Society for Aesthetic Deletions

What is your idea of the relationship between GM and player? Is the GM a host, an adversary, an enabler...?

Yes, all of the above.

Ideally, the GM should provide the environment in which the players run their characters. The environment includes not just the physical environment, but the NPCs they encounter, the traps they run into (and I don't mean just literal traps), the plots they encounter. Even if they don't choose to follow the path of the plot, there is still something going on.

A long time ago, I gamed with Ken Alves (some of you may know him through the artwork he did on ShadowKnight, and in the Amberzines) and Ken Winland (and others may know him through Amber, or as my ex). They told me tales of their original gaming group, including letting me listen to the audiotapes Ken A. made for a project at RISD. He talked to all the players, and asked what gaming was to them, etc.

One of them loved being able to beat the GM at his own game. His whole enjoyment derived from being able to solve whatever puzzle or predicament the GM had devised, or from simply messing it up. Seeing the look on the GM's face when he "won" was priceless to him.

Mundanes (non-gamers) almost always ask me if I tell them I've been gaming, "Did you win?" I try to tell them that I don't game to win or lose, but for the adventure of it. There are no winners and losers to me, or at least there shouldn't be.

The GM should be an adversary of sorts, though. They need to provide the conflict for the characters, whether it be internal or external.

And the GM should be a host, in that they should set up the place, make sure everyone's having a good time, and have everything they need/want. ***Dave did a good job describing that bit, though I think it was a bit of an extreme analogy.

As a player, I want the GM to provide me with interesting things for my character to go play with, but they are not to put me in a cart on rails. I know that I need to stay with the group (for those group-based games), but I still want my individuality.

Gah, that rambled.