What do you perceive is harder? Being a Player or a GM?

[Easy e]

Simple question, what do you perceive as harder to do?

1. Player
Harder- You have to know your character inside and out, and play them properly. This includes the mechanics, role in the party, and role-play the character. You have to work with the group dynamics and work with your fellow party members.

You have to recall and decipher all the GM's stupid plot points, NPCs and clues. :)

Easier- You get to react to the world and uncover it as you go.

2. GM
Harder- You have to make an engaging world, PCs, and Scenes for players to interact with, You have to know the rules well enough to not get buffaloed, or deal with the occasional rules lawyer. Your job is to set the pace, tone, and make judgement calls. You may feel responsibly for people at the table having fun.

Easier- You word is law, and you can outsource some of the heavy lifting to players in a pinch. They solve the problems you pose, you don't solve them! You get to react to the players.



I think both offer unique challenges, but for you personally what role is more challenging?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Harder? DM. Many more things to track, much more of a "single point of failure", at least in "traditional" games.

More rewarding and, to me, more fun? Also DM. Which is why I do it more than anything else. In part because worldbuilding is a large chunk of my fun.

[Palanan]

Being a GM is a thousand times harder.

I say this as I sit here feeling steamrolled and creatively exhausted, trying to plan for my next session with half my players either deployed or avalanched with family issues, and a small cloud of potential new players like quantum gnats, buzzing vaguely while not fully here or not-here, some of whom have never played a d20 RPG before.

Like PhoenixPhyre, I enjoy worldbuilding and throw myself into it, but that also means I want to build everything myself and that leads to mountains of effort. Designing interesting encounters, that both engage the players and help advance the overall storyline, is another thick layer of effort, and one that I often have a great deal of trouble with. Creating histories, cultures, landscapes, languages all makes sense to me; but devising encounters and balancing game mechanics is a struggle more often than not.

Add to that building, developing and playing every other person and creature in the campaign world—goals, motivations, personalities, abilities—to say nothing of keeping track of rules and class features, especially when I keep tripping over tiny and not-so-tiny differences between 3.5 and Pathfinder. I still sometimes ask my players for a Spot check or a Search check or a Jump check; fortunately they’re used to it.

Scheduling, bookkeeping, XP; finding artwork and battlemaps that fit the mood and the environment; fighting with Roll20 and Discord, both of which were apparently designed by lobotomized apricots; trying to keep track of individual character arcs and player aspirations in the context of a complex storyline that they impact with every session.

It’s a highly demanding part-time job with no pay, no benefits, and for the most part no help from anyone else. It has its moments, but it’s emotionally draining and incredibly time-intensive. I wanted to just be a player, but no one else wanted to DM, so I stepped up and here I am, right on the raggedy edge.

[OldTrees1]

Being a GM is significantly harder and it goes up from there.

The main burden on being a GM is that you have more to create. This is why GMing requires more prep time per week than being a Player does. This burden only increases if you are more ambitious in what you create, or if your tools are fighting you.

Palanan covers this in more detail above.

[False God]

Being a GM. It's just more to deal with. More rules, more characters, more people, more subsystems. A skilled DM can make it feel like its a lesser load, can find ways to manage it better, but fundamentally it's just more volume and therefore more difficult.

Not saying it can't also be more rewarding, only that it is simply more work.

---
I think being a player can seem difficult, even if you are good. Especially when dealing with new people, a new system or a new campaign. Different groups can have different bars and learning curves. Figuring those out, especially when you're the new player in an old group can be difficult as those things aren't always communicated. And while that's hard, it's still not as hard as having to actually run and manage the entire game.

[stoutstien]

IMO being a GM is anywhere from 10 to 100 more difficult but about 4 times more rewarding.

[Telonius]

Having been both, GM, no question. Planning out all of the sessions beforehand, actually running the thing, rules mastery, dealing with derails and unexpected turns, creating multiple memorable NPCs that have distinct personalities that you have to play (sometimes several in the same scene) ... absolutely more work, and the work is harder.

[KorvinStarmast]

GM/DM burnout is a very real thing for a reason: it takes more out of you.

In other news, water is wet. :smallsmile:

[icefractal]

GM, definitely. I mean, GMing can in some cases be more enjoyable than playing, but it's still more work even then.

The only thing that's easier is that most foes can be built a lot more sloppily than a PC. And in some systems the foes are very mechanically simple. But honestly mechanics are not the part of GMing I consider "hard work" - roleplaying many characters, spotlight management, making decent rulings, prep and/or improv, and maintaining good pacing are all more difficult than that, for me at least.

[Atranen]

Is there anyone who thinks being a player is harder? I don't see how that could be the case. Maybe in an odd system.

[Mastikator]

If being a player is harder, why is it harder to find a GM? Many GMs wishes to be players if only there was someone else to take their place. Many players... wishes to find a group if only they could find a GM.

Yeah GM is easily and by orders of magnitude harder, it's not even close. GMs often spend more time on prep than the players spend combined on their characters. The majority of the effort is on the GM alone.

It's more rewarding to be a GM though. Also by far.

Edit- the expectation on GMs is also orders of magnitude higher. To be a good GM you have to

Prepare a campaign
Consider each player
Consider each character
Consider more NPCs than the players can imagine
Make up a bunch of nonsense on the spot during play
Listen to everyone equally and not play favorites (even though some players are obviously more helpful)
Consider interesting quests that will compell players to action
Consider rewards for players that won't bone you in the long term
Have amazing understanding of the rules
Have amazing ruling capabilites


To be a good player you have to

Know what your character can and can't do
Take notes and pay attention, maybe have a plan
Not be disruptive


The GM has to be an amazing person, the player has to not be a jerk. The expectations are completely out of whack.

[LibraryOgre]

GM, without a doubt.

Being a player means showing up. It helps if you have a basic idea of the rules, and if you want to invest some personality in your character, all the better. But baseline player is really easy.

Being a GM means homework. You have to know the rules, know the setting, know the scenario (whether you're writing it or not). A fair amount of this can be half-assed, but even a half-ass GM job is way beyond a bare minimum player job of "Show up, keep breathing, respond to prompts."

[Jophiel]

GM easily.

Setting aside the massive labor of running a persistent open world, even when I would DM Adventurer's League modules (already packaged up for me), I'd have to read it 2-3 times ahead of time so I didn't bog down play by being confused about my own game, create and print out battle maps, locate and print tokens, decide and prep how I was going to play the NPCs and then all the usual stuff about running the game: knowing rules for everyone, not just your one subclass, answering questions, mediating disagreements, etc. It was satisfying and enjoyable -- especially when your table next week had all the same players -- but definitely more effort than *playing* a game which was "Show up, be engaged and hopefully know your To Hit modifier and/or spell list".

I've also run plenty of home brew but the point is that even "easy mode GMing" out of a module for a 2-3hr one-shot was still way more work than playing it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I will say it's easier to be a bad GM than a good one, by a lot. But let's not try to be bad GMs or players.

And having good players does lighten the load--I know I can prep less and ad lib more if the players are really into the game and their characters. Well...really prep differently. But differently in a way that I personally find easier. More situations and scenarios, less exact maps and DCs and decision trees.

[Batcathat]

As fun as it would be to disagree with literally everyone, I have to agree that being a GM is harder, though by how much depends a lot on both system and GM style (and the players, I suppose. While I seem to have been fairly lucky in that department, some players seem to increase the workload and/or stress level by a lot).

[stoutstien]

I will say it's easier to be a bad GM than a good one, by a lot. But let's not try to be bad GMs or players.

And having good players does lighten the load--I know I can prep less and ad lib more if the players are really into the game and their characters. Well...really prep differently. But differently in a way that I personally find easier. More situations and scenarios, less exact maps and DCs and decision trees.
This cannot be over stated. Good players(not meaning beings able to memorize the rules or play tactical 5D chess) exponentially drop the GMs work load.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This cannot be over stated. Good players(not meaning beings able to memorize the rules or play tactical 5D chess) exponentially drop the GMs work load.

And increase the reward even faster. Playing with detached, mostly-not-into-it players is hard work and low fun. Playing with involved, actively-biting-at-hooks, actively creating hooks players who mostly handle the interpersonal stuff so the GM doesn't also have to play table mommy? Way less work and way way way more fun.

Edit: apathy is just about the worst. Players that are just like "meh, whatever." suck to GM for. Because you have to drag them through everything without getting any emotional feedback/energy from them in return. Even hate is better than apathy IMO.

[Easy e]

Well, since I don't get to play as much as I used to I find it harder. Mostly learning the "tricks" of the system/class and staying in character is a lot harder than I expect every. single. time.



I actually find GMing pretty easy as I "outsource" a lot of the work to the players to do. Sometimes, when I sit down to play I don't even have anything but the 1st scene sketched out in my mind. The rest develops as play goes along and I follow the lead of the Players. Typical set-up is an In Media Res and there are no "We meet at an Inn" type beginnings. The players then show me where to go and what they want to do, and I just add some details as we go along. Sometimes, I actually have to lay out a potential path, but my folks are pretty self-motivated.

Therefore, I don't "prep" a world like so many others do, I just let it develop as we go and take notes as I go along. My typical set-up is that they are in the borderlands of a great and decaying kingdom that can no long support these outlying regions, so there is plenty of space to fill in. The players themselves fill in a lot during character creation as I ask them questions about their character to help me and them get a feel for it. Then I feather those things in as well.

If it is your typical "Out-on-the-Frontier" style game it is even easier as have the "fun" is exploring and learning stuff.

[gbaji]

GM by a landslide. Much much much harder. You basically have to cover everything. I actually swap GMing duties with another person at my table, so I see this side by side in the same exact game setting and system. I sometimes have near panic attacks if game day comes along, and I realize "crap. I have to write up X, Y, or Z, and have this done by start of game session". As a player? All I have to do is show up with my character sheet. And just sit back and enjoy the game.



Edit- the expectation on GMs is also orders of magnitude higher. To be a good GM you have to

Prepare a campaign
Consider each player
Consider each character
Consider more NPCs than the players can imagine
Make up a bunch of nonsense on the spot during play
Listen to everyone equally and not play favorites (even though some players are obviously more helpful)
Consider interesting quests that will compell players to action
Consider rewards for players that won't bone you in the long term
Have amazing understanding of the rules
Have amazing ruling capabilites


Yup. You touched on this, but it bears repeating. Everything the GM puts into the game has to be considered carefully, not just as an effect in the short term, but also in a "how might this be horribly abused or imbalanced in the future?". You have to write storylines, create NPCs to fit into those things, and craft all of this such that it both makes sense, the players can follow along naturally without feeling like they're being railroaded *and* not make some really massive mistake and leave a gaping hole in your adventure for the PCs to march right through.

And yeah. You have to know the rules as well or better than your players. You have to know the setting as well or better than your players. And if you are fumbling around, trying to find materials, or figure things out while the players are sitting there waiting, it's going to be a poor experience for everyone.



To be a good player you have to

Know what your character can and can't do
Take notes and pay attention, maybe have a plan
Not be disruptive


Yup. Literally just show up with your character sheet (and know the rules enough to know what the stuff on that sheet means). That's it. Everything else is handled by the GM. Ok. Yeah. You have to play the character and not be a jerk (I'd hope that's a minimum for both positions though). Now to be fair, I usually take on the role of "party treasurer/recordkeeper". But that's like nothing. One spiral notebook. Open to new page. Write start date/location (maybe adventure name if the GM named it). Pencil in a box to one side with the watch schedule (once that's determined). Er... And write down stuff you find, and put names next to them for who got what. Maybe doodle some notes about important things, names, places, etc. That's like 1/1000th the work the GM puts in for any given adventure. I don't have to come up with anything. Just take notes. How hard is that?

You also have the advantage as a player that you (your character) is actually gaining "stuff" while playing. You get the experience (both personally and on your character sheet). Your character gains items, skills, etc. You "advance" in some way. GMs don't take nearly the kind of pride or interest in changes to their NPCs as players do to their PCs (I can write an NPC with pretty much anything I want, but can't do that with my PCs). There's a little more tangible reward/gain for the players there. When players "win", it feels good and is a victory. The same sort of thing doesn't exist on the GM side. The GM "wins" when the players have a good time, which usually *isn't* about the "GM winning", or at least not the GM's NPCs winning. That's usually "bad" for the players. So the GM has to balance "difficult/challenging" with "fun/rewarding". And that can be tricky.



I actually find GMing pretty easy as I "outsource" a lot of the work to the players to do. Sometimes, when I sit down to play I don't even have anything but the 1st scene sketched out in my mind. The rest develops as play goes along and I follow the lead of the Players. Typical set-up is an In Media Res and there are no "We meet at an Inn" type beginnings. The players then show me where to go and what they want to do, and I just add some details as we go along. Sometimes, I actually have to lay out a potential path, but my folks are pretty self-motivated.

Therefore, I don't "prep" a world like so many others do, I just let it develop as we go and take notes as I go along. My typical set-up is that they are in the borderlands of a great and decaying kingdom that can no long support these outlying regions, so there is plenty of space to fill in. The players themselves fill in a lot during character creation as I ask them questions about their character to help me and them get a feel for it. Then I feather those things in as well.

If it is your typical "Out-on-the-Frontier" style game it is even easier as have the "fun" is exploring and learning stuff.

How long do these games tend to go though? I find that you can do this for a short while in a setting, but at some point, the players start to expect some kind of story or plot or... something. Some reason why they are where they are, doing what they are doing. And yes, you can absolutely craft that based on PC backstory and player proposed ideas, but you still have to actually craft that stuff. And you have to make it make sense.

There's a definite skill to taking 5 or 6 separate player backstory and/or proposed storyarcs and weaving them together into a single coherent set of scenarios for the PCs to actually play through. Sometimes, things just mesh up well. But sometimes? It can be a struggle. Again though, that's stuff the GM has to do that the players really don't. Even if you are asking your players for detailed backstory and storyarc objectives (not uncommon), the player doesn't have to consider how those things are going to "fit" with anything else. You have to do that part. And that's by far the hardest part IMO.

[Easy e]

Most of the campaign are 8-12 sessions of about 4 hours per game session. So 32-48 hours or so. Then it is time to let some one else take a shot at it.

I don't really do long drawn out campaigns myself, but some of my fellow GMs prefer that. I typically start with a inciting incident and some vague idea of the campaign end state objectives. All the stuff in between?

Of course, I will be the first to admit that I could be a bad GM too. :)

[False God]

Is there anyone who thinks being a player is harder? I don't see how that could be the case. Maybe in an odd system.

For the sake of argument....

I mostly wonder about how much easier "book DMing" is, that is running a pre-printed adventure module or campaign and really sticking to the script. It's just something I don't do because I don't enjoy it, but I wonder if that makes DMing "easier" or at least "easy as" being a player.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For the sake of argument....

I mostly wonder about how much easier "book DMing" is, that is running a pre-printed adventure module or campaign and really sticking to the script. It's just something I don't do because I don't enjoy it, but I wonder if that makes DMing "easier" or at least "easy as" being a player.

IMX, "book DMing" is of varying difficulty depending on the module being run. At least for bare-bones DM jobs. It's really really hard for me, because I have...opinions...about running things. And running anything by just following the script is hard for me. So it feels really constraining to me and thus more stressful to "do well".

But I could imagine it's a lot easier if you don't have those issues. Especially if the module and the players get along well and the players lean in and accept the constraints of the module.

[Pauly]

The volume of work required to be a GM is much more. That’s why published campaigns are a thing.

Leaving aside volume of work/time considerations.
If you have proactive and engaged players being a GM is easier. You put a skeleton out there and the players build up the muscles, sinews, skin and hair themselves.
If you have passive and distracted players being a GM is much harder. It’s the proverbial herding cats.

As a player if the other players are engaged you put your energy into your character. If the other players are unengaged you put your energy into working with the other characters. It’s more fun if the other players are engaged but it’s more or less the same amount of effort.

tl;dr - good other players = easier to be a GM, poor other players = easier to be a player.

[Telok]

Is there anyone who thinks being a player is harder? I don't see how that could be the case. Maybe in an odd system.

Me. Yes, I'm weird.

Now obviously this takes some explaining. TLDR is that when I run games; 1) it's games that the prep is easy & fun*, and 2) once my prep is done the game just flows.

* keeping in mind that this definition of fun includes trawling off in the Atomic Rockets website and writing game subsystem simulator programs

First thing I do for GMing is ditch games that don't sing to me. They can't have dull parts, tedious subsystems, glitchy math, having to constantly override the rules to keep it working, or have mechanics that end up as a sarcastic joke. This is mostly subjective, but stuff like blinding everyone on the battlefield with total darkness to negate the attack penalty from being pitched around on a ship in a storm hits both the "glitchy math" and "sarcastic joke" points.

Second thing is trim off the excess fat. Decide which subsystems I won't use. Limit the number of monsters and reformat the stat blocks so there's no book checking in the middle of game. Max 3 or 4 cheat sheets of the common bits & bobs that usually need lookups. One cheat sheet each for the major subsystems, that includes combat. Grab/make a dice roller app if it'll help, especially for random tables (one app for dice & all tables or it's a no-go).

