Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

[Kevin]

Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

[Guest Thunder]

player

 

I would rather play because I've been running way too many games for way too many years. guess its a by product of running my own gaming store, and gaming since 1979.

[Count Zero]

I usually prefer to be a GM because many of the games that I play in just seem to suck. I have been told I am an awsome GM which is more encouragement to GM (even though I doubt the fact that I am as good as everyone says). I have noticed in most games... nothing every really happens, it is just an excuse for people to get together and chat and joke. There never really seems to be a story. It makes me not like to be a player. I have only played in two games where I really was excited about the next game was disappointed if the game didn't happen.

 

Also, I think I like to be in control and manipulate people so being a player is just painful.

 

Jonathan

[Mayday]

I like both. If I dont have alot of time it is better to be a player though.

 

When you run things it is a different kind of fun, you know everything and it is your world, your creation, your perfect house of cards, your baby so to speak. You can alter the universe, rewrite history. Things many GMs wont let the player do.

 

But, the player gets the satisfaction of pulling the impossible hat out of the fire, saving life as we know it. Thrill of Victory. Agony of Defeat.

 

I like to DM for the reason I like Sim City, making the perfect city is more fun than blowing it up.

[Agent X]

I like to play in a good game more than run a good game. I like to run a good game more than play in a mediocre game.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Agent X

I like to play in a good game more than run a good game. I like to run a good game more than play in a mediocre game.

I'll second that.

 

That and I'd rather play in a mediocore game that run a painful one.

[Enforcer84]

I'd rather play as the guys I play with might all end up dead if I ran a game for them. They are annoying.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Enforcer84

I'd rather play as the guys I play with might all end up dead if I ran a game for them. They are annoying.

LOL:)

[Blue]

Hero System: Run

Anything Else: Play

 

That's preference though. I'll Play Hero too. I just won't run anything else.

[farik]

I prefer to play, because I'm so used to the effort required to run a game and create a setting and NPCs it's easy to pour all that energy into a single character I mean when you're used to having to role play a town of NPCs it's easy to role play a single character and real feel invested in what that character does.

 

By far though the best expierence as a GM and Player is the shared campaign it only works if the GMs who rotate all want the same thing from the campaign; but you really get the best of both worlds. You get to develop world spanning plots and create new setting elements but at the same time new elements and eventualities throw you a curve both as a player and a GM. Of course this requires an event driven style of campaign, rigid meta-plots could easily ruin the whole experience for everyone.

[Solomon]

I like playing and GMing equally well. However, I usually end up GMing. When I play I have a non-competitive style, and I really like helping the GM push forward the story. Most players in my area are fiercely competitive, though, especially the young ones.

[ZootSoot]

Re: Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

 

Originally posted by Kevin

Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

 

Tough one. I prefer being a player because it lets me develop a single individual, a personal history, personality and to explore the possibilities of someone very different from myself. On the other hand, so many games are pedestrian, unimaginative or offer no room for doing new things, that I much prefer to GM than play in them. I am a good GM, I can create a detailed world and I can run things off the cuff, and I will step in to offer to run when things are getting out of hand; but I do prefer to be a player.

[ZootSoot]

Originally posted by farik

I prefer to play, because I'm so used to the effort required to run a game and create a setting and NPCs it's easy to pour all that energy into a single character I mean when you're used to having to role play a town of NPCs it's easy to role play a single character and real feel invested in what that character does.

 

By far though the best expierence as a GM and Player is the shared campaign it only works if the GMs who rotate all want the same thing from the campaign; but you really get the best of both worlds. You get to develop world spanning plots and create new setting elements but at the same time new elements and eventualities throw you a curve both as a player and a GM. Of course this requires an event driven style of campaign, rigid meta-plots could easily ruin the whole experience for everyone.

 

Definately the best experience, but you don't all have to want the same thing, you have to respect each other's desires and respect game continuity.

[farik]

Originally posted by ZootSoot

Definately the best experience, but you don't all have to want the same thing, you have to respect each other's desires and respect game continuity.

 

I meant you have to want the same thing from the game not have the same goals. I mean you're looking at a train wreck about to happen if one of you wants HARD Sci Fi while someone else is trying for Space Opera. You have to recognize the genre your aiming for. For instance in our super espionage game; we all wanted world spanning plots and influential people shaping the course of the world. But each of the 3 GM's brought something different. So it was world class espionage but one adventure would be Mission Impossible style, then we'd have something more like Jake 2.0, and then we'd have the Kolchak the Nightstalker adventure. As a result the campaign as a whole had an X-Files feel where you get the silly episodes, the horrfiying episodes, and the dramatic episodes but you never lost a sense of continuity.

[drrushing]

player vs. GM

 

With the Hero System, I am a good GM, and very creative with modifying the storyline to accomodate my players actions and misactions. I once ran a storyline where two players teleported back and forth through time. I had them appear at critical events throughout history. After the first two encounters, their missteps proved to be far more entertaining than anything I had created. For instance, I sent them back to Feb. 11, 1863(I think that's the right date), 3 days before President Lincoln was assassinated. The first character overreacted to a confrontation with John Wilkes Booth, killing him in the process. The second character ended up impersonating him and killing President Lincoln instead, to preserve the timeline. These two players created endless hours of creative, fun, hilarious misadventures. They names were Bill and Ted. I said it was there "Excellant Adventure", they preferred "Bogus Journey". That being said, IT TAKES A LOT OF EFFORT TO RETAIN CONTINUITY IN A CAMPAIGN.

