Still Running Classes

For those who are interested, yes, I am still running classes online as the opportunity arises.  I've accumulated four students now and I can say without reservation that the classes thus far have been a roaring success.

These classes have distinctly featured original content for each of the participants thus far.  That is because people and campaigns are wildly different in both their purposes and their weaknesses.  While one person may need to communicate their difficulties surrounding the management of data and information during a session, another is more concerned with how to communicate more effectively with the players.  While this person may want to focus on presenting a game that is more fluid and less mechanical, another who manages this without any difficulty needs work on setting up the game to better empower the characters.

The classes, as I conceive them, must be tailored - and because I don't know what the players' issues or weak points are at the start of the first session, I have to diagnose those issues in the first twenty minutes and then get started, at once, with offering strategies and insight on what's not working and how it is possible to make it work.  To do this, I have to think fast on my feet - which is precisely the concern I had before launching the class.  Would I be able to provide the tutoring necessary without hesitating.

Yes.  Yes I can.  That's no longer a concern.  In fact, I am now thinking about adding 'tutor" to my resume.

I strongly encourage people who feel that they are wallowing in their game design or their DM thinking process to buy in, or at the very least write to me at alexiss1@telus.net to work out some kind of arrangement where we calculate for half an hour or some preview experience, so that you can try me for fifteen or twenty minutes for free to see if I'm comfortable to talk to and if I can't give a strong sense of just how powerful it can be to talk to someone who is interested in making you into a stronger DM and not either puffing you up or missing your point completely.

I am going to be at the Edmonton Expo come the end of September, all paid in advance nine months ago; I want to communicate the strength of the classes there, so if you will be there and you have the time, maybe we can arrange a sit-down for fifteen-twenty minutes (though I am pretty busy at these things, my daughter and I sell steady and we're almost always talking to someone).  It might be enough to settle your concerns about what a class with me might play like.

I'm going to write some posts addressing content/issues that came out of yesterday's class, which ran about 88 minutes (because hey, I have time to let these things run long).  These are general issues that I think a lot of people are feeling about their games.