Third thing is testing. Take an hour or two to run through all the bits as fast as I can with just my prep. Does it play well? Did I need to recheck the books for stuff? What needs tweaks to feel right? Did anything stop me from improvising? Can I draw a decent map in a minute or two? (not in an online vtt I can't, so that's out)

Fourth is the setting. I do sandboxes. I have bunches of stuff set up, one starter adventure that ends in a bunch of other hooks, some generic prepped bits, and some random generation stuff.

That's it. Once they're past that initial adventure they're on to doing something and I'm not generating the plot anymore unless I really really want to do something specific. I draw maps, pick stuff out of my setting & monster selection, and have the universe react. Oh, and take notes of the friends (few) & enemies (many) they make along the way. They get stuck? Enemy (or agents of) kicks in the door and starts shooting. And there will be a clue on some dead body for them to do something with.

Paranoia, AD&D, DtD40k7e, Champions, call of Cthulhu, Traveller. It just flows, easy like. I prepped, it was good prep, it sustains me for a year or more of GMing. And since I don't throw it away I can pick it right back up again and run another campaign in that setting. I'm doing this for fun. It's not work and it's not hard.

I find being a player harder. D&D has gotten dull and repetitive, but the D&D flavor of the month is all that's on offer here. Online doesn't work, around 7 PM people start whining about it being midnight or they have to go to work in an hour or such. That's just geography, it's not gonna change this epoch. I just can't bring myself to give a **** about D&D mechanics any more, and it's mechanics just get more intrusive or stultifying or jank every edition since Y2K. The people are good, the D&D is like old congealed grease pizza. I'm over the themed 5/10/15-room dungeon filled with interchangable hp blobs that have a random unpredictable abilities. It doesn't matter if you slap a selection of extraplanar adjectives on it and call it a mysterious portal of exploration, it's still a theme dungeon with a dozen nodes and a batch of "wear down the hp blob" fights. It's hard, as a player, to give a **** about D&D.

[Pauly]

Is there anyone who thinks being a player is harder? I don't see how that could be the case. Maybe in an odd system.

To follow up a little on what Telok said. I agree with his comments about where being a GM can be easier.

What can make being a player harder:
- Making decisions on incomplete information. The GM always has complete info.
- having to solve moral dilemmas. The GM sets the quandary but doesn't have to make the decision.
- working with other players who have different agendas to create plans. The GM has complete fiat to make their own plan.
- taking actions and hoping the other players will back you up. The GM’s NPCs will always work as a team if desired.
- you only have on PC with limited resources. the GM has an unlimited number of NPCs with unlimited resources,

In short PCs have to deal with uncertainty and limited resources. GMs have to deal with prep.

[icefractal]

- taking actions and hoping the other players will back you up. The GM’s NPCs will always work as a team if desired.That's true, something which can be aggravating as a player and isn't even a concern as GM.

Personally speaking, the fact that I don't like feeling like I'm blundering around, but also don't like bugging people to do particular things, means that I'm lukewarm on systems that have too much teamwork involved. I like teamwork in the sense of "each member brings unique skills to the party, and we're stronger together than separately" but not in the sense of "we need to plan everybody's turns together".

[Vahnavoi]

Being a game master is often by design set up to be more work than being a player - simply by the virtue of game master also being a game's organizer, while a player is usually just a participant. A lot of the challenges are, however, completely different. Most of player-facing difficulty is game difficulty and many things that would be hard to a player, a game master can sleepwalk through. On the flip side, a player typically doesn't have to worry of organizing and game design details.

The differences are pronounced for me when I serve as a convention game master. Smaller hobby groups manage to share organizing duties more evenly between each other, so the differences in what they do is less pronounced before play starts.

---

EDIT:

For the sake of argument....

I mostly wonder about how much easier "book DMing" is, that is running a pre-printed adventure module or campaign and really sticking to the script. It's just something I don't do because I don't enjoy it, but I wonder if that makes DMing "easier" or at least "easy as" being a player.

Running modules versus your own material is similar to playing music from notes versus playing from memory. As in, you better have put as much effort into learning how to read someone else's notes as you would've put into making your own material, if you want similar results.

Now, speaking as a game designer, it's totally possible to make game material so that it takes less out of a game master to pick up and hold a game, than what many traditional games do. There's also a variety of approaches that can achieve this. But I'm so out of touch with mainstream modules that I can't say if, for example, contemporary D&D modules are up to snuff.

[KorvinStarmast]

If being a player is harder, why is it harder to find a GM? {snip} The expectations are completely out of whack. Yes.

A fair amount of this can be half-assed, but even a half-ass GM job is way beyond a bare minimum player job of "Show up, keep breathing, respond to prompts." As a player, I am not a fan of players who "show up, keep breathing, respond to prompts." And I don't mind letting t hem know that if it is their entire approach.
From time to time, during a session, a player may revert to that mode and we all get it. The problem becomes when the player is mailing it in during each session. At that point, I'm happy to let them know that they are encroaching on the table's fun.
The games are better if we are all playing.
The play's the thing.

And having good players does lighten the load--I know I can prep less and ad lib more if the players are really into the game and their characters.

This cannot be over stated. Good players(not meaning beings able to memorize the rules or play tactical 5D chess) exponentially drop the GMs work load. True.

Playing with detached, mostly-not-into-it players is hard work and low fun. For the other players as well. See above. (Which is why I like our Quartus group so much: all of us have buy in).

But I'm so out of touch with mainstream modules that I can't say if, for example, contemporary D&D modules are up to snuff. The content itself is decent, but how it is presented is, due to being in book form and overly verbose in a lot of ways, for a lot of DM's an annoyance. Kurt Kurageous has some very pointed, and IMO spot on, observations on how WotC in particular needs to improve the presentation and organization of an adventure.

[Easy e]

On the subject of Book GMing versus Your Own Creation:

No surprise, I find book GMing to be much harder to do because my ability to ad lib as needed is constrained by the written material. It is much harder to "wing it" and therefore follow where the players want to go.

[Ionathus]

Is there anyone who thinks being a player is harder? I don't see how that could be the case. Maybe in an odd system.

Being a player is sometimes emotionally harder for me, because I can't turn off the DM part of my brain. I don't argue with another DM's rulings when I'm playing at their table, but having once held complete creative freedom over the rules of the universe, it's very hard for me as a player whenever the fun solution I had in mind doesn't work -- especially when I feel like *I* would've let my players succeed with this idea if the roles were reversed.

This goes hand-in-hand with the other difficulty of being a player: split focus. Sure I get to have my cool moments, but by necessity I can't be talking nonstop and have to share the spotlight. That makes it even more frustrating if my turn in combat comes up and whatever thing I wanted to do doesn't have any effect -- great, time to wait for the spellcasters to shuffle through their cards yet again, call me in 30 minutes.

DMing is 1000 times more challenging mentally and requires loads more preparation and poise, plus a ton of soft skills, or the game falls apart. But being constantly plugged into the action means that the GM gets to participate in the entire session. There's no "dead" time for me when I'm DMing like there always is when I'm a player (and yeah, even if you're actively listening or helping throw focus to another player, you will inevitably feel disconnected from the session at some point or another.)

[KorvinStarmast]

That makes it even more frustrating if my turn in combat comes up and whatever thing I wanted to do doesn't have any effect -- great, time to wait for the spellcasters to shuffle through their cards yet again, call me in 30 minutes. Not all tables are that slow. Talk to your fellow players about that: they need to be ready to act on their turn, not all of a sudden realize that they are in the spotlight.
even if you're actively listening or helping throw focus to another player, you will inevitably feel disconnected from the session at some point or another.) Maybe you will, but not everyone shares that experience. Paying attention to the other players is a part of the group activity.

It's also courteous.

[False God]

Not all tables are that slow. Talk to your fellow players about that: they need to be ready to act on their turn, not all of a sudden realize that they are in the spotlight. Maybe you will, but not everyone shares that experience. Paying attention to the other players is a part of the group activity.

It's also courteous.

I'm not going to say "everyone" has this experience, but it has been fairly common IME, especially at tables where DMs offload the burden of being a DM on helpful players. Helping other players is, well, helpful. But it can also be distracting to the game when those players interrupt your train of thought or require a lot of handholding through their turn. Paying attention is a two-way street. Inattentive (for whatever reason) players create more demand on other people to pay attention to them and often require additional handholding. IMO everyone has a limited amount of attention. Asking players to divide up what little they have for someone who can't/won't/lacks attention to actually play is not courteous or fair.

And I won't say every table is "slow", but it's common for a table to have 1-2 slow players IME, who consume dramatically larger portions of time for their turn(say, 10 minutes vs 2 minutes), requiring the repeat of information, to sift through their spells and special abilities, to require rules clarifications (often repeating the same question on many turns).

But......I'll also say that I find these things are more common in systems which prioritize mechanical resolution (ie: rolling the dice) over role-play resolution. Getting players to look at the group and say what they're doing (even if they don't know how to do it) IME has a dramatic effect on speeding up play time. The table can help if you don't know how to do that, but a lot of folks in more roll-heavy games go silent and look away from the group, into a notepad, rulebook or set of spell cards. We can't help you if we don't know what you want to do.

[Ionathus]

Maybe you will, but not everyone shares that experience. Paying attention to the other players is a part of the group activity.

It's also courteous.

Not sure why you're saying this like it's some kind of "gotcha". I'm well aware that it's the courteous thing to do, which is why I always do it.

That doesn't change the fact that most sessions as a player, I'll have to actively work to keep that engagement up at some point. That feeling never happens when I'm DMing because all the different responsibilities keep my brain firing the whole time. In this way, DMing is more exhausting but also more rewarding and I always feel invested in whatever stories the players are telling - because I have to facilitate them.

Your options as a player to actively listen, support your teammates, and throw focus are different and more personal, but they're limited in scope compared to all the ways the DM can support that player's storytelling.

[gbaji]

Yeah. I think there might also be a tangential aspect here in terms of which is "more enjoyable/rewarding".

There's also the whole "difficult" != "harder", as well. At least in terms of actually knowing what's going to happen, I suppose. A couple people observed (correctly), that the GM has more information, knows what the NPCs are doing, never has to argue with him/herself, etc. So the GM makes a decision and that's what happens. A player make a decision and then has to convince the other yahoos at the table that it's a good idea. Or you get 5 players all doing their own thing, which is also "difficult".

Maybe better to clarify whether we're talking about "harder" in terms of "more work"? On that scale GMing is absolutely "harder". But yeah, if we're talking about some other aspects of play, sometimes being a player can include things that aren't exactly "easy" as well.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not sure why you're saying this like it's some kind of "gotcha". I'm well aware that it's the courteous thing to do, which is why I always do it. I still play with a few people who don't start thinking about what to do on their turn until their turn arrives. I think that's bad form, at best, and rude at worst.
To me, it is courteous to the other players to be engaged fully in the scene, and to be thinking about how the actions and choices of the other players (and the NPCs/monsters/DM environment) - as a continuum - inform or change the decision one makes when one's turn arrives.
I quit one game, as a player, when I got utterly fed up with the other players' inability to make a decision.
Also, as a DM, I have said to a player "make a decision, or dodge" when they won't keep the pace of play moving.

I'll have to actively work to keep that engagement up at some point. That feeling never happens when I'm DMing because all the different responsibilities keep my brain firing the whole time. In this way, DMing is more exhausting but also more rewarding and I always feel invested in whatever stories the players are telling - because I have to facilitate them. I understand what you are saying.

[Vahnavoi]

The content itself is decent, but how it is presented is, due to being in book form and overly verbose in a lot of ways, for a lot of DM's an annoyance. Kurt Kurageous has some very pointed, and IMO spot on, observations on how WotC in particular needs to improve the presentation and organization of an adventure.

Where can I find Kurt's reviews?

[KorvinStarmast]

Where can I find Kurt's reviews? I will ask him which of his posts are the best references. We have talked about this over Discord as well, he and I, but my first encounter with his suggestions was on this forum.

[Slartibartfast]

Personally, I think this question is a bit overstated. I would say it is typically harder to be a player than a GM, but also this is somewhat of a false dichotomy.

One of the things to keep in mind is that there are a TON of different roleplaying styles and campaign designs, and these often have so little to do with each other it doesn't make sense to talk about them at the same time despite it all being "roleplaying". A kick-in-the-door dungeon crawl hack-and-slash is a radically different experience to play and run than a political intrigue game. In the former, the GM is placing room geometry and monsters, in the latter they are dealing with motivations, methods, and emotions. These are just unrelated games.

It is often believed that the biggest difference between GM and player is action vs reaction. This is, however, incorrect. It is very tempting to look at a hack-and-slash game and say that the GM is acting by making the challenges and the players are reacting to those challenges. But what about a GM who analyses the PC's performance in each encounter, and designs or alters the next encounter in response to the solutions they used previously? For example, if the players trap the goblins with firewalls, maybe later goblins sent to face them brought fire wards, or maybe the goblins will attempt to use the PC's own flame tactics against them. In this context, the players are acting and the GM is reacting. In the political campaign, it's much messier. For verisimilitude, the NPCs had better have plans going on behind the scenes, but also the spotlight needs to be on the party and their interactions with this web of lies. Who is the actor and who is the reactor? It's both. It's always both.

Another big difference between multiple GM/player types is how much is predetermined. Does the GM know what is on the other side of that hill, or do they just have a vague sense of the region and will make up whatever you encounter? Did they make a puzzle with a solution, or did they just narrate problems and assume the players will come up with something? On the player side, does Steve know his paladin's development arc, does he have a plan for his foibles causing conflict and sparking growth, or is he just moving a pile of stats around on the table? These are very different styles which each involve different skillsets, and how hard or easy it will be is much more dependent on how skilled the person is at playing their role than what role they are playing.

In general though, the GM and the player are the same. Everyone has to consider the other people at the table, the narrative that has been created, and what the path forward should be. The most immersed players often have the hardest choice: what do I do now? I need a new plan! The most calculating GMs often have the hardest playing board, trying to keep consistency between the historical actions of various offscreen entities, and constantly rewriting those to be what the story and game pacing needs them to have been, while staying within the bounds of what has been revealed on-screen. The GM is just a player with a much more abstract character, and the player is just a GM with much more indirect influence. Typically, it is the players who determine the course of a game, and the GM merely plays as its foil. But there is an ebb and flow in all things, and the balance of power shifts back and forth.

It's about what you're good at and how you choose to run/play.

[JNAProductions]

GMing is generally harder than being a player, if only on the numbers. A player controls one character (for most systems) while a DM controls all the NPCs. Even if any one NPC is simpler than a PC, there is usually a LOT of them.

But to me, what really makes games harder is not gelling with the players. I'm a DM of a Discord D&D 5E game, and it just flows pretty well. Occasionally I need to kick the party in the tuckus to keep the game moving, but generally there's good back and forth, in roleplay, in combat, in all the gaming parts.

I find it much, much easier to be a GM in a group that I work well with than a player in a group that's not as good a fit for me.

[animorte]

I'll go against the grain and say player, but I'll provide specific circumstance. Being a player at a table with a much less experienced GM can be difficult. I've found myself in this position and several rulings being outright wrong, some of the other players taking advantage of the GM's ignorance on certain details. In those moments, I try to help others understand how some things work if they ask (very important). The GM may not necessarily be struggling, but it can be a challenge to enjoy the game as a player at table where everyone else is much less experienced, especially the GM. (Note, a fair amount of this perspective comes from two different GMs "in training", each about 1/3 my age.)

Generally speaking, a lot more effort and focus is required to GM. Unless, of course, you improvise everything (and your players are ok with that/don't notice). :smallwink:

[gbaji]

One of the things to keep in mind is that there are a TON of different roleplaying styles and campaign designs, and these often have so little to do with each other it doesn't make sense to talk about them at the same time despite it all being "roleplaying". A kick-in-the-door dungeon crawl hack-and-slash is a radically different experience to play and run than a political intrigue game. In the former, the GM is placing room geometry and monsters, in the latter they are dealing with motivations, methods, and emotions. These are just unrelated games.

Sure. But in both cases, the GM has to play all of the NPCs, while the players just have to play the one character in front of them. From a workload perspective, the GM has a lot more to do. And intrigue games? Super hard from the GM perspective. Sure, there's a bit of a dichotomy because you could say that the GM already "knows the plots/intrigue", and the players have to figure stuff out. But the GM has to keep all of that stuff straight, know exactly which NPCs knows what, what each NPCs motivations and goals are, and then keep track of every conversation between every PC and NPC so as to maintain the "who knows what" dynamic. It's one of the hardest things to do in a game environment. One mistake, or slipped bit of dialogue by the GM can absolutely ruin such games.


Another big difference between multiple GM/player types is how much is predetermined. Does the GM know what is on the other side of that hill, or do they just have a vague sense of the region and will make up whatever you encounter? Did they make a puzzle with a solution, or did they just narrate problems and assume the players will come up with something? On the player side, does Steve know his paladin's development arc, does he have a plan for his foibles causing conflict and sparking growth, or is he just moving a pile of stats around on the table? These are very different styles which each involve different skillsets, and how hard or easy it will be is much more dependent on how skilled the person is at playing their role than what role they are playing.

