Self-Confidence
When the pre-game banter dies down, the cold sweat starts. All eyes turn my way. An expectant hush falls over the table. They’re all waiting for me to pull the levers and turn the wheels that roll back the curtain to Fantasy Land. I’m terrified that I’ll forget how.
Like many GMs, I struggle with self-confidence. My players seem to like my campaigns well enough. I can expect a bevy of “thanks for the session” comments when it’s time to roll up the battle mat and head home. But as you may have noticed, the negative experiences tend to stick in my craw.
When you care about doing something well, and when you want to execute at a high level, the worst critic lives inside your head. Every minor misstep, stutter, or forgotten rule feels like a personal failing. And if you’re not careful, you can perpetuate that negativity even as you try to do the healthy thing and learn from your mistakes.
“If I was a good GM I would have….”
“If only I wasn’t so freaking lazy I could have prepped….”
“What kind of jerk forgets to….”
Ironically, that brand of self-flagellation hurts a game worse than [insert minor thing you’re stressed about]. And this biz is decidedly not healthy.
We all like to remind one another in this community: If you’re having fun you’re doing it right. But when you psych yourself out, the game threatens to stop being fun. Prep feels like a chore. Constructive criticism feels like personal attack. Players notice the tension as, hoping to be flawless, you forget to find pleasure in the hobby you ostensibly love.
So on the off chance that any of the above applies to you, take it from a fellow basket case: You’re good enough as a GM. Your players enjoy chucking dice with you. And even if you aren’t perfect 100% of the time, that’s OK too. You’re allowed to make mistakes. Fantasy Land is waiting just behind that curtain. And you’ll remember how to find it again.
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Oh god, you have no idea how much I needed that at the moment. I’ve not run a game where I haven’t stressed about my ability to the point of losing sight of the fun for the last two of my eight years of gaming, and it’s really been getting to me in the last couple of months. I’ve nearly stopped running my main campaign twice, and several smaller ones have gone under over the past year.
Thank you, Claire – and for the record, from everything I’ve seen from you on here it seems like you’re a pretty amazing GM.
Cheers! Care less, enjoy more.
For my part, it’s the curse of the English major. You read enough and analyze enough and suddenly everything is held up to that same intense level of scrutiny. It’s hard to have fun when your brain is optimized for picking nits.
This is indeed a true and healthy thing to keep in mind.
Also we should remember that the encouraging wisdom we’d dispense for others about confidence and perspective applies to ourselves too.
No worries. I’m fully aware that today’s rant is an exercise in self-help. 😛
Took the words right outta my mouth. For me, at least, I’ve dulled its bite by acknowledging that the voice in my head isn’t rational. It will always gripe even if my players swear this is the best game they’ve ever played. While I’ll never not hear its call, most times I can catch myself from trying to chase that unattainable peak of perfection.
Sometimes though, it can absolutely derail me and drive me crazy. My biggest campaign is on a two-year hiatus because of that damned, insidious whisper.
I’m on hiatus too. Writing a dissertation will do that to ya. And that’s a problem, because this comic is fueled by weekly gaming sessions.
I’m entering the final semester of my Masters program. Here’s hoping that once we’re done with our respective studies, we can finally exorcise the numerous campaign ideas ricocheting around our rattling brainboxes!
Hear, hear!
How appropriate, Im starting a new campaign today.
Today’s mantra is “This is not my job. I will go out of my way to keep this from being work. This is for fun, not stress.”
It’s served me well up until this point.
jupp, it’s for fun and importantly: not only your players fun.
luckily, that one player that thought it was my job to provide his character with whatever their hearts desired, no matter how much additional work it would be for me, buggered off voluntarily.
I think the big problem with players is the difference between, “I want to be taken on a magical adventure,” and, “I want to help my friends go on a magical adventure.” Imagine if everybody at the table had the latter mindset!
I’ve been thinking about hunting for a low-prep system. It would be nice to take over-prepping out of the equation entirely.
Not sure if it’s entirely up your alley, but have you looked into Mork Borg? VERY little prep in that one!
I got a buddy in AL that’s into it. Might have to give it a sniff.
