Transitioning from DM to Player

It was not often that I am a player for some of my gaming groups. With the most GM experience under my belt, I tend to be the GM most of the time. This phenomenon went on for a while and before I know it, I had become a full-time GM for a good one year. Of course, I was a player for some game. But those games never lasted or I was bored with it ( I had an exceedingly short attention span)

But nevertheless, it seemed that I had picked up some bad habits along the way. You see, the GM tends to control the whole world. As an article had mentioned, the GM knows the whole story. The non-player character's motivation and personality wholly belonged to the GM. So why does X happen and not Y was reasonable to the GM.

But once I transitioned into a player last Saturday, the lack of control (plus some other RL problems) caused to have an outburst that I had never frankly had before. The issue at hand was not the storyline. The DM had created a flavorful world and it was reminiscent of CthulhuTech and Shadowrun. No, the issue was with the system.

It was not that the system used( in this case, Unisystem) was terrible. But I felt that M&M system was a better approach for a good epc game. And I felt that since it was a good epic game that featured mecha, M&M was a good system. Plus it was flexible and easy to use.

But I failed to envision my GM's vision. Maybe he wanted a more lethal system and fear was a major element within the world ( we were fighting bizzare creatures). So in response, I lashed out and argued incessantly. And that made the session a dreadful one.

The way I handled things was not mature enough I guess. However, the worst thing I had done was not respecting the poor GM that was decent enough to run for me. He had his vision and I had mine. RPG is after all a collaborative game. The social element is the most major factor within the Table-top's game. Removing that would only be akin to playing computer games alone. After all, if you do not respect people, why would they want to play with you?

Respect forms the basis for many social interactions. Whether you are the GM or a player, you would want respect from your other players and your GM. And respect is a mutual thing. Many young players I have encountered missed that element when they play a game. But that is true for experienced players as well. I know of stories in which the experienced players would scold a novice player every single time they make a wrong spell to cast. Or the player that sleeps in front of the GM when he conducts a session. And every single time that happened, the session would become a sour experience. And trust me, if the player is new, the experience would put him off RPG for a good time.

So I guess, we all have our lessons to learn and for me, I think I have just found mine.