I think that a huge aspect of this is responsibility though. The GM is responsible for creating and running a game that is fun for everyone at the table. The player is only really responsible for their own character and actions (and sure, not "ruining fun" for the table). I guess I'll also point out that player expecations scale with player skill. That means that playing a character is only as "hard" as you make it yourself. You can choose to just move stats around on the sheet, if that's what you want (or have the skill go do). And you can certainly be far more proactive as a player, developing and playing out complelx character traits and arcs. But that's up to the player to choose to do, it's only as "hard" as the player chooses to make it.

On the flip side, player expections of GMs is much much higher than GM expecations of players. Sure, I love it when players do more with their characters, but I've never kicked a player out of a game because they just showed up and made mechanical decisions for their character based on skills/abilities/spells/items on their sheet in response to the situation in front of them. The only things that gets a player booted/dropped is the same thing that will cause players to flee a GMs table (offensive/disruptive play). But players will absolutely leave a game if the GM just phones it in though. No one really wants to play a game run by a GM who just asks the players "Ok. Which direction do you go?" and then rolls random charts for encounters, runs them, hands out treasure, and then repeats over and over.

So yeah. There's a much greater expectation placed on the GM than on the players IMO.


The GM is just a player with a much more abstract character, and the player is just a GM with much more indirect influence. Typically, it is the players who determine the course of a game, and the GM merely plays as its foil. But there is an ebb and flow in all things, and the balance of power shifts back and forth.

Yes. A good RPG is more or less cooperative storytelling, and players ideally should be very much involved in their part of the story. But each player is still only telling one small part of that story. The GM still has a much larger responsibility for the whole. The GM creates the setting, and the story, and writes the outline. The players just fill in the details. And yes, really good players may also help inspire the GM when drawing the outline as well (storyarc and plot ideas/requests). But a good GM can still produce a great story in the absence of large amounts of player input and contribution. The opposite just doesn't work nearly as well.


It's about what you're good at and how you choose to run/play.

Yeah. Again though, I come back to player skill/effort being "nice to have", while GM skill/effort is "required" (for a good result anyway). And yeah, a couple people have commented on players steping up and filling in the gaps. But that's not really about the player "role" being harder, but that the player is taking on some of the GM role for a less experienced or skilled GM who may be overwhelmed a bit by the game. That's still about the GM's "job" being harder.

I suppose this depends on how strictly we're dividing up the roles and duties here. And yes, some tables will have more of what I consider the "GM role" being handled by the players. But if we divide this up based on "content creation" versus "content consumption", the former is much more work than the latter IMO.


I suppose we could also tangent off to another question though: Which is more "fun/rewarding"? That's a waaaay tricker one IMO.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One other thing is the consequences of failure.

Consider a "holy trinity" MMO (ie healer/tank/dps). If a DPS is "bad", things still mostly continue, at least until you hit a (relatively rare) DPS check. But if the healer is bad or the tank sucks...everyone dies. So being a DPS is more forgiving and "easier" than being a healer or tank (usually, although there are exceptions).

Similarly, if the GM is crap or falls apart or is phoning it in, the game usually disintegrates or at least is very not fun for everyone. And replacing a GM usually (but not always) means starting a whole new game. A player who isn't firing on all cylinders or is phoning it in or is just there for the social part can often be left to drag in the water a bit or (worst case) replaced without doing more than marginally decreasing the fun of the table.

So the baseline stress/expectations for the GM are higher.

This is, of course, not a guarantee. Games and situations differ. YMMV.

And @gabj, as to your tangent question about "fun/rewarding"--for me being a DM 100%. A good game as DM supercharges me. It inspires me to worldbuild and gets me going like just about nothing else. A good game as a player is like, well, that was nice.

So when things are working well, being a DM is amazing. Bigger highs...lower lows.

[False God]

I'll jump in on the "times its hard to be a player".

When you're expected to be the scribe. When the other players are unable or unwilling to take notes, remember names, or recall what we're on this quest for. When you're expected to keep track of what everyone was doing, when they last failed their lycanthropy save, when they failed their last black plague check, when they last took a dump. For usually no other reason than you like taking notes. You like knowing what's going on. For no other reason than those other people can't be bothered.

And then you tell the party, "I'm taking notes in character guys." and you conveniently leave out something really important to them and instead use your knowledge to direct them to the quests and objects of power that benefit you the most. Oh then they remember you're LE and suddenly they're mad at you for taking advantage of them!

I don't begrudge the DM for not reminding them, its everyone's job to remember what's going on, it's not the DMs job to spoon-feed the group. But when you're a member of a lazy group, it can be really stressful. Maybe not "more than GM" stressful, but pretty freaking stressful.

[animorte]

I suppose we could also tangent off to another question though: Which is more "fun/rewarding"? That's a waaaay tricker one IMO.

So when things are working well, being a DM is amazing. Bigger highs...lower lows.
I definitely have to agree and I much prefer this tangent, personally.

Being a player is generally more fun for me because I have more time to really invest in my character's motivation and immerse myself in the game. (Exception is the times when I GM with little-no preparation and improvise most of the session. Now, those are some memorable game nights!)

Though as a GM, the game is much more rewarding more consistently for me. Watching my players interact with the situations I place before them is a bit like watching my children cooperate to accomplish tasks. It's not always successful, but it's extremely enlightening to observe the potential.

[Mr Beer]

GM is way harder, I'm not sure how that's even arguable. I prefer GM-ing BTW but I sure as hell enjoy taking "time off" to be a player instead of having to run the whole show. Feels like a holiday.

[Telok]

And then you tell the party, "I'm taking notes in character guys." and you conveniently leave out something really important to them and instead use your knowledge to direct them to the quests and objects of power that benefit you the most. Oh then they remember you're LE and suddenly they're mad at you for taking advantage of them!

Not my fault they forgot my character's alignment and made the CN dwarf the party treasurer & loot bag. I even kept an accurate accounting of the gold that they looked at once. It was all ratios to the amount the dwarf had, which wasn't written down because he always knew how much he had. They couldn't figure it out and decided anything that complicated had to be honest. And I did always pay back the loans from the party pool in the end, I just had better gear a bit earlier.

[Fiery Diamond]

Personally, I feel that if you find yourself thinking about the difficulty of being a player as a player or the difficulty of being a GM as a GM, you need to take a deep breath, take a step back, and consider if you really should be continuing to participate in that game. The question of whether an activity you do for fun is more or less hard really shouldn't be crossing your mind if things are going well, unless you're using "hard" to refer to "engaging challenge." I don't see that talking about how hard it is to be a player or GM really has constructive value. Now, talking about the "amount of work" or "amount of effort" or "amount of preparation," none of which are synonymous with "hardness," can be very constructive conversations, especially when some people in the conversation have never experienced one of the two sides firsthand.

In short, asking which is harder is kind of an odd question to me, since it isn't really something that should (if things are going well) even cross anyone's mind. And if things aren't going well... maybe address those individual problems rather than generalizing? And if you're just talking about in the abstract rather than basing it in real experiences, that's even weirder to me, since games aren't played in the abstract, and it's not like the conversation is engaging with some sort of game, like Theoretical Optimization conversations do (which I also find weird, but that's because I don't enjoy engaging in games in that particular way, so that's entirely on me).

[Gnoman]

I personally find GMing to be easier, not least because I have a lot more experience but also because I feel like being a player doesn't give me enough to do without stealing the show. Sticking with a combat example because it is easier, there's two good scenarios from my relatively recent play history.

As GM, the party (with NPC allies) is fighting a group of elite undead warriors bound to protect the entrance to an ancient dwarven crypt. These are semi-intelligent undead.

So during this fight, I'm focusing on managing the undead trying to split the group from each other to be slaughtered in detail, managing direct PM communications with 3 players (the low player count is why there's NPC allies), judging the morale of said NPCs, all while adjucating combat results and providing descriptive text. Plenty to occupy my time.


As player (GURPS game, with a character that dumped almost everything for ludicrous Strength)

I grapple the nearest bandit and rip his head off. Wait for the rest of the party.
I use the head as a throwing weapon to take down another bandit, then jump on the armored car they're using for fire support. Wait for the rest of the party.
Start trying to punch my way into the armored car. Wait for the rest of the party.
Start to succeed in punching my way into the armored car. Wait for the rest of the party.
Surviving enemies are intimidated and surrender.

The roleplaying is fun, but there's just not enough to hold my attention when I'm used to doing so much more.

Out of combat is even worse, because my practiced inclination is to manage everything, so it takes serious effort to hold back and not just dominate the game as a a player.

[Imbalance]

Ugh, how do I put this? Look, I get the concensus, but I'm not going to read everybody's multi-paragraph replies, and don't want to leave my own. In short, I feel like my connotation of "harder" doesn't quite fit the context of the question. To clarify, DM'ing is far more laborious, no doubt. But getting to play, for me, has been the utmost challenge, topped by the fact that the one game I'm actively a player in has been designed to be particularly difficult, ie. "hard mode" from the start, to the point that it feels like more work to get to the end of a session than DM prep does. So, my answer will be one of those outliers where I say that playing is harder than DM'ing.

[Zavoniki]

Personally I find it much harder to be a player than to be a GM.

I've always found GMing to be pretty easy. You have a whole cast of characters and world to play with and if something goes wrong with that it very easy to hide it/change it for next time. Messing up as a GM(in game) rarely has permanent consequences and if you are willing to be honest you can even just walk stuff back.

As a player you don't really have that freedom. Everything you do comes filtered through the lens of this one character and you don't really have the ability to easily change that. If I introduce a bad character as a gm, they can just never show up again. If I misroleplay my PC, that sticks.

That being said by far the hardest part of any game is out of game table management, but I reject the assumption that that falls under the GMs purview.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'll jump in on the "times its hard to be a player".

{snip points I can empathize with}
but pretty freaking stressful. Annoying is the term I'd use. I've been the scribe for a lot of the games we have had since 2014 and I have lately gone minimalist. The others simply are not contributing with a few exceptions, and I burned out on being the scribe.
Which is too bad, since our Curse of Strahd group is a pretty good bunch.

[Trafalgar]

Annoying is the term I'd use. I've been the scribe for a lot of the games we have had since 2014 and I have lately gone minimalist. The others simply are not contributing with a few exceptions, and I burned out on being the scribe.
Which is too bad, since our Curse of Strahd group is a prett good bunch.

About a year ago, I was playing in a "West Marches" style campaign on Roll20. All the in-between adventure stuff was handled on a Dischord server. I think there were 3 DMs and about 20 players at any given point.

One clever thing they did was add an "Adventure Journal" text channel to the Dischord server. If you posted an in-character journal entry, one of the DMs might give you a small amount of xp. You could also get a little xp if you kept a map. Mind you, this was a very small amount of xp, never enough to level your character. But it made everyone write journal entries and put some effort into it.

[KorvinStarmast]

About a year ago, I was playing in a "West Marches" style campaign on Roll20. All the in-between adventure stuff was handled on a Dischord server. I think there were 3 DMs and about 20 players at any given point.

One clever thing they did was add an "Adventure Journal" text channel to the Dischord server. If you posted an in-character journal entry, one of the DMs might give you a small amount of xp. You could also get a little xp if you kept a map. Mind you, this was a very small amount of xp, never enough to level your character. But it made everyone write journal entries and put some effort into it. I tip my cap. In the game we have with PhoenixPhyre, there is a campaign notes channel in our Dischord that the players (mostly our group scribe, who isn't me even though I occasionally contribute) can put notes so that we all keep up with the story/plot points, what we did nine sessions ago.

[False God]

Annoying is the term I'd use. I've been the scribe for a lot of the games we have had since 2014 and I have lately gone minimalist. The others simply are not contributing with a few exceptions, and I burned out on being the scribe.
Which is too bad, since our Curse of Strahd group is a pretty good bunch.

To reference the other thread about WBL and "other people being annoying"...

I often find being a GM easier because I'm in control. If something drags out too long or wastes table time, I can declare that it is over and we can move on. If a player engages too long with a merchant, if combat drags out, if a skill challenge becomes increasingly troublesome without meaningful resolution then I, as GM, can alter course and end the conversation, wrap up combat, alter course on the skill challenge or if the problems are too great to be resolved in game (perhaps player drama), I can end the session.

As a player, I can do none of these things. If a player engages too long with a merchant and the GM is into it, as you say "time to floss the cat", if combat drags on there is no choice but to endure it, if a skill challenge becomes a brick wall the time is simply wasted, if there is player drama and the DM won't intervene, all I can do is leave the game.

The discrepancy in power dynamic is one reason I have moved away from "strong DM" games to ones where the game is more collectively run and the players have some level of power over the scene and the general goings on, with the DMs job being more to "sort things out" rather than to command the entire world.

It can be easy to be a GM because I have all the power. Sure it's more work, but I also have all the power.
It can be hard to be a player because I have no power. Maybe it's less up-front work, but I also have no leverage. And it can be difficult to find a table with a DM skilled enough to empower their players, rather than indulge them.

[Jophiel]

On the topic of notes, I make it clear to the group before we start that they are welcome to ask for a reminder on people and places. Everyone has enough real stuff filling their brains and someone not remembering the name of The Silverglade Count's niece shouldn't be held against them. Just ask "Who was the person who wanted the thing?" and I'll tell you because I assume your character would have that filling their skull instead of kid's doctor appointments and needing to compile time sheets.

If someone wants to take notes (and some people do) then they're welcome to and I appreciate the hustle. But no one should feel obligated to; college was over years ago. Just my opinion on making life easier for the players (and come across too many GMs who view it as a gotcha if you stumble over a name from five weeks ago during an NPC interaction)

[Jay R]

First comment: we don't all DM the same way, and we don't all play the same way. So take anything I say with a grain of salt.

For instance, I usually have 4-8 pages of character development written by the time we sit down to play. Many people have no interest in that, but it's part of how I decide who my PC is, and what I hope he or she will grow into.

Similarly, I have never used a pre-printed campaign. So whatever effect they have, I've never dealt with it.


For the sake of argument....

I mostly wonder about how much easier "book DMing" is, that is running a pre-printed adventure module or campaign and really sticking to the script. It's just something I don't do because I don't enjoy it, but I wonder if that makes DMing "easier" or at least "easy as" being a player.

In my experience, a pre-printed module is almost as much work, since I have to make it fit my world -- the culture, politics, races, etc. I've never run a pre-printed campaign, but I expect that it would be *more* work, since I would have to learn somebody else's entire world. That might not be true for other DMs, but I would prefer to run a world I that created, and that works as I think it should.

---

Also, it's worth pointing out that DMing and playing are differently hard. At the table, its about the same level of difficulty. As player or DM, I'm am fully engaged from start to finish, trying to track everything and keep full notes. But what I'm trying to do is different. As a player, I know what my PC has done; I'm trying to learn what the situation is, and decide how to react to it tactically.

As a DM, I know the situation; I'm trying to keep track of what effect the PCs' actions have had, and to rule fairly and competently, while simultaneously deciding how the NPCs react to it.

Both of these are full-time activities, and in both cases, I'm always just barely keeping up.

The biggest differences are away from the table.

When I'm playing (for instance) a gnome illusionist, I spend far more time researching everything he can do, or can grow into, in any situation that might come up in the next few levels. So I've drilled down far deeper on my PC's possibilities than I do as a DM. But as a DM, I need to understand what each of my players' PCs can do right now. Not what they might choose in four levels, like I do with my own PC, but everything they can do as they are. I also need to understand what each NPC might do -- in this game in this situation.

So my research as a player is deeper, but my research as a DM is far, far wider.

Fortunately, it's play, not work, in both cases.

[gbaji]

That being said by far the hardest part of any game is out of game table management, but I reject the assumption that that falls under the GMs purview.

It's usually the reponsiblity of whomever is actually hosting the game. Which is *usually* the GM (not always though). Either that, or I'm totally misunderstanding what you mean by "out of game table management".

I'm really approaching this from the point of view of workload. A lot of the other stuff is incredibly subjective, and highly dependent on playstyle. Some players take on lots of extra work/duties, but that's not a "required player role". Typically though, anything that some player doesn't take on tends to fall to the GM by default. And many things, players can't do because they don't have the information needed to do so.

Again though, "easier" and "harder" are subjective, and somewhat describe something akin to "like" and "dislike", which I don't really think is appropriate. I love GMing games. It's extremely rewarding, and I just plain like weaving together what the players want to do and some ideas I have for NPCs, and then seeing the result (and hey, toss in some other "outside" stuff along the way just to keep everone on their toes). But yeah. Whether we call it harder or easier, it is definitely a lot more time and effort to GM than to play.


For instance, I usually have 4-8 pages of character development written by the time we sit down to play. Many people have no interest in that, but it's part of how I decide who my PC is, and what I hope he or she will grow into.

