Why do you DM?

[RoboEmperor]

This is an honest question. I really don't understand why people DM.

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

This is really confusing to understand. So you have a party, you throw a CR appropriate monster at them, and it dies just as expected. So... where do you get your jollies from this?

Like a lot of DMs cry like a baby when a low level PC gets high AC and then starts tailor making encounters so that every enemy has high attack. These are the bad DMs. The good DMs let the player have its moment in the sun with his high AC since later levels trivializes AC. So if your goal is to lose on purpose, yet challenge the players... I just don't understand. If the campaign is a success then you as a DM have lost 260+ encounters, which does not sound like fun for me.

I met a DM who didn't care if he couldn't do even 1 damage to the players due to DR, miss chance, AC, incorporeality, etc. And I have met DMs who bitch to everyone else in the game about hard it is to kill certain players and then kicks them from the game.

Being a player is easy. You just bring out your optimized character and steamroll over everything until you die. But a DM can't optimize his guys so that they steam roll the players. Equal Footing Encounters v.s. PC will result in TPK eventually because if it's a 50:50 chance to win, over 100+ encounters DM is bound to win once and TPK.

I have met sadistic DMs who play solely to kill PCs in a brutal yet hilarious way. I have met DMs who DM just so they can have a sense of authority and act like a king. But the good DMs, the awesome DMs, I don't understand why they DM. I am thankful that they DM because they are awesome but I just don't get it. Why put in so much work for... what? Where do you get your jollies from???

Sorry if this sounds like a mad man's ramblings. It's been bothering me for far too long.

[Crake]

I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. The DM doesn't "lose" because the monster died. He "wins" because the players defeated the bad guy and progressed his story to a happy ending. His goal it to tell and story and make the players, and thus by extension, himself, feel good in doing so.

DMs complain about things like overly high AC, because it trivializes things, and there's no sense of satisfaction in winning over and over because you're untouchable. It's fun maybe the first few times, but then it just becomes stale.

Also, regarding equal level encounters, there does reach a point where even TPKs are recoverable, the same way villains can come back after being defeated. Contingencies, friends in high places, safety money for resurrections and the like. Death becomes a hurdle, not an insurmountable wall, and you just keep going. When the game reaches those points, it becomes about the opportunity cost of dying, rather than death itself, the equivilent of having to retreat from the dungeon and come back the next day at lower levels.

[gogogome]

You're looking at the situation through the eyes of a player, not a game designer.

Lets say I'm a game designer and my goal is to make a great game everyone loves. If the players beat it and had a great time then I feel happy. Consequently if the players found the game too easy, repetitive, and unchallenging I feel bad.

I want the players to beat the evil balor that masterminded the campaign in an epic fight and I feel bad when the players fail and can't progress.

[zlefin]

I DM'ed cuz I wanted to actually finish a PbP for once, and DM'ing was the best way to make sure that happened. Also because I wanted to try DM'ing at least once.

[Calthropstu]

I love creating scenarios and stories. You get the same satusfaction an author gets from someone enjoying the stories he wrote... because that's what you ARE. A gm is an author, telling a story to his liking. Even when running prewritten adventures, no two runs will be exactly the same. The characters interact with and alter the story, and coming up with more story is fun.

GMing is a test of creativity and tactics. If all the GM wanted was to win, he could throw a cr 50 monster at you at 1st lvl and slaughter you. Haha, you lose. Not very fun for anyone though.

[Peat]

I win when I get great facial expressions. The solemn far-off look when they realise this time their character might die; the wide grins when they don't; and that mix of temporary hate and permanent admiration when I pull off a great plot reveal.

[King of Nowhere]

Yoou're looking at it solely from a powergamer perspective. you stitch numbers together to win fights, and nothing else matters. you are completely ignoring the whole storytelling part of D&D. People DM because they have a story to tell, a world to live. I started DMing because I was the only one with the required system mastery, but then my campaign world took on a life of its own, and I want to make it live.

I soometimes feel sad when the players defeat some npc, but certainly not because "omg how could you defeat me you lucker cheat11!1!!", but because I have invested emotionally into some of them, especially the less evil ones.



I want the players to beat the evil balor that masterminded the campaign in an epic fight and I feel bad when the players fail and can't progress.
At the same time, if the fight is trivial the whole story is a big let-down. Can you imagine a movie where the hero wins effortlessly? Heck, in the campaign where I'm a player we could have waited to gain a few more levels before engaging the boss, but we specifically decided not to do so because a trivial encounter wouldn't have been good. As it was, we had an epic life-or-death struggle lasting a dozen rounds that almost resulted in several deaths several times. And it was the best fight ever.
Power gamer hate starts probably here.

[Jay R]

As long as you think the DM is a player running her team the way a player runs his character, you will never understand this. The DM is something very different.

As a player, my PC is my "side" in a game in which I hope my side wins.

But as a DM, the NPCs are not "my side", and I never hoped that they would "win". They are tools for running a game for people to enjoy.

[As an aside, this is a major part of why I dislike DMPCs. That's not what the DM is supposed to be doing.]

I DM for the same reason umpires run a game they aren't playing, coaches teach new players how to play well, cooks make food that they aren't going to eat, people help up others who have fallen, I take my Mom to the doctor, prosperous people donate items to museums, friends comfort their sad friends, etc.

Yes, we enjoy running games, teaching new players, making food for others, helping people up, taking Mom where she needs to go, donating items, and comforting friends. It's just a different thing from playing, learning, eating, getting up, being taken places, visiting museums, and being comforted.



"Because I have known the torment of thirst, I would build a well where others may drink."

-- Ernest Thompson Seton

[Delta]

This is an honest question. I really don't understand why people DM.

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

You really might want to reexamine just about everything you think to know about gaming if you honestly believe that.

