D&D General Why do you prefer DMing over Playing?

[BookTenTiger]

I generally don't, but if you look at the original (mostly tongue-in-cheek post), it was pretty par for the course.

On a serious note, people can, and do, DM in all sorts of different ways. Hopefully, most of them are doing it in a way that serves them, and serves the people that are playing with them. But there is a weird and unacknowledged toxicity that occurs when people believe that the only correct thing is for DMs to cater to players and all of their needs.

Look, I get your point about being a teacher- but ... and I mean this ... you are paid to be a teacher. You are supposed to be catering to your students.

Most DMs are still not paid. It's something people do because they love to do it. And as I think almost all of us realize, being the DM is a much, much larger time-sink than being a player. Sometimes by a huge amount. It's a labor of love. Well, sometimes it's a labor of free pizza, but usually just love.

It's not always like that. Some groups rotate (good for them!). Some games offload responsibilities (great!). But generally, one person in a group has to spend more of their own time and labor on the game than everyone else- sometimes more than everyone else combined. That doesn't make them a "better person," but it does mean that, in those situations, we need to be cognizant of those differences. Heck, it's why there is, and always has been, a large imbalance between the number of people that play, and the number of people that run games.

I think most people are aware of the toxicity that can occur from a DM that is a jerk. But just as jerky are the players that demand to run the game without putting in the work necessary; more simply, if you demand that the game run a certain way, there's a simple way to have that happen. YOU DM IT.

Didn't need any fancy economics or econometrics in that.

I can only speak from my own experience here, so keep that in mind.

I think the fact that being a DM requires more work leads to this false idea that being a DM is more important. Furthermore, I strongly believe that the DM often does a lot of work that isn't necessary, or that could be divided amongst the players. I don't think that's been the prevailing model for the last forever-many years of D&D, but my own experiences at the table have taught me two big things:

1) As a DM, the more I focus on the players, the more fun I have. I've run campaigns based on my own preferences, and they're just not as fun as when I let go of my ego and base the game on the players' preferences. My game is just so much more successful and fun when I sit down and ask myself (or the players), 'What would the players enjoy?'

2) As a player, the more authority over the game world the DM gives up, the more fun we have. I recently wrapped up a three-year-long D&D game in which the DM, for various reasons, gave a lot of authority over lore and game direction to the players. It was great! Here are some fun things we did without DM approval:

* Three players with dwarf characters gathered on an off night for a dwarf-centric backstory adventure. We figured out the connected lore between our characters, the politics of our holds, some other side NPCs, and played a little improvised game. We typed up the notes and shared them with the DM, who incorporated some of them into the game.

* When the DM had to take off sessions, we always had a player ready to run a backup game. Often these were flashbacks exploring the backstories of the characters. The lore established in these games became canon in the campaign.

* The DM asked me to design a major town we would be spending time in. When the DM had to take a few weeks off, I ran a number of side adventures in the town, both with established characters and new characters. When we wrapped up the campaign, many of the characters decided to retire in the town, citing settings and NPCs introduced in the side adventures.

...

These two points demonstrate to me that, in my experience, the more a DM lets go of the idea that they are the most important person at the table, the better the game becomes.

But again that's just in my own experience as a DM and a player!

 

[Plaguescarred]

Hello, my name is Plague and i'm a D&Daholic

Being my passion, i have as much fun playing or DMing D&D.

 

[CleverNickName]

My favorite part of being a DM is the worldbuilding, especially drawing my own maps and creating my own mythologies. I don't get to do that as a player.

 

[practicalm]

I run games mostly because I haven't found anyone in my area who runs games they way I like to play.
I love trying new games and new GMs at conventions and I've had good play experiences.
The games I have played in local haven't been as fun for me as a player.

I would run more games but I don't really have the time.
I'm currently running a GURPs game
I'm playing in a friends D&D game
I'm running a tabletop 4x campaign game (Starfire)
I'm playing a lot of Stellaris
I run a tabletop board game group twice a month.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

These two points demonstrate to me that, in my experience, the more a DM lets go of the idea that they are the most important person at the table, the better the game becomes.

But again that's just in my own experience as a DM and a player!

Again, though, that's really orthogonal to the point that I was making.