Case in point. 4-8 pages is a pretty extreme amount of character development for a player to write. One time, when creating that character. But that's like a typical amount of written content consumed in a single game session as a GM (that might cover a couple sessions, if it's combat heavy). And that's not counting anything I may write about the game setting itself and provide to my players (which is also a one-time thing, but it's a lot of them over time).


Also, it's worth pointing out that DMing and playing are differently hard. At the table, its about the same level of difficulty. As player or DM, I'm am fully engaged from start to finish, trying to track everything and keep full notes. But what I'm trying to do is different. As a player, I know what my PC has done; I'm trying to learn what the situation is, and decide how to react to it tactically.

As a DM, I know the situation; I'm trying to keep track of what effect the PCs' actions have had, and to rule fairly and competently, while simultaneously deciding how the NPCs react to it.

Yeah. I get this. But the player "playing hard" is all happening at the table. It's part of the "play" of the game. The GM is also playing that out too (and sure, the GM has some advantages in terms of knowledge here). But the GM has to create every single thing that the players then have to "figure out" during play. It's not easy at all to set up a mystery for the players to solve and make it both hard enough that it's not immediately obvious, but difficult enough that they have to actually work at figuring things out. It's not easy to put together a set of encounters designed to present a specific amount of challenge to the PCs such that they are entertained and actively have to "work to win", but not so dangerous/deadly that they get wiped every other time they walk out the front door.

And yeah, players also have a hard time. But usually, if the player is having a really hard time playing and is actually "struggling", then it's probably because the GM has done something wrong, either in the design or execution of the adventure.


When I'm playing (for instance) a gnome illusionist, I spend far more time researching everything he can do, or can grow into, in any situation that might come up in the next few levels. So I've drilled down far deeper on my PC's possibilities than I do as a DM. But as a DM, I need to understand what each of my players' PCs can do right now. Not what they might choose in four levels, like I do with my own PC, but everything they can do as they are. I also need to understand what each NPC might do -- in this game in this situation.

So my research as a player is deeper, but my research as a DM is far, far wider.

Fair enough. I will point out, however, that while some players do spend that amount of time/effort planning out their character advancement, many do not. And guess who they come to for questions about what they should do with their next level, or where to put skill points, or whatever? Yeah. Could fall to another player at the table. But often falls to the GM. The GM is also the default person a player goes to when creating a new character as well, usually because the GM has the best idea of what is available in a given area, what options will work, what wont, and can even perhaps hint to a player "hey. It might be useful to create a <insert class here> for the next adventure". And ultimately, since GMs always have final say on any new build, we're going to be at least profreading whatever anyone else has come up with annyway.

But yeah. Valid point about the depth thing. Players are absolutely more detailed and "in depth" about their own characters than the GM is ever going to be about any NPC. I will point out, on the other hand, that there is not much in the way of parallel for players with regards to GMs creating intricate (and often quite "in depth") plots and events going on in the game setting. I often spend hours and hours doodling out ideas, and the working them out in my head, this way and that way, until I get something that "works" before writing it into the setting. And it has to work, not just from a "this makes sense as something that could happen", but also "this make sense as an interesting/engaging thing for the players to interact with". It's usually very easy to do one of those two things. But it's quite hard to do both at the same time.

And absolutely, some players will spend a lot of time on such things relating to their own characters, but it's still the GM who has to integrate that into the game world.


Fortunately, it's play, not work, in both cases.

That is true. Or at least "work that pays off when you play", so it's all totally worth it. I would absolutely not spend the volume of time I do prepping for games if I didn't get a payoff when actually running/playing.

[Jay R]

Gbaji and I clearly agree on a lot -- but not quite everything. For example:



Fortunately, it's play, not work, in both cases.
That is true. Or at least "work that pays off when you play", so it's all totally worth it. I would absolutely not spend the volume of time I do prepping for games if I didn't get a payoff when actually running/playing.

No, I do not mean "work that pays off when you play". I once spent a lot of time developing the Castle of the Mathemagician, with dungeon levels based on the platonic solids, a mobius strip, a Klein bottle, and lots of other things. It turns out that nobody ever played in that universe, so nobody ever saw it.

But it wasn't work that never paid off because it wasn't work. It was play, fiddling with the rules and learning to design a dungeon. On the player side, I have designed characters I never played. That was also play, not work.

---


On the topic of notes, I make it clear to the group before we start that they are welcome to ask for a reminder on people and places. Everyone has enough real stuff filling their brains and someone not remembering the name of The Silverglade Count's niece shouldn't be held against them. Just ask "Who was the person who wanted the thing?" and I'll tell you because I assume your character would have that filling their skull instead of kid's doctor appointments and needing to compile time sheets.

I agree in some cases, but there are limits. From my "Rules for DMs":


25. Players should not roll for common or obvious knowledge. If the world has three moons, then they don't have to roll to remember it. The PCs have lived under that sky all their life; they don't even have the idea of a world with only one moon.

a. Explain anything that the players misunderstand but that would be clear to the PC. "Eric, a gazebo is not a monster; it's just a roofed structure with an open view. Your character is looking at a wooden building."

44. Remind them of things that their characters would not have forgotten, but not things that characters will forget.

a. The PCs can’t forget that they picked up a magic glaive, so if they start looking around for a long weapon, remind them that they have it. And they won’t forget the face of the sorceress who destroyed their village. But if they forgot that the blacksmith said he heard about ogres in the hills, then the PCs weren’t paying attention.
b. This can require some careful judgment calls.



If someone wants to take notes (and some people do) then they're welcome to and I appreciate the hustle. But no one should feel obligated to; college was over years ago. Just my opinion on making life easier for the players (and come across too many GMs who view it as a gotcha if you stumble over a name from five weeks ago during an NPC interaction)

I'm sure your way works for you; it's just very different from my way. I've been an actuary, a telecom engineer, a statistical consultant, and a university instructor. The idea that there will come a time in my life that I won't need to keep notes is alien to me. I still have the notes from my first D&D game in 1975.

My players include two teachers, a doctor, a lawyer, and a paralegal. Keeping notes is a professional skill in all cases. I couldn't keep them from taking notes.

But I also clean up my notes from the session and send them out to everybody, asking them to add what I didn't include. I study them before the next game, and I know that at least two players do, too.



As far as I'm concerned, sending out my notes completes my responsibility to aid their memory. I often choose to do so during a game, but it's not a commitment; see rule 44 above. But again, my current group of players are committed to their own note-taking.

[I have always been [I]very lucky in who I play rpgs with.]

[AMFV]

Simple question, what do you perceive as harder to do?

1. Player
Harder- You have to know your character inside and out, and play them properly. This includes the mechanics, role in the party, and role-play the character. You have to work with the group dynamics and work with your fellow party members.

The DM has to do that also, but with more characters, significantly more, they might not need the same depth, but they definitely are keeping track of more character's abilities, and they have a lot less time to "get into" the role as it were. Your players could be like "Hey let's go to this Tavern" and suddenly you're either playing a character you haven't played in months or inventing one whole cloth.



You have to recall and decipher all the GM's stupid plot points, NPCs and clues. :)

The DM also has to recall all of his stupid plot points, NPCs and clues, and has to remember ones the players don't know about if he wants to foreshadow things properly. And I have to decipher my notes to, if my players think what I tell them is confusing they should look at my notes.



Easier- You get to react to the world and uncover it as you go.

Yep, and if your group is active enough you can sometimes take a back-seat there too.




2. GM
Harder- You have to make an engaging world, PCs, and Scenes for players to interact with, You have to know the rules well enough to not get buffaloed, or deal with the occasional rules lawyer. Your job is to set the pace, tone, and make judgement calls. You may feel responsibly for people at the table having fun.

All of this is true generally. With the exception that it's not "knowing" the rules that stops you getting bulldozed, it's not letting people bulldoze you.



Easier- You word is law, and you can outsource some of the heavy lifting to players in a pinch. They solve the problems you pose, you don't solve them! You get to react to the players.

Except you don't. Unless you're running a complete sandbox which is really challenging (imagine having to keep track of half a dozen MORE moving parts than normal. I don't get to react to the players, because if the players say "Hey let's go over here" I need to have something ready for that. Now you can be like "Hey I didn't realize you guys would go here, can I take fifteen to figure this out" but that's clearly you not knowing something.

Also you'd better have an idea of how your players are going to solve problems because if you don't they will not be able to solve them.



I think both offer unique challenges, but for you personally what role is more challenging?

DMing is more challenging, but also more rewarding. As a player, I'm not making it so that five to six people who might not have been able to play D&D (or whatever system) can. As a DM I get to do that, and that's amazing. I get to build a whole world, and even if it sucks, players will enjoy it. I actually had to get really retrospective and start doing serious self-evaluation when I realized that players will tell your game is good, even if it's not, and you have to evaluate yourself.

I also like playing, because you can really inhabit a character while doing that. I miss playing a lot, since I don't get to do it often.

[KorvinStarmast]

Case in point. 4-8 pages is a pretty extreme amount of character development for a player to write.


Perhaps for the short attention span generation, that is true.
The cleric who replaced Korvin Starmast (he died) has a 12 page long back story.
Everyone in our group enjoyed it, based on their feedback to me when I sent it to them in pdf format. Would you care to read it, or is that too much for you? I can send you a pdf.

[AMFV]

Perhaps for the short attention span generation, that is true.
The cleric who replaced Korvin Starmast (he died) has a 12 page long back story.
Everyone in our group enjoyed it, based on their feedback to me when I sent it to them in pdf format. Would you care to read it, or is that too much for you? I can send you a pdf.

I will say that as a DM, if a backstory is longer than like two pages, I don't even want it. Generally I'm looking for useful notes I can use to integrate the player.

[Kane0]

DMing is more of a mental burden

[False God]

I will say that as a DM, if a backstory is longer than like two pages, I don't even want it. Generally I'm looking for useful notes I can use to integrate the player.

I flatly tell my players two things:
I hand them a 3x5 card and tell them to write down 5 important elements about their character.
Everyone is welcome to provide a longer and more detailed character backstory, but I make no promises on reading it. If you don't provide a cliffnotes sheet, there's no guarantee I'll know anything about your character other than play. Anyone who does this needs to keep in mind that the more they write, the harder I will be on their spelling, grammar, legibility and overall story-writing ability. I will make critique and commentary as I read and return the story when I am finished with these notes (in red pen) on them.

If the second half comes across as intimidating to the players that's the point. If you write well I'm happy to read it. If you don't I've no interest in wading through some FanFiction(dot)net gargabe.

[Jay R]

I will say that as a DM, if a backstory is longer than like two pages, I don't even want it. Generally I'm looking for useful notes I can use to integrate the player.

No problem; it's not primarily for the DM. My character background is how I built the character. The DM doesn't necessarily need to know why my Ranger carries his father's old masterwork axe (for chopping wood, not as a weapon). But I had to know why I spent 50 extra gp on a tool.

Similarly, the DM has to know that my gnome Gwystyl thinks that there is a quest associated with his hooked hammer (which might be a delusion, depending on whether or not the DM wants to use it). But she doesn't need the two-page description of why Gwystyl believes that. But I needed it; it was part of how I decided who Gwystyl was and how he thinks.

So I really don't care if my DM reads it. I had to write it to build the character.


---

As a DM, I want to read everything my players write about their characters. I want to know how they are thinking about their PCs. I can get much more expansive -- not merely to integrate the player into the story and the world, but to build new things that will resonate with them. A mere side comment from one PC about being a shepherdess before becoming a druid became an important plot point in an otherwise political session.

---

My approach works for me; I'm not recommending that anybody change from what works for them.

We all have different approaches, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[Ionathus]

Perhaps for the short attention span generation, that is true.
<snip>
Would you care to read it, or is that too much for you?

Oh, give me a break. Don't bring lazy generational stereotypes into this.

You can look at the shirt on the rack for minutes or hours, but there's no way to tell how it's going to fit on you until you've tried it on for size. Every time I open my mouth at the table to roleplay a new PC, they come out differently than I'd imagined them – regardless of how long I spent on their backstory.

For my first PC I wrote three full pages of backstory, and I don't regret doing it, but it didn't really enrich the experience at all. The second I started talking and taking actions and roleplaying her personality, all that backstory faded to the background and I discovered that XYZ was actually a lot more important to her than ABC. I didn't change the character, I just realized which parts were the most compelling.

A bulleted list of key personality traits, a few ideals/bonds/flaws, and the "hook" that gets you excited about playing your PC is enough for me. If a 12 page backstory works for you, then I'm happy for you. It's not necessary for effective roleplaying, not by a long shot, and in my experience can be a hindrance or a distraction to new players as they obsess about not contradicting their backstories. "Leave blank spaces on the map" to allow for growth and all that.

[Easy e]

**** Snipped a lot of good content. You should go read it! ******

Nothing you say is wrong.

That said, I do think folks on this board have a tendency to "over-complicate" the role of the GM. Maybe it is because we do not get to be players enough and we forget what players actually want out of the game? Perhaps it is because we have all been GMing too long and basic GMing no longer appeals?

Here are some things to recall about many, many (But not all) players:

1. They only care about your NPCs to get them to the next part of the adventure. All of your Innkeepers could literally be the same guy named Phil, and they might not notice; or it would just become a running gag for unimportant NPCs.

2. The PCs do not care much about your world. It is just a vehicle for talking and doing things that they do care about, stuff related to their character. Most of the time, they will barely think about it unless it becomes a barrier to their fun or they want to exploit it somehow.

3. They do not care about the plot, Like the world it is a vehicle to play their character and that is about it. They do not care why the trade federation is boycotting Naboo. They care about what happens when they go to negotiate the end of the blockade.

4. They do not care about the rules of the game. Those are just vehicles to tell stories and do things as their characters. They care what their character can do, and that is about it.

5. Ultimately, they want to succeed in what they want their characters to do. Finish the quest, date the princess, take over the kingdom, find the thing, etc. They do not need to succeed in what you and your world need them to do. They might be happy to date the NPC, and then the world explodes.

Players only really care about their characters. Therefore, just make your world revolve around the characters. That means a lot less prep for you as you only need to worry about the stuff that touches them, and add in more stuff that touches them. The vast majority of players do not own their own books, go on forums, or talk about RPG rules outside of a session. There is no need to overcomplicate your game for them.

Steal liberally from their backstory and use it, give them a few choices and follow where they lead to create new challenges, and only detail stuff that they come in contact with in a session. Then, take some notes as you go for yourself to reference later BUT if the players don't take notes you don't have to worry too much about it either. They won't recall necessarily.

As AMFV said, the players are telling you the game is good. As GMs we are saying it is not. Let's take the feedback from our players at face value. If they say it is good, it is good. If they say do more of X, do more of X. If they want less of Y, do less of Y. We don't have to deliver anymore or less than what the players want.

If as GMs we make it look and feel too hard to GM, then we are only hurting ourselves in the long run. If we make GM look daunting, then you will be the forever GM of your group. If we make it seem hard, we will not get more GMs and therefore will have less games to choose from. If we make GMing looking like a burden then no one will do it and our favorite games will die. If we make GMing seem like a steep learning curve then we will not get a chance to play in cool games put on by others in cool new worlds. No new GMs means our hobby withers.








Caveat= Now, much of what I said is for "basic GMing". I could sit down with no prep and run a 10-12 session sandbox game with 0 prep using the basic "rules" listed above. Just give the players what they want.

Once you have experience GMing, then you can push your players to give you more of what you want as the GM. A different play style, new games, GM-centric plot points, etc. as you feather in your needs collaboratively with the players. I am guessing most of us on this board are "experienced" GMs and that is why we "overcomplicate" GMing. We want to because basic GMing is now boring to us.

[Ionathus]

Here are some things to recall about many, many (But not all) players:

I see your point and I assume you're exaggerating for effect, but I'd disagree with several of these generalizations. Most of the players I've played with are actively invested in the plot, for instance, and many of them enjoy exploring the rules to maximize their PCs' power and effectiveness. And, of course, you should be prepared for any NPC to become a party favorite.

The main thrust of your argument, though, is super true. No amount of prep work or loredumping can make players enjoy a plotline or NPC they don't care about. I see a lot of beginner DMs obsessing over their fictional world, political factions, 1000 years of lore, and numerous NPCs that they poured their hearts into. I think that's a mistake, especially for new DMs who don't know what their players are going to enjoy and engage with. Put them in a tavern in a sleepy country town and give them 3 wildly different plot hooks, and let them tell you what direction they want the story to go.

Basing the story around their characters, weaving their backstories and NPC relationships into the plot, and setting "will this be fun for the players" as your Question Number One is the best path to people enjoying their time at your table.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I see your point and I assume you're exaggerating for effect, but I'd disagree with several of these generalizations. Most of the players I've played with are actively invested in the plot, for instance, and many of them enjoy exploring the rules to maximize their PCs' power and effectiveness. And, of course, you should be prepared for any NPC to become a party favorite.

The main thrust of your argument, though, is super true. No amount of prep work or loredumping can make players enjoy a plotline or NPC they don't care about. I see a lot of beginner DMs obsessing over their fictional world, political factions, 1000 years of lore, and numerous NPCs that they poured their hearts into. I think that's a mistake, especially for new DMs who don't know what their players are going to enjoy and engage with. Put them in a tavern in a sleepy country town and give them 3 wildly different plot hooks, and let them tell you what direction they want the story to go.

