Is it better to be a GM or a PC? Which do you prefer and why?

Either.
As a GM, I love watching the players react and hearing them dance around the plot and my expectations. And I love making up a somewhat coherent campaign based on their actions and my shallow prework.

As a player, I love being invested in a single character and their mindset and trying to feel alive in this foreign world. React naturally and have fun.

GM.
I get to play evil people who do evil things. Also I can randomly turn the session in other way, I just love getting ideas while we play for what can happen.

The games need both.

I'm currently engaged in miniature wargames as my primary tabletop interest, and my primary interest is in setting up games to umpire for other people at conventions rather than building "my army" to go fight "your army" while having to chase some particular company's "meta." I'm sick of the toxic ego ridden culture in that style of wargaming. I am interested in facilitating games and allowing people who aren't necessarily die hard hobbyists who enjoy playing with paint and figurines to have the experience of tabletop wargaming without feeling like they need to invest in the rest of the hobby.

I guess I am working to become a wargame GM. Though, even with RPG style games, I prefer, as a player and as a GM, to play one-off scenarios with prebuilt characters rather than playing a campaign. I also prefer playing with strangers rather than with my friends. I like playing lighter games with friends so we can bullshit about politics or whatever. I don't have time for powergaming bullshit, and I don't want to play monster fights with kid gloves, so I don't want to play with people who have too much of their egos invested in their characters. RPG's should be more like Saturday night at the improv rather than these intentional deus ex machina campaigns everyone on here talks about, where all roads lead to the BBEG.

Pic is related. It's inspiration for an encounter location.

>where all roads lead to the BBEG.

Ugh.

ikr

more encounter location inspiration

GMs should not be designing "plotlines"

>Forever GMs can be hard to GM for, I think.

As an ex-forever GM I agree.

Everyone is DM here?

I like PC if DM is a good guy. But the fact is that a bad DM is more dangerous than a bad PC.

I'd rather be a player, but not one runs games I want; or if they do, it's at the wrong time; or if it isn't, they're not very good. So I've resigned myself to DMing, which is still fun.

I have spent a lot more time as a player than as a GM. And I have recently picked up the mantle after my first GM announced he would go on indefinite hiatus... I can feel it... the power! It's... changing me.

Change is good!

Change is...

good...

You have truly reached Zen. I aim to be like you, Senpai

My enjoyment for GMing comes in waves. I have periods of great inspiration where I stockpile characters or encounters, and dry spells where I either mill through my reserves or only provide really trite stuff. I've spent a ton of time reading up on how to be a good GM/player and how to improve the process of TTRPGs themselves, but I have a relatively tiny library of books, movies, or whatever to draw from.
All in all, my system mastery has made me the go-to DM for the group since I'm the only one willing to delve fully into game books since I can make things run smoothly even if I lack interesting material. It's suffering during those dry spells. But when I ever get the chance to play, I get caught up in things that I would have done differently as GM, whether it's a game ruling or general practice. This is also insufferable

I stopped GMing because of the massive amount of entitlement a lot of players have.

They're entitled to play any race they want even if it clashes with my setting.

They're entitled to all options at all times.

They're entitled to decide when they die, the dice shouldn't.

They're entitled to certain gear at a certain time, on their terms.

Basically people should "muh agency" any time their character ever has to make a decision under duress, as if people don't get threatened or put into tough spots in real life, or even just have to make do.

Overall? I enjoy being a player now because besides a small group of players I trust (and even among them it crops up sometimes) players are a bunch of whiny poo babies.

Not enough people understand the unwritten contract games involve
Ideally, people talk about shit at session zero; the tone and goals of the game and other things you can make clear in meta so characters can be made or tailored to work.
If the GM wants to run a lighthearted romp and two party members want to run a grimdark bloodfest? Gotta work that out, or else someone's gonna be unhappy, whether the GM rules that they CAN chainsaw their way through the idyllic countryside unimpeded or not.
Options are unavailable in the setting? Players need to accept that within reason, and both parties can work together to adapt a concept to the setting, or if it's incompatible the player sucks it up and does something else this time.

The GM has the right to do whatever they want to the game world and rules, and players have the right to choose not to participate in the game. If everyone communicates at session zero, there's no reason for bullshit meta conflict of interests.

This. DM long enough (or at all, for some people), and you're doomed as ForeverDM.

Is this a good thing, or bad? I can't even tell anymore. I can't remember what it was like to be a player.

>The first time I ever played was GMing green out of a starter kit with friends, and I've been ForeverDM since
I'm never going to be able to learn, will I?

user's just having fun with the BBUGH meme.

