Fear of Games: Failing Will Saves
Here’s what confuses me about other gamers’ origin stories:
“I picked up a copy of the red box. I made up the weirdest dungeons, stuff I’d never show anyone today, and I ran the game for my friends”
I would never have done this. I still couldn’t today.
This is a post that Liz asked me to write after I talked to her about running games at GenCon. It went like this.
Me: “So I’m in Kennon’s Dread and your Fiasco.”
Liz: “Yep! You aren’t going to run anything? You should run something for us on Hangouts sometime”
Me: “I can’t. See, if it sucks, you will never want to play games with me again.”
The truth is, I have Ridiculous GMing Insecurity. I have only been a GM 4 or 5 times in my entire life. Each time, I was scared. I woke up the morning of a game with a pit in my stomach. I like to GM in bars so I can calm my nerves with a beer.
So what’s my fucking problem?
I have a lot of game ideas I’d like to try out – that’s not the problem.
There are a lot of games I love with my whole heart – that’s not the problem.
I’ve been in games where the hook wasn’t tight enough, and I’ve thought no less of the GM – that’s not the problem!
I have the time, the space, the technology, and the friends. But I’m too shit-scared to get in front of my friends in a Google Hangout on the off chance they don’t have the greatest gaming experience ever to run a damn thing. Most of my imagined GMing scenarios end in all of my friends leaving my house, so disappointed in the lack of fun that they will never call me again. This is a gaming fear I have had since my first time behind a D&D character sheet.
Because of this I’ve felt like a leech on gaming groups by soaking up story but not contributing any, I’ve felt like a great big ol chicken, and – perhaps most strongly – I’ve felt like I’m missing a key part of being a gamer by not putting a story up on the slab to be dissected by my players. I’m scared that if I do, they’ll find it lacking to such an extreme that they will laugh me away from the table.
Rationally, I know that can’t be true – I’ve made disastrous characters (the soccer mummy: worst character ever fucking written) and it’s just funny. I’ve been in disastrously run games that were the same: fun jokes now! I’m easygoing, I can roll with a few story-punches. It isn’t that someone will get smudgy fingerprints over my spun sugar world that’s holding me back. There’s nothing more to it: it just scares me.
I’m working on it, though. In small ways I’m taking the lead during games. Facilitating story games? Fuck yeah I’ll do that! One shots are another arena where I feel a bit more sure of myself, and I think that running a campaign is still in the foggy distance. Slowly, I’ll improve on this. It’s all in my head, and my friends just want to see what cool ideas I come up with.
I can’t be the only person with a really foolish gaming insecurity. Do you have one?
Did you have one that you overcame? How’d you do that, fancypants?
I haven’t table top played in probably a decade, but I’ve often co-GMed a game. Basically I make up the story and the events while someone else maintains the rules (I bend and break them too often.).
I still have the GM insecurity, every time I run, and I’ve been running things for years! I always worry that it won’t turn out right or the players will be bored and not have any fun. I think that’s the sign of a good creative mind though. It makes you push yourself a little bit more each time you run something.
I like to use background music in my games as a way for me to focus on the game and not the insecurity. It also seems to reinforce the setting of what I’m running and the players dig it, which also helps alleviate the pressure.
The secret here, until you find your feet, is to play in games with people who you know will give you unquestioning support. You also establish that the game is all about appreciations, and not about criticism. Once you know that you’re in a safe place and it’s totally okay to try new things and fail, you’re just going to knock it out of the freakin’ park.
I’d encourage you to run stuff that is rules-light, if you’re worried about messing up rules; or is funny, if you’re worried about gravitas in roleplaying. For instance, you running “Kobolds Ate My Baby” may be the best GMing idea ever!
But let’s face it, you’re smart, funny and creative: everything that makes a good GM. I suspect pushing your boundaries with people you like is only going to make you happy.
- Kevin
And for what it’s worth, my friends walked out of the first D&D game I tried to run. I don’t think I ran another one for another two years. Everyone starts a little rough. But I quickly realized that I have as much fun running as playing, and GMing means I never get bored while waiting for my turn. It was worth it to go back and fine tuning my approach.
I’ve been getting more and more insecure about my GMing, as of late. For me, campaigns are my bugaboo. I feel like I just can’t run a successful long-term campaign. Whether it’s a lack of attention to detail, or lack of planning from me, or schedule stuff that prevents the group from getting together regularly enough. I’ve had two campaigns that have gone beyond 5-6 sessions. Those were early in my GMing career. Now, I’ve got 4-5 other aborted campaigns.
I worry that people don’t want me to GM campaigns anymore because I’m so inconsistent. Either I need to not worry about it, or I need to get better; one of the two.
OMG Tracy, I’m the same way! I feel like I have 10 campaigns that have gone MIA. Longest I think was 8 sessions. I’ve been trying different styles and I’m finally feeling confident about the longevity of our current campaign.
I think it’s important to have the setting and NPCs heavily prepared, but the story I leave to creative impulse based on the player character’s actions. From session to session I change my vision for the story and future events/encounters to fit the PC story arcs. After that I throw caution to the wind and (as difficult as it is) I put all my fears and worries aside and I hold nothing back! Nerve-wracking but exhilarating …
I started running stuff for my older brother and a friend or two when I was young. He started as the DM, being the older one, but like me, he loved making characters and needed somewhere to play them.