The only way you "lose" as a DM is if you and your group don't have fun playing the game.

Why do I DM? Because when after seven years of campaining, you get to the grand finale where half the group sacrifices themselves to stop the BBEG, when the last survivor stares at him defiantly to strike him down with the magical sword powered by the souls of his companions and everyone around the table cheers him on, when the player afterwards describes going home, making sure everyone's last wishes are being taking care of, building a statue in their honor and naming his firstborn child after one of them, and everyone around the table has tears in their eyes, I can mentally pat myself on the back and say "I helped making this possible"

Yes, every player had a part in it, but in the end, even with one less player, the story still would've worked. But without the DM, there is no game, there is no story, there might be characters, but nothing happens to them. The DM is the ultimate catalyst in this regard.

Why do people direct films when watching them is so much easier? Why do people coach sports teams instead of playing themselves? It's a different job with different responsibilities, you seem to think of "The DM is the player of the evil guys", and while that might be true in some sense, it's still something rather different. A DM who plays his NPCs the same way he would as if he would a PC if he was a player is doing it wrong, I've seen DMs like this, but I've never seen anyone have a lot of fun for long around their table.

To get back to my original point, when after the session wraps up, everyone around the table smiles and says "That was fun, can't wait for next time!", then you've won. It sounds cliche, but it's nonetheless true.

[BowStreetRunner]

Pretty much what others have said here goes for me too. When I DM my greatest pleasure is when the players come away exclaiming what a great time they had. I like to make the story behind the game exciting, intriguing, dramatic, engrossing, and completely amazing in all the ways the players love best. I custom tailor the experiences to the party and always try to come up with challenges that are well within their capabilities to overcome, but push them to their limits without breaking them completely.

Thinking back to the various games I've run over the years, the things I enjoyed the most include:


Dealing with a power gamer among non-power gamers but always managing to bring every one of their characters to near death at about the same time regardless. As a result, it never really felt to any of the players as if their relative power levels were an issue.
Another group that went from 'battle gaming' - where role-playing was just seen as the intermission between combat encounters - to actually investing in their characters stories to the point of making a home for their characters, starting families, and becoming the patriarchs of a new generation of leaders in their kingdom. In the end, they looked forward to the role-playing encounters as much as the combat encounters.
Running into a scenario in one game (not D&D, but relevant to this discussion all the same) where all of the lifelines I threw the PCs were ignored or refused (by this point of the game they were paranoid as all heck), resulting in a near TPK leaving a single PC survivor. He ended up sitting in a chair in a motel room, shotgun across his lap, smoking a cigarette, drinking scotch, waiting for 'them' to come. The player asked that we just fade to black at that point - as far as he was concerned it was the perfect ending. Everyone who was in that game still talks about it as one of their favorite ever, despite the party getting wiped out.


My list of the games I enjoyed the most as DM were never really about with which characters won or lost. It was always about the players and whether we as a group had a great experience or not. In this it's more like being an author or screen-play writer. It's all about crafting a memorable experience.

[retaliation08]

I DM when I want to give the DMs a break.
I DM because it gives me a chance let others play in the game I've always dreamed of playing in.
I DM because I like to solve problems with creative solutions.
I DM because it is rewarding to captivate people with the products of my mind.
I DM because I like voicing characters when I read to people.
I DM because I like to teach and draw out the best (game theory, confidence, creativity, compassion, etc.) of the people around me.
I DM because (apparently) I'm a masochist, sadist, and a control freak that loves people and D&D.

DMing isn't usually a chore or a burden to me, and, if it feels that way at any point, I don't do it. I have enough chores on my to-do list.

[2D8HP]

At first?

Because I was the only person I knew with the bluebook http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kDIliHSSx-I/USZ5UOVXGUI/AAAAAAAAAK4/ihyfSUnLoKQ/s80/HolmesBlue.jpg and if I didn't DM there'd be no game.

Later?

I liked worldbuilding, and wanted to entertain, and I find it easier to play many characters a little bit rather than to sustain one character a long time.

Though now I find rules adjudication too much of a pain in the... neck to do it lately.

[Pleh]

I like DMing. I hate making encounters too easy or frustratingly hard.

A lot of times, it's like the challenge of cooking a meal for friends. You have to anticipate problems and make something balanced and satisfying.

A lot of the time, it means getting equal portions of having a setting worth exploring and being familiar enough with the PCs to know how they work.

If a player wants high AC character, cool. I'll make sure some encounters involve lots of minion fights were that AC pays off. Then I'll include some encounters where flying enemies might opt to ignore the largely immobile tin can, or have a water encounter where the armored guy can't swim. But the point isn't to defeat the high AC, it's to highlight the character's dependence on his allies.

It's much more challenging to create party dependence for casters, but long adventure days without opportunities to rest is a good start. It won't matter how well prepared they are to trivialize encounter after encounter, they'll need help finishing the day when their slots run out. Thankfully, since they've been trivializing encounters, the martial characters still have a lot of their own strength left to defend the weakening caster.

I don't want the PCs to die. I also don't l want them living complacent (some people argue this is their day job, but I want my games to have higher stakes than that).

I want my players to heroically survive. Sometimes this means they get to dominate an encounter. Sometimes it'll be so tough they'll lose party members. A TPK that isn't due to extremely bad luck or terrible character choices is pretty much a DM failure.

Basically, my role as DM is to give my players a chance to give their characters a run for their money. It shouldn't be my goal to beat them or roll over for them. Let them trivialize it when they outsmart the scenario and always leave an escape route if things go haywire. The overall average experience should inspire their confidence to move forward, but not their certainty of success.

[truemane]

As always, start with the caveat that everyone is different and everyone gets different kinds of satisfaction from different kinds of games, etc etc. We all know that.

