After being DM can PLAYING ever be as good?

[Dragonbait]

I mostly DM, but on occasion I get to play. I love to play, but it made me rather critical of other people's games. I can easily tell when a GM is pulling their punches, scrambiling to fill in plot holes, and so on. I put a lot of energy into the game, and wish that some other GMs put the same amount that I do, even though I know that my expectations are probably too high.

 

[jollyninja]

It has great affected my enjoyment of poorly run games or those that focus on combat over all else. I do however enjoy critiquing other people's campaigns, silently of course, to see what I might have done differently. It was my tendency to do that as a player that lead to me starting to dm.

I love playing in systems that I am not intimately familiar with as I do find it more fun when I don't know how to deal with everything we come up against.

 

[Umbran]

I was just wondering what folks views are on this. Most people start off as players then become DM at some stage when they get to know the game. Once you become a DM has it affected your enjoyment as a player in later games?

As a general thing, I feel GMing has made me into a better player.

There is a very, very simple solution to the problem you suggest - when it comes to be your turn to GM, don't GM the game you want to play! If your group normally plays D&D, take a break and play Mutants and Masterminds. Or step away from d20 completely, and run a Word of Darkness game...

That way, you get to share the task of GMing, but you don't lose your sense of wonder, because the rule set you become expert in isnt' the one you play under.

Though, personally, I don't run into the problem you mentioned. You are correct, in that once you've run a game with a troll in it, as a player you'll have to metagame-out that information, and you aren't surprised. However, with the wealth of material out there, there's little need for overlap. If your normal GM works from the Monster Manual, you work from a different monster book. If he uses Forgotton Realms, you use Eberron, and so on.