Game Masters & Dungeon Masters.

[Farbautisonn]

Not to mention elitist and arrogant. But I like the latter two qualities in a person, and I dont mind the first two as long as Im doing the long bitching.

[melkathi]

 

I think everyone has had that guy. He is the same guy who goes over the pockets of every corpse on a battlefield looking for coins and "artifacts".

 

That's why I enjoyed playing Warhammer RPG.

"So you are going to search through a skaven's pockets..."

"Yes? ... why do you ask? ... shouldn't I?"

[specialagent]

I think my main problem is that I come up with too many games and I don't have the time nor the players to run them all.

 

I have nWoD books and a Mouse Guard book sitting on my bookshelf that haven't known the touch of a player's hands. And I'm looking at getting a Monsters and Other Childish Things book for myself this Christmas.

[melkathi]

Yeah, I know that situation.

And I have my eyes on a certain book myself.

[DeathQuaker]

I've run several games and look forward to running again. Right now my main game of choice is Pathfinder. I also would like to run Mutants and Masterminds and would love to be a player in a Savage Worlds game (though I'd try most games given the opportunity). I used to play a lot of oWoD awhile ago, never got into nWoD (no opportunity as much as anything else). Now, if I could keep someone who could keep me in a comfortable lifestyle so I can spend all my time designing and running adventures, then things would be good.

 

And as to the original poll, when I run a game, you can call me whatever you like as long as it involves the word, "Master."

 

I've had a few games fall apart, a long time ago. I learned not to invite players who couldn't be relied upon to show up.

 

I don't mind players taking things off the rails but I have been absolutely blindsided by the players deciding to do something I'd have no idea they'd do. I try to design a sandboxy world--lots of background--so I can adjust on the fly though. I don't mind that--and indeed sometimes it can be a lot of fun--but what does bother me is when the players themselves make certain plans, you count on those plans when you design the next adventure, and then they change their mind. Specifically, I ran a game where the players said several times that they were going to stop in the next city, take some downtime to gather contacts, allies, and craft equipment, before they went on to the next area where the big bads were. So I designed and populated the whole city and made sure they had ample opportunity to seek allies and get gear. One thing is I knew they were a little under equipped so I loaded the city with opportunities for them to resupply.

 

Then when they got there, after a very brief initial adventure, they decided they were just going to skip the city and go straight on to the next area they needed to get to. Leaving me with about 20 pages of unused notes, which I had written up solely because of the plans they themselves had made. AND they bitched and whined non-stop that they were under equipped, but never took the time to search for gear, buy it, or craft it.

 

Overall that was a good campaign, but that issue was extremely frustrating. I couldn't make them stay though--I suppose I could have dropped bigger plot hooks to keep them there, but even there, what plot hooks I did throw at them they just ignored.

Edited December 14, 2012 by DeathQuaker

[Maltry]

Yeah, the 'settings and entire worlds that players have never set foot in' is something I'm extremely familiar with. I used to have a folder, then it became two folders, then it was a box... you see where this is going. The funny thing is, I did this not only for settings, but character's in the few instances where I actually have a chance to play instead of running games. No worlds obviously, but grandiose plans and goals that could literally take years of real-world time (depending on game frequency). What I finally decided was that I boil down the concepts I want to run through, base what I *can* do around that, and view the rest of that material as time well spent enjoying the craft. Maybe players will never see it, but it was fun and interesting as all hell to write.