I was asked what we can do about what I’m thinking of as the “passion gap” between GMs and players—the fact that, as this person put it, the GM is usually the most invested, the most knowledgeable, and the hardest working person at the table. And my real answer is that we need a complete culture change, especially for less collaborative/trad systems like D&D. We need to expect a lot less of GMs, and a lot more of players.
Okay, the practical first. If you’re frustrated by this dynamic as either a GM or a player, you have to learn to be realistic about what you can expect from a given group, and also realistic about how hard you’re willing to work to get the dynamic you want.
For some people, D&D is never going to be anything more than a chance to hang out with their friends when they have time and kind of do silly things and roll dice. If you want to be part of that friendship hang, and are able to let go of the hope that someday an epic campaign will magically develop from it, then by all means keep playing with them and accept that that is all it will ever be. It’s also perfectly legitimate to say that it’s way too much work for way too little reward, and suggest you all play some story games or board games, or some other activity where the labour is distributed more equally instead.
Other people are invested, but can’t provide the same level of commitment because of a range of personal and practical reasons. There, too, you have to be realistic about how much slack you’re able to pick up. Maybe one such person at the table is fine, but an entire table of people who are constantly having legitimate conflicts or reasons they’re too tired to really engage is just too draining to sustain single-handedly. Or maybe you’re happy to keep shouldering the bulk of the burden if the players all have legitimate reasons that they can’t.
There are tables out there who will match your investment and energy. If the cost of trying to find them is too great, then you can only do so much to change your status quo. People’s relationship to gaming generally is what it is, and it’s not going to be possible for even the best GM in the world to make them more available or more passionate than they already are.
However, I think there is another category of player here, too. They are completely capable of taking on more of the burden of storytelling, table management, logistics, session pacing, and all the other things GMs are expected to juggle, but our culture tells them they don’t have to, because that’s the GM’s job.
It’s the same culture that has people leaping into the comments on any critique of a system or sharing of a negative experience to say that clearly that’s just because of a bad GM. Session zero is the treated as a magic spell that should lead to perfectly smooth sailing, and if any problems arise, then clearly the GM didn’t do it properly.
This dynamic sucks.
It makes people terrified to GM, it makes GMs burn out, and it makes players complacent and passive. It makes true collaboration impossible, because everyone looks to the GM as the authority, and the GM doesn’t ever get to relax, play along, and be another player amongst players who are building a game together. Players aren’t challenged to learn and develop in the same way GMs are expected, even demanded, to do, so they can just become selfish and stagnant in their play.
Trad culture, where the GM is all-knowing and the players are moving through a story they only partly control, makes some shade of this inevitable. But there are so many ways we can and must demand more of our players. Players can and should help with pacing, with maintaining good above-table dynamics and in-character party dynamics, with revealing and integrating their own backstories and motivations, with sharing the spotlight and seeking out opportunities to collaborate. They should offer to schedule, or DJ the background music, or bring the snacks, or write the recaps.
I happen to have players right now who do many of these things, and it’s joyful. It’s what tabletop games are supposed to feel like, in my opinion. But it’s also just luck. No one is teaching players how to do this, or making it clear why it’s unfair when they don’t. Yeah, it’s harder than just sitting back and making the GM do everything, but it isn’t fair that the GM’s job becomes impossibly hard just to make their role easy.
Even writing that feels harsh, but why is it harsh to hold players to the same standard we (and they!) do GMs? Why should some people be expected to work so much harder than others to enable games to happen?
If you’re playing a game that requires a GM, then they are often the engine that drives a game being organised because the game can’t happen without them. So they’ve either stepped up to make a group wish possible, or are the one in a position to be able to seek players because they have an idea they want to try. But it doesn’t follow that they therefore must keep being that animating spark. They’ve gotten the ball rolling, but others can and should step in to keep it in motion. It’s everyone’s game at that point, not just the GM’s.
Maybe a piece of this problem is possessive GMs who don’t want to share power with players. But I think most GMs would be relieved to realise that they can expect some support from their table, that everything doesn’t have to be their responsibility and thus their fault, or that they don’t have to be placed in some position that is weirdly both authority over and servant to their friends.
I’m aware I haven’t answered the question I posed in the title of this post. A culture shift comes down to a lot of things: we need better resources for players to learn these skills, for a start, which is something I’ve wanted to make for a while. There’s a flurry of conversation around this topic at the moment, and I hope some new things come of it. But maybe it can also just begin with continuing to name this pattern, and have conversations about how to expect more.