OP, I second the advice to spend some time interrogating your pre-conceptions. It's not so much that you're wrong, as it is that you're assuming a certain, narrow example of a certain kind of gaming is somehow the universal experience. Broadening your mental horizons can only be good for you.

Personally, for me, I GM (and I've always been the primary GM for every group I've ever been a part of) because there's nothing else quite like it. No other activity is exactly the same as GM'ing and it provides a kind of artistic, social, emotional, and intellectual satisfaction that no other single experience can offer.

The twin joys of my life are writing and performing. I love to create and I love attention.

It so happens I'm pretty good at writing. And it so happens that I'm pretty awful at every kind of performance there is (except being a smart ass).

GM'ing is like writing-as-performance. It's like being there right next to someone when they read something you wrote, inside their head, reading their responses, living their reactions.

I love it when something I created generates genuine emotion. The handful of villains I've created over the years that inspired actual hatred. The NPC deaths that brought real humans close to tears. The win-or-die combats that came down to single dice rolls that ended with jumping and cheers and high-fives.

When you do it right, there's an alchemy that happens where the players are responding to your game as though it's a thing that exists, and not just a thing you made up.

Example. I once wanted to have an ally do a heel turn. How do I do that in a quick and effective way? Have him kill someone important and/or beloved (but not important enough to impact the larger plot).

So I created an NPC that traveled with the party. And I poured all my creativity into making them everyone's friend. She was fun and funny and helpful and good at fighting. She helped solve problems but didn't get in the way. She had her own story and her own plot and I laid down what looked like the groundwork for her to be around for a long time.

I kept her around for about five adventures. Then, BAM, heel turn, she's dead.

And, in retrospect, the players knew that's what I did. It was clear enough. And, even if I hadn't planned it out, still, it was me who made her likable, and me who made the ally heel-turn.

But in that moment? When their best friend was killed and all of them betrayed by someone they trusted? They were mad at HIM, not me. In that moment I wasn't the person who CREATED this situation, just the person who RELAYED it to them.

Those are the moments I live for. And I can't get that anywhere else. I write a lot of fiction but it's not the same. I do improve but it's not the same. I've done acting but it's not the same. I've even written plays and screenplays and seen the results but it's not the same.

tl;dr - GM'ing allows me to perform my writing in real-time, satisfying both my love of writing and my love of attention.

[Resileaf]

I DM because I have a story to tell, and the story has a good ending, therefore it follows that the player characters should be victorious.

[Geddy2112]

I have several reasons why I DM.

The main one is that I have a LOT of characters I want to play, more than I would be able to play in my lifetime unless I only played ttRPG's. A lot of these will never see light, but when I DM I have a ton of NPC's. I like playing with the mechanics of the system, and I can build god wizards, silly one trick ponies, rabbits with vorpal teeth, whatever I want. I get to play out all the characters and tropes I love as a DM, where as a player I get one.

A close second is that I like to see how players respond to what I throw at them. My group is notorious for thinking of the one thing I did not plan for, forcing me to improvise on the spot. I like the how as much as the what when it comes to the party's actions and goals.

Being a DM makes me a better player, both mechanically and roleplaying.

Lastly, my table says I am the best DM of the group, and several of the group are...less than great as DM. If I don't there won't be a game, or there could be a bad one.

[AnimeTheCat]

I DM because I enjoy building new lands and fleshing out governments, key people, and playing hundreds of different personalities. I can never settle on one character idea when I play, so DMing lets me taste all of them (practically to my heart's content).

The only times I complain as a DM is when I will work with a player to flesh out their character's mechanics exactly how the player wants them, then I figure out what the player is going to do to motivate their character, and then build out multiple different plot hooks (all leading in wildly different directions) that would be of interest to that character's motivations, only for that player to say "I'm bored and there's nothing for me to do in this game..." I've only had it happen three times, but man was I upset when it did.

For example, there once was a druid player who detested arcane magic and wanted to return all races to nature. I presented the player with multiple invitations to the Ashbound, to actually do what the character wanted (or stated was wanted), I even had a lord offer to provide support for the endeavors, but the player simply wanted to do dungeon diving, kill goblins and kobolds, and then complain that I never presented them with anything they wanted to do. Over the course of a year I had conversations with the player asking what kinds of things would interest them and then, by the very next game session, have those implemented into the game world, only for the player to go off and do something else entirely. That's the frustrating part of being a DM. When you put time, effort, and energy into getting the goals of each and every player on the table and available for pursuit, only for them to be ignored and then complained about.

[Jay R]

A referee who favors either team over the other is a bad referee. For the same reason, a DM who favors the monsters over the PCs, or the PCs over the monsters, is a bad DM.

When I design a scenario, I'm firmly on the players' side. I'm trying to produce encounters that they have every legitimate chance to win (and that poor play and bad decisions can still lose).

Similarly, when I teach statistics or algebra, or when I design a test, I'm firmly on the students' side. I want them to learn the material, get the questions right, and all make As. I'm trying to create test questions that they have every legitimate chance to answer correctly (and that if they haven't learned the material, they will still get wrong).

But when I am grading the test, I'm a fair and neutral judge of the answers they have written. And when running the scenario, I'm a fair and neutral judge of the PCs' actions.

[Just to avoid the red herring, I am also judging the test or the scenario. I've been known to throw out a test question, or change an encounter, if it's clear that it didn't match the level I was aiming for. But I won't do it because the students didn't learn the material, and for the same reason, I won't do it just because the players made poor decisions.]

[Aetis]

I DM because I have a story to tell.

[Pex]

I don't DM often. When I do, I do it for the fun of it. It's another way to play the game.

[Zombulian]

This is a massively unhealthy mindset. Even for a player.

