Why do you DM?

[Pielorinho]

I'll echo a lot of what's been said so far: storytelling is fun, improv acting is fun, delighting and entertaining my friends is fun. There's one thing I'll add:

I love the challenge of unpredictable PCs. Dispite my exaggerrated kvetching about it ("Sure, sure, see if I care! I ask you last week, do you want to go to the castle, and you tell me no, so I prepare this elaborate wilderness adventure for you, and what do you tell me at the start of this week? You want to go to the castle! What are you doing to me?!" etc.), it's great fun.

The PCs unexpectedly take a villain prisoner and interrogate her, thereby short-circuiting my conspiracy mystery. The PCs refuse to play along with the smarmy con-artist, thereby losing the best way to find out a vital clue. The PCs decide to trick a merchant into giving up a treasure using a combination of skills, roleplaying, and ballsiness. The PCs decide to sneak into a murder victim's house looking for clues.

All of these force me to think on my feet, to detail aspects of the world that I've not much thought about. And it can be thrilling to me to do this. Sometimes I can't come up with anything interesting, and energy flags. Other times, I surprise myself and end up taking the story in a direction I didn't anticipate at all.

Daniel

 

[DM with a vengence]

Because I'm the only person qualified.

No, seriously, I'm the only person with all 3 books and one of 4 (out of 11) that have own the PHB, and one of two that actually understand the rules, and she doens't want to DM.

So in, short, its because I love pain.

"No, your 5th level paladin can't cast Power Word: Kill. No, his primary weapon can't be an M249 SAW machine gun. No his 'special mount' can't be an asian chick with a schoolgirl fetish. "

I love my group.

 

[Orco42]

"No, your 5th level paladin can't cast Power Word: Kill. No, his primary weapon can't be an M249 SAW machine gun. No his 'special mount' can't be an asian chick with a schoolgirl fetish. "

That sounds like one person in my group.

Me- "And old legless man reaches out a dirty hand to you and says, "Food, Food"
Player- I smack him in the head with my heavy mace. "Die wretch!"
Rest of the group- "What did you do that for!?"
Player-"Do what? It was going to eat us."

Of course he was probably high.

 

[Maldur]

I like playing, I love world building!!!
I like DMing not as much as world building, but as Im the one with the knowledge about the world we play in, Im designated DM

 

[Henry]

Salutations,
Ha, because I am the only competent one willing to do it.
I really have no interest in dm'ng, and would prefer to play.
There is noone else in my group who is capable or willing to be a regular dm.

Dear Furn,

They're lying to you. Get their scrawny little butts in there and start DM'ing.

I have a story to tell. We have one player, who we'll name Ipaq.

Ipaq wanted to try his hand DM'ing, so we rolled up new characters, and he started his story. We blew through his story in about 2 hours, taking avenues he didn't forsee, beating his opponents in strange ways, and generally behaved like adventurers behave.

By the end of it, he swore he'd never DM again, because it was too hard. He claimed he wasn't good enough, and that he didn't see how he would be.

The two DM's in the group shared our critiques of his style, the things he did great and the things that could be better, and we forbade him from quitting. Seriously, we encouraged him to not give up, because of the one thing you and all other DM's know.

IT TAKES TIME, EXPERIENCE, AND PATIENCE.

Literally, ANY player can be a competent DM with practice. Most can be a good DM, and a very few can be a FANTASTIC DM. DM's like SHARK and Piratecat don't come along all the time, but who needs to be them? Practice - you don't have to be Freakin' Gary Gygax on your first time out.

A good gaming group shares its responsiblity among all players. And 3 out of every 4 players I know have said at one time, "If I ran a campaign..." What's stopping them, other than lack of experience? It ain't rocket science, and the only thing on the line are a few dice rolls, and a good time between friends.

Get their scrawny butts at the head of that table, prop up a DM screen, and let 'em DM. Good, bad, or ugly, let 'em roll, and help them if they need it. ASK if they want some pointers.