I like being the GM more because I know everything that could happen. I also get to make up my own gear and monsters (and occasionally as a direct result: my own rules and abilities.) when I want to.

PC all the way. I GM and PC, and much prefer playing. Less workload, less responsibility, just a hall of a lot more enjoyable.

It was two or three years into playing RPGs that someone in my friend group approached me with a game idea that they wanted to try running.

It can happen. The people I play tend to be split between two core groups and three games (with the third game having overlap), and two more people recently decided to try their hand at GMing. Typically, for the past few years, we had two or three games, and I was running two, or running two and a player in one. Now I'm a player in two and running only one!

Don't give up hope!

here

This is also true. I've had a few occasions where I was like, "That's not how I would have ruled that at all." and sometimes even argued for it. But one has to accept that they're not the GM in that campaign, and if the GM puts his foot down, that's that.

Are.... are you the Veeky Forums Buddha?

I've enjoyed being a player since 2013.

I've only GM'd two games.
I enjoyed both.
One died after the 4th session due to one of the two players disappearing.
The other is still ongoing after 8 sessions and I'm enjoying running it very much.

I don't always do things this way but it is a good way to do it.

this

Only if your DM is shit. A good GM has a consistent world with consistent DCs (I like to have benchmarks to compare to when setting DCs), and while players can fail from bad choices or bad luck, the game is about the choices they make in reaction to the world around them. Rough out what happens if the PCs do nothing, have npcs react accordingly when they do stuff.

Unfortunately a lot of GMs are shit.

I'd fucking love to be a player for someone who GMs like I do. Sadly life doesn't work out that way.

Not to game at all.

If you're a PC, then whomever is your GM will invariably be a tinpot dictator or only out to tell stories about their own fetishes and will let you down and you won't have fun.

If you're a GM, then whoever your PCs are will invariably be idiotic powergaming assholes or will constantly flake out and waste your prep time and you won't have fun.

17 years trying to game and I have never once seen a functional group of gamers who are willing to be sane, put away their fucking electronics at the table, actually show up to the game, and/or be out to have their "fun" at the expense of other people at the table. The only hope is functional computer AI so we don't have to game with other humans at all. "Playing" RPGs just aren't worth it, OP.

>Expect all races and character options are available.
>Expect to not be able to die by bad luck.
>Whining about decisions made under duress.
All of these expectations should be made explicitly clear, in writing, in the campaign primer, before people have even signed on to the campaign or been told to build characters.

>Expect the specific gear they want
Clearly you're playing 3.x.

And in 3.x, WBL and gear selection are essential parts of character advancement. In 3.x, you can't count on having the gear you need, your character is generally shit.

If I can't count on having the gear I need, I'm playing a Synthesist summoner, or a conjuration wizard, as those are basically the only options where I won't need specific equipment at specific levels.

If you don't want that to happen, play something other than 3.x.

You've had some shit groups, or not set reasonable expectations.

>I'm a huge faggot the post
Yeah ok dude.

I've had them try. One started off on their own hand-made thing, died after one session. Tried again later with a published module, made it two. Yet another friend gave it a go with the ESO setting, died in three. Now the first has geared up to try again, but I've helped conceptualize and build it and given so much specific advice they don't want me to play in it. Recently I joined a group I'd never met at a game store, but it's with a system I can barely stand, it's full of newbies that crack neverending dick jokes and encourage each other to do so, and more players keep getting piled on to the point I've relegated myself to "toolbox wizard".

But that's mostly irrelevant. Some day I'll play, I'm sure. But I'll never get to be solely a player. I'll never have been able to play knowing only that side of the screen.

That only matters if you're fixated on RPGs as games, instead of collaborative storytelling exercises. In the latter case, the rules and stats exist to aid in creating tension and drama, by establishing clear stakes and context.

Let's say a goblin armed with a spear is a much lesser threat than a goblin armed with a shotgun. Making that clear to the players through rules and stats will change how they respond to the situation, as well as the dramatic weight that the situation carries.

>The game part of "role-playing game" is irrelevant.
Maybe to you.

If I wanted Steve's storytime I'd read some shitty fanfiction or watch a YouTube show.

If I'm playing an RPG, the game aspect matters.

>17 years trying to game and I have never once seen a functional group of gamers
The problem may lie with you.

To be honest, I can totally believe someone could be unlucky enough to run into only the truly socially inept when trying to set up a gaming group. It took me a hair under 5 years before I could find a group that was free of super creepy people, edgelords, under-table masturbators, and which also didn't disintegrate by the 4th session because people stopped showing up (or just never showed in the first place).

