Are you an Investigator or a Keeper?

[FunGuyfromYuggoth]

I just started playing as an investigator in "Call of Cthulhu." After over two decades of Keeping, playing in less than a handful of games (mostly at badly run convention games), I am finally enjoying the fruits of helpless terror. It's very, very refreshing, and I'd like to be a player for a while longer.

Anybody else in my boat?

[NashTrickster]

Been a keeper for countless years (well over 15) and only been a player a handful of times (but one of those times was as part of a campaign that went for over a year)

Even if I enjoy being "taken along" by someone else, I am unfortunately too "isolated" (from other CoC fans) to be able to be a player really often...

I have no problem finding players however... Maybe it's the amount of work necessary to prepare a game that makes keepers that "rare"?

[Cthulhudude]

Always the Keeper, which I don't mind all that much, but I'd also like to be a player every once in awhile.

[psychojosh13]

only ever played a few games, and always as the keeper. i'd certainly be interested in playing as a regular investigator sometime though. on the other hand, when i finally stepped down as dm in my old d&d group i felt completely powerless. on the other hand, maybe that wouldn't be so bad for a proper cthulhu game...

[DreadMac]

I've been a Keeper in Call of Cthulhu ever since it's 3rd edition, but have never been an investigator. No one else in my gaming circle has ever run the game, but that doesn't bother me - I enjoy running the game.

Dread_Mac

[Monteblanco]

Although I am usually the GM in nearly all rpgs I've played, I avoid being the keeper in CoC. Perhaps because it is my favorite game, I like to enhance the experience by not going behind the rules and just enjoy the ride.

[trevlix]

FunGuy- Just a question. Do you find that after keeping for so long that you know most of the tricks a keeper can throw at you? If so, does this remove some of the enjoyment from the game being on the investigator side?

[FunGuyfromYuggoth]

FunGuy- Just a question. Do you find that after keeping for so long that you know most of the tricks a keeper can throw at you? If so, does this remove some of the enjoyment from the game being on the investigator side?

Well, it's interesting that you ask, and I've asked it of myself a few times before relinquishing the role of Keeper. After playing, I forgot all about it, so as long as I enjoy myself and don't make the new Keeper paranoid (I think he is more worried than I am), it's been great.

[tonyfr]

I guess for me it really does not matter. All my games have had NPCs. I get to play as well and get to be in control of the game. I enjoy being both. I like trying new things as a keeper and I enjoy being the investigator. Two sides of the same coin.

[AcesandEights]

Both...Neither...sort of.

Right now, I'm signed up to play an online scenario which hasn't started yet. I've been a keeper before, but that was years ago. I'm also planning on wrangling a game together--which will likely make me defacto Keeper--I just need the bodies...

[Zane]

For CoC, which I've only played for about a year now, only the Keeper. For the various other RPG's I've played throughout the years, it's been about 50/50.

While I'd like a chance to be a player again, I think I actually prefer the roll of Keeper. As Keeper, I'm busy the entire game, as a player, you can often have definite dead periods while others are doing something and you aren't. Still the biggest thing for me is that I love to create the world in which the players are gaming.

Zane

[delrio]

I just started playing as an investigator in "Call of Cthulhu." After over two decades of Keeping, playing in less than a handful of games (mostly at badly run convention games), I am finally enjoying the fruits of helpless terror. It's very, very refreshing, and I'd like to be a player for a while longer.

Anybody else in my boat?

Back when I started roleplaying, all of my friends were into gaming, we had a group of about 20 people, of whom maybe half could be considered regulars. It's not so much that we "took turns GMing" as that many of us started campaigns, and ran them in parallel. Within a couple of years, all my friends' campaigns had petered out for whatever reasons, and mine was the last one left. It seems to be a trend: I've been the default GM for just about every roleplaying group I've ever been in, barring one. I think it's just that there's typically much more demand for GMs than for players, and since I really like GMing, I usually give in without much of a fight.

Del Rio

[Zane]

It seems to be a trend: I've been the default GM for just about every roleplaying group I've ever been in, barring one. I think it's just that there's typically much more demand for GMs than for players, and since I really like GMing, I usually give in without much of a fight.

I tend to suspect that there is a reason for this. I get the feeling that for the most part the people here represent the older role playing crowd. As such we have to juggle things such as families and jobs. Finding time to GM requires some serious effort. In my case I typically get up before my wife and son, and spend that time either on the Internet or working on stuff for the campaign, I've found that to be the best time for working on the game (especially as she's one of the players). Seeing as how I'm up early enough I've got 1-2 hours, and have a session Sunday, I really should get to work

My point is that being a GM requires serious time and effort, being a player requires showing up. In my field, just showing up can require some fairly serious effort, add in the whole family issue and we meet anywhere from every 1-16 weeks (average seems to be each 1 1/2 months so far).

Zane

[delrio]

Still the biggest thing for me is that I love to create the world in which the players are gaming.

That's the hook for me, too. I love creating worlds, characters, situations*, and then participating as they play out, often in ways that I hadn't anticipated. I especially enjoy the dynamics of trying to keep pace with the players as they take the game in unexpected directions, and I work like mad to keep up the GM pretense of being coolly in control, having "of course" anticipated and prepared for all this in advance. The facade occasionally cracks, with anywhere from 3 to 12 players simultaneously trying to work around the obstacles in my campaign, and me occasionally getting overwhelmed by demands for information that I never thought I would need to produce, or having to do rapid-fire switching between roleplaying multiple NPCs with different personalities, behaviors, world-views. But 25 years of GMing has made me reasonably quick to adapt, improvise, overcome.

* I would say "stories", except that I detest predetermined outcomes in RPGing.

Del Rio

[Sefyr]

I'm usally the Keeper, I like telling the story and scaring my players :P
But I'd like to be a player once in a while, but right now it's not possible.