* I love weaving the stories my players and I create.
* I love reacting to what the players come up with.
* I love bringing people together to have fun together.

Jorge Luis Borge articulates the self part of it pretty well:

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Through the years he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his face.

h/t hicksville http://www.hicksville.co.nz/PerfectPlanet.htm

As far as sharing with others, what is art when it isn’t shared? What is fun when alone (hey, get your mind outta the gutter!)?

I decided to plot everyone’s responses in a Google Docs spreadsheet. As you can see, it’s pretty rough; I basically wrote down elements as they arose, then incremented the count for responses that more or less fit.

The top three are interesting to me: #1 is creativity, which isn’t surprising; #2 is surprises, and the fact that GMs like surprises makes perfect sense yet is still somewhat surprising (and I like it!), and #3 is players interacting with your creations.

I would definitely say that those three are common motivators for most GMs I’ve known, and I suspect that if presented with a list to check off, nearly everyone who responded to this article would check all three of them.

Oh, and GMing is like something else: teaching school

I loved creating the framework and seeing what they did with it. I got excited by the events they were trying to pull off (say yes or roll is very liberating )

Thanks Gnomes for helping me get back into something great after a very very long absence.

I like to be a leader, and I enjoy facing the challenge of bringing a group together to accomplish a goal.

I have a lot of creative ideas, and GMing provides me a way to unleash those ideas.

I get a great feeling out of helping the players to achieve their goals.

I want to be the best GM, and the desire to constantly improve my skills is a huge personal motivator.

I like converting the real (imaginary) world to game mechanics and vice-versa.

I like being the center of attention (admit it, you do too).

And most importantly, I like the challenges: Mechanics, logic, acting, social skills, problem solving, etc. Nothing else has the same set of challenges and rewards as running a good game.

Why I like GM’ing (even if our game is the old 1980 Metagaming ‘Fantasy Trip’):

1. I get to draw pictures and maps again. I’m only a decent artist, but I never get the motivation to draw something unless it has a practical outlet in our game.

2. I get to apply logical outcomes to the players’ actions in order to create a ‘realistic’ story whose outcome is always a mystery. In my current game, for example, my players often find ways to do something I wouldn’t have expected; from these actions, however, the next game session often writes itself.
For instance, a few sessions ago our mage tried to use a new-found healing spell to save a dragon that had died fighting on our side. He failed to do so, but the dragon’s mate saw his efforts before it headed back home. After the session was done, I reviewed my notes on the dragon’s homeland and reminded myself that their Eldest had been struck by a strange sleeping disease. After a few days, the dragons returned to “fetch” the mage and his friends in order to try his spell upon their Eldest. So instead of wrapping up our time in the Necromancer’s valley we found ourselves flying off to encounter the dragons on their home turf…a wild departure initiated entirely by a player’s action and its logical outcome.

3. I love laughing with friends, which I do more when roleplaying than in any other activity.

Thanks,

Dan

* Being able to sit down with people I have never met and connect on such a casual level while having a good time, whether it’s at a convention or running a game for friends of a friend.

* Having the opportunity to share ideas and designs with people from around the world.

* Because most of the people I game with either don’t want to or they aren’t very good at DM’ing.

* Getting published (good)! Getting paid (better)! (Although it has been quite a while since I submitted anything for publication.)

I’ll turn 40 in a few years and yet I still get all excited at the prospect of having friends around the table, ready to chuck dice and laugh for a few hours.

… and the monsters. I get to be a monster! Growwwwwwl!