I like DM’s that let the players decide what’s happening and always tried to have several choices of dungeons prepared with monsters, traps etc. all in place that all I needed to do was drop the head bad guys and key treasure items into. Depending on how well the party was coming together and how well their feats and bonuses were decided which one they got, my railroads have bends in the tracks 🙂
The story is as much dependent on what the players do as what the DM does. DM’s make worlds to play in, players do the actual playing and one without the other doesn’t make even half of a game.
The analyst in me notes the use of labor words vs. leisure words. To DM is to make something, while everyone else gets to play. I’m beginning to suspect there’s a reason that players tend not to be the ones getting burnt out.
It always seemed a little unfair to me that players got to try and use (or misuse) feats, spells and rules in creative ways to try and ‘win’, but the DM was usually accused of cheating for doing the exact same thing. In some ways it can be seen as a two-sided game, the players try to beat the BBEG, and the DM tries to beat the players. But the DM can’t try too hard because if the monsters win, the game is over too soon and everyone loses.
To me, the biggest thrill of DM’ing a game is making things up on the fly like the players do and the hardest part is not being too obvious about it. It’s work for both ‘sides’ but also a lot of fun for both if everyone just lets it be instead of nitpicking things to death.
I used to say “you’ve got two choices, let the bad guys use everything they have the same as you do or kill them easy, end the game early, roll new characters for a new setting and kiss those backstories goodbye.”
YOu can either make it into work or keep it fun, it’s all about whether everyone wants to play the game for as long sas possible or just ‘beat’ something.
It’s okay, if our DM made some mistake i say to them i am not mad 🙂
Just dissapointed 😀
:'(
XD
I too was born in 1974 and thus by temporal creation proximity have a talent for GMing. I’ve never suffered from self-confidence issues. Just flaky Players.
And sometimes a disparity of ability to get “from here to there” in the plotline. Which is why I both prefer and do better with large, unwieldy LARPs, which by dint of personality are very often Player-driven.
> I too was born in 1974
You must be amazing at Connect 4.
I have never played Connect 4. I did once have a friend (as a youngin) who had the game, but they were missing some pieces so we never played it. Otherwise I’ve never even seen one outside of the toy section at a store.
I definitely felt the burnout with creating 5e content, it’s part of the reason I moved to pathfinder 1e, and then pathfinder 2e when it came out- just raw system burnout. There’s only so much you can do with a system before it becomes somewhat rote to make content for it. In recent times I’ve had more fun with 5e content creation, but a lot of that is borrowing mechanics from more complex systems- like just outright stealing Pathfinder 2nd Edition’s persistent damage system.
Ultimately I haven’t gone back to actually playing in or running 5e campaigns, and have almost entirely switched to pathfinder 2e, but I feel the burnout is at least getting better, since it doesn’t feel like as much of a drag to work on homebrew bestiaries.
It’s funny how the simpler systems become the most appealing.
“Hey, I bet I can do a subsystem for this wacky idea. And look at that! The PFSRD has support for it! Adjust a few DCs and… Wait a minute. What happened to my simple system!?”
I know that feel, bro.
Thanks, Claire. I needed that.
Currently suffering from “Somebody come and play” syndrome.
(In addition to other current gaming frustrations, this morning I responded to Friday’s HoH topic, completely missing that I had fallen a comic behind.)
> “Somebody come and play” syndrome.
If I wasn’t horrible and lazy and also a hack, I’d have instituted a Handbook of Heroes Discord server a long time ago so that the gang could all game together. 😛
More serious answer: Good luck in the hunt for a game. We all go through these periods, and there’s always more dice and dragons on the far side. We’ll get there.
…I would join a Handbook Discord very quickly.
I know we’d have some food times. I got zero spoons left for it though. :/
There’s been a number of times I’ve tried to run an adventure and my players have taken it off the rails. You just gotta remember, you can plan for a hundred different things, and your players will pick number 101, so don’t beat yourself up over it. No such thing as a player-proofed encounter.
GMs and players are natural enemies. Like monsters and players. Or cursed items and players. Or botches and players. Or players and other players. Argh! Damn players! They ruined Scotland!
Players: Thanks for the session! We had a lot of fun.
Me: Thank you! 🙂
*Later*
Me: What if they’re lying to be polite?
WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT EVIL IN MY HEAD!? lol