other things for folks to do these days. Heck, they could also just find or play another game! This somewhat puts a hole in the idea of "no game" without the GM.

This thread isn't about how important the GM is in the grand scheme of the greater cosmos. It doesn't matter if the absence of the GM means the players will find something else to hold their interest. Maybe they'll go to a movie, finally take the time to learn ballroom dancing, or even start another game with a different GM. The point is that particular game does not happen in the absence of the GM. We can often continue to play the game in the absence of one or two players, but we cannot continue the game in the absence of the GM.

This doesn't mean the players are unimportant; after all, there's no game without the players. And I've had to delay games from time-to-time because we ended the last session on a cliffhanger and the player whose character was pivotal to the resolution could not make it. Nor does it mean the DM should rule with an iron fist not taking into account the desires of the players or allowing them input. I may be running the game and I may have even created the setting but it's not my game alone.

 

[macd21]

The players also have to adapt on the fly, picking up on whatever material the GM is offering them. They may also need to know the rules so they know how they can meaningfully react.

The player’s reactions are a lot less complex than that of the GM. The player only needs to account for their own character, the GM deals with everything other than the PCs. The player only needs to know enough rules to play their own character, the GM needs to have a good grounding in everything.

 

[pemerton]

The player’s reactions are a lot less complex than that of the GM. The player only needs to account for their own character, the GM deals with everything other than the PCs. The player only needs to know enough rules to play their own character, the GM needs to have a good grounding in everything.

If the system is (say) Apocalypse World it's the players more than the GM who need to know the intricacies of their "playbooks". The GM has to have a handle on the fiction. But so does the player or his/her PC will be hosed!

I'm not sure what sort of system or methods you have in mind - maybe some sort of intricate sandbox? I'm thinking of a more "indie" sort of approach than that.

 

[Stoutstien]

Nope, not ridiculous. I'm utterly sick and tired of players who figure that simply turning up every week and throwing a handful of dice is actually contributing to the game. Look, if all you (the general you, not you specifically) want to do is throw some dice, I have a whole shelf full of board games that we can break out, have a great time at and it doesn't entail me doing any extra work outside of the table. Fantastic. Love to do that.

But, no, as DM, I'm not here to entertain you. Pitch in an do your part and contribute or GTFO. These passive players who figure that throwing a die roll every few minutes is "contributing" to the game are some of the most energy sucking vampires at the table. Give me power gamers, munchkins and rules lawyers over these wastes of space any day of the week. At least those others are actually engaged in the game.

You can tell those who never DM at character generation. Those who DM who get to play almost always make characters with an eye towards how this will play out in the group, complete with connections to the campaign and probably a few solid hooks for the DM to latch onto. These passive players come to the table with cipher, man with no name characters, whose parents are long dead and have zero connection to the game. Dance for us Mr. DM, we are here to be entertained! they cry.

I'm just utterly sick and tired of players like that. Either pitch in and do your part of get lost. You don't deserve to be in the hobby.

Depends. Now we're getting into the issue of player motivations. Some people play d&d exactly for the reason that they can practically turn their brain off and just relax or they're only interested in one part like combat or such. There's nothing inherently wrong with any reason why somebody might want to play the game but it's important to know what these motivations are to make sure that everybody's overlaps a little bit an individual gaming environment. Most tables have a range of player motivations to consider and fluctuate gameplay 2 cover as many of them as possible. Sometimes they can put too much to nobody's fault but it happened. What's important is knowing how to recognize that and address it.
Most of the games that I run call for very deep player /character engagement and development. I also run a bi-weekly beer and pretzel game for the players who just want to show up roll dice and blow off steam.
Same system two entirely different games.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this is why I don't quite go all the way with FrogReaver and hawkeyefan. The structure of (traditional) RPGing is such that one person plays a special/distindtive role in coordinating the shared fiction and the group's interaction with it, and it's a role that often benefits from some advance prep. So once a groiup has allocated this role to a particular person, that person takes on a key function that is not trivially displaced.

I don't think this makes the GM the most important person at the table, though - it's more of a precondition aspect than a run-time aspect.

My comments in this thread aren't aimed so much at diminishing the importance of the GM to a game so much as pointing out that it's not significantly harder to GM. The role is more central to the game, so in that sense it is important....but a game can't happen without players, either.

I've more been commenting on the difficulty of the role. I think there's a common perception that DMing or GMing is significantly harder than playing, and I don't think that must always be the case. I don't think anything the GM is required to do is inherently more difficult than what players have to do....as you point out, they also need to be able to adapt on the fly....it's just that there tends to be more of it.