[thorr-kan]

Because I am a god and this world is my plaything. The characters must be crushed. The players must be humbled. And I *love* seeing what shenanigans they pull out to avoid their fate.

Seriously? I DM because I fell in love with the Al-Qadim campaign setting in college. Since I can't play in it, I run it for the Friday Night Gaming Group. They seem to love it, so I keep DMing it. (We rotate GMs, games, and systems semi-regularly.)

Now they worship my skill, and we're back to the whole god thing again...

[Thurbane]

Well, for me (and I DM more than anyone else in my group), there's two main answers to that:

1.) Because more often than not, no one else has the time or drive to DM, so I'm kind of "DM by default" in a lot of cases.

2.) I enjoy designing challenging encounters and adventures. I'll readily admit, I love optimizing an enemy so it will present a significant challenge to the party. On occasion, I've gone to far, and almost created a TPK, but overall, I feel like I've helped my players evolve their tactics and system mastery by presenting them with difficult foes.

...at the moment, I'm running a home-brew version of Greyhawk, so I'm enjoying having an established world as an outline, but still having freedom to come up with my own story lines.

[Nifft]

This is an honest question. I really don't understand why people DM.

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

This is really confusing to understand. So you have a party, you throw a CR appropriate monster at them, and it dies just as expected. So... where do you get your jollies from this?

That's not what happens at all.

The PCs always die screaming due to my clever abuse of the CR system, and also my hilarious death traps.

By the way, I'm recruiting new players for my game.

[Calthropstu]

That's not what happens at all.

The PCs always die screaming due to my clever abuse of the CR system, and also my hilarious death traps.

By the way, I'm recruiting new players for my game.

Sign me up!

[Andry]

In 3.5 I dm'd because we as a group had talked forever about running a Drow Campaign based in Menzoberranzaan . I had been writing up NPC's and detailing a minor drow house for the guys to be a member of or a servant of for months. Finally I surprised everyone with it by telling everyone to show up with either a drow or some other suitable character starting at 5th level. The campaign lasted 3 years. Now that we are playing Pathfinder I DM just to give our main Dm a chance to play.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This is an honest question. I really don't understand why people DM.

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

Here's your first misconception. The DM doesn't lose, the antagonist NPCs do (most of the time). The DM loses when the party TPKs against an encounter that was supposed to be a normal, 20% of daily resources drained kind of encounter. The DM loses when the party is left scratching their heads with no idea what to do next because he presented things poorly. The party overcoming a combat encounter -too easily- is a DM fail unless it was supposed to be a steamroll.


This is really confusing to understand. So you have a party, you throw a CR appropriate monster at them, and it dies just as expected. So... where do you get your jollies from this?

You're too narrowly focused. Normal combat encounters can be interesting, sure, but the really fun combats are the boss fights; the ones that are supposed to have a moderate chance of wiping the party. Normal fights are useful for poking at various strategies and seeing how the players respond without making it too likely that they'll need new characters if you hit something for which they're wholly unprepared.

That aside, combat is only part of the game. Social encounters, puzzle solving, explain, and even kingdom building are all things that can pop up, depending on the group. I get my jollies from matching wits with my players and seeing where it takes us all. Though I do have a particular fondness for cloak-and-dagger stuff.


Like a lot of DMs cry like a baby when a low level PC gets high AC and then starts tailor making encounters so that every enemy has high attack. These are the bad DMs. The good DMs let the player have its moment in the sun with his high AC since later levels trivializes AC. So if your goal is to lose on purpose, yet challenge the players... I just don't understand. If the campaign is a success then you as a DM have lost 260+ encounters, which does not sound like fun for me.

The challenge in a normal combat encounter (from a GM perspective) is not to defeat the PCs (usually). It's to pull as much of their dailies out of them as possible without killing them. Make 'em earn the XP.

As for "losing 260 encounters;" that's just silly. That'd be a straight, equal CR combat grind. Boss fights and non-combat encounters will reduce that number while non-lethal combats and steamroll encounters will raise it. There's also little guarantee of making it to 20 (I like to cut things off by a little past 17 at the latest.) In the cases of non-combat and non-lethal combat encounters, there's no reason at all the players have to or even should win.


I met a DM who didn't care if he couldn't do even 1 damage to the players due to DR, miss chance, AC, incorporeality, etc. And I have met DMs who bitch to everyone else in the game about hard it is to kill certain players and then kicks them from the game.

The former probably wasn't all that interested in combat in the first place, generally considering even being in a fight a failure of some sort (his or the players') while the latter was either having a tough time dealing with a problem player or had the wrong attitude about combat encounters in the first place. If the monsters and NPCs are "your team" as a GM, you've already made a terrible mistake.


Being a player is easy. You just bring out your optimized character and steamroll over everything until you die. But a DM can't optimize his guys so that they steam roll the players. Equal Footing Encounters v.s. PC will result in TPK eventually because if it's a 50:50 chance to win, over 100+ encounters DM is bound to win once and TPK.

Bwahahahaha :smallbiggrin: Thanks. Today has been boring and I needed a laugh.

There's a whole lot of space between steamroll and even odds. A standard combat encounter is supposed to burn about 20% of the party's daily resources; Hp, spell slots, rage uses, smites, turning attempts, etc and so on. If the PCs face four encounters in one day, a 5th level appropriate challenge should carry a major risk of one or more characters being killed even though that same challenge at the beginning of the day would be easy enough. Finding the sweet spot between cake-walk and meat-grinder is one of the toughest parts of being a combat focused GM.


I have met sadistic DMs who play solely to kill PCs in a brutal yet hilarious way. I have met DMs who DM just so they can have a sense of authority and act like a king.

