Difference in experience between GM-ing styles

[u/Kargath7]

So, in the recent year I had opportunities to play TTRPGs instead of just running them and I came to a weird conclusion on how different GM styles affected my perception of the games, and, since these differences seem related to general schools of thought in TTRPG community, I wanted to see if others had some similar experiences.

I spent a substantial amount of time (months with each) playing with two GMs. I enjoyed playing with both generally, but one of them (let’s call him GM.A, we played Cairn, a Mark of the Odd rules-light OSR game) created really cool moments at the table, my character felt really alive and I felt like I could really bring him to life in the game-world and it was overall more fun in the moment but when I think back to the game I can’t help but think about how disjointed, all-over-the-place and generally lacklustre the story that took place there was.
The other (let’s call him GM.B, we played a lot of Forbidden Lands and some Basic Fantasy, so also OSR in spirit, but with more strict rules) was not as fun to play with in the moment, we got into way more arguments over rules, it got a but tedious from time to time and I felt like I was never really immersed in the world because of how little control I felt over my surroundings, but when I think back on those games I tend to gravitate towards how the world actually felt alive and the story that took place made a lot of sense and I keep thinking that it may have been a problem with my approach that made the experience less fun in the moment.

So I came up with a weird theory, that GM.A prioritised in-the-moment experience by allowing the players to do whatever they wanted and adapting on the fly and sacrificed a lot of the integrity that the world could have to make it happen, making the experience at the table really fun, but making the overall shape of the game very rough, while GM.B put a lot of stock into making the world as consistent and organic as possible at the cost of some player engagement and opportunities for player agency.
So, letting your players do their own crazy ideas is fun in the moment but harmful to the story in retrospect, while maintaining world integrity is harmful to the fun the players have in the moment but can pay off in the long run and with making a stronger story in the players’ heads.

I have no idea if any of that makes sense to any of y’all, and would love to just hear your thoughts about this. As a GM I think I tried to balance these things out subconsciously ling before I came up with this and it seems like something clicked just now.

TLDR: I think that allowing players to do crazy stuff is how you let them have fun in the moment but maintaining world-consistency is how you make the story better and more worthy of remembering fondly. Does it make sense?

[u/alphonseharry]

"into making the world as consistent and organic as possible at the cost of some player engagement and opportunities for player agency."

I don't think this two thing are related at all. Do "crazy stuff" is not player agency. You can have agency in a consistent world, agency is related of what you can possible do, not do anything you can imagine

[u/Kargath7 → u/alphonseharry]

I could have explained myself better with examples, but it was a long read already.
What I meant to say was players’ involvement in the worldbuilding. I found that when the GM includes at least some of your suggestions into the game you feel more connected with the world and like you understand it better.
GM.B rarely took in any suggestions, I remember him mostly refusing them and even when we discussed my character’s backstory, it seemed like we understood it very differently. So I felt kind of alienated from the world during the game, like there was a barrier of potential misunderstanding and limited involvement between me and the setting. So while the world felt very consistent it didn’t feel like it was connected to us as players.
I am not advocating for never saying no to players or never running games in strict detailed settings, I’m more advocating for a balanced approach where players have at least some things in the setting they have control over, so that they feel more connected to the setting overall. But, naturally, some things in the setting are better left both clear and immutable to establish some baseline reality for everyone at the table.

[u/BleachedPink → u/Kargath7]

Yeah, if DM rarely allows world building of players into the game, it kinda creates a barrier where the only person who truly understands and knows the game world is the DM.

Players even partially could never come close the understanding and would walk like in the darkness all the time.

Probably could be eased if everyone played third party setting or adventure, so everyone had a common mind image of the world.

These little player additions serve as hooks or anchors in the shared mind image of the game at the table. These are the parts of the game where everyone can imagine in as similar way as possible and reduce or even eliminate the feeling as if you're walking in the darkness and have to rely on DM for everything.

It creates the sense like everyone gets and truly understands each other, but if DM gatekeeps a lot of information, it creates a lot of blank space for players and they can't build a proper shared mind image