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

[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.

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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.

[I do the same thing with my notes from a game when I'm a player, 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 very lucky in who I play rpgs with.]