Ephemeral Role-playing

[jack]

One of the strange things about GMing is that it's a naturally ephemeral hobby. If you get really good at writing, you might write stories people keep reading years later. If you get really good at playing a musical instrument, you might play to larger audiences or at higher-profile occasions.

Whereas, if you get really good at GM'ing, you'll still only ever really do it with four other people, and many of the ideas you have will get recycled into an "ideas" folder because they didn't come in play.

Some people write modules or stream games, but that's not for everyone.

That's not bad, I just personally find it really hard to enjoy moments for themselves without wanting to save them forever.

Comments

[jack]

That's definitely true, it's all of the people.

I also think, people usually make a mistake if they try to bottle those sessions into another format. The things that make an interesting role-playing session are different to the things that make an interesting book. So sometimes it works (e.g. GRRM's Wild Cards series based originally on a roleplaying concept), especially if you want to take the setting you've created and tell a *new* story in it. But often it's a trap, someone tries to write the climactic moments of the roleplaying session or campaign, and they're just not interesting to read.

I love my session write-ups, but I have to translate a lot, sometimes the exciting/funny moments in play are exciting/funny to read about, but often they're not. Or maybe I'm just saying "some people are good GMs and not great novelists" :)

I think the consent issues are not too bad -- I can see how it could go badly, but I think you'd often write up a general summary, and most players would be happy to contribute, as long as you can leave out anything they're not ok with, and don't present it as "ALL MY STUFF, PEOPLE BE GRATEFUL I GIFTED IT WITH YOU".