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".

 

[TheSword]

The hobby exists, in the first place, because of a series of individual and group passion projects. It spread for the same reason. Yes, it was and is financially viable for a number of companies, and it will most likely continue to be so -- but if it does, it should be because people are releasing material that other people feel is worth buying, not because people buy the material simply out of obligation to support the industry.

Passion projects that they sold for money to people who wanted to buy them. If people hadn’t wanted to buy them, very few if any would have been published. D&D may be a passion project but it wasn’t a charity.

The hobby does not require the ongoing success of WotC. Even if multi-million dollar kickstarters cease to be a thing, the hobby will still be there. No corporation can stop you gaming. There are thousands of people releasing cheap and free material, and they will continue to do so.

It doesn’t require WotC’s financial success though it does require someone to have financial success otherwise they will stop producing games. That might not kill the hobby right away but in 10-20-30 years it will be relegated to the annals of history.

The industry is not the hobby, and the the hobby is perfectly fine and safe. It does not require your financial support to survive and thrive.

Yes it does. Because you like all of us are mortal and highly likely to die at some point. New players will be required to play the game and they aren’t all going to play a 50 year old version of a game. This may not bother you in your grave but it’s possible to feel goodwill to a hobby and industry that makes things that I like for people I like.

No one is forcing me to buy. I want to. It makes me happy.

 

[SableWyvern]

New players will be required to play the game and they aren’t all going to play a 50 year old version of a game. This may not bother you in your grave but it’s possible to feel goodwill to a hobby and industry that makes things that I like for people I like.

If certain people don't want to play old games, that's their call. I am neither going to be happy nor sad about such a thing. People can spend their time however they want, and I'm not going to lose sleep over a hypothetical future where Joe Random chooses not to join a TTRPG group because he doesn't like older games. In such a future, I would continue to do what I do now, and introduce people using the games I want to run. It's entirely possible to do so and, in this imaginary dark future where no one produces any new material, others who want to keep gaming will simply have to learn how to do so.

Importantly, this is an entirely imaginary, hypothetical future that we have no reason to believe will ever exist, so the entire terrible scenario is a bit of a silly boogyman, really.

My main point on this topic is that it is actually possible to recruit players without leaning in WotC, if you'd like to do so. I don't see why this observation is taken as a bad thing. It means that even in a crazy, worst-case, imaginary future where all the companies collapse, your gaming doesn't necessarily have to end.

If the industry dies, the hobby will change, but there is no reason for it to die. Either gaming is fun, or it isn't. Either people want to run games and invite others, or they don't. People invested in the big new thing, what's currently popular, will probably move on or not join. People who actually want to play TTRGPS and find doing so fun will keep doing so.

No one is forcing me to buy. I want to. It makes me happy.

And I also buy new material because/when it makes me happy, so I'm not sure why you seem to be trying to argue with me.

It was claimed in the OP that GMs are responsible for propping up the hobby financially, and the OP clearly feels disillusioned and pressured by this, along with a number of other factors. All I did was say that I, as a GM, don't take personal responsibility for the health of the industry, nor am I personally invested in the overall success of the hobby. Note that I also said that I do care about the hobby, just that I don't feel responsible for it. I've also mentioned that I make the fruits of my own labours available to others, freely, where I think others will find value in it. I can support the hobby, and those engaging in it, without doing so from a position of pressure or obligation.

It's important to note that I see a huge difference between the industry and the hobby and I am absolutely not responsible for anyone's ability to profit from the hobby (beyond the accepted norms whereby if I want the gaming goods you make, I'm generally expected to offer you my money).

Here's my original comment:

I don't have to prop up the hobby -- at the end of the day, I'm not at all interested in "the industry" and while I do care about "the hobby" as whole, I'm not invested in or responsible for it. What I actually care about is my group and the fun I have as a GM.

Are you really trying to claim putting my fun, and that of the group I game with, before the wider hobby and the industry is the wrong way to approach the hobby?

You can claim I'm selfish or a bad person because I don't act as if I have a personal stake in the success of people trying to profit from the industry, but I'm not buying it. If you make a good product I want, I'll happily throw money at you, engage with your community and support your business. Stop making products I want, or if my interests move on to different games, and I stop giving you money. Simple.

 

[Retreater]

I have a table of brand new players, ages 30 to 40, who are hyped and enthusiastic about the game. I don't know where everyone is finding these apathetic players, but maybe invite ones that are actually excited to play?

For me, these are people that I've met through other walks of life: my neighbors, friends I met at the neighborhood bar, family members, etc.
It is difficult to just "cut them out."
And when you're in a small town in the Bible belt with no college scene, nothing to attract professionals or people with college degrees, where churches outnumber the stoplights, you kinda gotta take what you can get.

And - in my experience - online sucks. Even good players have a hard time staying engaged.

 

[Reynard]

For me, these are people that I've met through other walks of life: my neighbors, friends I met at the neighborhood bar, family members, etc.
It is difficult to just "cut them out."
And when you're in a small town in the Bible belt with no college scene, nothing to attract professionals or people with college degrees, where churches outnumber the stoplights, you kinda gotta take what you can get.

And - in my experience - online sucks. Even good players have a hard time staying engaged.

Online has its challenges, but I have found that the same players that are disengaged using a VTT would be disengaged at the meatspace table too.

 

[Retreater]

Online has its challenges, but I have found that the same players that are disengaged using a VTT would be disengaged at the meatspace table too.

I'm sure there's a Venn diagram, but I've also found players that I've really enjoyed playing with in person, when we have to move online that the magic isn't there.

 

[aramis erak]

Online has its challenges, but I have found that the same players that are disengaged using a VTT would be disengaged at the meatspace table too.

Same, tho' the quality of the VTT can help certain players focus better. Even when it's not used for maps.

 

[Reynard]

Same, tho' the quality of the VTT can help certain players focus better. Even when it's not used for maps.

At the very least, it helps the kind of player who can't remember what to roll and how. Just push the button, Kevin.

 

[MichaelSomething]

And - in my experience - online sucks. Even good players have a hard time staying engaged.

That's because you're not drawing from the greatest TTRPG community around: Enworld! Surely there are people here you can draw common cause with???