Confessions

When I tell others that I run a regular game on Tuesday nights, the first question I get is, “What are you running?” I do not always want to answer that question. A part of me is afraid to get the ‘look.’ You know the one. The one that says two things at the same time: You must want to be another (insert name of a famous GM here), and you must have a lot of time on your hands. Neither of these make me want to continue any conversation, but I don’t like to lie so I confess that I homebrew. Then the ‘look’ ensues.

Unfortunately, this also ends the conversation rather rapidly. I cannot blame them, what do they have to ask after that. There is no common ground to talk about what happens in a particular campaign, or how I handled a poorly written encounter. The only question I will get, when it comes, is “How’s that going?” I simply answer “Fine” mostly because it is true, but also I don’t really know how to answer that. I do not wish to bore them with the details of how I plan out a story or put together maps. I have been fortunate enough to have done this for some time now, so the time I put into it is minimal at this point. I’ve built a little tool box of encounters and characters to draw from (though name creation is a last minute thought).

The biggest struggle I have in being a GM is the rules! Guilty! I do not know the rules better than my players, occasionally my players correct me. Sometimes I just like to have a ‘rule of cool’ over actual mechanics, but sometimes players struggle with that. Balancing this can cause one player to feel left out or another to have an extended time in the spotlight. Human nature says, “What about me?” It can be hard to sit back and just let others have most of the attention, especially when looking at their own character and getting excited to explore their background. I always attempt to weave (not always successfully) all player character backgrounds within the story, interlocking the people they know with the places they go. Over time, as trust among the players and GM grows, it will balance out, usually. This is why I prefer long campaigns.