Basing the story around their characters, weaving their backstories and NPC relationships into the plot, and setting "will this be fun for the players" as your Question Number One is the best path to people enjoying their time at your table.

Well, yes, no, and maybe. Whether or not they care is both extrinsic and intrinsic, in a circular sort of way. If the DM's world is shallow and doesn't feel "alive", I'm going to be disconnected and playing my character as a chess piece at worst, as a social play-piece at best. If the DM's world is deep, has inviting mysteries, and most of all feels alive when I poke it (ie reacts in at least plausible ways when I interact with it), I'll be more engaged with it.

And DM excitement about their plot and world makes a huge difference. A DM who is full of that ineffable "twinkle", who loves to talk about the world--those DMs naturally attract/generate players who are interested in the world they're portraying. Or at least are more likely to do so.

If you have a flat, unresponsive world, your narrative pacing is off, or your ability to react to the players' actions isn't great, doing a sandbox (letting the players drive) isn't going to be much good either. You might as well just go all-in on a packaged module in a known, externally-defined world and get buy in on that. You'll never hit the highs of a great homebrew campaign...but you'll avoid most of the lows.

And some of it depends on the other players as well--it's really hard to get into a serious campaign's world and plot if even one of the other players is treating it like a joke or is playing chess-piece style (running it purely as a tactical simulator). At least personally.

I'm in a campaign as a player. The DM's a good person, excited about his setting, and the worldbuilding is pretty good. But his pacing is, well, not so great (objectively speaking). By level 8, there's a hint of a plot, but mostly wandering around. We've had...maybe 1 success? And that was partial (saved some of the people, couldn't explore the rest of the place because it was collapsing). Lots of bouncing from place to place, not knowing what's going on. And some of the other players tend (for better or worse) to rabbit hole on particular things to the point that they're slowing play significantly and making it hard to get any session momentum.

I've also, as a DM, been really blessed (can't take credit for it) by having really really good, dedicated players recently. My online group (of which KorvinStarmast is one) is now on their 3rd campaign in the same world. They're super into the world, their characters, and pushing me to explore more mysteries. It's symbiotic, and the world's depth and "aliveness" have benefitted greatly. They routinely RP between sessions, plan for upcoming things, I'll post "dreams and visions" between sessions, etc. And they care about the NPCs as well--we had a good session that was mostly just interacting with their (and others) previous characters, who are NPCs in the world. And one of the big elements of Campaign 1 was dealing with some NPCs (friendly) that they'd built up both in backstory (one characters' son among them) and during play.

My in person group as a DM isn't quite as on-fire about it, but they're also quite involved and very interested in the NPCs and the world.

On the other hand, I've been in groups and DM'd for groups that didn't care at all. Generally I quickly left those ones, because that's a style of play I can't gel with.

[Ionathus]

All fair points!

You're right, the DM does need to care about their world and be excited to run the campaign, and the players will (hopefully) feed off that energy and give it back in a positive feedback loop.

Especially for new DMs though, I do feel that there's a perception that "the more work I've put into developing the world, the better the game will be." And I think that's a fallacy that trips up a lot of new DMs and has them prioritizing the wrong things. Up to and including the classic "we talked about doing a campaign so I went out and wrote an entire novel's worth of setting and plot points and now I'm having trouble getting my players interested in it, why don't they care, don't they know how hard I've worked on this!?"

But maybe that's just a part of being a first-time DM and you can't avoid doing at least one campaign where you over-prepare or write plot points that require railroading your PCs around a bit. I don't think it's a major problem in most cases. But I do have a friend right now who wants to DM a political thriller campaign, and the whole table has yet to sit down and talk about the campaign and what we would be most interested in, let alone build characters or schedule a first session, and he's frantically writing a ton of stuff and getting really excited about it. I recognize that exact experience from the first time I DMed, and I suppose I'm worried that expectations won't meet reality.

[FrogInATopHat]

I will say that as a DM, if a backstory is longer than like two pages, I don't even want it. Generally I'm looking for useful notes I can use to integrate the player.

I don't know how one takes pride in a 12 page backstory, suggests that it should be expected of players and then, with all the misguided will in the world, suggests that reading those backstories (we're taking usually at least 3 more players), incorporating relevant information in the campaign (and dealing with backstory conflicts) is for the GM to do, and then says the GM has the easier job.

The very suggestion is mind-breakingly unbalanced already.

[KorvinStarmast]

I will say that as a DM, if a backstory is longer than like two pages, I don't even want it. Generally I'm looking for useful notes I can use to integrate the player. I can also write one that is three sentences long. :smallwink:


You can look at the shirt on the rack for minutes or hours, but there's no way to tell how it's going to fit on you until you've tried it on for size. Every time I open my mouth at the table to roleplay a new PC, they come out differently than I'd imagined them – regardless of how long I spent on their backstory. That's not an uncommon thing to discover in an RPG. Very often (I find) you end up playing to discover who the character will become. {1} A character who starts and ends "the same" particularly if one is in a campaign, doesn't appeal to me as much as one who grows (character development) over the course of play.

{1} But that depends a bit on the RPG, and for one-shots that often doesn't come about.

@FalseGod: your approach looks to be good with the basics and is also flexible enough to accommodate different player styles.

[Easy e]

Something I learned a long time ago is that:

"All sales (read as GMing) is the transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another."

[KorvinStarmast]

Here are some things to recall about many, many (But not all) players:

1. They only care about your NPCs to get them to the next part of the adventure. All of your Innkeepers could literally be the same guy named Phil, and they might not notice; or it would just become a running gag for unimportant NPCs.

2. The PCs do not care much about your world. It is just a vehicle for talking and doing things that they do care about, stuff related to their character. Most of the time, they will barely think about it unless it becomes a barrier to their fun or they want to exploit it somehow.

3. They do not care about the plot, Like the world it is a vehicle to play their character and that is about it. They do not care why the trade federation is boycotting Naboo. They care about what happens when they go to negotiate the end of the blockade.

4. They do not care about the rules of the game. Those are just vehicles to tell stories and do things as their characters. They care what their character can do, and that is about it.

5. Ultimately, they want to succeed in what they want their characters to do. Finish the quest, date the princess, take over the kingdom, find the thing, etc. They do not need to succeed in what you and your world need them to do. They might be happy to date the NPC, and then the world explodes.

Players only really care about their characters. That's an overly broad assertion. It varies greatly, player by player, IME. TBH, your five points came across as a bit jaded in tone, which caught me a little bit by surprise.
I don't know how one takes pride in a 12 page backstory, suggests that it should be expected of players and then, Since I did not do that, who do you think did? My response was a riposte to the blythe assertion that any backstory longer that {a certain length} was {negative terms}.
Did I use an extreme case to illustrate my disagreement?
Yes. It's the longest one I've written (by a large margin) in decades.
And the whole table enjoyed it.

But maybe that's just a part of being a first-time DM and you can't avoid doing at least one campaign where you over-prepare or write plot points that require railroading your PCs around a bit. I don't think it's a major problem in most cases. I am sure that every DM runs into this at some point, and not just first time GM's.
I have had some issues in my Salt Marsh campaign (which I have modified considerably for my own reasons) on the "connection" between the players and the world.
One of my players did a good job of responding to my expressing that frustration in a PM to him by describing to me what he saw as the variations of "the mental map" of the world - that I had - versus what each player has.
When he put it in those terms, it helped me make some adjustments on how I provided clues, world background info, etcetera. Good players give good feedback like that.
Each PC basically has an NPC in Salt Marsh (and in one case up in the Styes) who is, for their own in-world reasons, an ally or associate of the PC and is very much a bit of connective tissue.
But each of the eight players in this campaign (we have had three replaced over the course of the adventures) responds to that connection differently, and with a different level of enthusiasm.

[gbaji]

The main thrust of your argument, though, is super true. No amount of prep work or loredumping can make players enjoy a plotline or NPC they don't care about. I see a lot of beginner DMs obsessing over their fictional world, political factions, 1000 years of lore, and numerous NPCs that they poured their hearts into. I think that's a mistake, especially for new DMs who don't know what their players are going to enjoy and engage with. Put them in a tavern in a sleepy country town and give them 3 wildly different plot hooks, and let them tell you what direction they want the story to go.

I think the key here is to find the right balance and "fit" for the table you are at. I also 100% agree that over prepping can be as problematic (moreso sometimes) as under prepping. As an experienced GM, I can write some very broad stroke outlines and then fill them in "on the fly" as players explore the world. This method may be somewhat intimidating to beginning GMs though, so I totally get the desire to write a ton of stuff. But yeah, that can result in various degrees of railroading behavior (I wrote it, so it has to come into play!), or just frustration by the GM if the players don't find all that stuff terribly interesting.

As you gain experience, you learn what you "really need" to run a scenario well. And yeah, often it's not what a beginning GM thinks they need. And to be fair, a lot of this is from a somewhat misguided effort to mirror what we often find in campaign modules. Tons of detailed maps. Lists of everything in town, or the surrounding area. Detailed NPCs, plots, hooks, etc. It's there because if it's not there, it feels like it's missing to whomever bought the box of stuff you're selling. Er, but what you discover over time is that you really don't need all of that to run something.

Doubly so based on the table makeup. I've had groups of players who absolutely loved delving into intricate plots points, injecting themselves into various intrigues and schemes (and came up with a few of their own, sometimes in conflict with other party members as well). I've also had groups who are just like "Ok. Where are the monsters we're supposed to kill?". What I prioritize in terms of campaign or even scenario writing is going to vary a heck of a lot between those two types of groups.

Someone mentioned "give the players what they want". That's absolutely true. Although, I do tend to have a preference for more complex background interaction (hey. It's my world, right?), so even in the latter type of group, I'll sneak some of that in there anyway. But I don't force players to go in directions they don't want to go. Even if I wrote 20 pages of compex interaction explaining why various NPCs were doing various things that happened around the PCs, if they don't really care, then it doesn't matter to any degree more than "this bad thing is happening. How do you want to stop it" level stuff. They don't always have to know why something happened. But I personally find value in having an explanation ready in case they do choose to investigate.

But yeah. Learn what your players actually care about in your game. If the players don't actually care who "Bob the Innkeeper" is, or about his life history, family troubles, etc, maybe don't spend that much time on that level of detail. If the players actually want that stuff, put it in there. But if the Innkeeper only matters to them as "the guy who rents us rooms, and puts ale/food on our table", then just let that drop.


That's not an uncommon thing to discover in an RPG. Very often (I find) you end up playing to discover who the character will become. {1} A character who starts and ends "the same" particularly if one is in a campaign, doesn't appeal to me as much as one who grows (character development) over the course of play.

Definitely agree with this as a player. I've had characters that I had a very complete idea of who/what/why about on startup, and others I was like "Um... I'm a big guy with an axe". I tend to prefer to think of backstory as prologue. I want my characters to grow as they adventure. And yeah, I've found that even when I do write up some kind of "here's what I want to do with this character", I often find that actual events that occur in the course of play may take this character in a completely different direction.

And that's a good thing IMO.

[Pauly]

[snip a lot of good stuff]
As AMFV said, the players are telling you the game is good. As GMs we are saying it is not. Let's take the feedback from our players at face value. If they say it is good, it is good. If they say do more of X, do more of X. If they want less of Y, do less of Y. We don't have to deliver anymore or less than what the players want.

[snio some more good stuff]


A lot of stuff I agree with in this post.

On the feedback, I follow a symptom/diagnosis/remedy approach. Your users are generally good at telling you their symptoms, not so good at diagnosis and have difficulty with coming up with the best remedy.

For example with a common complaint of “it’s too complicated” it may mean it is too complicated or it might really mean
- this is hew and I don’t understand it yet.
- I was poorly trained by the person who taught me.
- I am not interested
- thus uses a different subsystem to the rest if the game.
- it takes too long

Similarly if you ask someone what car they want to drive and they say ‘a Ferrari “ it doesn’t automatucalllybmean
- they are prepared to learn to drive stick
- are willing to do the maintenance
- want to pay for a Ferrari.

[Jay R]

I don't know how one takes pride in a 12 page backstory, suggests that it should be expected of players and then, with all the misguided will in the world, suggests that reading those backstories (we're taking usually at least 3 more players), incorporating relevant information in the campaign (and dealing with backstory conflicts) is for the GM to do, and then says the GM has the easier job.

The very suggestion is mind-breakingly unbalanced already.

This is all based on a false assumption. You'll never have to read several long backstories. You aren't going to get long backstories from everyone, no matter how much you expect or encourage it.

I once tried to encourage backstories. I had one player whose approach frustrated me; when asked about his PC, Glen would always say, "He's a fighter who likes to hit things." Once, I got frustrated with that, and required at least a 3x5 card worth of character description and backstory. Glen gave me some version of:

Forlong grew up in a village where his favorite pastime was to watch the town guards at practice. He always wanted to be a warrior who could protect his friends and family. He considers his sword to be his closest friend, and he is always very careful about keeping it sharp and in good shape.

I read that, and never insisted on a backstory or character description again (although I prefer to have them). I’m quite sure that if I had required a five-page backstory, he could have handed me five pages that boiled down to “He’s a fighter who likes to hit things.”

He was more interested in how to flank the orcs than he was in "character development". But that's actually deeper immersion. When the orcs attack, the hypothetical person I'm simulating ought to be more interested in how to flank the orcs than in character development.

That way isn't for me; I want to have a more specific character. But Glen was always playing a role, and it was always somebody that my character was glad to have at his side when the fight started. Once I realized that his way was good for him, and wasn't bad for me, I was able to calm down a lot.

In the game I’m currently running, I have one character with a long political backstory that was the basis for a two-session political adventure. Another PC’s backstory is that she learned to be a bard from an older bard on the village. That mattered once, when passing through the village. I use each person's backstory about as deeply as they wrote it. And that works for all my players. As I wrote in my "Rules for DMs":


26. A backstory is like a sword. Some characters are incomplete without one, and others wouldn't use one even if they had it.

As I said earlier in the thread, "We all have different approaches, and there's nothing wrong with that."

[False God]

This is all based on a false assumption. You'll never have to read several long backstories. You aren't going to get long backstories from everyone, no matter how much you expect or encourage it.

I once tried to encourage backstories. I had one player whose approach frustrated me; when asked about his PC, Glen would always say, "He's a fighter who likes to hit things." Once, I got frustrated with that, and required at least a 3x5 card worth of character description and backstory. Glen gave me some version of:

Forlong grew up in a village where his favorite pastime was to watch the town guards at practice. He always wanted to be a warrior who could protect his friends and family. He considers his sword to be his closest friend, and he is always very careful about keeping it sharp and in good shape.

I think you're being overly harsh on your player, I think that's a great backstory, and I think reading it simply as "Forlong likes to hit things." is missing a great deal of what he actually told you. Unlike a lot of longer backstories, this one leave a lot of room open for the DM to add to. Perhaps a childhood friend who also liked watching the guards, maybe even a childhood crush? Bandits, gangs or local lords who abused his friends and family could give him reason to want to protect them. He may also be seen as kinda a weirdo, paying more attention to his sword than maintaining those friendships and family relations. Perhaps there was trouble from within the family, an abusive aunt or drunken cousin, so its hard for him to trust other people, but it's easy for him to trust his weapon.

A player doesn't have to establish every historical detail about themselves to make for a good backstory, and IMO, it's a mistake common in early writing to put in too many details. As a cooperative game, it's also up to the DM to fill in the gaps.
Perhaps Forlong gets discounts at the local blacksmith, because Mr Joe saw just how much Forlong cares for his weapons.*quest hooks
Perhaps Forlong failed the guard test, but the guards think he's a solid guy and always invite him out to drinks. Maybe some of his friends who used to watch the guards with him are now guards.*quest hooks
Perhaps his father thinks he's a delinquent, who abandons his chores to go watch the guards, and a failure for not passing the guard test, getting a nice stable job, and settling down with the neighbor girl Susie. Does Forlong still feel family is worth defending, even if that family thinks he has no worth?*character development
Perhaps Susie wishes she could have the bravery to strike off on her own like Forlong, or maybe she did and something bad happened.*plot hooks and character development

Now, maybe you did all this, I don't know. But I think there's more said in that backstory than you're giving it credit.

[Jay R]

I think you're being overly harsh on your player, I think that's a great backstory, ...

Did you not read the whole post? That backstory was what convinced me to stop trying to get a more detailed backstory out of my players.

I specifically described how he role-played, and how immersive it was. My conclusion was, "Once I realized that his way was good for him, and wasn't bad for me, I was able to calm down a lot."

[False God]

Did you not read the whole post? That backstory was what convinced me to stop trying to get a more detailed backstory out of my players.

I specifically described how he role-played, and how immersive it was. My conclusion was, "Once I realized that his way was good for him, and wasn't bad for me, I was able to calm down a lot."

Yes. And I still don't see that you attempted to engage with that backstory. You just decided Glen's performance in combat was more valuable to the game than any further effort invested in getting him to roleplay. What did Glen do when he wasn't in combat? Zoned out?

