TLDR; last session thoughts are first, long version DM notes are second.
After the previous session, we had a lot of morality and alignment discussion. I love my players and the fact that they and the PCs worry about the consequences of their actions. I want them to feel like their choices matter, so I started to come up with material to support their decision to learn more about a creature before killing it.
There's a lot below about how this whole thing got so serious and came to mean so much, but in summary, the players wanted to know 'why' the Big Bad was evil. What happened. What they could do about it.
So I started writing a profile of Veyla, my Big Bad, as a trapped, forsaken creature who traded bad for worse.
I thought about what her power would mean and how it would manifest. I looked for options other than a big battle that would give closure to the story.
Did I reveal everything about the villain? No.
Did I make her sympathetic/understandable for the players? I hope so.
Does it give us a reason to move forward but remember the story and the decisions made? Yes.
That's what I wanted to get. Everything else I wanted the players to decide upon. I'm sure there are things they wish were different but they achieved their goal and moved forward.
LONG VERSION
The first mission of a DM is to run a game. You can do it however you want, but it becomes more difficult to keep players interested if you force them to conform to your game and your plot.
The more you say 'no', the more opportunities you take away, the less freedom you give, the less likely your game is fun.
If you're running a weekly game and want the same people to come back each week, there has to be a reason they'll come back. You want to keep your game fun, exciting, empowering and memorable.
We hit 25 sessions this week! That's the longest game I've run in a while. I want to keep it going. I love my players, I love their characters and I love the stories we tell together.
Long story arcs are fun, but evil trap dimensions that force players to question all of their decisions
are less fun.
Last week I had a pretty serious conversation with one of the players about how checks were handled in the last session. I listened (at that point, not in game) and understood that she didn't feel like I made the right call in the game on what ability check something should be. This went on for a bit and uncovered a lot more to talk about.
This is why I love streaming the game. In addition to all the social aspects, I can actually see what I did. I was not proud. I looked back and I can see that I was being dismissive and focusing on other players when this player was clearly upset. So I thought about that a lot.
Another great opportunity came up this weekend: I ran a home game for some family. I set up a whole adventure and I had the thought I would run it like a published product, just to gauge how they would play. Very bad idea. Frankly it just wasn't fun and the pacing was totally off. They didn't want to work together, they weren't expecting a 'dungeon' and the fun just didn't come.
It's not how I normally run games.
So I started looking at the games I've been running. I found that I had gotten pretty far away from my usual mantra of positive, supportive, 'say yes' games. I've started worrying about rules and making sure things are correct too much.
Solution: I need to try harder. So I put my goals as a DM out on Twitter pre-game and held myself to accomplishing them. They went pretty well. I did everything I said I would do but didn't do them as well as I could. I missed an opportunity at the end of session to give a player Inspiration, but I plan to make that right by starting next session giving him Inspiration.
I'm a lot happier with where the game is now. I'm excited for the opportunity to go in a new direction and start a new arc! I feel like there's nowhere to go but up!
After the previous session, we had a lot of morality and alignment discussion. I love my players and the fact that they and the PCs worry about the consequences of their actions. I want them to feel like their choices matter, so I started to come up with material to support their decision to learn more about a creature before killing it.
There's a lot below about how this whole thing got so serious and came to mean so much, but in summary, the players wanted to know 'why' the Big Bad was evil. What happened. What they could do about it.
So I started writing a profile of Veyla, my Big Bad, as a trapped, forsaken creature who traded bad for worse.
I thought about what her power would mean and how it would manifest. I looked for options other than a big battle that would give closure to the story.
Did I reveal everything about the villain? No.
Did I make her sympathetic/understandable for the players? I hope so.
Does it give us a reason to move forward but remember the story and the decisions made? Yes.
That's what I wanted to get. Everything else I wanted the players to decide upon. I'm sure there are things they wish were different but they achieved their goal and moved forward.
LONG VERSION
The first mission of a DM is to run a game. You can do it however you want, but it becomes more difficult to keep players interested if you force them to conform to your game and your plot.
The more you say 'no', the more opportunities you take away, the less freedom you give, the less likely your game is fun.
If you're running a weekly game and want the same people to come back each week, there has to be a reason they'll come back. You want to keep your game fun, exciting, empowering and memorable.
We hit 25 sessions this week! That's the longest game I've run in a while. I want to keep it going. I love my players, I love their characters and I love the stories we tell together.
Long story arcs are fun, but evil trap dimensions that force players to question all of their decisions
are less fun.
Last week I had a pretty serious conversation with one of the players about how checks were handled in the last session. I listened (at that point, not in game) and understood that she didn't feel like I made the right call in the game on what ability check something should be. This went on for a bit and uncovered a lot more to talk about.
This is why I love streaming the game. In addition to all the social aspects, I can actually see what I did. I was not proud. I looked back and I can see that I was being dismissive and focusing on other players when this player was clearly upset. So I thought about that a lot.
Another great opportunity came up this weekend: I ran a home game for some family. I set up a whole adventure and I had the thought I would run it like a published product, just to gauge how they would play. Very bad idea. Frankly it just wasn't fun and the pacing was totally off. They didn't want to work together, they weren't expecting a 'dungeon' and the fun just didn't come.
It's not how I normally run games.
So I started looking at the games I've been running. I found that I had gotten pretty far away from my usual mantra of positive, supportive, 'say yes' games. I've started worrying about rules and making sure things are correct too much.
Solution: I need to try harder. So I put my goals as a DM out on Twitter pre-game and held myself to accomplishing them. They went pretty well. I did everything I said I would do but didn't do them as well as I could. I missed an opportunity at the end of session to give a player Inspiration, but I plan to make that right by starting next session giving him Inspiration.
I'm a lot happier with where the game is now. I'm excited for the opportunity to go in a new direction and start a new arc! I feel like there's nowhere to go but up!
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