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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6748382" data-attributes="member: 6701872">Let's use my group as an anecdote: We've been playing together for nearly a decade now, but when I first moved here and joined the group they had a DM and were already an established group.That DM did things that all of us found unfun, and so we all agreed he'd not be the DM anymore and I started DMing for the group instead. Just like play could have kept on if one player left, we could keep playing without that DM because one of us could take over.Lack of time is not a valid reason, a DM can run an enjoyable game with no more time invested into it than the players.Commitment is also not required to be any higher for a DM than it is for a player, so that's not a valid reason either.Confidence with rules knowledge is also not actually required to be a successful DM - it can be replaced with either the confidence that messing up the rules doesn't actually matter that much, or by having the group work together to keep the rules straight. So that's another not actually valid reason.All of why a player doesn't think they can DM, besides "I do not enjoy it", is usually BS believed because some DM along the way in that gamer's life played up how much effort and skill and time were mandatory to be a DM in order to enforce their power over their players and leverage to get their own way instead of having to treat their players as being of equal importance.Being a DM is no more of a special skill or position of authority than running the bank during a game of Monopoly.I think you are confused about what I mean.Let's use my dislike of gnomes as an example: I don't like them. Not one bit. I'd be perfectly happy if the game had never included them in the first place, I'll never play one, including that if someone reincarnates my character as a gnome I'll declare my character's soul unwilling to return....but if a player wants to play a gnome because they think gnomes are cool, I'll let them, and I'll just not think about what race their character is at all - they could just as easily be a halfling or a shorter than normal dwarf, elf, a goblin even, because I'm not dwelling on that they are a gnome because I don't actually have to keep bringing it up to remind the player their character is a gnome, and there isn't anything I have to add to the game in order for the player to feel like they are playing a gnome.I basically see three options, with three outcomes:1) Ban what I don't like - resulting in me having fun, but anyone that likes things that were banned having reduced fun.2) Allow things I don't like and not let them affect me by not dwelling on them - resulting in me having fun, and anyone that likes things I don't like having fun too.3) Allow things I don't like and let them ruin the fun for me - resulting in no one at the table having fun because a DM's bad time is contagious like the plague.Which I will choose 2 every time because my goal as a DM is not just for me to have fun, or for the whole group to have some fun, but for the whole group to have as much fun as we possibly can.</blockquote>

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