Friday was a good night, quite unexpectedly. Being all prepped to run our routine session of Dungeons & Dragons, I was pleasantly surprised when one of the guys suggested shifting the game back to Mystamyr using Classic Fantasy.
The State of Play
Regular readers will know that “things went to crap” a couple of months ago. In short, I tried to shift the game from a classic dungeoneering game to a story with intrigue and conspiracy. At the time, I felt this was needed to help one of my players get back to the table… but it backfired. The events that transpired pissed off two long-term players and we almost lost two of them. We did lose one of them.
After that, I needed to break from the game… in truth, I was ready to stop gaming altogether. I had felt burned out the year before, back before I started on the path that led to discovering Classic Fantasy, and I was feeling bruised and frustrated again. I issued a stark declaration of resignation as GM and decided to take a break.
But two of the players wanted me to run something – anything, I think – so that we could keep meeting and playing. Feeling hurt, I shifted to try GURPS for an SF game, then bottled it and opted for a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
The first session saw three of the four players back at the table. The summer holidays took their toll after that as three sessions followed with two players apiece. I cancelled the fourth after a tough week at work.
Last weekend, I sent everyone an email to explain where I was at. Despite the temptation to quit, the players had encouraged me to keep gaming. But, while I was happy to finish the D&D adventure, my plan was to return to Mystamyr playing Classic Fantasy (the game I genuinely enjoy playing) as soon as that adventure was done.
Friday night arrived. I had steeled myself for another depleted table and going through the motions as GM again. Two guys made it. And then, quite unexpectedly, one of the chaps suggested we just port the adventure wholesale back to Mystamyr: move setting, convert the characters, and play on.
Amazing! What a cool idea – and it really hadn’t occurred to me until that moment.
Against the Cult of the Reptile God
Over the summer period, we’d begun playing the classic D&D module, “Against the Cult of the Reptile God“. I’d been wanting to play this for many months and, following the melt-down between the Friday Night Roleplayers, this is where we ended up… using Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
To be honest, we have barely managed to begin the investigation stage of the scenario, with the players poking their noses around the village of Orlane and two of them getting captured.
Orrlaine is already on the Mystamyr map. As I’d always intended to run the scenario, I’d already added the village (with re-spelled name by way of a cunning disguise) to the setting months ago. Thinking about it, the town of Dragon’s Port makes a nice base of operations for the party and the rest is easy enough to port.
The biggest change would be the deities worshipped by the Cleric and the Paladin – and the fact that the Paladin is a Dwarf – but we decided to simply change the deities and ignore the fact that Dwarves can’t be Paladins in the Classic Fantasy game.
So, here we are… against the cult in Mystamyr. And I feel great!
Learning from Mistakes
I’ve made a whole bucket of mistakes in recent months. Collectively, they almost cost me my hobby. With that in mind, I’d like to air some of the bigger issues and suggest why I’m changing tack. If this helps someone else, that’d be grand!
1. Don’t Violate the Social Contract
When you’ve set up a game with a set of expectations, don’t go changing things without talking it through beforehand. In short, you’ve entered a social contract with the players and violating that agreement (spoken or not) is fatal to trust at the table.
Mine was a game of dungeoneering and classic monster hunting. It was a mistake to try changing it suddenly and radically into a game of global conspiracy… without gaining the player’s consent.
2. Don’t Blame The Rules
It doesn’t matter which set of rules you play with, you still have the same players in front of you. You’re still the one running the game. A change of system might well lead to a different emphasis or approach to play… but you still can’t pretend that this will change who you are, or who is sitting opposite you. In short, if something is wrong then changing rules isn’t really the solution.
I was fed up with the narrow focus of play in my game. It was a hack-fest and I was bored; I could also see that three other players were bored. The solution was not to violate the social contract (see above), nor was it to change the game rules. Shifting from system to system didn’t address the problem.
3. Don’t Avoid Difficult Conversations
If you’re not happy as a Game Master then I can guarantee that the players won’t have as good a time as you might wish. The same goes for when a player is not happy, but the impact of the miserable Game Master is far greater because they are the one running the game.
I didn’t tell my players how I was feeling. I also avoided challenging the behaviours that I didn’t like, hiding behind the illusion that the problem was with the game rules. You know, they do something that outrages your sense of story, and you focus on how the rules let that happen. Truly, no: you let that happen.
My mistake was allowing one player’s gaming style and preferences to overrule those of the others. Having had the conversation, never an easy thing with friends, I can honestly say that I now have no illusions about when to speak up. Don’t avoid the difficult conversations.
4. Run What You Enjoy
Having shared three pieces of “don’t” advice, here’s a positive one: as Game Master, run the game you know you’ll enjoy.
Start with setting and the kinds of stories you want to tell. For me, there are three types of story I want to play through. The main one features classic fantasy adventure tales of the type I enjoyed back in the day, when I first started playing. That’s why Classic Fantasy resonates so strongly for me – it’s not just a great rules system… it connects me to the hobby I loved at the start!
Don’t run a game for the sake of the players alone. You have to bring energy and enthusiasm to the table, Mr Game Master, and you can’t do that if you’re “going through the motions”. Find something you care about and offer it to the players.
Certainly, they might refuse. Be prepared to live with that: not playing a game is better than playing a crappy game.
Trust me on this.
If they don’t want to roleplay with you, bust out a board game or a card game. Or let one of them GM while you become a player. Just don’t run a game your heart’s not into.
5. Persevere
Having set up the game you want to run, and having chosen the rules you’re comfortable with, the next thing is to persevere.
No game is perfect. Inevitably, being Game Master gets hard. Inspiration flows for a while but, at least in my experience, it always seems to run dry eventually. When running the game gets hard, persevere.
That’s not to say, “grit your teeth and muscle through”. What I mean is to keep in connection with why you started this game in the first place… and commit to seeing it through. Deliver on the tale. Finish the story.
Once it’s finished, if you’re all out of gas on that particular setting, go back to working out what you want to do next. BUT don’t bail on the players early.
My mistake has been to bail before the players have been given a chance to resolve the outcome. This robs them of the chance to discover the end of the tale… and it pisses people off.
Don’t be lazy, Mr Game Master. As with all things worth doing, it’s going to get hard. Persevere.
And… that’s about all I have to say about that.
Game on!