My Life: The Life of a Dungeon Master

Okay, so the twofer idea didn't go so well. Such is life, however, especially on laundry day. And when you officially have a Laundry Day, you know it's time for your life to get more exciting.

I covered some of the details of this post back on Saturday, but I didn't really explore this side of the issue directly. So tonight, the topic is my history when running Dungeon and Dragons games, and the remarkable fact that I still do so.

My luck with the game on that front has admittedly been pretty horrible. To date, I have yet to actually conclude a campaign the right way. But it's improving. Back in high school, I never really started.

That was a problem with my age and my players. The first time I tried, the players were, like me, in the 15-16 range or so. They had the attention spans one would expect. I was able to get them to play Toon, but that's a shorter, simpler game, where the average adventure lasted 2-3 sessions tops and never really related to later ones. D&D was another story, and it almost never went as well. It didn't go horribly, at least not the first time. Sure, one of my closest friends ripped up his character sheet and quit the game midway through game one, but he tended to be over-dramatic anyway. But from there, the game lasted some three and a half adventures, including an elaborate dungeon and a tower I completely ripped off from Legend of Zelda. By that point, some of the players just ignored the game and made jokes, one didn't care if he lived or died, and things just stopped.

The second attempt included the reconciled first friend mentioned above and several of my brother's friends. This game was notable in that many of those friends were girls, which was rare in the gaming culture, especially at that age. It still didn't go well, though. The game ended after about 3-4 adventures, with the final adventure ending with the entire party captured by orcs. Stupid orcs. Nonetheless, that game at least proved amusing, even though once again I had to work my ass off just to corral the group long enough to get them to the game.

Campaign 3 occurred much later. I went to college, was a player for three years, witnessed the arrival of 3rd edition, and returned to my neighborhood eager to handle this like an adult. No old friends and browbeated acquaintances. This time, I advertised and found a few players the old fashioned way. That went better, at least eventually. Unfortunately, this campaign taught me two things. First, just because a game actually involved adults, it didn't mean they would all act so. Oh, most players were fine, but one players' departure via obscenity-laden emails was enough to burn me out for almost a month and move my game from a weekly to a every other week schedule, a pattern I maintain to this day.

But the thing that killed the game permanently was that adults have a new, adult problem: time. I was pretty good (no social life and my terrible luck with women helped here,) but some players were not so lucky, and we almost always missed at least one or two player. This is where I first determined that 6-8 was the ideal number of players; that way, if we missed a few, the group was still mostly complete. However, that wasn't what killed the group. What killed the group was when life intruded so much that people had to move out of state. I lost 3 players in a matter of weeks, and others shortly afterwards. We tried to make it work by moving the game online, but by then the party was at or near epic level, and combat took forever even in real life. We got an adventure or two done online, but it soon proved impossible. We were only a few adventures away from the conclusion, too.

After an incident like that, you might think I'd be burned out and discouraged from gaming altogether. And you'd be right; it took me over a year before I played again, and that time I started with more preparations. Before I sat down for game one, I made an entirely new setting, including new cities, a backstory, the whole nine yards. That game is about halfway to 2/3rds to completion now. I worry that it won't finish, and I'm already seeing danger signs. We lost regulars to moving or distance issues, and others are planning on moving again.

But it's worth this risk, because of the little moments, and because it means this is a story being told. I love the days when the game truly works. When the players solve a mystery or when a fight is long, epic, and climatic, everything is perfect. And that moment, that challenge, is the greatest moment of art and design I can achieve right now. I couldn't even resist expanding the game; as of right now, I run two games in the same setting. One is my real life group, and on off Saturdays I run a game online. This makes for a great contrast; the real life group is about epic combat and battles, while the online group, by necessity and player preference, is light on combat and deeper on noir and character issues. This lets me explore two facets of the same setting. And I can even get the groups' actions to influence each other. I always wanted to try this; to challenge myself and each party while maintaining setting cohesion.

It's not easy; I often get stressed when making adventures, procrastinate, and finish at the last minute. But it's worth it. It's arguably the only thing right now that truly makes me feel like an artist and a creator, not just a hopeful with ideas and no way to make them into something complete. For that alone, all the time, pain, and stress is worth it. For that alone, practically anything is.