If you live in a small community, and only the shitheels game, then you're fucked. If you live in the Midwest US and you aren't in Chicago, Indy, or Columbus, you're usually pretty fucked. If you live in the Southeast US and you aren't near a coast, you're usually pretty fucked. It's not like somebody living in Canton OH is going to have a ton of choice if the people gaming there are non-functional examples of humanity. user's situation isn't THAT far-fetched, and doesn't necessarily indicate he's the problem.

>He games with randos.
Found your problem. Don't do that. Round up your friends and game with them.

>implying all friends make good players
>implying he has friends

I can sympathize. Been forever DM for nearly 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of players I've had that have bothered to read past their respective class chapters in the PHB.

Randoms, in my experience, at least read the rules or had character concepts. It was everything else about them that was the problem. My friends on the other hand, were fps or jrpg babies who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper sack.
Before I gave up on them for good, I was designing "video game levels" instead of encounters. Got so bored at one point, I literally ripped off RE:1 and set in the early Renaissance. Complete with "color coded keys or else you can't open the door", "color coded herbs", and "roaming mini-bosses". They said it was the best game I ever ran. I stopped running games after that.

Forever GM here.

I think I prefer getting to be a PC. My issue is I run pretty well thought out sandbox style games. My party give me mad respect for it.

As a result I have a hard time playing through railroaded games. I am actually the first person to fill the role we need (and make a fun, interesting character), or play a pre-gen PC the GM needs me to play.

Most other GM's I've known play a much stricter story that has to go through several steps. I cannot stand that.

So, I am forever GM. No really hard feelings about it. No really hard feelings, kind of bummed though.

I prefer to GM, but I like to play now and again.

Guys?

Can someone else GM this one?

Please guys?

>Forever GMs can be hard to GM for, I think.

As a (until recently) Forever GM I gotta agree with you. I look at every game I play like a GM: noting good techniques/plot hooks/descriptions I can filch for my own game, usually predicting everything coming up, break down encounters due to years of looking at and memorizing monster stats, etc.

There's always that niggling voice in my head that comments critically on the game and how I would have done it differently (which I never actually say aloud because I'm not a cunt).

>break down encounters due to years of looking at and memorizing monster stats
Is this a thing? Do most people just take monsters as written out of the MM?

>everyone else is the problem, not me
They say that if you can't spot that guy in a group or if you think everyone else is that guy... you are That guy instead.

Seems to me like that's the case here.

Did that man die?

PC, butvonly because I doubt I'd be a competent GM.

GM
Because when I play i turn into a total ruleslawyer thatguy sperglord. I get no complaints when i GM.

It can be difficult to lay down the GM mantle once you have gotten a taste of the GMs godlike powers*

[Spoiler ]*only applies in a limited imaginary setting. Only applies for as long as you have willing players. Please consult your doctor or psychiatrist if you feel you have godlike powers in our world [/spoiler]

10 points to you for taking the third option. I disagree with you though.

My players may be idiotic powergaming snowflakes, but they are my friends and we have fun together.

Goddammit i failed my first attempt at spoilers. Gotta lurk some moar

Not that I disagree with your point, but that's a fucking stupid reaponse. The difference between GMs and players is inherent in the design of the games.

I started GMing recently after a friend of mine started GMing a 5E game with a group with a bunch of other friends. None of us but him had played before but he sat down and constructed this very nice setting with us where we'd play a circus troup. First game in, our strongman bungled a trick on an audience member and broke his back, so we had to jump through a portal out of there. The next game, we had travelled dimensions and he started us out at the beginning of LMoP, and we've just been killing Redbrands and Goblins since.

I started GMing a different game a few sessions after when some of the other players got bored, and ran a successful few games in Dark Sun before I started to feel like I was railroading things too much and not allowing players to form their own journey. Part of this is to do with my lack of ability at describing the world around them, despite having a good idea in my head.

Now I feel like I'm enjoying playing my friend's game better, because despite the unimaginative setting, it plays a lot better having a campaign already fully figured out. I'll go back to DMing the other game eventually but I know for now I need to see how a whole campaign looks before I can start thinking about running one of my own.

Player because of the hours and hours of work that you have to put in to DM, along with the inherent stress and social pressure.
Fuck my group for making me GM and then getting mad whenever I don't want to play/don't have enough material for another session whenever they feel like it.

I only want to be the DM when everyone else is bad at it. better to be a DM than be a player with a bad DM

highlight and CTRL-S

Wow that poor old guy is dead.

