What reasons do people in your groups give for not wanting to GM?

[Lwaxy]

I've encountered the following:

No time between jobs and family to prepare or even think up basic concepts. Main reason.

Closely followed by already having to be creative in the job environment and just wanting to relax and be entertained in their games.

Believing they have no talent for it due to

- being uncreative
- difficulty in bringing a story across or making it come alive
- inability to control the players and keep them focused
- not good enough with the rules

The last group's last 2 points are usually solved by assigning someone to take care of it

 

[Nagol]

Most of my main group has tried running one time or another. The reasons they don't offer more frequently fall into one of the following camps:

1) No time. This boils down into two separate rationales if one digs deeper:
a) lots of work/time required to prep that can't be prioritised in the person's life
b) interest level in gaming suggests pay-off not worth the dedication/investment

2) Has idea for a starting situation, but can't figure out where it could go. Gets backed into a corner for situations and then the game breaks.

3) Doesn't want to be the one at the centre. This also breaks down into two rationales:
a) stage fright
b) ends up being exhausting -- all that adjudicating, describing, and providing feedback.

4) Not quick on his feet; doesn't respond well to players trying something off-script.

5) Speech impediment slows overall game.

 

[the Jester]

We never really discuss it, as I'm hot to dm all the time.

It's more like, "What does someone else in my group have to do to run a game around here??"

But we have one player who runs Mage from time to time, another who has run plenty of games himself and several more who have maybe dabbled a tiny bit in dming. There are a couple of "never done its", but they have no need to justify why to us.

 

[Cor Azer]

Not wanting to? Very rarely has anyone said they don't want to.

Why don't they?

Mostly because nobody gets off their butt to organize anything except me, and since they're all happy with my games, and I'm still having fun on those more and more rare chances we get together face-to-face, it just keeps being me who runs them.

 

[Umbran]

The most common I've heard is simple - "I don't like it, GMing isn't my thing."

 

[Jon_Dahl]

I think in many cases the real reason is that the players are too difficult and/or demanding. If they weren't, it would be ok not to have a good grasp of the rules or to be uncreative or to have difficulties with the story etc. etc. With an easy group you would feel free to try out your wings.

I know for a fact that my other (irregular) group has its share of ball-busting players and you better be fully prepared if you want to GM for them. Of course the players give all sorts of explanations but we all know for a fact that our historians, technical experts and erratic sandboxers will soon get your blood if you're not up to the task.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In my gaming group, we have at least two campaigns going at any one time, and as many as four. (While the group size fluctuates - people become flaky, and we occasionally import new players, generally at my prompting - it's usually six reliable people, or five in the summer.)

Unfortunately, we don't all have the same tastes in gaming, so generally we each run what we like more than play what we like.

For instance, two of the members (myself and one other) really like 4e, so I run a 4e game (set in Dark Sun), and the other player often runs Gamma World 4e, and also ran a Fourthcore session.

One reliable member likes player-driven campaigns, which I normally dislike. He's currently running Kingmaker though, which is defined enough to make me happy. He's also a big fan of 3.x, and has a huge library of stuff for it. He won't be running 4e anytime soon, if ever, but he likes my 4e campaign enough to always show up.

Because it's summer, people are less reliable than usual, but those are the campaigns we have at the moment. Due to our rotating DM system, we probably experience more game systems than most other groups.

Just remembered, we also have a FATE PbeM game. I don't play in it, as I don't like PbeM, but I played in that campaign when it was face-to-face. FATE: Diaspora showed me that it's possible to be in a sci-fi game that doesn't suck. (Nearly every sci-fi game I've been in has fallen apart for the same few reasons.)

Because I've wanted to play and not run 4e for some time, I've joined another group that meets on another day. (Now my weekends tend to be filled; it's only because it's summer that I can spend time here on a weekend like this.) I'm having fun in that one. So many people want to join we'd need to split the group into two or three if we accommodate everyone. While I know I have the skills to run, I'm already running one game, and that takes up too much time, so I didn't volunteer for this group. Too bad, as there's 4e desire going unfilled there.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Shyness, lack of confidence in their ability, and belief that they will have more fun playing.

 

[Quickleaf]

I've encountered the following:

No time between jobs and family to prepare or even think up basic concepts. Main reason.

That's the big one: not enough time.

Also, preferring playing to GMing - I've heard that from several players. I'm sure you could get deeper into that, but I've always taken it at face value.

However, our group is blessed with an abundance of capable GMs, at least 3 out of 7 players, so it's more a question of: Who has the greater itch to GM right now? And can we get everyone into a room at the same time?

 

[Aldeon]

Cause they're too damn lazy to. It's as simple as that for the people I play with. Out of the group of people I usually play with, being the gamemaster always falls to me or one other member of the group. I usually get burned out on gamemastering after a few months, so at that point I switch places with the other gamemaster so I can be a player.

Other regulars of our group? We've got a bunch of guys who won't. It isn't that they don't have the time to-- I know for a fact that some of them have more free time than I do. It isn't a lack of creativity; a lot of the people are way more creative than me, including one member being a pulp writer. They would just rather play instead of GM. If me and the other GM decide we don't want to GM, no game gets played. They are willing to just not play at all rather than take up the role of gamemaster, although they'll make no shortage of complaints about "I'm so bored, when are you going to start up a new game?" and "I really want to play some Dungeons and Dragons right now. I wiiiiiiiish someone would make a game".

Not too long ago during some downtime with no GM, one guy got hyped about the raygun gothic genre (pretty much 50s-60s America with retro-futuristic technology and art deco) and begged me to start a game with this style. After I told him I'm burned out a few (dozen) times, he decided to run it himself. I was so excited, only for him to cancel it because after making the story, he didn't feel like statting out enemies.