>foreverGM's complaining they can't be players ever
>meanwhile you prefer GMing than being an actual player
I love making stories for my players and I enjoy seeing their reaction, plus I don't have to stop playing for any reason at all since I'm the GM
who here Loves being a GM and doesn't actually care that much about being a player?
also general GM discussion I guess
you forget
>tfw youre the only one of your friends who knows how to gm
one of the only reasons i enjoy GM is the small bit of hope that my GM drive and passion will rub off on someone
Eh, I do enjoy GMing or I wouldn't do it, but it would be fun to play a while. Its a different style of game and either one gets stale if you do it for long enough.
What you forget about GMing is that you can play ALL of your characters, instead of just one.
But the problem is that you're not technically playing most of the time, you're just storyweaving.
The two are different beasts, and now that I've finally managed to taste both, I'd say they're both pretty gud.
Although, I am a pretty mediocre GM overall, I am much better at making TRPG-systems. Which is a shame because I can't really make systems without GMing.
Making an NPC the game master is how the DM could narrate.
>I GM for 3 years
>let friend take over. I quit.
>he streamlines the game, railroads, doesnt rp, doesn't compromise, doesn't describe setting / tone
>year and a half of this
>every week they complain to me about his nazi-GMing
>always asking me to GM again
>I do for a few sessions, exGM is being a pissbaby the entire time
>other players noticably happier. "thank fuck you're back"
>pissbaby threatens to kick us out of his place if he can't GM
(His place was closest to everybody else's house.)
>after session, he bans me from his place
>threatens me with suicide
>he beats himself up and tells players that I assaulted him
>they buy it
>I lose 6 friends in a night because boardgames
>create my own group again.
>old group breaks up
>players from old group ask to join mine
>even pissbaby exGM
>pissbaby says I owe him and have to let him join
>I tell them to all to fuck right off
DMing attracts the most egotistical, manipulative faggots.
I liked your story, user.
>after session, he bans me from his place
>threatens me with suicide
>he beats himself up and tells players that I assaulted him
>they buy it
>I lose 6 friends in a night because boardgames
Jesus fucking christ what did he do to himself to get them to believe that? Had to be more than just "beat himself up"
I can understand you are a DM. I almost bought your story.
Thanks user.
>what did he do to himself
Not sure. I wasn't there when it happened. I just saw a few facebook pictures of the aftermath. I'm almost certain he smashed his face with something made of glass.
Nutshelled, but it's entirely true.
>mfw DM can't even sell a true story
I tried GMing once, it was awful. So I gave up.
>If at first you don't succeed, give up for it was never meant to be
me and my friends run a weird campaign where the story is made up on the fly and the position of GM is basically a hotseat. each session a different person is DMing with their own continuation of what happened last time. It usually ends up with me being the only person making meaningful advances to the plot.
I do prefer GMing to being a player, but every now and then I just want to be a PC. It's such a rarity that I cherish the times it happens.
I've been GMing for a few years now. Whenever I'm a player now I get bored because I feel like there's not enough going on. I like the balancing act and constant activity of being a GM. There's always something to describe, some ruling to make, or question to answer. When I'm a player so much of the game is letting other people have their time to speak and make decisions.
I completely understand why it's like that as a player, everyone needs to have some input or it's no fun for them. I try to not be too assertive, but after all this time I can honestly say I enjoy GMing much more than playing.
I've tried playing a few times over the last few years...
But the GMs I've had have all been pretty garbage.
So that drives me back to GMing.
For the sake of the game.
I try to run as many games as I possibly can. I want to be a better GM, I want to be the guy everyone can rely on to run a good game. But I feel like I am making little to no progress. Any tips for escaping mediocrity?
Most forever GMs prefer GMing.
The blight of the forever GM isn't that they have to GM so much,
it's that they \never\ get to explore interesting characters.
...well, GMPCs notwithstanding.
Which they shouldn't be.
Read pic and the 1e AD&D DMG.
Also get a hold of the B1 module.
Raid the /osrg/ Trove for those two.
B1 has ~3 pages of (good tips), pic is entirely tips, and the DMG is -80% (mostly giod) tips.
If you aren't doing OSR there's a bit of a goal misalignment, but the tips are still worth reading.
I love being both, if anything, I slightly tend towards being a player, much less effort and stress.
But I don't trust anyone in my groups to DM right.
I just want to be a player so that I can show the rest of my players how to play well.
My group rotates who GMs, it's mostly myself or a guy in the group though. The other players are generally too shy, too dumb, or too lazy to get around to running things themselves. The other GM is good with world building, dungeon and monster design, and writing (and voice acting) interesting NPCs. I'm better at writing story arcs, setting up mysteries, improvising under pressure, adapting player backstories and motivations into the plot, and overall screwing with players' heads and expectations. If I had to make an analogy I'd say his campaigns are like Dark Souls and mine are like Dragon Age.
I like being a player but aside from this one guy everyone I've met is either unwilling to GM or completely incompetent at doing so. We're talking OC Donut Steel NPCs, plots that are fan fictions of other media, railroads so tight the GM tells you what your player is thinking and doing half the time, and that's for starters. I once played in a campaign that was a fan-fiction the GM had already written and posted online years before and we were just going through the motions... and our characters weren't even the protagonists of his fan-fiction. I once played in a campaign where my character was inexplicably killed by friendly fire ten minutes into the first session and the GM laughed and high-fived the player that did it. I've even played in a campaign where the GM decided for me that my character was a huge slut and started describing how she volunteered to be gangbanged by a group of fifty strangers for absolutely no reason.
I've given up on going on Roll20 for groups. 90% are creeps and 10% are just idiots.
>I tell them to all to fuck right off
Eggrock of justice.
Fuck this gay Earth.
Ignore the hesitant part in the file name, you did good not being a cuck and standing up for yourself.
What if you like DMing but you're bad at it?
...asking for a friend.
Jee-zus. Some people are fucking maniacal. I think he might be either a psychopath or a sociopath. One thing fer sure he's and asshole.
I have a bit of a problem myself where i fucking love building the world and writing the plot and stuff....but im not so big/good at DMing the damn thing. I even make PDFs and stuff for the players but im not a fan of the actual DMing. maybe i never had a great group or i just suck dicks.
How do you avoid railroading as a gm? I am creating my first campaign and have about 8 major plot points set out through 20 levels of play but I don't want to force players into those encounters. Is the trick just to provide few interesting alternatives so that they eventually just do it or do you shoehorn your plot points to the locations they choose to go?
Thanks user I appreciate it.
You're going to have to railroad. Every single GM does it. The difference is in how subtly you do it.
Tailor the railroads to your group. Learn how they act. Shove them into a sandboxy first area, see how they naturally respond, and fit your plot hooks so that they'll walk right into it without much, if any prompting.
I gave up getting a friend to GM
I Just make a GMPC and write it off as an emergency guide character. if they question it
You like world building, user, not GM'ing.
One is a solitary skill, the other is a social skill.
>have about 8 major plot points set out through 20 levels of play
You have planned too fair.
I personally create an overarching plot idea, or part of one, then build on it with player actions.
For example, right now, I have a plot that will involve the players getting involved in the politics of a burgeoning city eventually saving it from an outside attacking force.
There are many things going on, and everything is flexible enough that the players can choose their way and method, and so long as they don't go full murderhobo or abandon the region, the end result will be the city being attacked.
However, they may not be there to prevent it, or be in the city to save it. After that, I plot to have them jump to a new plane and a new battle, but I am not going to plot that until I know how the city fight resolves, as their choices impacts their reception on the other side.