Just get 'em playing. I guarantee you won't regret it, and they ultimately won't either.

 

[Quickbeam]

Initially I took to DMing because I wanted to experience the challenge and nuances involved in that role.

There have been times I DMed because no one else in our group felt they could handle the job...or at least they refused to make an attempt.

Mainly, I DM these days because I love D&D in all its facets. I'm not satisfied being a player 100% of the time, nor am I satisfied DMing 100% of the time. Both roles provide me with different opportunities, and I relish them all. As a DM I get to play many different characters and creatures; use a wider array of spells, weapons, feats, special abilities and amazing powers; control the ebb & flow of our sessions; tell stories and write glorious adventures; improvise more frequently; and I'm able to enjoy a panoramic view of the game not available from the player's perspective.

 

[EOL]

Initially I took to DMing because I wanted to experience the challenge and nuances involved in that role.

There have been times I DMed because no one else in our group felt they could handle the job...or at least they refused to make an attempt.

Mainly, I DM these days because I love D&D in all its facets. I'm not satisfied being a player 100% of the time, nor am I satisfied DMing 100% of the time. Both roles provide me with different opportunities, and I relish them all. As a DM I get to play many different characters and creatures; use a wider array of spells, weapons, feats, special abilities and amazing powers; control the ebb & flow of our sessions; tell stories and write glorious adventures; improvise more frequently; and I'm able to enjoy a panoramic view of the game not available from the player's perspective.

Well said. I've DM'd much more than I've played and so generally I bitch about not being able to play enough, but for the first time in probably 20 years I'm not DM'ing I'm only playing and it's only been a month and I already am thinking of a campaign I would like to run.

 

[arwink]

I started 'cause I was in a situation where I created players or I didn't game.

I keep doing it because I'm the person in the group that has the most free time, a general inclination towards worldbuilding, and 'cause after all this time it's very hard to stop. I do like to play, but my Dming to playing ratio usually stands about 3:1, which is more or less great.

And finally, I do it cause the warped and twisted members of my group are really into the world, and actually make an effort to help develop it, to tie their characters into the background, and cause their my friends and they seem to be enjoying the game.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

Why do I DM? Well I did at first because in my search for fellow gamers, I thought it would be a lot easier to find new players rather than asking, "Hey! I play D&D, wanna DM for me?!" So to start out it was a matter of simplicity. As time went on, I really got to enjoying the job that I had, and started to like telling a story, being in control, and watching the horror on players faces as they start losing hit points left and right....

For right now, I love being in charge of stuff. In D&D I really do like to DM, I'm a section leader in my high school marching band (and after the first day of band camp, us flutes are the best marchers out there--oh YEAH! ), I'm the president of Thespian Troupe 3413, and tried to be Student Government president....damn loaded votes... and really being in charge is something that will hopefully be a daily part of my job being a high school teacher... but i digress...

Basically, I love having control, and not only that, I think it's a bit of a challenge to be creative enough to haev a decent plot, challenge level, and interesting NPCs. I like the challenge--especially the NPC part... I like acting out my NPCs as much as I can...it's hard when most of the group doesn't roleplay very much, but i still try i suppose.

Not to mention, I get to hide behind a big DM screen, and hunch behind it and look all sinister...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, at first I DMed because I was looking for players, like a lot of people. I singlehandedly have introduced close to a dozen people to the wide world of D&D.

Fathers? I'm the one in the college dorms corrupting your daughters.

I like telling stories. I enjoy that I can think of cool plot ideas and actually use them. And then have the players feed off of that and give me even cooler plot ideas and uses for them.

I like making quirky characters and unique settings and DMing is a perfect opportunity to do that and have it be used.

I want to do some playing, too, but because of my selection of players, none of them are quite prepared to don the DM's mantle yet.

I'm content. I have cool ideas in my brain and I want to get themm out. It just gets old for me to know all the secrets and be able to determine all the events. I like not knowing where I'm going every once in a while.