Scenario A: Gwen is reading an Eberron novel in class. Stu sees her and starts talking about a D&D group he used to play in. Fiona overhears and mentions how much she used to love playing. Gwen suggests they get together and play. When Stu asks who will be DM, Fiona eagerly volunteers.

Scenario B: My gaming group meets every Friday. We play because I actively recruited everyone. We play whatever I feel like running. If I’m having writer’s block or need a break, we simply don’t play.

Scenario C: Jason sets up a GURPS gaming group on Saturday nights. While he started GMing, Hal took over after a few months. Hal got tired, and Shiela announces that she had an idea for Star Wars. With no player objections, Shiela starts running. Two months later, Shiela’s work schedule changes and she has to leave. Hal offers to run GURPS again, but the players state that they would rather continue playing Star Wars, so Jason volunteers to retake the chair.

Hopefully, my examples model A-player preference first, B-GM preference first, and C-fluctuation.

I think it’s fair to say that, before anyone can go any further, both GM and players must (ideally) be satisfied.

Every time I took a break, I found it easy to form a new group (sometimes pulling in some old players). It really helped that I had a firm idea of what I wanted to run, and was enthusiastic, because I wasn’t trying to negotiate with a player group that didn’t align well with my desires.

I suspect even without a large player base, perhaps even actually always recruiting from a small group of four or five players, that this way would still work. By taking a break, and coming back with a solid idea with enthusiasm, it will be much easier to sell it to the group of players. And if one player is totally not interested, the breaks will help that player realize all is not lost if he isn’t gaming every single week of the year. And perhaps he’ll start a 2nd campaign, with two players from your campaign who can afford to play twice a week. And perhaps after a month or two, you’ll even manage to recruit a totally new player.

But it’s also total folly to live in an absolute of “the group never changes.” You may be in a situation where new players are very hard to come by, and you will have to adjust your decision making, but eventually someone will move on, and eventually someone new will join (unless you plan on somehow all quiting gaming together, or plan on dying in a car crash together or something weird like that). Also, something HAS to give when your “constant” group includes one player who declares “I will never play D&D again!” and another player declares “I will not play anything but D&D!” Unless you give up gaming at that point, either who is in the group must change, or somehow you have to change someone’s mind. And along those lines, I do really see Ron Edward’s point that sometimes no gaming is better than bad gaming. If you really live in an area where there are exactly and only 4 other gamers available, and you can’t find something you enjoy doing with at least one of those four players, then you might as well not game. In doing so, you can perhaps instead spend energy on figuring out how to solve the problem that there are only 4 players. Perhaps there’s someone you can recruit. Or perhaps you can online game. Or perhaps you will decide that instead of spending oodles of money on more and more new games trying to find one the group will play, you will spend your money attending as many gaming cons as you can (where you will find plenty of opportunities to try new games without buying them, or you can focus on playing one or two games you really enjoy, and only buying the game books for those games).

Hmm, so here’s a thought, the order depends on whether you want to GM or play. If you want to play, player preference comes first (“This is what I want to play, I will enter negotiations drawing strength from what _I_ want.). If you want to run a game, GM preferences come first ((“This is what I want to run, I will enter negotiations drawing strength from what _I_ want.). Of course the other preferences are also important.

Frank

I think I’m coming around to the idea of the GM leading a negotiation of the entire group’s preferences (players and GM) — especially, as Cliff pointed out, when the group makeup is more or less constant.

Roger gets the point pretty well, but there’s more to it than that. A playwright shouldn’t write what each member of his audience wants into a play, he should write something that he knows will appeal to the shared values of his audience.

So it’s kind of a balance. Yes, the GM comes first, but he’s got a huge responsibility to his players, so it’s not much of a lead…

Also, part of the problem is that this comes back to the thought of do you assume your group is unchanging, or do you accept that you may gain and lose players with each campaign, possibly to the extent of effectively forming a new group for each campaign?

The whole negotiation process and whose preferences trump all others only comes into play when one insists on maintaining the same group of players no matter what.

Frank

I think in terms of more traditional RPGs, this is much easier for the GM to do as they have far more narrative power over the game (though the players ability to do so should not be overlooked), so in most cases, GM preference should come first. However your game is your game so your milage may varry.

On Friday nights, I’d agree with you. On Sunday afternoons, I can’t disagree more strongly

A game can survive losing some or even most of its players.

A game rarely survives losing the GM.

So I think the order makes sense to me.

The only way out of the dilemma is to find a setting, tone, theme, etc. that satisfies players and GM preferences simultaneously — i.e., to stop the separation between those two altogether, for the purpose of this particular decision.

If the preferences of all players in the group can’t be met somehow (not *top* preferences of *everyone*, necessarily, but preferences nonetheless), then the group has deeper problems than “what do we play next”.