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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BookTenTiger" data-source="post: 8565966" data-attributes="member: 6685541">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!</blockquote>

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