Dungeon Master

For many years, I enjoyed being a Dungeon Master/Game Master (DM/GM) for my group of friends who like playing Roleplaying Games (RPGs). I enjoyed the creation of the world, the telling of the story, and the cooperative nature of the games.

I was complimented on my GMing and the stories I told. I don't think I was all that great, but I came at it from a writer's perspective, I didn't let the rules hamstring me if something interesting or cool came up, and I wanted each character, and by extension the player running him/her, to have a chance to shine each session. I enjoyed creating bosses that were challenging to overcome, simple puzzles to solve, worlds and reasons to adventure in those worlds. Most of all, I enjoyed the shared activity of the group story-telling sessions that are the foundations of any RPG.

In my current location, I started as the GM for the group I currently game with. I created a world (or, rather, a valley in which they started, with the intent of fleshing out the world later as we went). I gave it rules and places of interest. I let the players create characters. I created a means and reason for them to be together as a group and provided them with threats to overcome.

But I noticed I didn't have the same... verve for doing it I once had. I found that, while I had an outline for what I wanted to have happen, I didn't enjoy creating the individual adventures like I once did. I found I didn't want to adjudicate the rules like I did before. We played that game for about a year, and then one of the others in the group stepped up and said he wanted to GM. I was happy to let him.

I have very much enjoyed playing the game under his direction. He is a good GM, who is conscious of the rules and of his world, but also open to new things, house rules on the fly, and polite and well-meaning criticisms to help make the game better. His game is a bit more of the "roll playing" style, meaning that it is more about the rules, rolling the dice, and getting together than "playing a role." It is fun, and I enjoy the time spent with the group and on the game.

Recently, I also joined a new group. The GM of that group is much more about "role playing" (acting) and less about the dice rolls or rules. Although the vast amount of information is in the Player's Handbook, he admits he hasn't read it and rules entirely based on gut and the Dungeon Master's Guide. He wants everyone to have a good time, he house-rules everything in sight, and we don't worry about the rules nearly as often. I have a lot of fun in that game, too.

The key thing that I find so surprising is how much fun I'm having playing and how little I want to go back to GMing. In my Southern California gaming group, we had a legitimate four people who liked and wanted to GM, and two others who dipped their toe in from time to time. When I wasn't GM, even if I very much was enjoying the other game, I was already thinking of new places to go and new challenges I wanted my players to meet and overcome. I nearly chafed at the bit to get back to GMing!

I have tried for the last few months to come up with new things for my players here to do. They have mentioned they may want to head back to my game in the future, yet I can't seem to come up with anything I want to GM for them. I've even purchased and downloaded some paid or free adventures that I thought I could use for that game, but even those I have little to no desire to adjudicate.

The vast majority of people who play RPGs want to play. Few want the challenge or extra prep time needed to be the GM. It requires a very solid understanding of the rules, an incredible attention to detail, the ability to coordinate the efforts of multiple people, and the ability to create both prepared tasks and challenges and to come up with things "on the fly" as the players do things a GM never intended or expected.

I used to excel at doing pretty much all of that. Lately, however, I have been finding I am not remembering the rules as well as I should or need to in order to adjudicate the game. I am finding no joy in the creation of the story or challenges any more. My attention to detail seems slack. I, simply put, just don't feel like I can do it justice any more.

Maybe this is a life-long evolution. Maybe I did it enough that now I want to just be a player for a while. Maybe I am reaching an age where I just don't want to make the same time-commitment to GMing that I always did before. Maybe I am just burned out on RPGs in an overall sense, what with video games, movies in the genre, and playing/GMing regularly. Maybe I'll turn around tomorrow after having written this and have a great idea that I get excited about and it will turn out I've only been in a slump for the last year or so.

I don't know. But I feel like I've reached the end of a personal era, of sorts. I do still enjoy playing, so I will continue doing that for the foreseeable future. And, who knows what that future may hold for me on this front as I go forward into it?