I recently had a rather surreal experience that I wanted to relate.
I had started to frequent and comment on a different game’s message boards. It is similar to this one, but much less extensive with a much smaller community.
Anyway there was a gripe fest going on with people posting about problem players and/or problem GM’s. I posted my dog pitch about a real ash hat of GM that had really cheesed me off quite a few years ago. Then I was reading through some of the others chuckling or sympathizing. Then suddenly I realized one that I was reading was the exact same dog pitch that I had posted, this time from the other side of the screen.
I still stand by what I wrote. Sometime I invite you to make a list of the common complaints of what a GM shouldn’t do. I can almost guarantee he did at least half of them. Horrific GMPC. Unstated railroad that led to PC death if you didn’t do what he wanted. Didn’t like certain types of characters, but rather than tell us that would just have bad things happen to them. Impossible to determine solutions unless you happened to have read some particular legend/story that he loved. Stupid opponents with complex battle plans that also know all the PC’s battle plans and capabilities. Player decisions/plans have no effect unless it was the solution he wanted you to come up with. Etc… All of which was exactly the opposite of what he put in his advert.
But I can now see that in that situation, I was part of the problem or at least did nothing to help. I did not communicate anything. “This is the way they’ve been playing for a long time. I can’t expect them to change for me.” I just quietly seethed internally. Until of course, I eventually exploded and stormed out.
From their point of view, I was just participating less and less until I suddenly through a hissy fit made a bunch of unconnected insults/complaints and walked out to never be heard from again.
Do I think he would have actually changed anything if I had spoken out? No. But he would have at least known what I was upset about and why we were not a good fit for a group. Heck might have even changed the advert for the next time. And I might not have come across as such an ash hat myself.
It was definitely odd seeing the other side of that situation.
I'm actually friends with a couple of GM's whose games I quit playing, one actually helped me immensely to level up my game by being less of a narrativist and being more gamey. I do the same stuff, we always have a ritual at the end of our games of asking "Did everyone have fun? Anything you'd like to talk about?"; I even do that but don't say anything even if I have a problem. I just eventually don't show up and sometimes it hurts feelings. Once when I left a game, the other players made them move that game so I could play; I felt horrible. I didn't want the other players to quit or get mad and it hurt the GM's feelings too. Then they got their game pushed because I ran that day and they wanted the later game to be one I could play in.