Playing Tonight

Post-covid, things have certainly been up in the air.  I think the last time I ran my big campaign was ... jeebus, was it really 2022?  Seems it was ... and we were taking a risk at the time, even though we'd all had two shots.  We've pretty much all had four now, and what with issues consuming the general group's ability to find work, move, sell their property in one case and so on, no one wanted to enter into a sporadic running every four months.  So we've put it off, and put it off.  But tonight, it's a go.

I have one new player and one fellow returning after a 10 year hiatus, the famous Shalar from many years in the past.  It will be nice having a monk rejoin the party, especially as the monk's sage abilities are a massive shift in that class's game investment.  I've not yet had any chance to play test those ideas, though I have no concern about them.  It's going to be fun.

I'm four hours out from starting that game and there's no way that I'm prepared.  So this is a good time to talk about not being prepared as a dungeon master and venturing to play anyway.

Why am I not prepared?  Well, there's just too much to prepare for.  With our last three sessions being far more about moving the narrative along rather than specifically attending to the character's abilities and other details, tonight we have plans to run a "session 0" that is really nothing of the kind.  I used to call them "accounting sessions," but that's not accurate either.  This is more along the line of a general correction of details for all characters, to fully connect them with rule changes and such that I've been invested in creating these last four years.  As such, there's just no way I have of knowing what the players will need, or how much sorting is called for.  The best thing is for me to get ready to answer a few hundred questions while the characters make choices and updates.

Thing is, I have a reputation for providing a satisfactory game.  There's nothing more annoying than a player whining that we should "get to it and play already."  These are the same people who are unable to drive more than 75 miles, no matter how great the beach is, or sit through a brilliant movie because it runs 120 minutes and not 90.  As children, they were unable to wait for their marshmallow.  As an excellent DM, expecting nine players this evening, I can pick and choose who I let play.  I don't have to put up with anyone who hasn't the patience to let the game reach fruition in its own time.  In the end, my players know that I'll provide the two marshmallows I'm promising, and then some.

My responsibility is to be honest and up front with the players, telling them exactly where we stand ... and I've been doing that for a month.  Everyone coming tonight knows what's happening and why.  Having kicked the can down the road these last years due to covid, they're deliriously happy knowing that we're getting back on a schedule again.  This is key.  Once we're grounded, I know that with each progressive session I'll be better prepared ... as I'm progressively immersed in regular play.  What matters is my commitment; not what I happen to do with tonight's five or six hours.

This will be a social gathering.  We've all seen each other, but we haven't gathered for specifically this purpose in a long time.  There has been nine months of built up excitement, so these people are going to be irrepressible anyway!  They won't be in a state of mind to actually take part in a narrative for at least three or four hours, if at all.  And it would be foolish of me to try to make it otherwise.  The players need to be encouraged to relax, to get back into it, to chat and derail and get the fresh rush out of their systems.  This is a BIG part of managing people ... by letting them be people.

I don't suppose that for some of you, the experience has ever been like this.  I have a very powerful reputation for delivering a good game.  I think about D&D day and night, I work on it virtually every day, I'm always proposing something new and I've had a long history of building a deep, profoundly detailed campaign.  After 40 years, I'm well-past any sense of doubt or concern that I won't measure up.

Which, of course, makes me look like a MAJOR egotistical fucktard, and that's entirely fair.  But, may I stress, I've committed well over 3,000 posts on this blog towards a very "moral" form of game play.  The game is NOT about the DM, it is about the players.  My effort is not to preen myself on my cleverness, but to work at being as clever as possible, knowing this will leave me as tired and worn out as a prisoner on a chain gang by the end of tonight's session.  Whereupon, emotionally, I'll crash and burn out, feeling the intense crash of my body ceasing to produce endorphins, dopamine and seratonin all at once, not to mention the sudden quietness of the residence as the players leave.  Anyone whose worked hard at DMing understands how brutally disheartening those few hours can be ... a feeling like being heartbroken.  I have a nice Friulian red wine waiting.

The time, for me, will pass like a finger snap.  I'm focused on what I'm doing, I'm in flow ... and there's opportunity to pat myself on the back anywhere in the proceedings.  When the players leave, they'll be tired also, experiencing their own drops ... so the energy for praising me isn't going to happen, either.  Nope, we'll all burn ourselves out together, leaving nothing but the creeping silence after the game's crash and thunder.

That's how it goes.  Anyone who thinks, having read this blog, that I'm lording it over my players, then you cannot understand what it is that makes them so excited.  No, no, I'm lording it over you ... because my vision of playing is universes apart from what I read on other people's blogs, or on boards, or anywhere on the net.  It isn't Critical Role.  It isn't Chris-fucking-Perkins.  And unless you're one of the players at my table, so that you are invested with YOUR character, you can't possibly understand what's going on by watching.

Understand.  Some of these people have been running in my game for 16 years.  They can't see my game as just a "game" ... they are way, way too invested for that.  The first brick laid for that foundation of their investment was put down 16 years ago.  How could you, seeing it for the first time this week, grasp what that means?

But no, no ... you go on with your one-off sessions, your game con tournaments, your one-page dungeons.  Whatever makes you happy.