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View Full Version : Your associations with being a DM



Thrawn4
2014-10-16, 04:30 AM
Hello everyone.

Out of curiosity, I would really like to know what my fellow DMs think about their job.
Let's do a little brainstorming to see what most people associate with being the DM (any P&P RPG). Just think about it for a second and state your initial thoughts.

Mine were:
stressful
under-appreciated
addictive


Being a DM is often stressful. On a regular basis you have to deal with a player that did not pay attention, is annoyed because his or her plan did not work out, the dice are unforgiving or a player is just tired.
Players also usually don't appreciate the effort I put in most games. Reading my former sentence, this sounds very self-absorbed, but all I would like to hear is an occasional "nice adventure" or "I liked/disliked the fact that.... ". Just a little feedback once in a while.
That being said, it's still a bunchload of fun. I enjoy preparing the adventures, see the reactions of the players, being surprised by the players themselves. These benefits always outweigh my complaints.

Looking forward to read your thoughts :smallsmile:

Nobot
2014-10-16, 04:44 AM
- Creative
- Social
- Gratifying
- Greatest time-sink ever

I don't really share your feelings of being under-appreciated or it being stressful. While most players don't actively say that they appreciate all the hard work, most enjoy themselves (visibly) and that's enough for me. As for stress, I usually get a more relaxed feeling out of it.

BWR
2014-10-16, 04:50 AM
Mine; - educational.
Sometimes I have made some bad mistakes that were not fun for my players. The best thing to do is acknowledge this and try to avoid them in future. Sometimes I've done thing right and my players have a good time. Try to understand what was fun about it and how to do something similar in other respects. I've been lucky in that my girlfriend has been playing with my pretty much my entire GMing career and she is not shy about criticizing me when I do something stupid (the other players are generally too polite to make much of an issue about stuff).

DM Nate
2014-10-16, 05:50 AM
- Creative
- Social
- Gratifying
- Greatest time-sink ever

I would have to second this. Particularly as I do a detailed write-up of all my sessions after the fact on their own website (http://www.darkhaunt.net).

Mastikator
2014-10-16, 05:56 AM
Enthralling, uplifting, gratifying.

There are few things better than creating a master piece and have one of your players say "Well played".

EvilAnagram
2014-10-16, 07:36 AM
Collaborative
Spontaneous
Social
Fun

I tend to improvise stories quite a bit, so my planning is minimal, the fun is spontaneous, and the story arises organically out of player interaction.

draken50
2014-10-16, 11:49 AM
When I first started DMing, it was frustrating, complex, and draining, with small rewards.

It was hard work learning to communicate what I wanted, and try to stay in tune with my players goals and the like. It was very frustrating to watch things I hoped would be awesome fall flat, or for simple things to seem to balloon into confusion and argument. There were the little moments of satisfaction and enjoyment that made things better though. To hear my players gleefully reminisce about the time they beat the crap out of an animated oak desk, and a few other moments that just made the game. I'd run entire sessions that would never quite do what I wanted, and never really get the group engaged, but then I'd have these moments where everyone was on the same page and pulling together.

Now, DMing is ultimately very very satisfying.

I've learned to match my players to my games. I've gotten a handle on what I do well in any of the systems I run, and I've learned more of my limitations as well. I've also learned how to better grease sticking points and keep the game moving. I still challenge myself here and there, working to run encounters and adventures a bit outside for my forte. Really though, I have hit the point where I feel like I deliver a worthwhile game every week. That my players have hours long discussions about it post session and throughout the week really makes me feel good about it.

Jay R
2014-10-16, 02:42 PM
Fun
Complex
Absorbing
Deadline-heavy

jedipotter
2014-10-16, 03:22 PM
Fun

Satisfying

Anonymouswizard
2014-10-16, 03:41 PM
Collaborative
Spontaneous
Social
Fun


I'm seconding this selection, because I come from the "the players will go off the rails anyway, I may as well only bring a loose outline" school of thought.

I then normally end up with players who just follow the railroad. But none of them ever seem to notice that it's improvised (it helps that I'm loud, have some skill with storytelling, and have only ever run modules twice). I've never recieved compliments for my GMing, but I believe that a good GM gets the same compliment as a great chef: silence, but for some reason they all turn up the next time you cook.

The best parts of running a game though is when a player takes an aspect of the game and decides to run with it. My players are terrified of a ghoul, all because he killed a fairly weak troll (which they never saw in combat, they thought he was strong by the sword on his back), who I plan to bring back next session (it's been a good 2 sessions since he last appeared), nowhere near the power level they think he is (he could take down most of them in a hit, but he'd lose against the lot of them), and have him fight alongside them for a bit. I want to see how they treat him before deciding his place in the final run. The original plan was to have him there just to clue them into the larger world, but he got such a good reaction I have to bring him back.

comicshorse
2014-10-16, 04:08 PM
Stressful
Creative
Challenging
Occasionally humoureslly sadistic

Phoenixguard09
2014-10-16, 07:59 PM
Hmmm...