There's a difference between losing the desire to want more; and accepting a lower standard. Your post reads more like the former, and less like the latter.

[Ionathus]

Yes. And I still don't see that you attempted to engage with that backstory. You just decided Glen's performance in combat was more valuable to the game than any further effort invested in getting him to roleplay. What did Glen do when he wasn't in combat? Zoned out?

There's a difference between losing the desire to want more; and accepting a lower standard. Your post reads more like the former, and less like the latter.

I'm gonna give Jay R the benefit of the doubt and just assume there were elements of that player-GM interaction they haven't shared with us. Making broad assumptions about what Jay R did or did not also do as the GM feels like a waste of time – I don't see any reason to litigate the story further.

[gbaji]

This is all based on a false assumption. You'll never have to read several long backstories. You aren't going to get long backstories from everyone, no matter how much you expect or encourage it.

The assumption was in the post he was replying to. It wasn't about whether the players would actually write long backstories, but the assumption that if a player does do this, it somehow represents more work/time/efort (makes it harder) for the player. But here's the thing. To whatever degree the player does write a long backstory, that backstory is either only meaningful to the player (and never affects anyone else) or there is some expectation that it will affect the actual game being played (by like other players). At which point, that long backstory becomes "work" for the GM to integrate with the rest of the game world.

I think that was the point being made. The assumption that players writing long and intricate backstories is somehow support for "being a player is harder than being a GM" is somewhat absurd. If you write all of that, and none of it has any effect on the game, then you "being a player" wasn't "harder". You just choose to do something, off on the side, that didn't affect anyone else in any way. The moment anything you wrote into that backstory actually involves other players at the table, the GM is the one "working harder" to incorporate it into the rest of the setting.

At least, that is the counter point I got from that post.

Having said that, you are correct. 99% of players will never write that much for a character, so it's really irrelvant anyway. I guess maybe we have to ask whether we're measuring "harder" or "easier" in the context of making "the game" (ie: the thing we are all playing together collectively) work well. Something you choose to do on your own, for your own enjoyment/edification is great, but should not count as making the "job of being a <player|gm> harder". We should be looking at things you "must do" in those roles to make a game successful. And sure, spending time on backstory may make a game more successful. Or it may not (especially if the backstory conflicts with some elements/plans of the setting).

I've had many players come up with intricate backstories, read through them, and then basically took a virtual pen to them, going "this doesn't work. I'm not allowing that. That's a violation of the rules. This doesn't even exist in thie game universe, blah blah blah". So no. If we get to vote on whether long detailed backstories represent more "work" (or making things "harder) for the player or GM, I will still vote "GM" every time. You just have to invent something and write it down. Creative writing exercise. Easy. I could do that in like 5 minutes while half asleep (and some of them look like that's exactly what happened) I, as the GM, have to figure out how to integrate this into the game. Way way way harder IMO.


A player doesn't have to establish every historical detail about themselves to make for a good backstory, and IMO, it's a mistake common in early writing to put in too many details. As a cooperative game, it's also up to the DM to fill in the gaps..

Which is exactly the point. And it's not just "filling in the gaps". Heck. I'd rather the player left gaps for me to fill in. That's less work (and thus easier). The more detail, and the fewer gaps, the "harder" it is as the GM to actually fit that in with whatever else exists in the game setting. The player is giving me less wiggle room to use.

If you write down "was raised by sentient cybernetic wolves", then I either have to "red pen" what you wrote, or I have to now incorporate sentient cybernetic wolves into my game. I think you can all guess which direction I'm likely to go. Though to be fair, every once in a great while a player will throw something out there that ticks my creative side and I use it. But very very "once in a while".

As a total caveat to all of that, if the player does actually spend a lot of time, thinking about the backstory, working to integrate it into the game setting, taking into account the races around, what magic exists, religions, organizations, cities, kingdoms, the history of the world, and comes up with something that brilliantly intergrates into the setting, fits perfectly, doesn't create strange imbalances, or assume things that don't actually exist, and otherwise really adds something great to the game, without me having to do any work myself? I'll totally hand it to that player that they worked "hard" to contribute to the totality of the game setting.

I can count on the fingers of zero hands exactly how many times that has ever happened though. In 40ish years of GMing various games, never has this ever happened. Really simple straightfoward/basic backstories? No problem. But there is an absolute direct correlation between the complexity and detail of a character backstory and the amount of work I'm going to have to do as a GM to either work with the player to incoporate that character into the setting and/or reject various parts of the backtory. And let me be clear, if it's a great idea, I will spend that time working with the player to make it work. But yeah, that's me doing work. That's my job being "harder". That extra work may absolutely be worth it, but it's never just the player doing more here when it comes to backstory. Not if they actually expect that backstory to have any relevance within the game itself.

I'd much rather players spend more time on their characters personality and less on the details of their history. You need to know the personality to roleplay the character. That's necessary. Everything else may be nice filler, but isn't actually needed, and honestly may even be better left vague/broad and then explored and/or expanded on during play rather than before it. Just my preference here. I have a strong leaning towards "at table focused play". I want that to be where decisions are made, and where history happens. By playing it out. Writing a script ahead of time and then just acting it out isn't terribly interesting to me. When stuff happens at the table, by the players, you never know for sure where it's going to go. That's real "creative/cooperative storytelling". I want to maximize that.

[Fiery Diamond]

Which is exactly the point. And it's not just "filling in the gaps". Heck. I'd rather the player left gaps for me to fill in. That's less work (and thus easier). The more detail, and the fewer gaps, the "harder" it is as the GM to actually fit that in with whatever else exists in the game setting. The player is giving me less wiggle room to use.

If you write down "was raised by sentient cybernetic wolves", then I either have to "red pen" what you wrote, or I have to now incorporate sentient cybernetic wolves into my game. I think you can all guess which direction I'm likely to go. Though to be fair, every once in a great while a player will throw something out there that ticks my creative side and I use it. But very very "once in a while".

As a total caveat to all of that, if the player does actually spend a lot of time, thinking about the backstory, working to integrate it into the game setting, taking into account the races around, what magic exists, religions, organizations, cities, kingdoms, the history of the world, and comes up with something that brilliantly intergrates into the setting, fits perfectly, doesn't create strange imbalances, or assume things that don't actually exist, and otherwise really adds something great to the game, without me having to do any work myself? I'll totally hand it to that player that they worked "hard" to contribute to the totality of the game setting.

I can count on the fingers of zero hands exactly how many times that has ever happened though. In 40ish years of GMing various games, never has this ever happened. Really simple straightfoward/basic backstories? No problem. But there is an absolute direct correlation between the complexity and detail of a character backstory and the amount of work I'm going to have to do as a GM to either work with the player to incoporate that character into the setting and/or reject various parts of the backtory. And let me be clear, if it's a great idea, I will spend that time working with the player to make it work. But yeah, that's me doing work. That's my job being "harder". That extra work may absolutely be worth it, but it's never just the player doing more here when it comes to backstory. Not if they actually expect that backstory to have any relevance within the game itself.

I'd much rather players spend more time on their characters personality and less on the details of their history. You need to know the personality to roleplay the character. That's necessary. Everything else may be nice filler, but isn't actually needed, and honestly may even be better left vague/broad and then explored and/or expanded on during play rather than before it. Just my preference here. I have a strong leaning towards "at table focused play". I want that to be where decisions are made, and where history happens. By playing it out. Writing a script ahead of time and then just acting it out isn't terribly interesting to me. When stuff happens at the table, by the players, you never know for sure where it's going to go. That's real "creative/cooperative storytelling". I want to maximize that.

So... you've never had the DM present the setting to the players (not just setting concept, but at least a basic surface level of the actual setting), then have the players create their backstories? That's what's always been the case in games I've been in. If you've really had your ideal backstory creation happen zero times while doing that, either you have subpar backstory-creating players or your setting is too simple or too convoluted, because this has easily happened at least twice in my experience, and my gaming experience is like a third of the length of yours.

And of course the DM will have to incorporate things even if the player's stuff is perfect. But that's not extra work for the DM above and beyond just running the game normally unless they have to spend time with the player outside of sessions to iron things out, which is not a given.

Granted, the backstories were 1-2 pages, not super duper long, but still.

[gbaji]

So... you've never had the DM present the setting to the players (not just setting concept, but at least a basic surface level of the actual setting), then have the players create their backstories?

Yes. I have. Why did you stop the progression at that point?

What is the next step in that progression? The DM presents the setting to the players. The players write their backstories. And then.... what happens next?

The DM then spends a boatload of time integrating all of those different (cause odds are the players didn't do much coordinating here) backstories into the setting, and then tries to figure out what to write as an adventure that will incorporate them. Often having to choose which to do first, which to put on the backburner, where to insert hooks into something going on now that will lead into something relevant to someone's written backstory, etc.

I'm making the point that complex and detailed character backstories, while they certainly represent additonal time/effort spent by the player *also* create the need for additioanl time/effort spent by the GM. I was specifically countering the idea that being a player is somehow "harder" because some players may spend a ton of time on backstories by pointing out that to whatever degree this is "harder" for the player, it's also "harder" for the GM.


If you've really had your ideal backstory creation happen zero times while doing that, either you have subpar backstory-creating players or your setting is too simple or too convoluted, because this has easily happened at least twice in my experience, and my gaming experience is like a third of the length of yours.

I didn't just say "ideal backstory". I wrote "without me having to do any work myself". I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea. In fact, it's a very good idea. I'm merely countering the idea that "12 page backstory" makes it "harder" to be a player relative to the GM. It doesn't. For every line the player writes in that backstory, the GM is probably going to write a page in an adventure at some point along the line to deal with. And if the GM doesn't do this, then the backstory didn't actually do anything in terms of play at the table. I mean, other than personality traits being roledplayed that is. But if you actually have details in there (who, what, when, where, why) and you actualy want those details to come up in some way in play? The GM does that.


And of course the DM will have to incorporate things even if the player's stuff is perfect. But that's not extra work for the DM above and beyond just running the game normally unless they have to spend time with the player outside of sessions to iron things out, which is not a given.

How is that not extra work? If you write "was kidnapped by pirates at a young age", and I decide to incorporate that into the game. I have to stop and think about who those pirates were. Are they still alive? If so, where are they and what are they doing now? How do they feel about this adventurer they kidnapped as a child? Do they want to kidnap again? Heck. Did they hand the kid a gold coin as a going away gift when they started their adventuring career, and now they've discovered that it's the key to ending a curse and have been searching the seven seas for said adventurer for the last x years now?

Character backstory is an absolutely great starting point for "new adventure ideas". But the actual adventure and the details within have to be written by the GM. Your character backstory isn't going to have any impact or relevance to game play unless the GM actually takes the time to write it into a scenario at some point. I mean, I guess we could argue that makes the GM's job "easier" because there's a free idea or something. But, everything else being the same, it's "easier" for me to integrate my own story ideas into my own world, than someone else's. That's why I pointed out specifically how incredibly rare it is for the player to actually do "all the work". I've had a couple of occasions where it was "close". But to me, the "work" of writing an adventure isn't just listing monsters, or treasure, or whatnot. I can do that in my sleep. What takes time is thinking through the plot/story of what is happening. And handing me a one line idea is only the very starting point to that process.

I will acknowledge that as long as players don't have a super expectation of their written stuff making it into an adventure, then on balance this can absolutely make my job "easier" as a GM. Ideas are there. I can pick from them as I want. That just becomes part of the creative process (and washes out cause I would have spent the same time on some other idea anyway). But a lot of the time, when players do write that much (seems to be in direct proportion to how much they write actually), there also tends to be a strong exectation that the GM is going to do something with it (usually sooner rather than later). And in those cases, the more that's written, the more constrained I may be. I now have to write something with pirates. And there's a gold coin. And a curse. Maybe I had no intention or interest in this sort of adventure, but now... here I am. And, of course, me being me, I'm not going to just do the one pirate adventure in a vacuum and then move on. I'm going to create an entire set of "rules for how pirates operate in my world". Which now includes how much impact they have on trade. And how merchants deal with the losses. Which kingdoms agressively go after them. Which maybe make deals. Are there privateers as well? How do they work? Heck. Given the setting, what sorts of weapons/magic/whatever do pirates actualy use to capture ships? Are there standards? Do pirates kill everyone? Let everoone go as long as they surrender their cargo? How often will pirates steal a whole ship? What do they do then? Is "rescuing standed pirate victims" a common thing for the various kingdoms coastal patrols?

That one line of text in the backstory may lead to me writing dozens of pages of content. Now, maybe the end result of that is a far richer and more interesting game setting. In fact, probably. But it's still a heck of a lot of "work". Again. Let me be really clear. This is not "bad" by any means. But, if a player introduces a character, and has this rich complex backstory, complete with tons of details hooks and ideas, as a GM I often feel pressured to set aside something I may have wanted to write (or perhaps even already written) in order to incorporate those details. Even if it's just modifications to an existing adventure idea, that's still "more than I would have done otherwise". The end result may absolutely be well worth the effort, but that's not really the point here.

[Fiery Diamond]

Yes. I have. Why did you stop the progression at that point?

What is the next step in that progression? The DM presents the setting to the players. The players write their backstories. And then.... what happens next?

The DM then spends a boatload of time integrating all of those different (cause odds are the players didn't do much coordinating here) backstories into the setting, and then tries to figure out what to write as an adventure that will incorporate them. Often having to choose which to do first, which to put on the backburner, where to insert hooks into something going on now that will lead into something relevant to someone's written backstory, etc.

I'm making the point that complex and detailed character backstories, while they certainly represent additonal time/effort spent by the player *also* create the need for additioanl time/effort spent by the GM. I was specifically countering the idea that being a player is somehow "harder" because some players may spend a ton of time on backstories by pointing out that to whatever degree this is "harder" for the player, it's also "harder" for the GM.



I didn't just say "ideal backstory". I wrote "without me having to do any work myself". I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea. In fact, it's a very good idea. I'm merely countering the idea that "12 page backstory" makes it "harder" to be a player relative to the GM. It doesn't. For every line the player writes in that backstory, the GM is probably going to write a page in an adventure at some point along the line to deal with. And if the GM doesn't do this, then the backstory didn't actually do anything in terms of play at the table. I mean, other than personality traits being roledplayed that is. But if you actually have details in there (who, what, when, where, why) and you actualy want those details to come up in some way in play? The GM does that.



How is that not extra work? If you write "was kidnapped by pirates at a young age", and I decide to incorporate that into the game. I have to stop and think about who those pirates were. Are they still alive? If so, where are they and what are they doing now? How do they feel about this adventurer they kidnapped as a child? Do they want to kidnap again? Heck. Did they hand the kid a gold coin as a going away gift when they started their adventuring career, and now they've discovered that it's the key to ending a curse and have been searching the seven seas for said adventurer for the last x years now?

Character backstory is an absolutely great starting point for "new adventure ideas". But the actual adventure and the details within have to be written by the GM. Your character backstory isn't going to have any impact or relevance to game play unless the GM actually takes the time to write it into a scenario at some point. I mean, I guess we could argue that makes the GM's job "easier" because there's a free idea or something. But, everything else being the same, it's "easier" for me to integrate my own story ideas into my own world, than someone else's. That's why I pointed out specifically how incredibly rare it is for the player to actually do "all the work". I've had a couple of occasions where it was "close". But to me, the "work" of writing an adventure isn't just listing monsters, or treasure, or whatnot. I can do that in my sleep. What takes time is thinking through the plot/story of what is happening. And handing me a one line idea is only the very starting point to that process.

I will acknowledge that as long as players don't have a super expectation of their written stuff making it into an adventure, then on balance this can absolutely make my job "easier" as a GM. Ideas are there. I can pick from them as I want. That just becomes part of the creative process (and washes out cause I would have spent the same time on some other idea anyway). But a lot of the time, when players do write that much (seems to be in direct proportion to how much they write actually), there also tends to be a strong exectation that the GM is going to do something with it (usually sooner rather than later). And in those cases, the more that's written, the more constrained I may be. I now have to write something with pirates. And there's a gold coin. And a curse. Maybe I had no intention or interest in this sort of adventure, but now... here I am. And, of course, me being me, I'm not going to just do the one pirate adventure in a vacuum and then move on. I'm going to create an entire set of "rules for how pirates operate in my world". Which now includes how much impact they have on trade. And how merchants deal with the losses. Which kingdoms agressively go after them. Which maybe make deals. Are there privateers as well? How do they work? Heck. Given the setting, what sorts of weapons/magic/whatever do pirates actualy use to capture ships? Are there standards? Do pirates kill everyone? Let everoone go as long as they surrender their cargo? How often will pirates steal a whole ship? What do they do then? Is "rescuing standed pirate victims" a common thing for the various kingdoms coastal patrols?