I am your opposite, I am terrible at improvisation as a GM and I also enjoy a more railroaded story as a player.

ctrl+s

as a GM I put a lot of time and thought into the integrity of my world. I write characters, towns and plot ideas, establish their relationships and make sure that if the players ask the NPC a question they should be able to answer they can answer it. If a certain plot element seems to be too far fetched and illogical then I scrap it from the campaign and rewrite it. That sometimes means rewriting a huge portion of the overarching themes and conflicts.

I've let someone else GM once and it was obvious that outside of very few notes they didn't have a single clue what purpose each town or NPC served. They were basically improvising 24/7 nonstop.
If you are ex-GM and play in a world like that then you know that your behavior has absolutely no consequences. If the GM wants to kill you then he will. If the GM wants you to win then he will.

Also, the economy in that GM's world was absolutely fucked. He just made up prices as we went along. A beer costs 5 gold pieces. A short bow costs 10 gold pieces. Then a beer suddenly costs 2 gold pieces.

I can't play in a campaign like that because it frustrates me. I constantly have to prevent myself from pointing out to the GM that shit he said 10 minutes ago suddenly isn't relevant anymore. The player needs to be able to learn about the world he's exploring. If critical information can be retconned on a whim then the player does not have a chance to learn anything.

>Poor people outnumber rich people by huge margin. Ergo, it's better to be poor.

playing DnD is something that people do voluntarily

I'm starting to wonder if Americans are perhaps just generally very dysfunctional people.
Or maybe it's American nerdfolk.

Even the least likeable game groups I've met here in Scandinavia were pretty down-to-earth people, with maybe a few overly aloof or "crazy but trying to manage" types to upset the balance bit.

Nothing like the train wrecks I hear about from you folks.

Stop

Playing

DnD

GM, just because whenever I'm a player, I internally criticize every mistake the GM makes or think about how I would've done things differently. I don't enjoy doing this, but my over-analytical GM brain won't shut up and just enjoy the game.

>my friend were fps or jrpg babies
It's rough DMing for these folks. Have a group with a few players that are similar and they constantly wait for me to prompt them to do things instead of taking initiative. Still new though and I'm hoping this changes after some play time.

For unimportant encounters, yes. Shitty DMs who are incapable of moving outside of the pre-set module or believe the rules to be completely correct also do this.

>"But, user, you're such a good DM and you know all the rules and shit"

First off, fuck off Eurotrash.
But more to the point the problem with the community for Veeky Forums stuff in America is a result of being stigmatized for decades. This scared off people who didn't want to be seen as nerds, and the people that would be scared off in such a manner were clearly sensitive to social mores and such. This left those who don't give a fuck about the stigma attached, which includes many perfectly normal people who simply don't mind, but also very 'dysfunctional' people who were already on the wrong side of various social do's and don'ts

It's entirely possible to have friends who aren't into RPGs whatsoever and who don't want to be.

That's not a given and you know it. Do you believe bad luck is a thing?

It's not necessarily a matter of being dysfuntional. It's a matter regarding the sort of people RPGs attracted for a very long time in this country; mostly but not entirely people who are already social outcasts or who don't care about becoming so. You are absolutely judged by other people for your hobbies here. You have to remember that the US suffers from a very large bias against anything having to do with intelligence or education, especially in the interior states, and RPGs are pretty much an activity about intelligence (compared to doing something like playing sports). It's not a perfect match, but if you look at pic related, it correlates pretty well. If you live in a red area, you're in an area where people will *still* unironically call you a Satanist and/or ostracize you for having anything to do with RPGs (I know this firsthand; I've lived in 5 different states where this happens directly). Since it's not "OK" to have the hobby, the people who are attracted to the hobby in those areas are already the people who aren't socially...adept...in the first place.

This *is* changing, slowly. But RPG players in the US had a gigantic active stigma against them in huge swathes of the country for nearly 30 years, and in some places still do. The hobby attracted social outcasts pretty much exclusively from the 70s until the mid-to-late-90s. If you're playing with adults, it's a sure bet that at least ONE of them lived through that era. It's going to take literally decades, if ever, for RPGs to be considered a socially-acceptable hobby here, and until that happens many of the people who play the games will be already-dysfunctional folk who don't care or who aren't aware about being social outcasts.

Found the guy who puts ketchup on all of his meals.

>It's not a perfect match, but if you look at pic related, it correlates pretty well.

Fuck you Veeky Forums, there's no file embedded in this.