- Stressful
- Challenging
- Under-Appreciated
- Fulfilling
- Addictive

To clarify, I personally don't feel under-appreciated, but I do feel the players aren't aware of the amount of work I put into running the game for them.

Not just creating the world, crafting the plot and setting up the game system, but also organising the group and getting everyone together, planning dinner/lunch, organising birthday recognition and preparing the gaming area.

Actually getting the day and venue organised is almost as difficult for me as preparing the game. :smalltongue:

Tarlek Flamehai
2014-11-07, 03:17 PM
Free snacks!

Mr.Moron
2014-11-07, 04:13 PM
For the most I'd say it's fun and not stressful. As DM I get to spend time observing, planning and reacting which suits my general approach to games just fine. Throw a hook or an idea out, see what the PCs do with it, react and adapt.

Usually I find PCs go "off the rails" at transition period usually just after taking a plot hook or right near the end of story. That makes course correction easy even if the in-universe results are not always simple. It's the most innocuous things that always seem to put things in a different direction than I thought they would.

I'd say for the most part the only thing that really gets under my skin is when PCs get in the mood to be "winning". Like I've never had a PC start sentence with "we'll I'll just..." that hasn't ended with one of us getting a little bit salty. Thankfully those moments have been relatively few/far between.

On the whole I like it, generally much better than playing. What problems I do have tend to be game-specific.


In my current long-running game I guess my biggest problem has been running out of ideas. The campaigns been going for just over 3 years now and basically every major background element and personal plot point for the PCs has either been fully explored/resolved or is about to be.

I've really been scraping the bottom of the barrel for plot hooks and it shows, player engagement is at all-time low.

SgtCarnage92
2014-11-10, 02:27 AM
- Cathartic: I find the mechanics and the problem-solving associated with planning and games to be a lot of fun. It also flexes my creative muscles in a way that I'm rather good at.

-Time-consuming: Unfortunately, I have very little time to work on or run games anymore between all of the other life-things that tend to happen.

-Rewarding: Nothing feels like running a really solid session. Even better is helping a new player or GM find something about the game they never had before. I meet a lot of players outside of my old group who have only a bare idea of what various systems are capable of and if I can help them flesh out their own characters and ideas so they have a better experience at their own tables then I feel like I've done my job.

-Nostalgic: I started playing in HS (am almost finished with my Bachelor's now) and many of my former players and I still talk about old sessions and games.

-Disappointing: I've ran a lot of sessions that didn't go nearly as well as I hoped they would, maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe I've just made a lot of mistakes. Likely a bit of both.

-Fun: I massively enjoy GMing, and while I wish I had more opportunities to be a player, it's my favorite part of the hobby.

I'm sure there are more adjectives that can work. But alas, I have class on the 'morrow.

Hyena
2014-11-10, 02:53 AM
I don't have any words, but I do have a picture for you all.

http://hrfishbowl.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/paperwork.jpg

FearlessGnome
2014-11-10, 07:24 AM
I am eight sessions into my first campaign as a DM, and so far I'm loving it. I don't find I have to do too much book keeping, although generating names for NPCs and towns is getting pretty tiresome. But it's beautiful to watch them try to puzzle together the plot and making mistakes and handing over important artifacts to the Evil Empire because the evil extraplanar mind parasites said not to.

So far I have one player who is dead certain the kindly recurring Aasimar questgiver is a major bad guy, and the other three dead certain he is not, and why don't we just keep him with us for the free heals (They have no cleric)? The one player is right, of course.

Last session the Paladin and the VoP Druid were both missing, so the two remaining players decided to squeeze in all the evil they could get away with, from working for the Evil Empire to slaughtering a village of Bullywugs (They hated the voices I was making for them). They also both managed to get infected with undead cysts. This pleases me greatly.

Now the only annoyance is that the Fighter player found a prestige class on D&Dwiki which has almost the same name as an official prestige class; "Hunter of the Dead" versus "Hunter of Undead", and which he asked me to design an encounter where he could get stat drained so he could qualify for entry for. Since both classes have almost the same entry reqs, we played out the encounter before I realized he wanted a poorly formatted hombrew class and not the official class. I'm really quite annoyed, since I've been harping on another player for several sesson to stop trying to sneak in D&Dwiki homebrew, and now somebody else started doing it.

Dire Moose
2014-11-10, 09:55 AM
I agree with the time sink and stressful parts. It can really take a lot of effort to prepare everything. Even if your dungeon design is fairly spontaneous, you still need to generate treasure and stat enemies, particularly when you get into higher levels and have to give your monsters class levels to be challenging. That can get a bit tiresome.