The former can actually be quite fun if everybody's up for it. "Hide behind the wall of bard corpses!" Meat grinders can be hilarious as long as that's what you're expecting and aren't silly enough to bring the character you spent a week writing to that session. The latter are generally a problem though. Remember the mantra; no gaming is better than bad gaming.


But the good DMs, the awesome DMs, I don't understand why they DM. I am thankful that they DM because they are awesome but I just don't get it. Why put in so much work for... what? Where do you get your jollies from???

There is entertainment value in world-building and encounter design for their own sake and there is great entertainment value in making sure your friends have a good time (hint: there's a reason we call it a party :smalltongue:). I find a great deal of enjoyment in both presenting the challenges to my friends -and- in seeing them overcome them (as long as it wasn't -too- easy :smallwink:).


Sorry if this sounds like a mad man's ramblings. It's been bothering me for far too long.

It's bothering you because you're -way- to focused on one part of the game to the exclusion of everything else and even looking at that part pretty narrowly.

[Covenant12]

DM's are storytellers. PC's are the stars of that story. Some DM's like telling stories, some enjoy making other people enjoy themselves, some both of these.

That's really it. Most other DM motivations are bad ones. (really enthusiastic about a specific setting for a story is fine.) Rescue by a "chosen of ___" is bad, DMPC's are bad, DM's who feel they have to win are terrible.

DM'ing is more work than the entire party puts into their characters, by an order of magnitude. Some DM's enjoy world-building and happily spend 100's of hours on that, others rely on modules. Some DM's prefer to play but trade off with another DM so they can relax and play a character they've always wanted to.

As DM's, hopefully they enjoy the act of creating, because they do a lot of it. That's the basic concept. Also DM's require system mastery. A barbarian can barely understand the rules and contribute, a DM needs a solid understanding or things can slow to a crawl when rolling dice, which ruins the fun.

[Elkad]

I get to play ALL the characters.

Dream it up, stat it up, test it against the party.

(plus other stuff mentioned upthread of course)

[Knaight]

This is an honest question. I really don't understand why people DM.

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

This is really confusing to understand. So you have a party, you throw a CR appropriate monster at them, and it dies just as expected. So... where do you get your jollies from this?

If that was what GMing was, I'd hate it - and I hate this sort of game as a player. Just a bunch of even CR encounters, one after the other? That sounds incredibly dull. Even if I'm phoning it in that's not what it's going to look like.

It's GMing as a performance that interests me, with the performance involving the presentation of interesting combat encounters, the development and operation of an interesting setting and the interesting characters that populate it, managing table flow and spotlight balancing, even just making and delivering interesting description and dialog, these are what I find fun.

I personally tend to approach mechanical representation as a chore to do, but if that's fun for you it's another major aspect of GMing to get enjoyment from.

[Mike Miller]

Originally I was the DM because no one else wanted to. Of course, it helped that I wanted to. I suppose even then I enjoyed creating adventures.

Now, I actually prefer character creation. I still enjoy making adventures and worlds, but I barely have time for prep. I use modules now and just tweak things a bit. I definitely enjoy seeing the story evolve and hearing the players' guesses about what will happen. Maybe this is a power trip or something, but I am an easygoing DM. I hate killing off PCs, but I have done it.

I like reading all the splat books and putting them to use. Having ALL the NPCs to work with lets me do that to an extent that being a PC wouldn't allow.

[Hrugner]

It's harder to hit that sweet spot with a challenging but defeatable encounter than it is to build a PC who breaks CR appropriate encounters. It's also fairly challenging to make a story that is engaging to everyone at the table. DMing is winning a much more challenging game than winning as a PC. I do the optimization thing myself, it's pretty fun, it's hard to do in a way that keeps the other people at the table from getting bored though. At a certain point it's just trolling. You beat encounters but make the game less fun, and annoy people just by being there, why would anyone invite that sort of player.

[martixy]

Why I DM?

Unless I did it, no one would ever create the game and setting I'd like to play in(the DM does play in the game!).
(I am incredibly permissive with character creation; the setting is full of monsters, as in cities where you can find nary a human, elf or dwarf are the norm not the exception; and the aesthetic follow ancient greek mythos storytelling tradition - epic quests, mighty foes.)

All the other things you ranted about:

The very first thing you start with seems to indicate that you suffer from the "winning/losing" delusion. It's okay. It's quite widespread. And exceedingly false.
A DM's job is to facilitate the creation of a good story. To bring about drama. To create a backdrop for heroism.

Seeing my conspiracy knot together right from under the PCs noses, then seeing them slowly unravel the tangled mess that, most times, they themselves create brings me enjoyment. Putting them in various situations that, by all accounts should create a party of corpses and getting surprised by the creative ways they manage to avoid their fate is fun. Presenting quandaries that would stump any sane person and watching them struggle with the consequences of their choices is entertaining. The performance of reprising a multitude of diverse characters is stimulating.

And lastly, as a DM and an optimizer I get to play all those crazy builds, I'd never have a chance to/be permitted to play as just another player in a game run by someone else. I'd have to be switching character every 2-3 sessions and/or overshadowing most of the party most of the time.

[Uncle Pine]

There comes a time when five friends who've never played d&d ask you about this cool thing you talk about every now and then, and how it works.
There comes a time when a player wants to play 50 or more entirely different characters, but he obviously doesn't have enough time or people around to play 50 different d&d games.
There comes a time when you realize know-it-all players can get frowned upon for being a stick in the mud, but know-it-all DMs get praised because the game works smoothly.

Yer a DM, Harry.

[Troacctid]

I'm imagining Lord Voldemort going on an internet forum to ask why more people don't just murder anyone who gets in their way and use the deaths to create horcruxes. "Am I missing something? It's win-win, right? Dispose of an enemy and live forever at the same time! Do people really care that much about their noses?" (Someone please write this fanfic, it sounds adorable.)

