Is this what it feels like to be a forever GM?

[Mini_Mischief]

Hello. Apologies if this has been covered before but I couldn't find anything after a quick search.

I've been in and out of the TTRPG hobby for several years but recently have thrown myself back into it. I've been trying to build a bit of a local community, have regularly hired a community centre to run games and have been running games for newbies and young people at the local library. To try and bring GMs to our events I have created a physical miniature and map library for anyone to use at our events. I'm enjoying the process but there's a feeling that's been stirring in the back of my head and I want to know if it's just me or if there's something I should be doing differently.

I know there has always been an imbalance between players and GMs in this hobby, but what really gets to me is the lack of investment from players. I'm talking about turning up to games with nothing or at most a character sheet. They haven't even purchased and flipped through the rule book for the hobby they say they love. The best analogy I can think of is someone organising a game of Warhammer and being expected to buy, build and paint both armies because the other person wants to play but hasn't bother to invest in their own army. Nobody in that hobby would stand for it, so why do we in this one? Has anyone actually managed to change that dynamic, and if so, how?

Then there's the local game stores. One near me has been trying to find GMs to come into their store and run events for them. When I looked into it I struggled to see how that would actually benefit me as a GM. I was expected to plan the sessions, prepare all the content, bring everything needed to run the game and deliver the whole thing. The stores contribution were some tables and chairs that tbh weren't really set up with TTRPGs in mind, then they'd advertise the event and charge players to come.

I used to think that the term "Forever GM' just meant being the only person willing to run games, but I'm starting to feel it's more than that and that GMs need to essentially prop up the whole of the hobby for everyone else.

Apologies for the rant. I'm not planning on going anywhere. I'm going to keep hiring the hall, running games and trying to build the community. But wanted to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way and wants it to be different. Please tell me it's because the community I'm building is new? I'd love to hear from people who've managed to build a community where the GMs are valued and players are genuinely invested, how did you do this and what does it actually look like in practice.

 

[bloodtide]

This is important.

I have no doubt lots of people want a completely different sort of game to what I run. That's fine. It doesn't make me a bad GM, and it doesn't make other people bad players. It just means we have different tastes, and that's perfectly OK.

As a Gaming Elder I'm a pillar of the local RPG community, though 75% of those people hate me with blinding crazy passion. But it is still a community, so that is good. I do get to poach a player every so often, so it is nice to have a pool of players to do that with.

For a now super classic: When spring comes most games break up as people do "other stuff" during the spring and summer. This often leaves lots of players with no games wandering around the rec or library. I'll offer to run a pick up game. As the typical player of the "other" games has a super duper dragonslaying character that has killed one of every dragon and can do 200 points of damage per round, I'll offer a dragonslaying game.

Of course, this type of player is used to the Easy Safe Modern style of game where their Buddy DM lets them win. So that is not my style. The battle won't last long. Several characters die in the first couple of rounds just from the metabreath weapon (the red dragon has ice breath), the dragons spells or tactics like picking up a character and dropping them.

Still, like one out of a hundred players of the "oh we won the game, again" and find my hard game fun, so it is worth it.

That set a tone that "players don't need to know the rules - play the GM instead of the rulebook." So, for an influential period players were expected to not learn the rules. Eventually, that started to change, but a lot of AD&D vets are still teaching newbs that they don't need to know the rules, don't waste the money.

I'm this type of DM. I don't teach the rules, I teach role playing.

The combination of "Players don't need to know" and "GMs should tweak rules" makes player owned rulebooks a liability for many playstyles of old-school GMs. I was never one of those... tho' my 1981 to 1985 D&D play was BX with AD&D races and a variant multiclassing hybridizing D&D and AD&D. It was easier to just use a photocopy of my typed up rules variant than explain it. Then i discovered other games and moved to a mindset of "If I have to make major tweaks, I don't need this game..."

I do super tweak the rules. Players love the drama of saying "you can't do that DM that is not in the rules!" and I'll answer by tossing the dumb rule book in the trash and saying "I don't care".