Question Of The Week #1 - Are you a better player or GM?

[Onix]

I'm going to try and keep the pace of one question per week. Poke me if I forget.

I think I'm a better GM than player. Not that I'm a great GM. I get a little ansty when I'm a player and tend to lose focus. I try to focus as much on being a player as I do being GM and I think my brain stalls at some point.

[madunkieg]

I'm better as a GM.

I prepare meticulously and improvise constantly. (Yes, I know that seems like a contradiction, but it really isn't.) It used to be that I could keep track of numerous plots and subplots, and did it well enough that I got a good reputation as a larp gm (World of Darkness). I couldn't remember every plot, for every character had at least a couple, but I could remember the major ones. The stroke changed all that. Now I have trouble remembering labyrinthe plots. So instead I focus on smaller groups and games that involve less intrigue. Nonetheless, I still feel I'm better as a GM.

I suck at being a player. I always come up with the most inappropriate character concepts (eg a farmer for D&D 4th, or an honest merchant for Heroquest), and then feel completely useless during play. It's my own fault, but I can't seem to stop doing it.

I suppose that my strength as a GM, designing interesting, but underpowered, NPCs for the PCs to help, is actually interfering with my role as a player.

[Evil Scientist]

[Anastylos]

I think I am a better player. I love grab the reins. If it is an interesting plot I normaly keep the story moving. I dont care much about stats or what is best for my character but what makes an interesting story and is authentic. A GM has just to throw me a bone and I will come up with something. So as long as he is not railroading it will become an intersiting, funny and maybe suprising evening.

The funny thing is I like being a GM more, because I have all the freedom I want to create an interesting story. But I don't prepare that much. Normaly its just some notes where I want to story to go and I am improvising acording to what the players decide. And I don't care such much about music or maps or anything.

[koipond]

Both.

Seriously though. I'm just different when I'm in the various roles.

When I GM I'm far more interested in the stories and what's going to happen next. I don't plan for any of my games, I just have a vague idea of where I think we should go which means I'm a little bit flexible on how we get there, or even if we get there. If the players are going in a direction, I'll find things about that direction that makes it interesting for them.

Of course I need players who are interested in doing things. If I have a bunch of players who are just looking at me and waiting for the plot I'll look back and them and then this uncomfortable silence happens while we both wait for the other people to give us the lead. It's not been fun.

As a player, I tend to be theatrical but I'll tend to be the one who jumps in and takes risks. I once played in a LARP that the other players though I was an NPC because I took so many risks. I also was directly or indirectly responsible for four PC's deaths by the end of the game but it happens, right, right?

[J.K.Mosher]

Player . . . I barely GM and when I have GMed on the odd occasion I felt bad when luck turned against the players always made me fell like I was being a bit of a bully when rolling great and the players had no luck.

As a Player I always take a support role, and feel I make interesting characters that others can have fun interacting with . . . my last real face to face game i played a chaotic-good cleric, with no charisma . . .one of my best friends played a lawful good paladin with mega charisma . . . we both served the same deity . . . and had a running gag of every time we entered a home or an inn my character would put his feet up on the table and his would keep knocking them off . . . the GM actually had the main baddie thug we were chasing come up to us once while our characters were arguing about the "rudeness" of feet on the table to ask us to keep it down as we were disturbing him . . .

. . . as I remember it I also seemed with that character had an issue with wanting to burn things down when anyone insulted our deity . . .

[vulpinoid]

Mu.

Or, to expand on my answer, you're question is irrelevant and I choose to answer a way that is neither positive nor negative, because either answer does not truly address the situation.

I'm a better designer.

:P

[koipond]

[catty_big]

Oooh, good question. For now a short answer: GM. I'll expand on that later.....

[Rob Lang]

I am an utter train-wreck as a player.

GM.

[b]@catty_big[b/] - come on, out with it!