Anyway, not a perfect match, but there's more truth to it than not. Rural communities are deeply suspicious of "intellectual" pursuits which don't make money and so you still end up with a larger proportion of "dysfunctional" people playing games there (the red areas). Blue areas TEND to have a better ratio of sane people gaming because of the double-whammy of a higher population evening out the curve, and because when a lot of jobs are in tech some (not all) of the anti-intellectualism stigma fades away...but even then it's not a guarantee, because there's a 40-year old community of gamers already that lived through the original stigma and who are generally going to be dysfunctional all their lives.

Basically it's not necessarily American gamerfolk who are the problem. It's the country in general and our attitude toward any quasi-intellectual or non-physical activity that is the problem. EVERY gaming community will have SOME people who can't distinguish fantasy from reality, but we tend to have a higher proportion of failed adults because gaming is the only thing they can go do for fun.

At first I started GMing out of the blue for my friends, though I always wanted to play.

One year in, one of them tried his hand at GMing a separate side game. It was fucking shit. The worst is when he openly states he's trying to recreate stuff he watches like Critical Role, but the whole thing is railroady, full of magic items thrown at us, full of NPCs way more powerful than us and just there to show us how weak we are.

I GM most of the time, Player once in a while.

Thou for the GM with trouble keeping party to the task of playing I recommend faster simpler combat and the rule of cool. Just let it rock and role.

As some one who has lived all over the USA. I have never had issues with people not wanting to play or stigma. Just own it and honestly talk about what you enjoy about the game. People will show up and enjoy it with you. I guess you have a point if your not willing to be passionate about an awesome game that involves pizza and beer.

exactly

I even think is something about the stories they make, they can ask for skill checks just fine other than that their DMing is frustratingly different from what I hold to be decent

.
I've been all over the US as well, and it's definitely a thing. Not everywhere, and nowhere near as bad as I've heard it was in the 80s and 90s, but yeah, if you live out in the sticks somewhere away from a real city, you're likely still fucked. The stigma against RPGs still exists, and on top of that, because the population is so low you're likely to be stuck with the same 3-5 other people who are willing to game with you, and you're in no condition to be picky about their social abilities.

There's quibbles I can make about / 's analysis, but by and large I'd agree with it. If you want to be a gamer and have a choice of people to play with, live in or quite near a city. Otherwise, there's definitely something about beggars and choosers that applies here.

I used to prefer playing, but my recent group has made me enjoy GMing. My past groups still would never learn rules, always asking die they needed to roll to attack and such.

bmp

Any tips for running a sandbox style game?

My love comes for the design of worlds and story weaving, but it is an ungrateful task. Niggas just want to sit down at the table and now know anything, not do anything, just play. Maybe they come tired from work or their wife barked at them or something, but fuck, undestand that your DM requires inspiration to run this shit.

Being a DM is basically rewiring everyone's thoughts into a cohesive narrative unit, it's exhausting for long periods of time. Some players appreciate it more than others.

So, yes, I take advantage of the fact that I've used to have borderline personality disorder and sometimes act as an extra player or DMPC because I want to have that kind of fun too (and the fact that I'm a forever DM and I wouldn't get to play shit if I wasn't, since nobody else would try to take charge).

Predictably all veterans approve of this since I don't overdo it and really tend to die to crappy dice, newfags are always surprised that this works.

DM. Players are uniformly stupid and letting a stupid person DM is painful.

PC is better.

>Not investigating beer prices
>Not discovering a continent spanning beer futures short selling conspiracy.

I like both.

As a GM, you get to do and interact more but it requires a bigger energy investment. Watching things play out behind the scenes and knowing things the players don't is fun.

As a player, it's more relaxed since you're only running one person instead of dozens. You get to devote more energy to role-playing too which is nice. You're also going to have more down time than the DM, so you can socialize with the other players OOC more.

Depends on the GM. Everyone has a different play style. Some you'll like more than others, regardless of whether you've GM'd before or not.

It is interesting to play and watch for things to emulate or avoid.

I've done the same thing. Sometimes to the annoyance of other players as I argue against the party's favor.

>I also enjoy a more railroaded story as a player.
I can kind of agree. Although that has more to do with my playgroup than anything.
Tracks keep the game on course and moving.

Ina good enough group though, people jump at plot hooks and keep the game progressing even in a sand box.

is this Veeky Forums at its pure form?

The corollary, however, is that in a good enough group, the railroad will run smoothly without any issues.

>Clearly you're playing 3.x.

>In 3.x, you can't count on having the gear you need, your character is generally shit.

You must be terrible at creating characters.

One time I argued with a GM that he should realistically, by the fluff, kill my character off. He didn't want to because we were only two session in.

First time (and thus far last) case I can think of where a PC was arguing for his character's death and the GM against.