[RoboEmperor]

So it seems people DM because they're authors/writers of a story and gets their jollies watching other people enjoy their work. I guess it's similar to making a movie and enjoying people praising you for its quality.

Alright thanks.


Here's your first misconception. The DM doesn't lose, the antagonist NPCs do (most of the time). The DM loses when the party TPKs against an encounter that was supposed to be a normal, 20% of daily resources drained kind of encounter. The DM loses when the party is left scratching their heads with no idea what to do next because he presented things poorly. The party overcoming a combat encounter -too easily- is a DM fail unless it was supposed to be a steamroll.

You're too narrowly focused. Normal combat encounters can be interesting, sure, but the really fun combats are the boss fights; the ones that are supposed to have a moderate chance of wiping the party. Normal fights are useful for poking at various strategies and seeing how the players respond without making it too likely that they'll need new characters if you hit something for which they're wholly unprepared.

I've been exposed to mainly PvP games and the toxicity and salt in that environment made it clear to me that everyone wants to win, everyone wants to be the main star/protagonist glory hog, and no one likes helping other people enjoy the game which is why a DM who needs to do the opposite of all this puzzled me. Clearly it's because PvP games attract the worst kind of people and my mistake was using this as my basis for a gamer's mindset


The former probably wasn't all that interested in combat in the first place, generally considering even being in a fight a failure of some sort (his or the players') while the latter was either having a tough time dealing with a problem player or had the wrong attitude about combat encounters in the first place. If the monsters and NPCs are "your team" as a GM, you've already made a terrible mistake.

He was interested in combat. He just didn't mind watching PCs steamroll over CR appropriate monsters because he likes watching us be epic and heroic. Of course we weren't TO or mega high-op, we were mid-high op.


A standard combat encounter is supposed to burn about 20% of the party's daily resources; Hp, spell slots, rage uses, smites, turning attempts, etc and so on. If the PCs face four encounters in one day, a 5th level appropriate challenge should carry a major risk of one or more characters being killed even though that same challenge at the beginning of the day would be easy enough. Finding the sweet spot between cake-walk and meat-grinder is one of the toughest parts of being a combat focused GM.

See this doesn't sound fun at all. This sounds like a true chore. I don't understand how anyone can get their jollies from tailor making encounters to their player's enjoyment and not their own. That's like saying a kid who does all of his friend's homework for them while they're out having fun is having fun doing all the homework. This arguably takes up the most of the DM's effort and time which is why it puzzled me. Why would anyone do this voluntarily?

Sorry that I'm only replying to Kelb_Panthera's posts. Everyone else's post is either included in his or I have no comment because you guys explained yourselves very well.

[Uncle Pine]

See this doesn't sound fun at all. This sounds like a true chore. I don't understand how anyone can get their jollies from tailor making encounters to their player's enjoyment and not their own. That's like saying a kid who does all of his friend's homework for them while they're out having fun is having fun doing all the homework. This arguably takes up the most of the DM's effort and time which is why it puzzled me. Why would anyone do this voluntarily?

It's also not really a required chore. As long as a foe isn't glaringly grossly overpowered, which can be assessed fairly easily, you can generally throw everything you see fit at players. "Tailoring" an encounter to a party isn't as tough as it sounds because you don't need to calculate that % of resources usage, as it's naturally incorporated and assumed as part of the CR system (which has many faults, but I still find plenty useful). There are times in which I don't know beforehand how my players will deal a certain monster, but since I'm aware it's within the scope of things they can overcome and it makes sense in the story I just roll with it.

EDIT: Remember that being both a DM or a player is always a collective effort to enhance the fun of everyone at the table.

[Knaight]

So it seems people DM because they're authors/writers of a story and gets their jollies watching other people enjoy their work. I guess it's similar to making a movie and enjoying people praising you for its quality.

That's what a lot of these seem to be saying - but coming back to mine, I emphasize "performance" for a reason. I don't author a story; I don't even have any real idea of the course of the game at the start - that's one of the things that player input determines. That input is also a large part of the reason it's fun for me; I have to think on my toes and adapt to a changing situation because of the other people involved, not just memorize a performance then do it.

[Eldariel]

Initially I GM'd because nobody else in the group would and I wanted to play. I think this is a rather common starting point in many groups but it evolves. DMing is actually fun and particularly if you have even an inkling of storyteller within you it can feel awesome. Eventually many reasons unfolded for me:
- I have very deep, broad system mastery. This allows me to run games at a higher power level than anybody else I usually play with. So if I want to play a high-powered (Tier 1, high level) game I'll almost have to DM it for it to be rewarding.
- I love running sandboxes. Contrary to popular belief, players don't always have to win and not all encounters are fair or even really winnable. I love letting the players sculpt their own fate. The world just responds in kind.
- I have many game worlds I want to run. I use the games as a vessel to bring those worlds to life, and let the players sculpt their stories in.
- I love building characters and creatures. I have too many builds I like and want to run. As a DM the gameworld can contain any number of those and any number of synergistic ones in an organisation and any number of monsters modified in any way. Never as a player could I run all the things I'd want; there aren't enough games in the world. As a DM I can run any number of any builds I want in one game and it's all good. Of course, the build may never come up or enter an encounter on-screen but so what? I still get to run anything I want. This also means I can make do with minimal prep since I can just enter stuff I have floating around into the game. I had a ton of unique different Orc ToB-based Warriors in a LotR-inspired game I've been running for example.
- Ultimately, giving other people good experiences is a lot of fun. People tend to enjoy playing with me at least based on the feedback I've received, so I gain pleasure out of that. I enjoy everyone having a good time and I enjoy letting people do things they couldn't normally do (I'm rather permissive far as DMs go as long as the power level of the game has been set appropriately).