 

I LOVE being a player in the Hero System. It provides me with the opportunity to explore and create thousands of character ideas. I generally prefer lower powered heroes with lots of skills. I still don't know if I should be flattered or angry. In a campaign I was in, the GM started "hunting" the characters, as part of the plot. Each player, when they were next would receive a chess piece. When my turn came, I was sent 3 CHESS PIECES. I had, by far, the weakest character of the group, but I was very, very creative. Think Nightwing when Deathstroke hunted down the Teen Titans. I have always loved the flexibility the Hero System allows a player. Some of my most effective NPC's while GMing are Agents.

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by farik

...an X-Files feel where you get the silly episodes, the horrfiying episodes, and the dramatic episodes but you never lost a sense of continuity.

 

Until the last season or two, of course. What the hey???

 

Seriously, I like them both (Playing and GM-ing). I really don't have a preference, as long as I get to do both a reasonably equivalent percentage of the time.

 

Keith "The play's the thing" Curtis

[aylwin13]

I would rather play if it's a Fantasy HERO game, but GM if we're playing Champions. The fantasy genre is not my forte. I leave that to the 2 "experts" in our group. As a once-avid comic reader (having 27 or so long boxes in my collection) supers are my area of expertise. Also, since our other two GM's don't run Champions, if I want a supers game I have to run it.

[TheFool1972]

After being a GM for the last two decades of my life, I am kind of trapped into the roll.

 

"But you're so GOOD at it."

 

It's flattering and frustrating at the same time. On one hand, who would want a twenty year game master playing in thier game. I'm so used to playing 20 characters at one time, while attempting to process a plot on the fly, that if I just had one character... God save the GM, cause I would ruin to poor bastard...

 

I guess it's fine though... You can't tell me I'm not making my player's happy, cause they always come back.

 

And I don't even have to feed them...

 

 

The Fool

[The Horror]

For a long while there (years) I only played. Decided the effort of GMing was just a bit much.

 

Over the past few months though I've gotten right back into running games. Oh how I missed it! It truly is my natural state. Playing can be very rewarding, but it is even more rewarding to devise and run a successful game.

 

 

The Horror

[altamaros]

Re: Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

 

Originally posted by Kevin

Would you rather game as a player or a gamemaster, and why?

Like Blue :

 

Hero System : run

other systems : play.

 

I also GM other games (7th Sea namely) but i don't feel the creative freedom like in Hero (i can really make any NPC i want).

 

The other players tend also to prefer me as a GM rather as a teammate since i'm too prone to inattention during the play (and sleep during the gaming nights) and my deafness often obliges me to ask for repeats so it tend to irritate a bit the other GMs.

[Supreme Serpent]

Both. When have creative spurts want to run more, and can be frustrating not getting to run ENOUGH to get through all the plots quick enough. Love playing too, being part of a team, character interactions.

 

When I run, I often think "gee, I'd love to be a player and have a character on this team", and when I play, I often think "gee, I'd love to throw this team up against X or get them involved in Y". Guess I'm never entirely happy in one role.

 

If I absolutely had to pick one and never do the other again, it would be tough, but I guess I would play. Less work and time involved, but I would hope the GMs would accept input, lest all my evil ideas go to waste...

[misterdeath]

Depends on the group, really.

 

In my most recent former group, the other players were in "escapist/hack and slash mode". I found running for them to be tedious (they didn't care about mysteries, about personalities, and with the comment "oh, 30 minutes of role playing was enough" lets you know where they stood on that.) Playing with them was a hoot though, because I could also indulge in my violent adolescent power fantasies too.

 

In the group before that, and with my current stuff, I prefer running. The players are cunning, and smart, and like to role play, so I like being all the different aspects of the world, and trying to keep things consistant.

 

As a GM, I like crafting interesting interactive stories. If the group I'm in won't allow that for whatever reason, I prefer to play.

 

D

[TheEmerged]

I prefer GMing myself -- although I do like to play occasionally. It's been a decade since I played under HERO, primarily because I GM it all the time

[Guest TheAuthority]

Depends on the game. For my RPG group I exclusively run Deadlands but I have run Star Trek and (currently) Champions. Overall I'd rather play, not that my skills as a player are any better than my skills as a GM. As a group we alternate GMing duty so we all get a chance to play.

[phydaux]

I LOVE playing.

 

I'm all about character development. I like making three-dimensional, multi-faceted characters with motivations, insecurities, fears, goals and dreams.

 

I find that when I make characters like that, I find myself in games that all start "Well, this is who you'll be fighting tonight..."

 

So I GM a lot. I'm not going to let a character I've spent HOURS working on fall in with a bunch of combat monsters.

 

Fortunately I also enjoy GMing. I like to create worlds, organizations and NPCs. I like giving many of my NPCs both conflicting AND complementary goals and motivations, then see how the Player Characters, by interacting with the NPCs, will shape the game world.

 

One of my standard GM tricks is to give the PCs a powerful patron who is also a real dick-wad, then see how far I can push the PCs. Sometimes I can use this guy for YEARS, rattling the PCs cage all the while. One time the patron only lasted one game before the PCs killed him.

 

Can you say "Oedipus?"

 

I’m still waiting for Dick Greyson to kill Bruce Wayne and then bang Catwoman and Batgirl. But that would mean Dick had turned into the master manipulator.

 

It’s it funny how you become what you hate?

 

God, I LOVE the classics!

 

Man,, in re-reading this, it seems I’ve REALLY gone far a-field. Anyway, I like to play, but find I mostly GM.