Why all players but no DMs?

[danzig138]

Too much work

Being a DM is hard work; IME, most players don't want to do it. They don't want to put in that extra work. And not just for D&D but for any game. In the, jeez, I guess 18 years I've been playing, I've been running most of that time. And I prefer to run the games more than play the game. But I would like to play as a player sometimes. But whenever someone in the group decides to run a game, they give it a session or two, and then decide it's too much work, and it falls back on me.

Then the players get frustrated when I change games. And I tell them, if you don't want me to change games, run a freaking game sometime. Otherwise, I get burned out, and need to change to maintain my ability to run the game.

It seems to take a special kind of masochist to be a GM.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'm a bit of the opposite kind of GM; I find a setting I like and stick with it. Which means if the players get bored and the game ends that the gaming ends if no one else sits behind the screen. I generally take between 6 months and 1.5 years between campaigns. This is counteracted by the duration of my campaigns (shortest: 2 years. Longest:5.5 years and counting).

Fortunately my gaming groups have several GMs. There are 2.5 in my current game (1 serious GM, 1 guy who's ran some sessions but never a full campaign, and an other who's been working on a game setting for the past 2 years) and there is usually another game I could try to get in with the other group.

 

[catsclaw227]

I'm a bit of the opposite kind of GM; I find a setting I like and stick with it.

What setting are you using now?

 

[Buttercup]

If I had to rate my preference of DMing to playing by dividing ten points, it'd be DM 6 / Play 4. I love playing, but I have a passion for running a game.

I'd divide it this way, also. I love game prep, and I love running sessions. Heh. And I love scaring the crap outta the PCs.

 

[Agent Oracle]

All DM's no players? well, you know, traditionally, they DO outnumber us 4 to 1....

 

[Whimsical]

I want to DM, but I just cannot come up with stuff for the players to do. Thus I run Shackled City campaign. Thus I can be a DM.

Aaron L, I feel your pain. I'm always coming up short in how I run my game. It turns out that as long as you put nominal effort in running a game, that the players are just happy to have a place to play their PCs, beat on monsters, and loot them.

I have transformed "beating myself up for running a craptasticular game" to "constant and neverending questing for improvement". Accept the good things you do and keep working in improving yourself. You can be satisfied with your game while working to make things better. They are not parodoxal concepts.

 

[kigmatzomat]

What setting are you using now?

75% Dragonlance (AD&D/2e), 25% homebrewed evil. I started it right after all three 3.0 core books were released. We wanted to really learn 3E so we started with 1st level characters. I figured DL had a decent setting, the players were all vaguely familiar but not fanboys, sufficiently cheap source material is available from the used game shops, and I wouldn't have to worry about new supplements contradicting my game. (Well, that last one didn't quite work out but my players now consider my game to be canon since it predates the 3E DL stuff by a couple of years)

The game's core concept is "history is written by the victors." Facts are hard to fudge but motiviations can easily be altered. So 98% of the facts provided by the DLA are valid (~2% are self-contradicting) but the reasons why so-and-so did something may or may not be true. The game's up to 20th level and the players are well into the know. They know that Paladine & Takhisis "came from beyond" to Krynn and basically took over from the existing divinities. They sired the chromatic dragons to wipe out the original races (Ogres/Irda, Thanoi, shadowpeople, etc) and imported humans, elves, etc. The Laws of High Sorcery and use of moon magic was just a way for the gods to control the power of mortals. The pogrom against clerics of other faiths is to ensure the old divinities are never released from their prison. The High God is actually the amalgamation of the suriviving prior divinities. Raistlin has actually inherited the portfolio of the original Deity of Magic but was unaware of it, since in his opinion he had to kill the other gods to take their portofilios. The Cataclysm smacked down Taladas so hard b/c that continent has never been properly subjugated (no Laws of Magic, strange views of the gods, etc) and this was as good an excuse as any. Etc, etc.

So we're about 5 1/2 years into the campaign and I think there's probably another 1-2 years of material left before I really start scrounging. I'm more afraid that we'll hit something that is boring or tedious to play since they are gearing up for a war.

 

[Kid Socrates]

I have been running a weekly game for going on three years. When it's over, which may be in the next six months, I plan on taking a month-long break and then running again. I have not been a player in a game that lasted more than three sessions in four and a half years. And I like it that way. I have been "behind the screen," as it goes, for so long that my ability to play has lessened. I love running games. I love creating, making this setting, this world, that my players will explore and discover plots and twists and civlizations and people and danger and twenty other things. That satisfied look on their faces, when they defeat a major villain or save an NPC or succeed at a difficult skill check or attack roll? That is why I run games.

When I run a PC, I can't get into it enough. I can't really get into the character's mindset. Only when I run a game, do I really get that.

Yeah, it's hard work. They come to the gaming table just as normal, no prep needed unless they leveled. I write thousands of words and balance stats and select music files and research my plot ideas and design NPCs. But I -adore- it.

I'm also a bit strange.

 

[Arnwyn]

While I do very much enjoy playing, I think I like DMing a little bit more (about a 6:4 on the Piratecat scale).

But my players? They all refuse to DM, because it's "too much work". I have never been a player under the 3e rules...

 

[The Cardinal]

it's all in the system...

D&D3.5e

DM vs. Player = 2 vs. 8


GURPS4e

GM vs. Player = 7 vs. 3


nWoD

Storyteller vs. Player = 4 vs. 6