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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 1352629" data-attributes="member: 5203">Just got an email today from our DM saying that he doesn't want to run our game any more.  Grr.  We've been in a FR campaign, currently averaging 13th level.  When he started the campaign, he billed it as being "role-play intensive" and would make casual mention of the grand plots of the enemies.  Thus our group prepared for a story-based game, and created character backstories and subplots.Unfortunately, we never really saw the story part of it; we just seemed to be going from one semi-random fight to another, with no connections.  No one's background came into play.  After a while, we players got together to brainstorm what we could do to push the campaign back to where we thought it was 'supposed' to be.  At this point we aren't including the DM in this discussion; not because we're trying to be secretive or mean, but mostly so we were sure we were all on the same page, and could come up with joint solutions to the problems, and not just say "this is broken, you fix it".  So two days ago, I email our DM and tell him about what our concerns were.  I include ways that we as players are going to contribute to this.  Overall, I try to give the impression that we're not blaming him for anything, that in fact we enjoy the game.  We just want to refocus our efforts on the story.So in the email today, the DM says that he's not enjoying himself anymore, because we want a different type of game than he wants to run.  He says that his style is to act as the environment, to let the characters do their own thing, and he's just there 'for the rules questions and to run adventures of glory and conquest'.  He says he's fine with characters having backgrounds, but he doesn't really want to deal with sub-plots.  He states that he only wants to spend 45-60 minutes a week on prep time.Now, the DM's actually a decent guy, and he's not a bad DM.  But my disappointment is in the discrepancy between advertisement and product.  I specifically remember him billing this as "roleplay intense" when he started.  And the phrase "run adventures of glory and conquest" implies a little more to me than repeated rolls on the random encounter table.  Not once did he tell any of us when we submitted character backgrounds that none of it would ever see play time.  Instead, we find out his DM style is completely reactive, not proactive, and that there's no cohesive thread to it at all.  Smacks too much of Everquest to me.  And less than an hour of prep a week?  That's barely enough time to run a random monster generator and print the results.  Granted, I don't expect a DM to spend every waking moment on the game, but for goodness sake put in more time than I do as a player.Ultimately, I can't begrudge his decision.  There's no point ito playing f he's not having fun.  I just wish we'd had some warning that he wasn't enjoying the game.  I also wish there'd been a clearer understanding from day one what his ideas were.The real frustration is what to do now.  We have a really, really good group of players, and I'd hate to have us go our separate ways.  But finding a new DM is never easy, especially one who's going to meet our needs.  None of the other players are that excited about taking the DM chair.Sigh.  Well, we're getting together on our regular game night to talk things over.  I'm going to see if the DM wants to come too - maybe he'll want to play rather than run.  Let's hope for the best.</blockquote>

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