I will also note that my grades in college started out amazingly high and then dropped around the same time I started running my campaign. I have little doubt that the two are connected.

EccentricCircle
2014-11-10, 11:44 AM
POWER! UNLIMITED POWER! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA...

Sorry I don't know what came over me there.
More seriously I think it's a lot of work but is massively rewarding.
I often tell players that they should all try to GM at least once, they will either find it far too much hassle and never do it again or love it and be hooked forever.
I think the biggest problem isn't the work that it involves, but rather that there is not enough time to run all of the awesome games that randomly spring from the dark recesses of your mind.

But being able to create something from one of those random ideas, share it with friends and have them get as much out of it as you do is one of the best things about this hobby.

edit: Oh it's also useful too! Time management, public speaking, organisational skills, memory and teh ability to get lots of people to turn up to a game on time are all very important life skills which you can gain from GMing!

Altrunchen
2014-11-10, 01:19 PM
-Under-appreciated
-Addicting
-Fun
-Stressful

It's a fun job, but it's also a lot of work that tends to go without any real thanks sadly enough :(.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-11-10, 01:56 PM
Pure. Glorious. Chaos.

veti
2014-11-10, 02:07 PM
Mine were:
stressful
under-appreciated
addictive

With respect - that list makes it look like you're not enjoying it at all. May I ask how long you've been DMing? If it's more than a year or so, and you're still finding it that negative, you might want to rethink some aspects of your method. (For instance, one trick it took me years to work out, that really reduced the stress levels for me was: throw away all the published setting material, build your own. It takes a little more time, but - compared with the time needed to really understand all the published rubbish - not as much as you'd think, and it gives you much more freedom to improvise when the players go off the rails.)

The most fun I had while DMing was with modules I wrote myself for Call of Cthulhu. I really went to town with the descriptions, narrative, and the records left around for the PCs to find - the whole thing exactly suited my creative energies at that time, and it was enormously satisfying to see one player struggling through a (handwritten) journal entry and the others listening open-mouthed and in total silence - and looking rather sheepishly over their shoulders when it stopped.

Thrawn4
2014-11-10, 04:53 PM
With respect - that list makes it look like you're not enjoying it at all. May I ask how long you've been DMing? If it's more than a year or so, and you're still finding it that negative, you might want to rethink some aspects of your method. (For instance, one trick it took me years to work out, that really reduced the stress levels for me was: throw away all the published setting material, build your own. It takes a little more time, but - compared with the time needed to really understand all the published rubbish - not as much as you'd think, and it gives you much more freedom to improvise when the players go off the rails.)

The most fun I had while DMing was with modules I wrote myself for Call of Cthulhu. I really went to town with the descriptions, narrative, and the records left around for the PCs to find - the whole thing exactly suited my creative energies at that time, and it was enormously satisfying to see one player struggling through a (handwritten) journal entry and the others listening open-mouthed and in total silence - and looking rather sheepishly over their shoulders when it stopped.

Actually I do enjoy it a lot, that's where the addictive comes from. But I can see how you might get that impression. You see, although it is a lot of fun, sometimes it is stressful if my players are due in two hours and I am not satisfied by my plans, or an usually peaceful friend throws a minor tantrum because the dice are unlucky, or you have to make up many things at once because the players went not only off the rails but also in different directions at the same time. It's basically like having a party: Sometimes stuff happens that annoys you, but you can still have a blast. However, you do not have a party every day because it would be too much stress.

Oh, and I've been DMing for around 18 years. I agree to your statements about published material.

Anyway, thank you for your advise. I appreciate it.

mr_odd
2014-11-11, 01:49 PM
-Creative
-Requires Preparation
-Universal & Neutral

Need_A_Life
2014-11-11, 04:19 PM
The big three are:
Satisfying
Draining
****ing Deadlines!

I like being a GM (and player praise is always a nice ego-boost) and I get to run the sort of games I would want everyone to run (not surprisingly, I make the sort of GM calls I would want a GM to make if I was a player), but I hate coming up with plots, I hate having to be the person who ends up coordinating calendars between people and who can - for example - make a plan between sessions with a player as how to introduce their new player character only to have them tell you 2 minutes before the game starts "oh, I've changed my mind about that. Let's not do that" and then blame me for not having a good way to hook them into the group.

I like it, but it definitely has its moments where I need to tell people "get your **** together" and light up to give myself an excuse to take a quick break.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't even have much of an issue working without any but the most basic prep; I've always run improv-heavy games, but I have a hard time coming up with plots. Usually I end up stealing a plot, filing off the serial numbers and bringing that to the table, then leave the notes lying next to me and run something loosely inspired by what I prepared.

