branching out

I have already disclosed I am not a D&D only gamer. I like to run 5e because I’m familiar with it and enjoy high fantasy/high magic adventures. Creating on-the-fly encounters and adjustments to the bad guys is easy in this system for me. However, I have begun to branch out and try running other games.

Throughout the past year, I have been involved in several 2d20 games. This system, to me, is even more simple. Everything is determined by these dice for actions and the characters are one page, often including equipment. If an action causes damage, or has an ongoing effect, you use a number of d6s to determine that outcome. So, I have begun to feel comfortable enough with this to try my hand at GMing.

I play with a group on Sundays, and one week, our regular GM couldn’t make it. I asked if the group would be willing to let me run a 2d20 one shot. Of course, since it was my first time in the seat for this system, and everyone else’s first time playing, we only got about three quarters of it completed. It went over great and all the players seemed to really enjoy it. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get back to it yet, as we are in another campaign currently.

Reflecting back on it, there are definitely things I will need to look into more. Spells, for instance. Some of the games that use 2d20 do not even allow for spell casting, but the one I was using did. I need to reread those chapters about magic to get a better understanding of their mechanics. The other area is monsters. Since I was using a prewritten scenario, it came with the monsters already, but I will need to understand how to create them if I were to run a campaign (or one shot) with 2d20 again.

Those of you who follow my postings, and are GMs yourself, be encouraged to try new games and systems that you are not familiar with. Let your players know you would like to give it a go with them if they are willing. Usually, your players will be happy to try something new, just remember to be patient with each other as you work through mechanics.