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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 6409389" data-attributes="member: 33263">I've seen this claim before, and I think it is grossly exaggerating to justify the sense of importance of the GM.  Take a weekly 4 hour game with 4 players.  The players combined are investing 16 hours of their time just by attending and participating in the game, and to be generous we'll assume that the players spend absolutely no time outside the sessions working on their characters, talking to the other players, reading up on the rules, or anything else related to the game.  In order for the GM's share to be 90% that would have to be 160 hours total per week, and discounting the 20 hours of the session itself (5 people * 4 hours) the GM would be averaging 20 hours a day preparing for the game.  Likewise, if only 2 players bothered to buy a PHB and a set of dice (say $35 total each), that would imply a total group investment of $700 in the game, with the GM share at $640.  I'd buy it if someone were to say that the GM invests 3-4 times more time and money relative to any single player, but even then that would put the GM's share of the investment down around 50% of the total for the group, and probably significantly less than that for larger groups. If measuring importance by investment, the GM is no more important than the rest of the players combined.  I would have issues with a GM who has so little respect for me and my contributions as a player as to imply that I do nothing while they do everything.  If the GM is doing everything and the players are doing nothing, why do they even need to bother with having players. Do they view themselves as some benevolent charity, gracing the undeserving players with the privilege of experiencing the fruits of their labor?</blockquote>

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