[Pleh]

So it seems people DM because they're authors/writers of a story and gets their jollies watching other people enjoy their work. I guess it's similar to making a movie and enjoying people praising you for its quality.

No.

It's more like making a movie with your best friends with no budget, just a personal camera and whatever you make for costumes and props.

The DM may be the one holding the camera, directing, and making decisions about what changes to make to each scene, but they all get to share the glory of the story that ends up getting told. Even if the actors are only performers, not creative contributors, it's still just as much THEIR movie as it is the DM's.

[NichG]

As a DM, I tend to consider something a victory if it causes the players to change in some way. It could be that they were ready to hate some organization thoroughly, but then found something redeemable in it. It could be that they came to some realization or new idea about the setting's cosmology. It could even just be that they decided to change their build based on ideas or pressures that they experienced during play. Presenting something which is compelling enough that a player thinks differently in some way after encountering it is the best outcome one could hope for.

The legions of enemies who lie dead at their feet are merely a tool to achieve that outcome - them dying to the PCs isn't a loss and them killing the PCs isn't a win. A loss is if they die without their death contributing to the thing I'm trying to set up or communicate or worse, if their involvement gets in the way - e.g. popcorn monsters are a success if my goal is to teach players how their abilities work or build confidence in their characters' capabilities and a failure if they kill half the party; a boss monster is a success if it causes the players to take a moment to think tactically and change their approach and then kindly dies to the new method, and a failure if even after tactical consideration the monster is too difficult and as a result sends the message that tactical thought is meaningless.

[Dimers]

This sounds like a true chore. I don't understand how anyone can get their jollies from tailor making encounters to their player's enjoyment and not their own. That's like saying a kid who does all of his friend's homework for them while they're out having fun is having fun doing all the homework.

People can like all kinds of things, including what others consider 'work'. I enjoy cooking a meal and my wife only does so grudgingly; she loves to work in the garden and I'd consider it a chore. At my library, I'm glad my coworkers handle children and in-depth questions, and they're glad that I enjoy cataloging. I wouldn't have a good time making art, like my daughter does, but she would hate the heavy-mechanics boardgames I adore.

I first understood this idea thanks to Tom Sawyer, the bit about whitewashing a fence. (Which wasn't the point of the story, but it's what I took away from it, my first lesson in positive thinking.) People can approach a task with an attitude of enjoyment or an attitude of drudgery.

[Delta]

So it seems people DM because they're authors/writers of a story and gets their jollies watching other people enjoy their work. I guess it's similar to making a movie and enjoying people praising you for its quality.

Similar, but different.

If you're "just" a wannabe author and want to "tell a story" that way, your game is most likely gonna be very railroady and not a lot of fun for the players. There's a big difference in the kind of story you tell and the way it's being told.

Or maybe put it like that: A good DM doesn't tell a good story, a good DM creates the stage, props and supporting cast for the protagonists to create their own story. The same way I love it when a player says "Wow, that was awesome!", a DM can say after a game "Wow, that was awesome!" and honestly be in awe of what the players did, that's an experience you simply can't have as an author or writer, because in the end, everything that happens in a story you write is exactly what you write. When running a game, all bets are off. In the campaign final I mentioned above, I had no idea which of the characters (if any) would survive. I had no idea what their last words would be, I had no idea how exactly everything would play out. Embracing that is a big part of being a good DM.

[Jay R]

DMs always lose because you're supposed to.

One huge difference between a player and a DM is the huge difference in the score of what they are doing.

Even if we trivialize it to the point where I think of the people I'm running as "my characters", I still win more than I lose.

Yes, I'm running the tyrant baron you just defeated, but I'm also running the thousands of people he's been oppressing.

Yes, I'm running the pirate crew you just killed, but I'm also running the hostages you just freed.

Yes, I'm running the ogres who kidnapped the princess, and who just slaughtered, but I'm also running the princess you just saved.

Yes, I'm running the evil priest you were hired to stop, but I'm also running the good priestess who hired you to stop him.

To the extent that I identify with anyone in the scenario, it's the decent people who needed help, not the evil they needed help against.

[Nifft]

One huge difference between a player and a DM is the huge difference in the score of what they are doing.

Even if we trivialize it to the point where I think of the people I'm running as "my characters", I still win more than I lose.

Yes, I'm running the tyrant baron you just defeated, but I'm also running the thousands of people he's been oppressing.

Yes, I'm running the pirate crew you just killed, but I'm also running the hostages you just freed.

Yes, I'm running the ogres who kidnapped the princess, and who just slaughtered, but I'm also running the princess you just saved.

Yes, I'm running the evil priest you were hired to stop, but I'm also running the good priestess who hired you to stop him.

To the extent that I identify with anyone in the scenario, it's the decent people who needed help, not the evil they needed help against.

But none of those NPCs have the opportunity to hurt, belittle, humiliate, bully, or otherwise assert their power over anyone.

How am I supposed to feel good about myself if I'm not hurting, belittling, humiliating, bullying, or otherwise asserting power over someone?

[Kelb_Panthera]

See this doesn't sound fun at all.

Subjective point is subjective. That said, I find the solving of puzzles quite enjoyable and this is a continually changing puzzle with myriad answers. The tactical engagement during the actual encounter at the table is fun too but it can't be if you half-ass the preparation.


This sounds like a true chore. I don't understand how anyone can get their jollies from tailor making encounters to their player's enjoyment and not their own.

By not doing that. I don't tailor the encounter to their fun. I tailor the encounter to their characters' limitations and abilities and then do my level best to kill their characters with the too-little resources I've provided myself. The fun for all of us is in seeing just how far I get with those too-little resources (which does occasionally get somebody's PC bodied.)