That one line of text in the backstory may lead to me writing dozens of pages of content. Now, maybe the end result of that is a far richer and more interesting game setting. In fact, probably. But it's still a heck of a lot of "work". Again. Let me be really clear. This is not "bad" by any means. But, if a player introduces a character, and has this rich complex backstory, complete with tons of details hooks and ideas, as a GM I often feel pressured to set aside something I may have wanted to write (or perhaps even already written) in order to incorporate those details. Even if it's just modifications to an existing adventure idea, that's still "more than I would have done otherwise". The end result may absolutely be well worth the effort, but that's not really the point here.

Ah. I see where our disconnect is. See, I don't see incorporating the player's backstory into your shared story as extra work, because it supplants what you might have done instead, not adds to it. As a DM, I lean very heavily to the improv side of the improv-preparation spectrum, and while I might have some broad strokes ideas for the tale in which the players will find themselves, I will have almost no details beyond the setting itself (probably in more detail than I gave to the players, of course; there need to be some surprises for them) before I get given the character info from the players. The story is built around the confluence of character and setting, not around the setting with details added to incorporate the characters. It's definitively NOT "more than I would have done otherwise" to include the character's stuff. It's still work, but it's work I'm doing instead of what I would have done otherwise. And arguably easier, since creativity with constraints is significantly easier than having no limits for a number of reasons. Having prompts to build off of is much easier than coming up with compelling story stuff and further setting details without prompts.

[Pauly]

All this talk about backstories reminds me why I like Traveller and Traveller like games with procedurally generated back stories.

[AMFV]

I don't know how one takes pride in a 12 page backstory, suggests that it should be expected of players and then, with all the misguided will in the world, suggests that reading those backstories (we're taking usually at least 3 more players), incorporating relevant information in the campaign (and dealing with backstory conflicts) is for the GM to do, and then says the GM has the easier job.

The very suggestion is mind-breakingly unbalanced already.

The thing is that a 12 page backstory is actually not harder to write than a nice two page one. Limiting yourself to the essentials means that you have to write better and forces you to think about what's really important. If I'm reading a novella about the players before I get into the game there's no wiggle or flexibility. And there's no way that I'm going to be able to do more than a few backstory hooks per player, at least not while keeping them satisfying.


I can also write one that is three sentences long. :smallwink:

I would bet you money that the three sentence ones you've written are better than the 12 page ones you've written at accomplishing their intended purpose in game.



Ah. I see where our disconnect is. See, I don't see incorporating the player's backstory into your shared story as extra work, because it supplants what you might have done instead, not adds to it. As a DM, I lean very heavily to the improv side of the improv-preparation spectrum, and while I might have some broad strokes ideas for the tale in which the players will find themselves, I will have almost no details beyond the setting itself (probably in more detail than I gave to the players, of course; there need to be some surprises for them) before I get given the character info from the players. The story is built around the confluence of character and setting, not around the setting with details added to incorporate the characters. It's definitively NOT "more than I would have done otherwise" to include the character's stuff. It's still work, but it's work I'm doing instead of what I would have done otherwise. And arguably easier, since creativity with constraints is significantly easier than having no limits for a number of reasons. Having prompts to build off of is much easier than coming up with compelling story stuff and further setting details without prompts.

Here's the thing, even if you're improving, having your improv sharply limited is going to create situations that will be more work.


All this talk about backstories reminds me why I like Traveller and Traveller like games with procedurally generated back stories.

I definitely think that people often lose the value of discovering a character as they develop. A long backstory means that you have a lot less freedom if your character actually winds up different than you had originally envisioned. That's why I think short succinct backstories are better, they give you room to change up a lot of things while giving the DM a few things to hook to, so it's enough for like a fairly okay thing without locking you in or getting the DM locked into your novel. Players who should be writing novels instead are just as bad as DMs doing it.

[Velaryon]

One point I haven't seen brought up so far (though I admit I started skimming the thread more than actually reading it by about the middle of page 2) is that the burden of scheduling the game tends to fall on the GM. This makes sense, since the game revolves entirely around the GM's availability. You can still play the game if one of the players isn't available,* but you cannot play without the GM.**

*Unless it's a solo game, or that player is the only one who can host.
**Unless it's a game that doesn't have a GM, in which case it's irrelevant to this discussion.

Anyway, I'm coming down firmly on the side that GMing is significantly harder than being a player. GM Burnout is a thing. I have never heard of Player Burnout. The sentence "I'm sorry everyone, being a player is taking up too much time and it's just not as much fun anymore, I'm going to take a break and run a game instead," has not only probably never been spoken, it was hard to even type without laughing.

Being a player doesn't require homework outside the game. Being a GM almost always does, even if it's as minimal as "reading the next chapter of the module so you know what the players will be facing." I've never been unable to jump on PSN the night before a game because I had to get ready to be a player the next day.

I did try to read and understand the people who take the "playing is harder" side of the debate, but it seems to me like the only way to argue that position is to redefine what "harder" means in such a way as to completely exclude the workload of being a GM vs. being a player, which I just can't get on board with.

[Telok]

I did try to read and understand the people who take the "playing is harder" side of the debate, but it seems to me like the only way to argue that position is to redefine what "harder" means in such a way as to completely exclude the workload of being a GM vs. being a player, which I just can't get on board with.

Define "work". That's the issue. I don't care that we've missed the last three games because as a player d&d is tedious labor that I'm keeping up for the next real game. Prepping for my next gming run is fun and I get fussed if I can't do any that week.

[OldTrees1]

Define "work". That's the issue. I don't care that we've missed the last three games because as a player d&d is tedious labor that I'm keeping up for the next real game. Prepping for my next gming run is fun and I get fussed if I can't do any that week.

Here is my thoughts on the topic:

Work/labor:
An activity or activities involving mental or physical effort.
Harder:
The total effort required for all the tasks for one role, is greater than the total effort required for all the tasks of the other role.

GMing requires the GM do prep for the next session. Being a player does not require you to do prep for the next session. Thus GMing takes more work. It does not matter that the activity of prepping can be fun, it is still extra work. The only way for being a player to be harder than GM is if participating as a player in a session is SO much more effort that running a session for the group, such that the difference is also greater than all the effort it takes the GM to prepare for that session.

However, knowing how much I prep (roughly 2-3x the session length), if participating as a player is that laborious relative to my labor of running the session + my labor of preparing the session, please speak up so I can adjust the sessions to make it easier for you.

[Telok]

GMing requires the GM do prep for the next session. Being a player does not require you to do prep for the next session.

Much good, but this bit is not universally true. I've seen & been a zero prep GM, plus some games are far less GM leaning than D&Ds. Example. I have... somewhere, it's been a while... a spreadsheet that one-click automated everything I need for GMing a Paranoia game except NPC names and tge R&D toys. The players will do more prep work making characters than I have to prep for that game. Much of the work for the spreadsheet was finding lists like "101 things to go wrong at a grocery store" or "101 accidental mutation events" and copying them.

Now, if the GM isn't good at improv, system mastery, etc., it's a train wreck. Seen that with people trying to low-prep GM from D&D adventures. But D&D requires fights, maps, stat blocks, convoluted rules scattered across multiple books, not fitting the mechanics on one or two peices of paper, and such things.

[Reversefigure4]

I've seen & been a zero prep GM, plus some games are far less GM leaning than D&Ds. Example. I have... somewhere, it's been a while... a spreadsheet that one-click automated everything I need for GMing a Paranoia game except NPC names and tge R&D toys. The players will do more prep work making characters than I have to prep for that game. Much of the work for the spreadsheet was finding lists like "101 things to go wrong at a grocery store" or "101 accidental mutation events" and copying them.

Although you presumably still had to do all that work setting up the spreadsheet, which I'm guessing is more work than than the players put into making their characters (in Paranoia, wouldn't characters be quite simple to set up? I've never played it).

It's pretty common for my prep as a GM to be front-loaded, spending weeks making the campaign and then only intermittently prepping from there. There have been occasions where on any -given- session, a player does more prep - because they're writing a speech, drawing up a battle plan, etc. But overall, the workload is incomparable, even with the simplest prep games.

[Leon]

GMing a thousand fold, you have to do everything a player isn't and sometimes even manage the players who should be playing just to keep things flowing.

[Telok]

Although you presumably still had to do all that work setting up the spreadsheet, which I'm guessing is more work than than the players put into making their characters (in Paranoia, wouldn't characters be quite simple to set up? I've never played it).

Once, yes. About 6 hours work and I've been about to run Paranoia games for years with one button push (plus "nuclear hand grenade, y/n?"). While characters are simple they still run 10 minutes or so. I hit the break even point on about the third game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As I see it, a DM has to do everything a player does plus a lot of overhead and tasks that players don't have to do.

Backstories? NPCs need backstories. And there's a lot less wiggle room in those. Sure, they don't need to be as detailed, but there need to be a lot more of them. At least if you want an actual world, not a randomly-generated cardboard backdrop.

Spotlight management? .... that's part of every single thing a DM has to do.

Staying engaged? They're on stage 100% of the time. If they drift off...things go sideways.

Figuring out where to go from here? Yup, all the time.

Etc.

Plus things like
1. having and managing hidden state. Players can get away without having any secrets from anyone else. DMs can't, really.
2. worldbuilding. Even in a pre-generated world such as a module, you have to fill in the gaps and provide bridges.
3. Narration. Tables differ on how much they do, but describing things, deciding what happens on an attack, etc.
4. Action resolution. They're part of every action resolution step. Because they're the ones who decide what mechanics need to be invoked. And even if others do the actual invocation, they're the final step in deciding whether that happens and exactly how the world changes as a result.

[gbaji]

Ah. I see where our disconnect is. See, I don't see incorporating the player's backstory into your shared story as extra work, because it supplants what you might have done instead, not adds to it. As a DM, I lean very heavily to the improv side of the improv-preparation spectrum, and while I might have some broad strokes ideas for the tale in which the players will find themselves, I will have almost no details beyond the setting itself (probably in more detail than I gave to the players, of course; there need to be some surprises for them) before I get given the character info from the players. The story is built around the confluence of character and setting, not around the setting with details added to incorporate the characters. It's definitively NOT "more than I would have done otherwise" to include the character's stuff. It's still work, but it's work I'm doing instead of what I would have done otherwise. And arguably easier, since creativity with constraints is significantly easier than having no limits for a number of reasons. Having prompts to build off of is much easier than coming up with compelling story stuff and further setting details without prompts.

I mostly agree with that. But IME that works best when the backstory is actually "broad strokes". The more detail the player puts into the backstory, the harder it is as the GM to fit things in. If the player backstory is "was orphaned and delivered to adopted parents by a mysterious robed figure", I can do all sorts of things with that as a GM. If the player actually details who the real parents were, who the robed figure was, what each of their motivations were, what other NPC groups/organizations might be insterested in the character, etc, then I'm more or less written into a corner here as a GM.

Also, if it's left broad/vague, then I can actually surprise the player with the discovery of their character's full background in the course of play. If the player actually writes this all out ahead of time, then there is no discovery and there is no surprise. It's just the myself and the player following a pre-written script. IMO, that's just not nearly as satisfying.

I guess that's just my GMing style. I really really love creating that kind of stuff for my players. Putting in odd twists, strange behavior that they must discover through the course of the adventure, secret societies, evil and good forces at work, etc. I want them to discover the world I'm writing/creating via the course of playing within it. Players giving me some basic hooks to work with? Great. 9 times out of 10, I already have some idea/group/thing that will slot into that. But the more detail the player actually writes, the harder it is for me to fit it into anything I've already got going on (but the players don't know about yet). That's really where I was going with that.


I definitely think that people often lose the value of discovering a character as they develop. A long backstory means that you have a lot less freedom if your character actually winds up different than you had originally envisioned. That's why I think short succinct backstories are better, they give you room to change up a lot of things while giving the DM a few things to hook to, so it's enough for like a fairly okay thing without locking you in or getting the DM locked into your novel. Players who should be writing novels instead are just as bad as DMs doing it.

Yeah. More or less this. And yeah, this comes back to GMing style. I really don't like players to include "frontstory" in their characters (ie: things they want to have happen to their characters). That's why we're playing the game. You will discover what happens to your character, and how they change and grow, via a combination of things I put into the game and decisions/outcomes you actually make while playing. And also, there are X other players at the table as well, so it's not all about you.

A small amount of backstory, sufficient to describe where the character is from, why they have the starting skills/class/whatever, and what motivates them to do whatever they're doing, is all that's really needed. Adding some bits that can be used as hooks is fine. But the moment the player starts writing stuff that is clearly "this is what I want to have happen with my character over the course of play", I tend to push back quite a bit. I get that some GMs want that sort of thing, so I can totally acknowledge that this can/does work in some settings/campaigns. But it's just now how I GM.

I don't ever write any adventure with the idea of how this will impact characterA's development. I just don't. I write adventures based on "what is happening in the world around the PCs", and then they respond to that. Now, if a player comes to me and says "I'm going to do <whatever>" with my character, I'll consider what happens as a result. But if they come to me with a detailed plot sequence they want to happen with a specific desired endpoint? No. I'm not writing your fantasy story for you.

The closest I've ever come to this was one player who had a specific problem one of his characters was facing and asked me if I could write an adventure resolving it. That was it. No details beyond describing the problem, and wanting a resolution. And just to tie this back in, I find it much "easier" for me to write something myself based on what I know is actually going on in the world around them, than to take a detailed sequence that the player wants and try to wedge it in somehow. And yeah, the more detailed the players proposed story is, the "harder" is actually is for me to write it.

It's all "work". But some work is much harder than others.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm gonna give Jay R the benefit of the doubt and just assume there were elements of that player-GM interaction they haven't shared with us. Making broad assumptions about what Jay R did or did not also do as the GM feels like a waste of time – I don't see any reason to litigate the story further. Yes.


So... you've never had the DM present the setting to the players (not just setting concept, but at least a basic surface level of the actual setting), then have the players create their backstories? That's usually a good fit.

All this talk about backstories reminds me why I like Traveller and Traveller like games with procedurally generated back stories. Yes.


I would bet you money that the three sentence ones you've written are better than the 12 page ones you've written at accomplishing their intended purpose in game. You already lost that bet, because of your own biases. I tailor the backstories to the table and the campaign. Suggest you broaden your field of view. Here is {1} Korvin Starmast's back story from 2014: (written after the PHB backgrounds were applied) DM set the game in Forgotten Realms.


Mother died in the violet plague.
On my third trading voyage, Father was killed by the pirate Rustbeard while defending the good ship Windbreaker from attack.
Rustbeard took our ship, since his had burned during the battle.
Salted Bart and Steelfinger mutinied, feeding Rustbeard to the sharks. It was justice, of a sort.
They put ashore those of us who wished to leave piracy to them.
I watched my seven shipmates slowly die from poisoned wine, which was Steelfinger's parting gift -- or the moon's a glowing ball of cheese!
I made for Mother's temple, the one in Scornubel where Father had met her.
The high priest said I had potential. He enrolled me to study as a Cleric of Lathander.
It was four long years of prayer and learning.
I felt a sailor's restlessness.
I left the cloister to spread the Light.
Maybe I can heal a small part of this sick world.
Maybe I can find justice.
How I'll do any of that in this mad city of Waterdeep I'm not sure -- I'm not even sure how I got here.
If a few other people are as restless as I am, there's no telling what we can change ...

DM used two of the hooks I provided to him. :smalltongue:
This little narrative also introduced this character to the other five players.
(Ya know, meet in a tavern, but with the use of email, we all emailed our back stories to the rest of the group before the session...mine was middling in length. A couple were longer, a couple were shorter).


I definitely think that people often lose the value of discovering a character as they develop. You opinion is not a fact.

{1} Korvin was my first 5e character, and he died in combat.

[AMFV]

Yes.
You already lost that bet, because of your own biases. I tailor the backstories to the table and the campaign. Suggest you broaden your field of view. Here is {1} Korvin Starmast's back story from 2014: (written after the PHB backgrounds were applied) DM set the game in Forgotten Realms.


Mother died in the violet plague.
On my third trading voyage, Father was killed by the pirate Rustbeard while defending the good ship Windbreaker from attack.
Rustbeard took our ship, since his had burned during the battle.
Salted Bart and Steelfinger mutinied, feeding Rustbeard to the sharks. It was justice, of a sort.
They put ashore those of us who wished to leave piracy to them.
I watched my seven shipmates slowly die from poisoned wine, which was Steelfinger's parting gift -- or the moon's a glowing ball of cheese!
I made for Mother's temple, the one in Scornubel where Father had met her.
The high priest said I had potential. He enrolled me to study as a Cleric of Lathander.
It was four long years of prayer and learning.
I felt a sailor's restlessness.
I left the cloister to spread the Light.
Maybe I can heal a small part of this sick world.
Maybe I can find justice.
How I'll do any of that in this mad city of Waterdeep I'm not sure -- I'm not even sure how I got here.
If a few other people are as restless as I am, there's no telling what we can change ...

DM used two of the hooks I provided to him. :smalltongue:
This little narrative also introduced this character to the other five players.
(Ya know, meet in a tavern, but with the use of email, we all emailed our back stories to the rest of the group before the session...mine was middling in length. A couple were longer, a couple were shorter).

You opinion is not a fact.

Broseph, that isn't 12 pages.

