Yeah David, I see it plenty (which occational incorrect guesses, which can lead to funny events ). I've been known to do it. So either your circumstances in life are much different or you are just not noticing it being done and you being played. Either of which is possible I suppose.

Quote from: John MorrowThe primary group I play with, I've been playing with for 20 years.  But I don't think that level of familiarity is necessary for predictability.  If I can predict a book or movie written by a professional stranger, I can predict what a GM is doing once they stop following game world logic and start following story logic or some other meta-game logic.

Guess then it all comes down to different experiences. I tend to mix everything up together - game world, story and meta logic. The only thing I have to go on when it comes to predictability is when my players draw my attention to it, something they have done - not often - but I realize that it's a easy trap to fall into.

blakkie it's the former.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David Rblakkie it's the former.

Or the later...as you just pointed out.  Seriously. And it's not always a bad thing. In fact if you weren't at least somewhat predictable you'd be a decidedly bad GM if you can't be counted on for some things at least. Predictibility is one of those it-is-happy-somwhere-in-the-middle things.

I was turned off to GMing years back when I ran my last supers game with my old face-to-face group.  The whole thing nearly caused me to give up RPGs for good.  Then I tried an online game with four people that at the end of the first arc (four games) three people either said they couldn't wanna play anymore, didn't like it or simply disappeared without a word.  

Now I'm just running 1 game online with a single player.  It's gone well and I suppose I enjoy it...my confidence as a GM is just shot though.

I love GMing, I love playing. They're different kinds of fun, and I have enough roleplaying friends that I get plenty of opportunities to do both. I love it even more when I stopped getting hung up on pre-game prep: I realised that if I overprepped I'd almost play through the session in my head before it even happened, and what's the point of that?

Oh, and Megamanfan: You can't just dangle out that trainwreck of a supers game out in front of us and expect us to not be curious. What happened?

I love GMing in particular. When you're GMing you're constantly workingand adapting to what happens whilst doing your best to make it all entertaining. My girl has noted that I look incredibly happy when I'm running a game if that helps.

Quote from: GabrielI really don't like to GM.
Generally speaking, I have this attitude because, IMX, players primarily act in one of two ways:

1) They are extremely predictable.  While I'm doing my prepwork, I already know how several players will respond to certain stimuli.  So, when they do so, its not interesting to me because I already know how this will go in my head.

2) They become completely passive.  They just sit there waiting to be tossed a bone.  Then they complain when I give them one.  "You're railroading us!"  Of course I'm railroading you.  I'm trying to use the damn train to push your fat lazy asses down the track or convince you to get off it!  Do something!

1) Start throwing a twist into that stimuli. Add complications to the formula. Shake things up. You give me a list of stimuli and how your players react to it and I'll think of a few things.

2) Get a cattle prod. Sit down and talk to your players about how things are going to change. "Look guys, you just sit in town/station/ship/ect and never do anything but shop and hit up the barmaid/waitress/busboy. I have to hunt you down with the plot hook and force feed it to you, cause you won't do it on your own. Now, if you want to take control by acting on your own with out me prodding you, go right ahead. But if you're just going to sit there like a bunch of coach potatoes demanding to be entertained, yet putting forth no effort of your own...... Well that's what I have this for."

Then you simply shock the most annoying crybaby at the table with the prod. Repeat as needed. (If you can't get your hands on one, a stick upside the head will do)

Quote from: Gabriel"I just tell you that I enjoy your game so that you'll be happy and keep running it, because I don't like James's game (the other GM) and I don't want to have to GM!"  Basically, my game sucked, but it didn't suck as hard as the other guy's game and it meant the player didn't HAVE to GM.

Another time I was told perfectly straight faced by a player, "You're the GM.  You're not supposed have any fun.  You're just supposed to make it fun for us."

Looks like you've run into a bad streak of selfish, petty, immature, crybaby, gits.

Quote from: GabrielNow, I can't be alone in this.  From what I've seen the vast majority of people see the GMing duties as extremely distasteful and the worst part of RPGs.  So, opinions?

I've never had that sort of problem with my players. Sure there were arguments, who doesn't have those? But nothing like you describe. (I've found threatening to beat the stupid ones with a stick works) If a player gets attitude about something, I take a 2 second pause to see if what they're saying has any merit. If it does, I try to fix it. But if it ends up like 98% of all the other crybaby shit, I smack them down. (in a manner of speaking, not literally)

I love running games. As long as it's a game that I'm into. The only game I'd hate to run is one that I'd have no interest playing.

I was lucky enough to spend some 15 years gaming with the (mostly) same group. We had 4 full time GMs including myself and 3 other part timers.

Everyone ran separate DnD world, I had Greyhawk/RavenLoft, one ran Birthright and the other two had homebrew worlds. Everyone shared Forgotten Realms as a sandbox.

Other games depended on who wanted to run them. One guy ran so many new sytems it wasn't funny. DnD, 2300AD, Mekton, Tales from the Floating Vagabond, Lands of Adventure, VtM, WtA, MtA, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, Hackmaster, Robotec/Rifts, Twerps, GURPS, and game like CarWars and Silent Death. (Might have been a few more, but that's off the top of my head)

He ran most of those by himself, but I ran a few as well, Hackmaster, 2300AD, VtM, MtA, DnD.

Our group usually didn't need much poking after they got a handle on a new system. The plot hook didn't need much, if any, bait. We'd take ideas and run with them. Far and away sometimes, but we usually didn't take too long getting back on track.

One of our full time GMs didn't know what to think the first time he ran a game for us (we'd just met him the week before IIRC) His old group sounded like your '2)' example. They too needed to be poked and prodded. He just couldn't keep up with our active style of play for awhile. Eventually he adjusted, but we had to fight him over the damn train tickets for a long time. We don't need no freaking train.

Every GM loved running their games. We each went through stages of burn out followed by recovery as another GM took over. To us it's always been a question of balance between being a GM and a Player.