Different tables run differently. Different people have different skills. As I alluded to, you can have games with different allocations of authority. You can also do things like rotate DMs.

This is all possible, yet this is NOT the standard model that many people are familiar with.

Why? Well, there are all sorts of social and group reasons for this- the primary one is that some people just want to play. Now, I know people will immediately leap up and say some variant of, "But if you just empower the players, it's going to be awesome! It totally worked for my group doing it!"

And that's great! It really is. But one of the reasons (IMO) that D&D and 5e is so popular is because, unlike some other TTRPGs, is that it allows for this strict division of authority- yes, it is unfortunate that so much is placed on the DM, but the necessary counterpoint to that is that it also allows it to be (relatively) easy to people to play. In addition, unlike other games, players can also just "coast along," especially early on, or if they don't want to engage that heavily.

To put it in terms that you, as a teacher, might be familiar with- it's great when students teach each other. That's one of the most beneficial ways to learn.

But there are also very good reasons for having classrooms that are led by a teacher.

Yeah, you don't want DMs to get too full of themselves. But at most tables, the DM is the most important person at the table. Not the "best." Not the "coolest" (unless I'm the DM). Not the most moral, or intelligent, or attractive. But the most important in the sense that you can run the game with a player missing, but you can't run it with the DM missing.

And to the extent I am finding it necessary to push back on this, it's because some people have a shtick, except without the unwritten winking.

 

[Greg Benage]

ABut at most tables, the DM is the most important person at the table. Not the "best." Not the "coolest" (unless I'm the DM). Not the most moral, or intelligent, or attractive. But the most important in the sense that you can run the game with a player missing, but you can't run it with the DM missing.

Every game I've ever played in, the GM has been the most important (i.e. significant, impactful) person at the table. But that probably says a lot about my preferences. If you prefer a game in which the GM can and does delegate anything and everything to the players ("You enter the gates of the city...tell us about the first thing you see" etc.), maybe it's not so true. Maybe you can indeed have a fine game even if the GM doesn't show up.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Every game I've ever played in, the GM has been the most important (i.e. significant, impactful) person at the table. But that probably says a lot about my preferences. If you prefer a game in which the GM can and does delegate anything and everything to the players ("You enter the gates of the city...tell us about the first thing you see" etc.), maybe it's not so true. Maybe you can indeed have a fine game even if the GM doesn't show up.

You can certainly have games without GMs- in fact, there are games written for just that purpose.

But IME, those games tend to either be one-shots, or require that all players have "DM skills" in the sense that they are all on-board with enthusiastic creation of fiction; this is not something that is impossible by any means, but there are a large number of people than enjoy playing RPGs (like D&D) that just don't want to do that.

 

[GuyBoy]

I love both, differently but equally.
DM-ing lets me create the baseline for stories, run multiple NPCs and monsters, build a world, plot and, best of all, allow my friends to enjoy their gaming. It feels generous but is also personal fun.
Our face-to-face group plays roughly monthly for entire weekends, with two campaigns running each time, one by me, one by @TheSword , each of us running half the weekend and playing the other.
Which brings me neatly to why I enjoy playing just as much; it’s not simply a reverse ferret of why DM-ing is great, being more about developing my character’s story, working collaboratively with my friends and facing down fearsome enemies in the name of some sort of cause.
I hope I’m a decent DM and certainly enjoy it. I’m also currently blessed by playing with two awesome DMs, one F2F, one Roll20, so shout out to both @TheSword and @Steampunkette ( I hope they enjoy DM-ing as much as I enjoy playing in their games)

 

[darkwillow]

I have spent fifteen years as a college professor and still cannot figure out why so few teachers and professors understand this. My impression is it's worse among professors, but that's just an impression.

For the class in general, on average, who is more important to them to show up sober that hour? The teacher or one of the students.

 

[Yora]

Primarily I think my campaign and adventure ideas are just way better than those of other GMs. Not saying my skill in running games are amazing or particularly notable, but I think my ideas on how a campaign should be laid out and structured are much more interesting and fun than what average GMs are doing.

I organize my own campaigns instead of looking for one to play in because I think mine are much better.

Another thing is that I like the worldbuilding aspect of setting up a campaign and preparing adventures. As a player, you only play during the time you play. As GM, you can work on the game all the time.