That's like saying a kid who does all of his friend's homework for them while they're out having fun is having fun doing all the homework.

That kid exists. He's a weird kid but he's out there.


This arguably takes up the most of the DM's effort and time which is why it puzzled me. Why would anyone do this voluntarily?

Whether it's the lion's share of prep' depends on what kind of campaign you're running. It's definitely a slightly different kind of fun than just character building but it's in the same vein. The biggest difference is in the goal. The PCs just want victory, the GM wants to get as close to victory as possible in what is usually supposed to be an unwinnable scenario. It's like dark souls in the early levels.

[Jay R]

I teach fencing, and enjoy it.
I run fencing tournaments I can’t compete in, and enjoy it.
I've judged arts competitions I couldn't enter, and enjoyed it.
I teach algebra and statistics, and enjoy it.
I’ve tutored students, and enjoyed it.
I cook dinner for me and my wife (and at present, my mother), and enjoy it.
I spent two summers as a Philmont Ranger, teaching wilderness skills to Scouts, and enjoyed it.
I’ve been an Assistant Scoutmaster, and enjoyed it.
I’ve run tourney games of Cosmic Encounters and KingMaker at conventions, and enjoyed it.

And yes, I DM games of D&D, and enjoy it.

I can’t explain why. Either these things appeal to you, or they don’t.

And if DMing doesn’t appeal to you, then please, please, for the sake of your players, don’t do it.

[Troacctid]

I mean, if you're really a powergamer, DMing is the fastest way to powerlevel your characters in 5e organized play. Just today I ran a high-level adventure and earned almost 50,000 xp, which I can now apply to any of my characters, and when I do, it comes attached to about 20,000 gp and a magic item.

[Saintheart]

For me, the cooking analogy probably comes closest.

Why do you host and cook something for your friends when they come round for dinner? Chefs at least get paid for what they do, why do you cook? You're at best an amateur entertainer, you could hire a goddamn band to make your friends smile or just sit down and watch a movie and order some pizza. Why go to all the trouble?

Because: you love the whole process. You love the gathering and preparation of ingredients, the creation, as much as, if not more than, what happens when your friends eat what you've made for them. You love the calculation, of determining X number of grams to Y cups of water. You love the smell of the dough as the yeast, flour, water, and salt combine. You love the warmth that starts to build in your hands as you knead this dough. You love the anxiety as you screw up part of the process or part of the calculations and have to improvise something. You love that moment when the timer goes 'ping' on the oven and it's time to bring out what you've made. You love thinking about the smiles, the agonised looks, the surprises, and the satisfaction on your friends' faces while you're doing all this. And when you're actually hosting, you love the process of passing out what you've made, watching their faces as they react to the thing on the plate for the first time, and you love -- hopefully most of all -- what goes on amongst you and your friends as you proceed to consume that meal. And if you're lucky, you remember at the end of the night, when everyone's headed home happy and full and laughing, that ...

... sure, none of this could happen without you, but more hopefully you'll remember that you also have an awesome group of friends -- or acquaintances over a web camera -- or strangers you will never meet -- who turn up. That's important because at the end of the day, all you have to offer is an experience, and every time they turn up to a session, or make a new post, or connect to you online, they are affirming the experience you give. It is both delayed gratification and continuing gratification, if you want to get cold and psychoanalytical about it, but it's also a social game, as in, one of the many games we play as people getting along on this planet.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I have a lot of reasons to DM.

The first one is that my group need one(the reason I started DMing).

The second one is a list of everything else:


I get to play all the characters i ever made, some of them as npcs, some as enemies, ext..

I am the world, I am everything.

I get to make my friends to have fun.

I get to make people think, thinking pepole are making this stupid world smarter.

I get to mess up my friends.

I get to create weird and crazy stuff with my DM power to change the world.

I am always the main character(like the BBEG).

I have more stuff but I need to remember it

[LordBlade]

I DM because nobody else wants to. :p

I don't mind it too much, but I have to be in a creative mood to do it well. I prefer to do it when either I've found a decent campaign to run that I've got well memorized, or I've come up with something nice and complex of my own. But that takes time, so I like it when we get to rotate who's DM.

[Rynjin]

I DM because it's the only way to make sure a game I want to play in actually exists somewhere in the world.

...I try not to think about how depressing that is a lot of the time. But eventually if I run enough games maybe a player will pick up the same set of houserules and stuff I use and run one for me. ='(

I also GM because I like pulling stuff out of my ass and testing my improv skills. I have a severe allergy to planning more than a basic outline of what's going to happen, and I tend to just roll with whatever the players do. The game I started up a few weeks ago has been testing this to the limit, largely because I off-handedly mentioned to a player I allow a lot of third party, and I'd even let them play a Pathfinder-ified version of the Clod (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4gFZ0PCY-gla20tcFdMcjVZRUU/view), and they immediately fell in love.

DMing for a character that is functionally a child in a burly man's body has been both challenging and very useful and rewarding (I can always count on them to do something pretty dumb, so I can count on them to make something happen when there's a lull in the action that I can bounce off of).

And I GM because it's just fun to make other people have fun. The cooking analogy above is good. I love cooking, and trying out new recipes (or modifications of old ones). I love when people enjoy my food, or my games. It makes me feel good to CREATE. The act of creating something is such a pure joy, it's the best feeling in the world to me. I have never felt more alive than when I'm tinkering with a new subsystem, writing the rules for a potential board game I may or may not publish, attempting to write a story, or just GMing a game (where creating MOMENTS is the art).

It's easy to get burnt out or overload on any of those, of course, but that's why you need to take it easy and play, read, have someone else cook for you, or whatever some days. But a mix of both is best, in anything.