D&D 5E Do you DM?

[Stoutstien]

I like playing, but I prefer DM'ing. I can be kind of a handful as a player, since I tend to metagame everything. lol

If a game element can be broken by player knowledge then said element was wrong not the player.

 

[mortwatcher]

voted Other

I do GM at cons and occasional off-shoot game
I am a player in most of our regular games and "co-GM" (meaning I am the rules guy, so the GM doesn't have to bother with that load as well)

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I voted Other.

Currently, I am mostly a player. Previously, I was mostly a referee. There's a bit of a pendulum effect over a cycle of a decade or so...

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I am mostly a DM. Generally the only time I get to be a player is at cons. Hence why my first 5e character, made in 2014, is still only level 12.

I enjoy DMing greatly, but also like being a player. However, at this point I've got gaming groups that have been going for years, and part of me (not entirely a good part, I'll admit) feels somewhat resentful over the idea of someone else running a game for them and getting to benefit from the very hard work it's sometimes been to keep them running for so long.

 

[mrpopstar]

I think it's interesting that the voting community trends so heavily towards being the Dungeon Master. I wonder what that means or why that is?

 

[billd91]

I think it's interesting that the voting community trends so heavily towards being the Dungeon Master. I wonder what that means or why that is?

It means that the polls are interesting, but probably with too much systematic bias to infer much about the community beyond the people who happened to respond to the polls.

 

[the Jester]

Almost always DM, because it's what I prefer.

As a side note, polls that have motivations in their answer options almost always fail to accurately reflect where I'm coming from. I wish you had just put "Almost always DM" instead of "almost always DM cuz no one else wants to"- that's simply not an accurate reflection of my situation.

 

[the Jester]

I think it's interesting that the voting community trends so heavily towards being the Dungeon Master. I wonder what that means or why that is?

Part of it is probably that online gaming forum attendees are a self-selected bunch that leans more heavily into DMing than the general population. I imagine it has to do with the fact that DMs are more invested in the game (in terms of how much time and effort they spend on it) than non-DMing players.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I have to admit, being a player makes me a better DM, and being a DM makes me a better player. I understand the situation where someone has never had a chance to play, and I wish that they have the opportunity to.

Yes to this. Being a player, even rarely, has given me a new perspective on how other DMs handle situations at the table (for better or worse). Spotlight sharing can be exercised nicely from both sides of the screen - being a player has helped me learn some ways a DM might subtly encourage that amongst the players at the table.

 

[Blue]

If a game element can be broken by player knowledge then said element was wrong not the player.

If I read a module so I know where the treasure was hidden, the answer to the puzzle, and the immunities and vulnerabilities of the end boss' pet that we were supposed to find out (or not) from dealing with a set of NPCs, then it's the game element that's wrong?

Uh huh.

The absolute statement that any game element that is broken by players bringing in outside knowledge is the fault of the element is trivially shown as false.

It's just a spectrum from there. Characters having information about monsters not because that character has ever encountered them or heard of them, but because the player has in another campaign. Knowing an item is cursed from recognizing the description from the DMG even though the character would have no way of knowing. Some groups have a tolerance for that sort of thing, others don't.