Sunday was something of a watershed moment for me. I GMed a game.
It’s been — well, probably two, maybe three years since I did that. End of my lost, lamented IDC “spy” game (which . Various personal Things Going On in my life and the obsessive way I feel compelled to be in utter control of a game session as GM, up to and including meticulously preparing the plot for any possibility (and complete with special hand-outs, maps, and contingency plans) made it all just … a gaming effort too far.
Of course, it’s all a bit like falling off a horse — when a game ends badly, you really should start another one up, otherwise the mental barriers to doing so just keep growing bigger and bigger.
Fast forward to, well, Sunday. I’ve decided that PTA will be an interesting, non-prep-intensive game system to play in — and doing a game with Doyce and Kate and Margie means it won’t have to happen more often than Kate’s visits to Denver, which means it’s not something hammering my schedule and mental well-being on a bi-weekly basis or something.
And … it happens. And it works. And it’s fun. And, of course, I go wildly obsessive beforehand, cleaning up the basement, then the breakfast room, and then doing all sorts of pre-game prep for how I envision the pilot episode to run, and printing out all sorts of materials, then I have to redo everything on the fly when the timing of the episode gets shot all to hell (we eventually declare it a two-parter), and …
… well, it’s not like over being a scosh gun-shy, and Margie made much rightful fun of my OCD approach to the whole event, but I now officially feel marginally less guilty about depending upon the GMing of Strangers friends, and I’m looking forward to the next get-together … and, of course, I’ll be better prepared, and have my notes neatly printed out, with alternative plotlines should the players choose these obvious options … and maybe chart things out on a map of London (Victorian, of course), and draw sketches of each of the supporting characters, and ….
I am GM, hear me roar.
*smiles, nods and laughs*
Why does that sound so familiar…..oh yeah because it is what I did when I GM’d. ;P
There’s an early Dork Tower — a couple in fact — with just that punch line. “Except … I didn’t have time to actually write up tonight’s adventure.”
I look at some of the game prep I did for IDC, and I’m both intensely proud and utterly incredulous.
Hooray!