Not to step on the importance of my archery post, posted about 30 minutes ago, but I just stumbled across this from my archives.
I came across this comment that I wrote on a post back in 2013, in which I talk about responsibility. This was prior to the inspiration that would enable me to write my book, How to Run, which astounds me. Because I got the book exactly right with this comment, having totally forgotten that I had written what's below:
"This is about half the original essay I was going to write for the book, entitled "Mastering Yourself as DM" ... it is part of the reason why I felt I needed to take a step back and look at the ideals of the book again. While I feel the above is wholly accurate, it is not the spirit nor the feel I believe this book ultimately needs. I don't want to simplify the material, but I want to direct something that is more positive. I'm stuck in the blog-mode, how NOT to DM. I am right now gathering my thoughts, making notes, preparing for the right book, that being how to BE a DM.
"Not get my book? I suppose that has much to do with how much a person really wants to do this. I don't think DMs are necessarily rare, lone wolves, ambiverts, etc. I believe that the RIGHT books have never been written that would enable someone to learn how to do this. I'm very anxious to write the right book, not plow ahead with the wrong one; I'm very conscious of that.
"Listen, being a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, what you will, is hard; the necessary mindset for those professions only very slightly derives from a particular kind of previous personality - the more relevant question is, Will you change your way of thinking so you can think like an engineer? Or a lawyer? Or a doctor? Many people can't, or won't, and find the course work impossible - they are crushed by the course work. They dislike the idea that at the end of their education, they'll be a different person than they were when they went in.
"I don't think D&D is anything like as hard as that - but no one can learn, or 'get' anything, until they decide for themselves that having always known a thing doesn't make it true, and having always been a certain kind of person doesn't mean they always have to be that person. Change is choice; it's not my responsibility to decide who will or won't understand what I'm trying to say.
"It is my responsibility to say it accurately, helpfully and as straight-forwardly as possible. That is enough on my plate, thank you very much. What other people 'get' or don't get is not my problem."
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