Low Heat

Anyway.

Over the last year, I pretty much got to play my favorite character ever in an exalted game. Then the gm went to Minnesota. In an act of heroism (to keep the character alive), I offered to gm.

What I didn't realize is that, by doing so, I was pretty much guaranteeing that I would be forced to sideline this character, to almost physically push him aside. When I thought I was saving him, in reality I was just prolonging the execution... and doing it with my own hands. The fact is, if you want to be a gm (of exalted), your job should be focused on the other players characters. And I was, mostly, but in many ways internally I was still grabbing for a player character, because I always thought that my guy was so much cooler and more interesting than the others (which is kind of what you're supposed to think, when you're a player).

Anyway, the consolation of the game master is twofold: first of all, the enjoyment of the players, and second of all, playing a world (specifically, the villains). Both of these are tricky sources of satisfaction: the players' enjoyment is an incredibly tricky thing, with no real metric for success (unless they bring you wine), and the villains tend to get killed by the players on a regular basis (and they take so much work to make in exalted!)

Etc. So much to say that switching from being a player to a gm for a game is difficult (for me). I'm not complaining. I'm just... realizing this all of a sudden.

So.