VincentTakeda
2014-11-20, 03:59 PM
Philosophical - Important to understand the nature of the game. How the interaction of the rules creates a scenario or its beliefs on 'how a scenario could/should be handled'
Psychological - Important to understand your players, their goals, styles and motivations in order to provide them the experiences they find most rewarding/challenging/interesting and entertaining.
Time consuming - Preparation is key. Just the right amount. Not too little, not too much. You dont need to map out the thousand nearest planets of the galaxy and you dont need to know ahead of time what color the barmaid's toenails are.
Challenging - When things dont go as prepared for, versatility is a must. If the players visit an alchemist shop unexpectedly, you might unexpectedly need a name for the shop and the shopkeeper.
Balance - Giving players an opportunity to shine is just as important as challenging them in the areas they do not.
Not as easy as it looks - Unless your game is simply a string of random encounters to be overcome, a good campaign involves thinking about the 5 most likely ways the party will react to a situation, then sorting it out on the fly when they choose the 6th most likely option instead.

McBars
2014-11-20, 04:08 PM
I've seen a lot of "time-consuming", "tiring", "thankless", etc....and it can be those things, but in my experience DMing and playing for ~20 yrs, you can do a lot more with less time spent more wisely.

The Lazy DM (http://slyflourish.com/lazydm/)
Read this, learn it, live it. It is awesome! Even if you only read the 10 pg pdf he has listed on the website there is much wisdom to be learned grasshopper.

He runs a nice DMing blog as well. Not reinventing the wheel here, but he has a lot of nice suggestion to get you focused, less stressed, and maximizing fun.

SlyFlourishBlog (http://slyflourish.com/)


I'm not affiliated with Sly, I just think it's a great read and resource for any DM

SowZ
2014-11-20, 07:25 PM
I'm a storyteller, everything I do I relate back to the story I can tell from it. DMing scratches the author itch in me, but takes a ton of the pressure off since the direction of the story and plot is fairly evenly split among everyone. Not to mention the added pleasure of not being able to predict what will happen to the character's, unlike writing where I am an intense plotter.

When I walk in on friends telling other friends excitedly about their last game session, or have people call me mid week with plot twist ideas, or have people stick around fifteen minutes after wrap to talk about the session, I don't feel under appreciated even when no one says thanks. When a session or campaign falls flat, however, and people don't seem that emotionally invested in a session, then I can get stressed and disheartened about the job. In many ways, I think it is similar to being a stand up comic. If people are laughing, you get energized and charged up. If the room is silent, the pit in your stomach is an awful feeling.

VincentTakeda
2014-11-22, 10:15 AM
The thing I associate most with being a DM is when I show up on gaming forums, see a question thread. Go in. Answer it. Then get a few folks showing up nearly immediately to contradict me and tell me how wrong wrong I am. I'm new to the GITPG forums and i'm already batting 2 for 2.

SowZ
2014-11-22, 02:12 PM
The thing I associate most with being a DM is when I show up on gaming forums, see a question thread. Go in. Answer it. Then get a few folks showing up nearly immediately to contradict me and tell me how wrong wrong I am. I'm new to the GITPG forums and i'm already batting 2 for 2.

I disagree with this.

Need_A_Life
2014-11-22, 03:49 PM
I think the issue is how broad the role is.

I mean, I have thrown together enjoyable sessions on the fly; once I arrived thinking I would be playing my investigator in Call of Cthulhu and 10 minutes later I was printing out character sheets for an impromptu game of Don't Rest Your Head. Having the game be enjoyable is usually a pretty low standard to aim for; you likely know your players well enough to know what appeals to them, what doesn't and, if you've played with them for a while, know how they tend to play.

But unless I'm running a break-neck speed game, I like to have some idea about direction before I even sit down at the table. I mean, it might only be a sentence or three that sum up the skeleton of the story's structure, but without that there's too many possibilities for me to think properly on my feet.

And that style does well for me. If, on the other hand, I was to run a genuine horror game, I would be so in over my head; I can't do terrified and I can't keep from cracking a joke (or joining in on other jokes) for hours on end to avoid breaking a carefully crafted atmosphere. And yet, I don't doubt that some people find running such horror games trivial, while themselves having some games that they find themselves ill-equipped to run.

Sometimes the most draining thing is either the players not taking responsibility or trying to run a game contrary to the style you feel most natural running.

mephnick
2014-11-22, 05:03 PM
In many ways, I think it is similar to being a stand up comic. If people are laughing, you get energized and charged up. If the room is silent, the pit in your stomach is an awful feeling.

I think this is a pretty good description. I've had great campaigns that everyone was obviously enjoying and it's a great feeling.

A couple sessions in a row when people don't seem in to it makes me wonder if it's even worth doing any more. Those usually show up when I'm burnt out on other things (work, kids) and can't devote the energy to running a good game, so I try and force it for my players when I should just call the campaign off for a few weeks.

I've learned that if I'm tired and can't focus properly, it's honestly best just to cancel the session and recharge.