Edit: Also you should look at what I replying to, when you declared that "your opinion isn't a fact" I was referring to games that do focus on emergent character development, like Traveller.

Edit 2: And again that backstory is better than any 12 page story. Straight up, it just is.

[KorvinStarmast]

Edit 2: And again that backstory is better than any 12 page story. Straight up, it just is.
At the risk of repeating myself, your opinion is not fact.
I do agree that Traveller added a neat way to procedurally build a "who you were before you did this" and we all enjoyed it. It was a mini game in itself, in a lot of ways, and was fun to mess with since we found Traveller (original) combat to be quite lethal.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My personal opinion is that backstories are better if they're not all nailed down. Some detail? Absolutely. Gives me things to work off of and incorporate. But I love when there's a mystery and the players trust me enough to figure out the answers and weave that discovery into the campaign.

My current online group is great for that--their first campaign, I had an amnesiac warlock. He knew basically his name. The rest? Trusted to me. Their current campaign has several mysteries, large and small. Others had pieces they weren't clear on, that they hadn't detailed. And we worked together to figure it out. That collaboration lets me both do the fine tuning to fit it into an established world AND gives me plenty of "plot eyebolts". Places that they've said in advance that they'll accept plot hooks.

On the flip side, I promise up front and OOC that I won't threaten anyone named in their backstory without giving them the IC chance to intervene if they so choose. They may not successfully intervene, and they may not choose to intervene at all, or they may gleefully stab their ex-wife through the heart on the back of an enemy dragon and send them plummeting to their doom (true story). That's their choice. But they'll have enough warning to intervene if they choose to.

[KorvinStarmast]

... or they may gleefully stab their ex-wife through the heart on the back of an enemy dragon and send them plummeting to their doom (true story). She felt gravity's pull, yes she did.

[gbaji]

A small amount of backstory, sufficient to describe where the character is from, why they have the starting skills/class/whatever, and what motivates them to do whatever they're doing, is all that's really needed.


Here is {1} Korvin Starmast's back story from 2014: (written after the PHB backgrounds were applied) DM set the game in Forgotten Realms.


Mother died in the violet plague.
On my third trading voyage, Father was killed by the pirate Rustbeard while defending the good ship Windbreaker from attack.
Rustbeard took our ship, since his had burned during the battle.
Salted Bart and Steelfinger mutinied, feeding Rustbeard to the sharks. It was justice, of a sort.
They put ashore those of us who wished to leave piracy to them.
I watched my seven shipmates slowly die from poisoned wine, which was Steelfinger's parting gift -- or the moon's a glowing ball of cheese!
I made for Mother's temple, the one in Scornubel where Father had met her.
The high priest said I had potential. He enrolled me to study as a Cleric of Lathander.
It was four long years of prayer and learning.
I felt a sailor's restlessness.
I left the cloister to spread the Light.
Maybe I can heal a small part of this sick world.
Maybe I can find justice.
How I'll do any of that in this mad city of Waterdeep I'm not sure -- I'm not even sure how I got here.
If a few other people are as restless as I am, there's no telling what we can change ...


That's a nearly perfect example of exactly what I (and at least a few others) were saying is what we want/need as GMs.

Assuming the setting has pirates already established and existing, and the locations mentioned exist, and the temples/gods/towns mentioned already exist, everything is fine.

[Jay R]

Yes. And I still don't see that you attempted to engage with that backstory. You just decided Glen's performance in combat was more valuable to the game than any further effort invested in getting him to roleplay. What did Glen do when he wasn't in combat? Zoned out?

There's a difference between losing the desire to want more; and accepting a lower standard. Your post reads more like the former, and less like the latter.

Glen was my closest friend for over thirty years. There's tons more interaction between us, and he enjoyed all my games. You're trying to ignore the point I was writing about (and about which the story was relevant), and instead invent an idea about our relationship and how our games went, based on no information at all.

Please stop making up nonsense.

[Imbalance]

I'd have no qualms asking a player with a three sentence backstory to embellish it up to 15. I'd also ask the twelve page player to shrink 'er down to the same target, because I'm not reading all of that.

This discussion also leads me to believe that a lot of the perception of which role is "harder" is based on how much you're overdoing it.

[Reversefigure4]

Plus things like
1. having and managing hidden state. Players can get away without having any secrets from anyone else. DMs can't, really.
2. worldbuilding. Even in a pre-generated world such as a module, you have to fill in the gaps and provide bridges.
3. Narration. Tables differ on how much they do, but describing things, deciding what happens on an attack, etc.
4. Action resolution. They're part of every action resolution step. Because they're the ones who decide what mechanics need to be invoked. And even if others do the actual invocation, they're the final step in deciding whether that happens and exactly how the world changes as a result.

Good list! I'd also add a much greater degree of rules mastery to this pile. A player ideally needs to know how the character works - what their class features do, the stats of their summons, etc - but the GM needs to know -everything-. Can't use a grapple monster without knowing the grapple rules. If you're making up skill DCs, you need to have some idea of comparable ones. You're playing every class, every feat, every possibility in the game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Good list! I'd also add a much greater degree of rules mastery to this pile. A player ideally needs to know how the character works - what their class features do, the stats of their summons, etc - but the GM needs to know -everything-. Can't use a grapple monster without knowing the grapple rules. If you're making up skill DCs, you need to have some idea of comparable ones. You're playing every class, every feat, every possibility in the game.

And when someone asks for a ruling, you need to have enough knowledge to know how that interacts with other stuff.

[Olive_Sophia]

To me, being a DM is a lot harder. There's a ton more preparation that needs to be done to have a smooth session. You can cut down on a lot of that with certain strategies, but I get too obsessed and spend way more time than is practical on it. :smallbiggrin:

[gatorized]

Ever since I moved away from d&d and similar systems, I find GMing to be super easy, and at least as fun as being a player. I can make up whatever I want on the spot, and I don't have to worry about some unforeseen fiddly rules interaction causing the entire game to explode.

[Easy e]

This discussion also leads me to believe that a lot of the perception of which role is "harder" is based on how much you're overdoing it.

^^^ This person wins the thread!

[Telok]

Ever since I moved away from d&d and similar systems, I find GMing to be super easy, and at least as fun as being a player. I can make up whatever I want on the spot, and I don't have to worry about some unforeseen fiddly rules interaction causing the entire game to explode.

Games with good random content generation are also amazingly easy. I can build full adventures for Traveller, Champions, and Paranoia games just by trawling the interwebz for generators and using a handful of stock npcs from one book. Mork Borg is looking super easy that way too.

[Easy e]

Ever since I moved away from d&d and similar systems, I find GMing to be super easy, and at least as fun as being a player. I can make up whatever I want on the spot, and I don't have to worry about some unforeseen fiddly rules interaction causing the entire game to explode.

I have followed a similar path and found similar results.

[Jay R]

I'd have no qualms asking a player with a three sentence backstory to embellish it up to 15. I'd also ask the twelve page player to shrink 'er down to the same target, because I'm not reading all of that.

"No problem. You'll find the executive summary on page 3, after the title page and the table of contents."

[No, I don't write a title page, table of contents, and executive summary for my character backgrounds. That was just my first amused reaction to this request.]

While I could easily write a shorter version for the DM, my real character background would not be any shorter, because it's my notes that I wrote while creating the character.

In fact, by the time my character background is finished, the DM has written part of it, because I've asked him questions about his world to make my character fit in. The description of his home village and culture will be almost entirely the DM's words.


This discussion also leads me to believe that a lot of the perception of which role is "harder" is based on how much you're overdoing it.

A. You're making the assumption that doing what I enjoy is "overdoing it" if I don't play exactly like you. You have fun your way, and I won't accuse you of "underdoing it". As I wrote back on page 2, "I'm sure your way works for you; it's just very different from my way."

B. In any event, while this sounds logical, it's flat wrong (in my case, at least). I (in your words) "overdo" character backgrounds, and I believe that being a DM is more work (with the proviso that if you love it, it's not really "work").

In general, the people who (in your words) "overdo" it as a player, also tend to "overdo" it as a DM. For instance, I have a document called an encyclopedia, that lists every named character the PCs have met or heard of, with their current status, and what the PCs do and do not know about them. I write a several-page description of each session, which I send out to the players, asking what I left out. This is written from, but is not the same as, my several pages of notes to run each session.

People who write a lot as players also write a lot as DMs. I also write a lot when not in a game at all.

[gbaji]

In fact, by the time my character background is finished, the DM has written part of it, because I've asked him questions about his world to make my character fit in. The description of his home village and culture will be almost entirely the DM's words.

Right. Which means that the longer and more detailed the player makes their character backstory, the more "work" this is for the GM as well.



In general, the people who (in your words) "overdo" it as a player, also tend to "overdo" it as a DM. For instance, I have a document called an encyclopedia, that lists every named character the PCs have met or heard of, with their current status, and what the PCs do and do not know about them. I write a several-page description of each session, which I send out to the players, asking what I left out. This is written from, but is not the same as, my several pages of notes to run each session.

People who write a lot as players also write a lot as DMs. I also write a lot when not in a game at all.

Sure. So let's set aside whether it's time/effort we enjoy or not, or the degree to which either a GM or player "overdoes it". Can we agree that for any given person, with their own personal level of desire/enjoyment to write tons of stuff (or not), there's a lot more of that writing/prepping/whatever when they are acting as GM than when they are acting as a player?

Everything else being the same, given my or your or anyone's specific level of attention to detail, desire to take notes, desire to detail things, or whatever, that person is always going to spend more time on those things when creating the game setting, creating all of the NPCs within that seting, coming up with interesting plots/schemes/problems, and then running and presenting that in a "fun" fashion to the players during game time, than the same person is going to spend when playing in someone else's game. This has certainly been my experience.

And yes, some game systems are "easier" than others. But they're often easier on the players as well. In all the time I've been playing RPGs, I think there's only been a couple game systems that I've played in but not GMed in. And my experience is overwhelmingly that it takes a heck of a lot more time and effort to run a game than to play in it. Always. In every system (well, ones with a GM role in the first place).

I will put one caveat in there. I'm measuring "time/effort spent" here. One can make the argument (and I think a few people have) that being a player is "harder" in that players do have to "figure out" what's going on in the game. They have to come up with the strategies to defeat the bad guys. They have to take the risks with their characters to achieve things in-game. So there is that. To me though, that's the point of the game though, so it's kind of the baseline assumption here. But sure. Worth noting.

Also worth noting that the degree to which there are things to "figure out", the GM had to create them first. I guess we could assume a game where the GM is just tossing monsters and rewards at the players, with no real thought or effort expended, and could then conclude that the player's job is "harder" due to the risk factor involved. I guess. I just don't know if that's the game standard we should be applying here though. To me, that's a pretty crappy/boring game. Which, I suppose, leads us to yet another definition of "harder" for the player (I'd certainly find it "hard" to continue playing in a game like that). I'm not sure if that's what any of us are reallying trying to measure here though.

[KorvinStarmast]

In general, the people who (in your words) "overdo" it as a player, also tend to "overdo" it as a DM. For instance, I have a document called an encyclopedia, that lists every named character the PCs have met or heard of, with their current status, and what the PCs do and do not know about them. I write a several-page description of each session, which I send out to the players, asking what I left out. This is written from, but is not the same as, my several pages of notes to run each session.

People who write a lot as players also write a lot as DMs. I also write a lot when not in a game at all. I tend to follow a similar pattern.
I have an idea on where the R from your "Jay R" handle may come from (no, not the prime time soap):
the second R of the infamous Three R's.
Readin', Ritin's and 'Rithmatic

:smallbiggrin:

[Imbalance]

I'll put it this way: me reading a 12-page backstory is overdoing it. My asking you for a cliff's notes version is my way of keeping my role as DM from becoming harder than it needs to be. I don't really care how much you enjoy making it harder for yourself. I actually respect that you're that much into your character, but if you expect me to take your manifesto as gospel and be as into it as you are, you're overdoing it.

As a player, I constantly have ideas about my character and who they are and how they'd behave. I seldom bother writing them down. I'll give the DM some hooks, but I'll probably forget what they were by the time he gets around to working them into the campaign. There is nowhere near enough return on my time investment to make that much writing enjoyable to me.

I'm far more interested in what will unfold as we play, and that's my approach in either role. Too much premeditation on either side of the table seems to take away from the events at hand. Fabricated backstory can be useful for writing prequels - our story is what is happening now.

[KorvinStarmast]

Fabricated backstory can be useful for writing prequels - our story is what is happening now.
That's a good point to remember. A key part of the backstory is "and that's why {character X} is undertaking this adventure/adventuring" ... which is a point that Tanarii raises every time we have the conversation about back stories.

What are your motives and motivations?
Why are you an adventurer, and not still (whatever background you chose, like Urchin, Criminal, Sailor, Guild Artisan, etc)

[Jay R]

Right. Which means that the longer and more detailed the player makes their character backstory, the more "work" this is for the GM as well.

Only if the GM chooses to do it. If I knew, beyond doubt, that the GM would never read it, I would still write it. That's part of the process of developing a character to play.

But my GMs have been supportive of it. Bob, Nolen, Rob, Dirk, Mike, and Brian have all read my character backgrounds and responded favorably. That covers all my role-playing for the last quarter century.


Sure. So let's set aside whether it's time/effort we enjoy or not, or the degree to which either a GM or player "overdoes it". Can we agree that for any given person, with their own personal level of desire/enjoyment to write tons of stuff (or not), there's a lot more of that writing/prepping/whatever when they are acting as GM than when they are acting as a player?

Yes, of course. That's what I said in the post you quoted: 'I (in your words) "overdo" character backgrounds, and I believe that being a DM is more work (with the proviso that if you love it, it's not really "work").' I'm not sure why you're asking me to agree with what I already wrote.


I'll put it this way: me reading a 12-page backstory is overdoing it. My asking you for a cliff's notes version is my way of keeping my role as DM from becoming harder than it needs to be. I don't really care how much you enjoy making it harder for yourself. I actually respect that you're that much into your character, but if you expect me to take your manifesto as gospel and be as into it as you are, you're overdoing it.

Of course. As I wrote in my "Rules for Players":

20. Your backstory will never matter as much to the DM as it does to you. Remember that your backstory’s primary audience is you.

a. The DM will read your backstory only to the extent that it is interesting to read. If you aren’t an entertaining writer, keep it short.

My character background is the "prep" I do to create a character. I would do it exactly the same even if I knew the DM wouldn't read it at all.

But my DMs have generally been supportive of my desire to fit into their world, and to create a complete character. I know I remember more of my character's background than they do, and that's fine.


As a player, I constantly have ideas about my character and who they are and how they'd behave. I seldom bother writing them down. I'll give the DM some hooks, but I'll probably forget what they were by the time he gets around to working them into the campaign. There is nowhere near enough return on my time investment to make that much writing enjoyable to me.

I suspect that the real difference is implied in your last sentence. I enjoy D&D -- all of it, including character creation. Part of the "return on my time investment" is that I enjoyed it. I know lots of people don't. That why I keep saying, "We all have different approaches, and there's nothing wrong with that." [Third time so far in this thread.]

To disagree with my position, you need to believe that there is something wrong with me enjoying the game the way I do. I certainly don't think that there is anything wrong with you enjoying the game the way you do.


I'm far more interested in what will unfold as we play, and that's my approach in either role. Too much premeditation on either side of the table seems to take away from the events at hand. Fabricated backstory can be useful for writing prequels - our story is what is happening now.

Its purpose is exactly to prepare me for the events at hand. It doesn't take away from that any more than my time as an undergraduate "took away from" my classes as a graduate student. Instead, it prepared me for them.

[KorvinStarmast]

Only if the GM chooses to do it. If I knew, beyond doubt, that the GM would never read it, I would still write it. That's part of the process of developing a character top play.

But my GMs have been supportive of it. Bob, Nolen, Rob, Dirk, Mike, and Brian have all read my character backgrounds and responded favorably. That covers all my role-playing for the last quarter century.
Of course. As I wrote in my "Rules for Players":

20. Your backstory will never matter as much to the DM as it does to you. Remember that your backstory’s primary audience is you.

a. The DM will read your backstory only to the extent that it is interesting to read. If you aren’t an entertaining writer, keep it short.

My character background is the "prep" I do to create a character. I would do it exactly the same even if I knew the DM wouldn't read it at all.

But my DMs have generally been supportive of my desire to fit into their world, and to create a complete character. I know I remember more of my character's background than they do, and that's fine.

I suspect that the real difference is implied in your last sentence.
I enjoy D&D -- all of it, including character creation. Part of the "return on my time investment" is that I enjoyed it. I know lots of people don't. That why I keep saying, "We all have different approaches, and there's nothing wrong with that." [Third time so far in this thread.]

To disagree with my position, you need to believe that there is something wrong with me enjoying the game the way I do. I certainly don't think that there is anything wrong with you enjoying the game the way you do.

Its purpose is exactly to prepare me for the events at hand. It doesn't take away from that any more than my time as an undergraduate "took away from" my classes as a graduate student. Instead, it prepared me for them. I read you loud and clear.
*applause*
Plus eleventy Five