GM/Player Workload

[Sketchpad]

I was curious who does the work in everyone's group? Do the players do a lot of the work? Or does the GM work on everything? Or is it a happy medium?

[OddHat]

Characters:
With inexperienced players and players new to my campaigns, I prefer to do all character write ups. If a player submits a character, I will try to use it as a base, but there are powers, tricks, constructs and concepts that don't fit in some of my worlds. It's faster and easier for me to talk over the concept with the player, then write the sheet myself. I do ask the player to give me a write up of the character's history and personality before I start on the sheet; the concept and history are usually more important to me than the mechanics.

In the campaign I'm co-GMing, I'm using my co-GMs game world and house rules, including his very different mechanical approach to character design. The standards in that campaign are different.

I'll give more experienced players who know my design preferences more freedom when putting characters together.

World:
I want players to add NPCs, organizations, and almost anything else to a campaign, and I'll give some XP incentives to do so. I do re-write materials to fit them better into my games, and some concepts will be rejected.
A German dynasty of hired killers stretching back to the 12th century? Groovy.
The "Give my character a bag of money fairy"? No.

[Spence]

Generally the players take care of everything about their characters. I only have a copy so I can do a lookover for obvious problems (mostly plot related) and also have a reference during play and between game work. With new players, either one of the other players or I will work with them to make the character. We don't really worry that much about "cheating" or such. In RPG's it is kind of hard to hide more than one session. If someone feels the need to "cheat" we just don't ask them back.

[Edsel]

In our campaigns the GM makes up just about everything. Each of the players make up their own characters and any DNPCs that they have. They work with the GM if any Hunteds need to be made due to their disadvantages. The players usually write up a character background that makes sense for the campaign and the GM often gives them feedback to fleshout that background. The GM will sometimes ask for ideas and opinions and/or sometimes have some volunteered by the players. Sometimes one of the players will assist the GM with the creation of the world and its background but the GM does the vast majority of the work.

[CrosshairCollie]

When I run Champions, I do ... just about everything. Of the five people in the group, only two on Champions books (well, three if you count the me/wife split), and I'm the only one with Hero Designer, which simplifies the process greatly.

[rebeccared50]

When I was running the Huge, Hairy Shadowrun campaign, I was getting alot of help from one of the players (husband at the time) but I was handling where the story was going and how to get there.

Mostly I like to have the players handle their character, and DNPC's they have and history/bio write up, and I handle NPC's, plotline, etc... To me, it feels like we're sharing the load, but in actuality it probably means that I'm doing most of it...

[Klytus]

In our games, the only choices the players get is over which game we will play, and their characters. Once that is determined, the GM takes it from there.

[RDU Neil]

I've been trying to move toward a 50/50 split, for two reasons. 1) I'm busy and old and don't have time to do everything... and 2) I believe players need more director/author stance in games. I do a lot of the work, plotting and creating villains and the like... but I really expect players to do some of the following...
1) Understand the game world enough to have a character that makes sense.
2) Build the basics of the charcacter, as I'm flexible on tweaking as we go.
3) Work to co-operate with the other players so everyone is on the same page about "what this game is about."
4) Think about what they, as players, want out of the game, and communicate this to everyone.

It's interesting, as the last piece requires more maturity than I'd thought. Our group is primarily in it's late twenties to thirties... except for two new folks. They are very early twenties, a couple. The guy just left for Iraq (damn Bush to hell) and this has been really bad, but his wife still wants to game with us as a release and escape. She is relatively new to real role playing (speaking in character, having personality, getting inside the skin of the who she is playing) but is really into it, but I realize that she has trouble putting into words what she wants out of a game. It's not a matter of smarts or language... just experience and introspection that really only comes with time. Knowing what she wants, and why she wants to play that, and how that will work with others... it is interesting to see that developing, but in her case I have to be more of the classic GM and kind of lead and direct.

Just a note: Recently we started a new game. I came up with the idea of trying "shared story telling" to create a shared history for the characters. Each player had a basic concept and rough outline of a 300 point character when they arrived, and then as a group we told origin stories, first battle stories, how the group met stories, how I got my hunted stories, what weird plots happened in the past stories, etc. Basically we fleshed out a "history" for the characters and then built the characters more fully, around these ideas (adding 200 points so they are 500 point characters, "new" but with history inserted into the game world.)

It was awkward at first, but turned out really well in the end. They can now reference, "that time when..." even though we didn't actually game it out, they all nod as they were all part in telling that story. I expect this level of interaction from all my players, and recommend trying something like this in your games.

[zornwil]

Argh, I just realized I misread! I should have chosen "The GM does everything but the Characters " Oh well...even that's not really entirely accurate, as players make suggestions and give resource material as they desire and that often gets incorporated. But it's more accurate than "splits the work" I guess.

[WhammeWhamme]

Well, this is an issue I've been thinking about.

I greatly prefer to build my own characters, and as a GM, I'd prefer the players came up with stuff for me to work with than that I feed them my cool ideas.

But it rarely works that way. GMs take a more active role, and the Players are often quite passive.

(sigh) I dunno...

[zornwil]

Not saying you don't do this, but one thing to do is pay attention closely to the villains your PCs are most focused on and listen to every crackpot theory they have - those theories are often worth entirely using instead of your own, and sometimes they focus on what to you may have been a throw-away villain. Just using what they focus on can save a GM a lot of work plus give the players some great satisfaction ("I KNEW Captain Condundrum was a major bad guy, I KNEW it, and I KNEW he had flying monkeys to take over the world!").

[bblackmoor]

I was curious who does the work in everyone's group? Do the players do a lot of the work? Or does the GM work on everything? Or is it a happy medium?

In most of the groups I have ever played in for any length of time, most of the group trades off GMing duties from time to time. So most of the players have provided part of the setting, with some naturally contributing more than others. Even for the unusual player who never chooses to run a game herself, there are always pieces here and there that were created by that player as part of this or that character's background. And in any good game, of course, the whole is the result of the cooperation and collaboration of the all of the players. So while the players who act as GM from time to time do most of the work as a technical necessity, all of the players contribute.

[bblackmoor]

They can now reference, "that time when..." even though we didn't actually game it out, they all nod as they were all part in telling that story.

This is very cool, as are you. Your remaining new player is very lucky. May her husband be home soon.

[RDU Neil]

This is very cool, as are you. Your remaining new player is very lucky. May her husband be home soon.

Appreciate the comment. Hope to get back to the game this week (holidays cutting into gaming) Been a tough time for our friend, with her husband gone over the holidays. If nothing else, I can give her a chance to cut loose and kick some villain butt, as she seems to enjoy that.

[Hawksmoor]

For me it is the GM makes up the major NPCs and puts in that sort of drudge work, but the best games the absolute best games are the ones where I can just sit back and watch as the players put their characters through their paces. It might only last 10 minutes or if I am lucky an hour but in that time the players step up and become collaborators instead of semi-passive consumers of entertainment.

I do not GM for them, or allow them into my game. I expect to have as much if not more fun developing and guiding the game as the players have in participating.

Thus I say 50/50 since I work to get my players involved. If in the GGU Damocles Game I run, once we have all the little issues settled out I am just going to let the scenarios run out and see where it takes us as a group. It should be great fun.

Hawksmoor