{"id":32164,"date":"2016-05-14T03:35:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T07:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=32164"},"modified":"2016-05-14T03:37:10","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T07:37:10","slug":"rutskarns-gminars-intermission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=32164","title":{"rendered":"Rutskarn’s GMinars: Intermission"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is bad timing<\/a>, but this week–in between far less pleasant excitements–I’ve become an uncle. The birth has been an all-around happy and uncomplicated one, if much earlier than anybody expected, but I will admit it’s caught me with my buffer down. It’s not that I haven’t written my next post–I actually have–but I haven’t edited and reviewed it properly, and with this series, that takes considerable time. I won’t give badly-phrased or incomplete GMing advice if I can help it; that’s the closest somebody like me can ever get to malpractice.<\/span><\/p>\n

To make up for the lack of essay, I’ll be showing up for this week’s Diecast and Spoiler Warning recordings (typically I take the second week of the month off). Until then, I leave you with this brief anecdote from the first long-term D&D campaign I ever ran:<\/p>\n

It’s high school, and like most high school DMs I’ve got big dramatic plans<\/em>. Long before I’ve got my players lined up I’ve got this whole winding path of murder, conspiracy, and ritual intrigue planned. I can play it forward in my head like I’m remembering a beloved TV show–they’ll find the cryptic runes on an ancient corpse, dramatically uncover matching, bloody marks on a fresh victim–there’ll be the search for a killer, the trail of bodies, the close encounters with figures in the dark and glimpses of the secret powers that run the world. You know <popular, slightly overrated videogame or film franchise>? <\/i>I’m not saying it’s a ripoff or anything, but I’m pretty sure it’ll feel exactly like <popular, slightly overrated videogame or film franchise.> <\/em><\/p>\n

I make up a full map of the main city, a list of custom-tailored Gods, a sketch of the political climate, and even–when I get really <\/em>bored–some encounters. As the introductory session approaches I sit down with my first player and we play a few brief adventures set in my homemade world–something to stave off my RPG cravings and help me get a handle on my lore. She’s got as much experience gaming as I do and when it comes time to make her character for the full campaign, it’s a painless process. “Pick a class. Pick a race. Pick one of my Gods to worship. Cool. We start in a few weeks.”<\/p>\n

A few days later I sit down with my other two players–both eager-but-inexperienced new friends with some CRPG experience but no actual table time. I walk them slowly and patiently through the character creation chapters of the rulebook. “Here are the classes–pick one to take a level in. Here are the races–pick one to be. Here is the list of Gods in the book–pick one to worship. You got all that? Good. Remember, I totally know what I’m doing.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Only later do I realize my mistake. I have one player who already knows my setting and has picked one of my made-up deities, and on the other hand, I have two new players who have just very carefully and with much deliberation picked out premade Gods from the rulebook. The campaign hasn’t even begun and I’m already contradicting myself.<\/p>\n

Some secret and not-terribly-subtle rewrites ensue. Suddenly the very first session features religious riots and temple burnings as a war between my made-up Gods and the established Pantheon<\/del> the old orthodox traditionalists and dangerous upstart cultists<\/strong> reaches a sudden, never-before-mentioned fever pitch. Since I didn’t cover the schism or its source during orientation, this citywide brouhaha raises some questions–so I answer them with events, exposition, and NPCs in the next<\/em> session. And some more in the next one. Very next thing I know it’s eight months later, the campaign’s over, and it turns out the whole damn thing’s<\/em> been about this religious war that I invented to cover up a stupid mistake in character creation.<\/em><\/p>\n

I tell all GMs the same thing–if you can keep your mouth shut and think on your feet, there’s no limit to how often and how hard you can screw up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is bad timing, but this week–in between far less pleasant excitements–I’ve become an uncle. The birth has been an all-around happy and uncomplicated one, if much earlier than anybody expected, but I will admit it’s caught me with my buffer down. It’s not that I haven’t written my next post–I actually have–but I haven’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tabletop-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}