D&D General I DM because...

[Oofta]

I enjoy both sides of the DM's screen. Even though I'm normally an introvert, I enjoy running a fun campaign for people and acting out all the NPC and running the NPCs and monsters. The creative side, making decisions about my world (I always homebrew) and trying to build something that makes sense is enjoyable.

While I get the itch to DM if I haven't done it for a while, another big part of it is that it's easier to find a group to DM for than it is to find a good DM. I've moved around too many times and D&D is one way to have a social life outside of my family, especially after a certain age where everyone else's lives tend to revolve around their kids.

 

[el-remmen]

. . . because I'm the best at it.

 

[Lanefan]

Other: I had an idea for a setting* and wanted to use it; and I had ideas for rule changes I wanted to experiment with (and didn't like some other changes my then-DM was making).

* - a few years before I ever heard of D&D a friend and I were working on a fantasy setting for a story; the story idea kinda sank later, so I used that setting for the first campaign I ran.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Primarily just because I wanted to.

However, whilst I'd DM'd a bit from time to time, I really first became a "full time DM" because I was part of a rebellion against our then-current, and frankly terrible DM, and no-one else wanted to DM (I was the least socially-awkward and most confident kid there, which is kind of funny in retrospect, esp. with my severe ADHD). Maybe if that guy wanted to keep DMing, he shouldn't have tried to make us kill baby orcs, huh? Even us 12-year-old public schoolboys had too much empathy and sense of right-and-wrong for that to fly. The DM even tried the "they're innately evil!" line but we just wouldn't believe it, given they were biological beings and none of us had come across this idea (sounded racist lol), so we took them to a monastery to Illmater so they could raise them. The ex-DM was briefly affronted but then became a player and was perfectly fine, kept playing together until a bit after I left that school.

(Interestingly, the logic the DM used was absolutely the same logic Gary Gygax himself used to justify killing women and children of "evil" non-human races. Good thing I didn't find that out until recently, from D&D's perspective, or I think that'd have been the last time I played D&D, and it'd have been WoD, Shadowrun, later Earthdawn and so on from then.)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I DM the kind of games I would like to play in.

Yeah it's important to do that imho. I've stopped running specific RPGs a couple of times because I realized the campaign I was running wasn't one I'd actually want to play in if I was a player, and I felt like there wasn't any real way out of that with that rules-set/setting (both were pretty specific - one was Dark*Matter/Alternity).

 

[Clint_L]

When I was a kid I started DMing as soon as I understood the rules well enough, and was the regular DM, though all of my friends tried it a little. But I was the guy collecting miniatures, models, a big bag of dice, reading Dragon and White Dwarf, etc.. I also created my own world with maps, gazetteer, monster manual, and so on. Then in my early adulthood we seldom did RPGs, though when we did it was always me running the game.

Nowadays, I have one group that includes two other potential DMs but they are younger and busier so usually I'm best prepared. I run the large majority of games. In my other home group, I'm the only one really interested. At D&D Club and summer camp, I run campaigns for the beginners, so I am the only option, and then they "graduate" to running their own games.

I really enjoy world building and using my miniatures and terrain, so I usually enjoy being the DM, though the beginner groups can feel more like work depending on the group. I do wish I got to play more often, though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Other: I had an idea for a setting* and wanted to use it; and I had ideas for rule changes I wanted to experiment with (and didn't like some other changes my then-DM was making).

* - a few years before I ever heard of D&D a friend and I were working on a fantasy setting for a story; the story idea kinda sank later, so I used that setting for the first campaign I ran.

I mean, to me this reads as just a specific version of "because I wanted to."

"I had an idea for a setting" = "I wanted to run a setting idea, therefore 'I wanted to run, no other reason.' "
"I had ideas for rules changes" = "I wanted to run a game while experimenting with the rules, therefore 'I wanted to run, no other reason.' "
"I wasn't entirely happy with the rules changes my current DM was using" = "I wanted to run a game without some changes I didn't care for, therefore 'I wanted to run, no other reason.' "

Like, it's good to be specific. God knows I spend way too many words trying to be specific. But all of those sound like variations of "I just really wanted to run" with the explanation "...because of what running a game allows you to do." You wanted to run purely for the benefits that running a game provides--not because you were asked to, but because you desired it for its own sake.

 

[Incenjucar]

I like to facilitate creativity and joy in others. It gives me warm fuzzies when I can high-five players after they demolish the big bad in a tough encounter and manage to pull off some incredible twists I could have never anticipated.

 

[Lojaan]

Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.
- DMs everywhere

(RIP Mordin sob)

 

[damiller]

I played when I first started, but he real lightening for me was DMing. I just have never been interested ENOUGH in one character to play them for long, and as a GM I get to play as many characters I want. Its work, but its work I really enjoy. I have spent countless hours figuring out how to be and do DMing better and better.