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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lyle.spade" data-source="post: 8343224" data-attributes="member: 30042">I am usually active as a player, and I get bored when the GM tries to tell a story too much, rather than manage the cooperative creation of one. And I will avoid GMs that I know are active at the expense of players over the long-term, too.As a GM, which is how I play the vast majority of the time, I try to balance, setting the stage, introducing and describing the core conflict, and then putting the rest on the players, and reacting to and building on their ideas and contributions in order to "manage the cooperative creation" of the story, rather than implement my story (that is, force it on the players).Looking back on my recent gaming group changes, I realize that the breakdown that developed with my former group (from which I resigned several months ago) was likely in large part because of a disconnect over the issue presented in this article. I had five players, and two were really passive, needing to be prompted to get involved with the game and interact with one another; they were, it seemed, quietly happy spectators. Two of my players were active. Of those, one was of the sort that sought to bring in others and keep the party working together, while the other was a scene-stealing attention hog. The final player was the largely passive loner who'd rely on the super-active player for direction, and would run characters that were either min/max'd or were odd and iconoclastic and would drag the story in directions that had little to do with the story as presented, and usually nothing to do with the other characters. Thus, I had a disconnect and imbalance within the group of players as to play style, and a disconnect in what they each were willing to contribute to creating a story, and what they were willing to give up in order to do so (spotlight time, for example).My new group is far more balanced, and I can see that they are more like one another on this continuum than are those others, and I've thus far seen, in several one-offs and the planning and impending launch of a campaign, how that balance is paying off in smooth dynamics of the party and a much more pleasant and productive experience for me.</blockquote>

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