I ran modules for ages and it was a long time before I started making my own stuff. But for a long time, that’s all I did. I’ve run a campaign on and off for 21 years (different groups, same world) and sometimes it’s like putting on a pair of very comfy jeans. But othertimes, especially with new groups, my internal critic is there wondering at everything move I make. If a player doesn’t show, is it because they really had to work or because last session sucked?
Sigh…it’s hard to over come.
Tracy, a thought: next time, don’t say you’re running a campaign! Say you’re running a six session game. Then schedule each game far in advance, and plan out each of the six sessions so that each is paced for a 3 hour game.
The real benefit of doing this is that you have a story arc and an ending. It’s like a BBC season: a few shows, and then done, and if everyone likes it (including you!) you get renewed for the next season.
I used to have massive GMing insecurity.
I ran my first game as a freestyle winged homebrew. I thought some random tables and keeerazy ideas were all I needed.
Maybe now, 17 years later, but not then. It fell flat.
A few years later I tried running Ars Magica, which is not a game I’d recommend for green GM’s. The main sticking point was historical accuracy. I felt I had to research and run a game that completely immersed the players in England 1220.
I understand now that this is totally wrong. As long as the players are immersed in magic and politics, they don’t give a rat’s ass if I get the name of the King wrong.
This misplaced fear froze me for years.
When I ran a game, I felt I had to know the rules inside out, plan out every eventuality, stat every character and understand the setting intimately.
This way led to madness.
Oddly, the way I got over it was by getting angry.
The guy that ran Vampire and Mage for us was a terrible GM. He made up the rules, ignored others. Rail-roaded. Played favorites. Had precious NPCs that kept saving the day.
It was too much.
So I got angry, and started running Vampire to ‘show him how to do it properly’.
Thing is, whilst this anger overrode my fear, I still made mistakes. Lots of them. I just took them on board and moved on.
I’m so right there. I want SO BAD to GM something. But I’m so afraid to make that leap. I have the Star Wars SE rule book that I won’t finish reading because that means I’d have to run a game. I keep telling myself I’ll never understand all the nuances of running a game. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever break that barrier and finally work up the huevos to run something.
The key to running a good game is to know yourself well! Run games that are in your “sweet spot,” for people who are ALSO in your “sweet spot” (no, that’s not weird sexual innuendo). I’ve run relatively successful campaigns and a TON of one-shots and con-games, but the success has always been more about the players than it is about me.
All that being said, GMing got a lot easier when I stopped worrying about producing anybody’s BEST game. What’s the old saying? The great is sometimes the enemy of the good.
I want everyone at the table to have fun, obviously, but some things you need to do for yourself. GMing has to be at least a little bit like that, or the pressure to provide someone else’s joy can get to be a little much.
I also have insecurity when running games. It starts with a Mothra-sized order of butterflies-in-the-stomach and, afterwards, I pick the entire experience apart with an enormous amount of self-criticism.
Lately, it has gotten better and the trick for me has been not to run games for my friends. I have run numerous one-shots for strangers at game-days and PAX East and I have received enough compliments that I tend to feel better about by DM skills than I used to.
And now, because i’m a masochist, I have put my DMing on display. I took an RPG with which neither my players nor I had any previous experience and decided to run it using Hangouts On air. Our very first comment was from a viewer who posted in the first session–he called us “n00bs!” and down-voted but everything else since has been positive.
I suspect that the reason why this works for me is that strangers have no reason to say nice things about my DMing, where my friends might say good things because they are my friends.
Every time I play I’m afraid it’s not good enough. But then I put myself in the player’s shoes and realize as a player I always look at the GM with respect and I always have a good time, regardless of the quality of the GM.
And I had an epiphany: the players bring their own imagination to the game thus contributing equally, if not more, to their individual experience at the table. Suddenly a load is lifted from the GM’s shoulders because she doesn’t have to explain every detail or constantly suspend disbelief. The players will fill in the gaps with their imagination.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that when it comes to tabletop RPGs, we’re just playing “pretend,” so we create our own fun, not just the GM.
For me, a lot of the insecurity comes on the scheduling side of things. If I’m the one running a game then it is also on me to set times, work with other people’s schedules, etc. I’ve shut down games before because I just couldn’t get everyone at the table at once and I was done dealing with it and feeling like I was pulling teeth to make people do something they really didn’t want to do.
This was likely untrue but in my head I felt like I was a burden.
I was worried about running my first campaign right up until the 1st session. After that, I was hooked. I still consider myself new to it, but thought I could share my two cents. I am currently running a Star Wars campaign and for me, the most important part is the story. The gaming takes care of itself if the story is well thought out. Don’t get hung up on rules, the most frustrating thing for me personally is when the game comes to a screeching halt because someone needs to look something up. If it cant be found in a few page flips, then make an executive decision as the GM on how the particular issue should be resolved. Take a note one it, then look it up and have it ready for the next session. IMO if you have an engaging story and characters then you’re off to a great start.
Another bit of advice I have is to ask the players after the session for feedback. Don’t be afraid to steer your campaign in a new direction if that’s how the players want to play it.
Just my thoughts, hope it helps.
JJ