What do you like best about being a GM?

[howandwhy99]

I do it to bust a gut and stare in awe at the ingenuity of the players.

Coming up with unique encounters, surprises, and other rat-bastardliness is a big plus I think for every DM.

If I can get to the point where the players stop treating me as the leader and instead I fall into the background like a reference book, then I've reached real success.

Not that I'm passively sitting. Assiduously keeping track of the little things they forget (like blood on their clothes) is important. And comprehensively plotting out the consequences of all their actions (which almost always come back to bite them in the end) is a devilish pleasure.

Edit:

Also, it's fun to watch the PCs interact. Last night during the SW campaign, the 4th level Trandoshan Jedi 'mind tricked' the 2nd level Wookie Jedi into believing that all Jedi must be hairless according to the Jedi code.

This is precisely what I mean.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I've decided that the reason I love GMing is:

It means I'm not playing.



I LOVE playing, and in many many ways it's fun that you can't get behind the screen.

But I'm a control freak, and I'm just so USED to GMing, that when I'm NOT GMing?

It makes me depressed.

I realized the other day that where I am and with the new group I joined, I'm not going to regularly be running a game for AT LEAST a year. And that made me sad. I'll have a regular game, and I love where I'm playing and who I'm playing with. Hell, I'm even getting to play with my wife, which we both really like. But knowing I'm NOT going to be running a game is just disheartening.

And, I guess, that's why I GM. Because it's what I do.

Part of it is crafting a story. Part of it is being a Ten Minute Expert and putting odd and interesting things in the game. Part of it is because I'm a frustrated novelist.

What do I HATE about GMing?

All the not-fun parts of gaming. I try to make them go away. I use software to speed up combats, I make rulings quickly, I use mechanics that make things FUN for everybody. I hate things that slow stuff down. High level combat, for one. When it takes fifteen minutes to adjudicate a single round, I get bored. When it takes 10 minutes to figure out the spell effects on one character, I'm climbing the walls. When things slow down to a crawl because of something stupid (like everybody involved in combat needing to roll a 20 to hit eachother, or half a dozen zombies need to be tracked down and killed after a turning attempt) I'm usually off getting a sandwich.

--fje

 

[Stormborn]

World Creation on the one hand is my favorite part. I create worlds and details that never get used. I did that long before i ever played an RPG, now I just have rules for it. I also love it when I do something that keeps the players talking about the game all week, for whatever reason, when I know they enjoyed it. Worst part is when I have messed something up and the players just don't get it or know what to do next. I feel that is always my fault.

Oh, and all the people who are saying the best part of being the GM is torturing the PCs or a TPK - if thats what you guys are into, and your players are happy with it, great - I can't even imagine wanting to be in that kind of game as GM or player.

 

[Gold Roger]

Well, there's the social aspect, which is twofold for me:

1. It's a way to do something for my friends and I love to do it, so if my players are happy I call it a success even if I think I did a crappy job.

2. Ego boost. I like being told that I'm good at something and I like the leader/control thing as well. Even when I play I try to be as much of a party leader as I can be without being an actual leader (because my fellow players hate the idea off having a leader)

Then on the technical side it just combines a lot off stuff I'm interested in:

1. I'm interested in game design and RPG's are greatest on that part to me. That's why I buy most of my rpg books in the first part. DMing is the only way to get imediate use of them.

2. I love creating personalities and play out how they interact. I did it long before I was into Roleplaying and creating NPC's and organization, setting myself into their heads and create plans they would create is something I love.

3. I'm a little interested in tactics and D&D is a wargame in part. Mind you, I'm not a tactical, nor a strategical genious, but I like to practice it once in a while and as DM you have far more choices then as a player.

4. I like worldbuilding. However I do it extremely slowly over time, evolving my ideas until they fit. I'm not the guy who writes up every monarchys genealogy, but if I completed a world (hasn't happened till now), I love to see how it plays out. It's however less the scientific idea of worldbuilding that appeals to, but much more the interlectual game of rolling around ideas, throwing some out, take them back, evolving them, transmuting them, desintegrating them and redistribute the parts until stuff goes *click*. I've had such a *click* recently and it's the greatest enjoyment I've had in a long time.

5. I'm a little interested in writing as well. Now DMing is far, far away from writing a novel. But two thinks are needed for both and iot's what interests me the most in writing. One is charakterization and creating charakters (see above), the other is creating atmosphere. I've been told I'm quite good at it as a DM, as long as I try. I feel it's something very hardand chalenging and I love it if I was able to create a great and fitting atmosphere.

What I like least is the working aspect. As you can see above I'm rather unfocused and I'm mentally lazy. Combine that with my bad bad ability of self-organization and you've got a DM that's really bad at preparing.

 

[werk]

I love to put the party in a hard spot and see how they get out of it.
I like to build NPCs and classed monsters and plan tactics and schemes for them.
Worldbuilding, setting mood and attitude, playing host

I hate correcting players. "No...I'm sorry, you can't do all of that in one round."

 

[rgard]

I do it to bust a gut and stare in awe at the ingenuity of the players.

Coming up with unique encounters, surprises, and other rat-bastardliness is a big plus I think for every DM.

If I can get to the point where the players stop treating me as the leader and instead I fall into the background like a reference book, then I've reached real success.

Not that I'm passively sitting. Assiduously keeping track of the little things they forget (like blood on their clothes) is important. And comprehensively plotting out the consequences of all their actions (which almost always come back to bite them in the end) is a devilish pleasure.

Edit:
This is precisely what I mean.

Post script to the Jedi mind trick. After the Wookie headed to the ship's medical locker and used up all the depilatory supply. I decided to give him a +2 on all his intimidate checks while not wearing clothes. Lasts about a year in game time.

 

[genshou]

World Creation on the one hand is my favorite part. I create worlds and details that never get used. I did that long before i ever played an RPG, now I just have rules for it.

Same here, except that what I have now is a reason to do so besides relieving myself and myself alone of boredom. Now it's a social aspect of boredom-relief.