Not really! I love being a DM. But then unlike my two friends I wasn’t the regular DM weekly for 12 years. So there’s that.
For forever DMs out there. Do you ever get to play?
Do you take regular breaks?
How does DMing work for you?
And thanks. I see you.
🙏❤️
Don’t tell my friends, but I actually like GMing more than playing now. It’s fun to have the galaxy-brain “always on” feeling and multitask information. (And it’s always your turn in combat!)
How to accomplish with peanut brain?
Practice makes perfect!
I’d say the most important thing is knowing who your NPCs are and what they want. That’s what you should prepare outside of sessions. Once you have that, it’s a lot easier to deal with players throwing curveballs.
A constrained scope helps as well. Give the group a prompt like “make characters who want revenge on the Lich Queen” or “make characters who care about the city of Korvosa.”
Use a different, simpler system.
DnD and PF are on the crunchier side of the spectrum for ttrpgs, as much as I love PF2. There are tons of great systems you can learn all the rules to in a matter of minutes and run awesome campaigns in without all the crunch. Personally, I love the crunch but it’s not for everyone so you shouldn’t force it if it’s not for you. Simple doesn’t mean dumb either, a great example is the newer system Shadowdark. Dungeon Crawl Classics is another solid choice, there are a bunch of others though. Like the indie system The Electrum Archive or TEA. The rules are free, simple, but engaging (with inspiration from Morrowind and Dune so bonus points from me).
Don’t confine yourself!
I get that, but then I also love that sense of figuring out a creative solution to some social interaction or encounter. I only ever played once, but man I had a blast.
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I tried setting up our game so that other people could take over and DM it and take turns. Alas, I am the forever DM. I enjoy DMing, but missed playing.
But about a year ago I got to join an OSRIC campaign. It’s been fun getting to play again!
Me when I want to be a player but the guest DM is doing it wrong:
Fucking love that my group is basically all the second guy. We’ve all taken the GM spot at one point.
That’s our group, we all swap out duties. Some people want to do longer-form campaigns, some just run til they’re bored, some (like me), specifically do shorter one-shots. We have to actually schedule things beforehand they’re so many people wanting to run stuff.
Same here. There’s the main game which has been going on for 4 years, and then whenever the DM is a little burnt out we all take turns. The result is years of steady dnd sessions with no burnout, despite playing online over text with no planned schedule and timezones literally across the world from each other
I like DMing, so I’m always DM.
spoiler
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My group’s had a pretty good thing going for 6ish years now. 3 out of the 6 if us all love DMing, and so we rotate beween new campaigns every couple years and all of us get a chance to play. We actually have 2 going on right now, and I’m a player in both. My last campaign ended in 2021 and I’ll be taking over for one of the campaigns in a couple months
This is why my group has like four different games going. I run one, and three of the others also run their own. I get to play twice a week and run a game every other week.
I started DMing because no one else dared to try and I wanted a campaign to happen.
That was over 30 years ago.
You might be the dumbest man alive but Laura Les sure is the dumbest girl alive !
PUT EMOJIS ON MY GRAVE
Hi. I get this a song lyric. But here you go.
🙏❤️😇♾️
I’m the forever GM, but my players also insist I play a PC in the party, so I kinda still get to play. I think they know otherwise I’d never be a player. LOL
I just wish I had the creativity, ability to improvise, and dedication necessary to DM. It’s the fact that I’m lacking in all three that keeps me out of that position.
Those are all
shouldskills you can develop! Just start DMing with a pre-made adventure and go from there.
I’d like to be the blue dude. I want to try running a little campaign, but my group has 2 very good GMs and I’m generally nervous and not good at talking. I’ve considered maybe running something online with some vague online friends to learn how, but our GMs are my roommates and I’m sure they would hear me playing with strangers and ask why and/or insist that our own group won’t judge me. Which they wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I want to look like a fuck up in front of them in comparison to the standard of GMing theyre used to
Maybe just try running something for you two DMs then! I’d bet that they’d be happy to help nurture another DM’s growth. Speaking anecdotally about my own experience with mentoring other DMs I’ve never felt that they’re fuckups, but rather just felt great joy at seeing them grow.
Yuuup. Hey, look at this cool We Be Goblins adventure Paizo did for Free RPG Day. Why don’t I run that? What’s this? An adventure hook in the back of it for one of their Adventure Paths? Sure, I’ll run that. Skip to five years later and I’m half-way through running another Adventure Path and I’ve done several other shorter adventures besides.
That said, I’m not the only member of our group that GMs, just the most reliable.
