The advice Mr. Glass offers here applies just as much to gamemastering as it does to any other creative endeavor. You are going to suck the first time you do it. You'll probably suck the fiftieth time you do it. I put on the bravest face possible in my after action reports, but most of the time I still feel like I suck and I've been doing this since my age in years was a single digit. Honestly, starting young and stupid was a tremendous advantage. A poet or novelist can toil for years without having to share their earliest efforts, but a DM has to perform for other players right from the get-go. That any adult actually tries to do this, with a lifetime of social pressures and fear of embarrassment weighing them down, is pretty much a miracle to me. And then the poor newbie ends up sucking, because we all suck at everything we do the first time.
(Thanks to my buddy Pat for sharing this little item.)
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Wow Jeff! another rock solid post, thanks for sharing this. Great advice all the way around.
ReplyDeleteJeff,
ReplyDeleteYou win +1 Internet.
I'll leave it round the back with the others you're collecting...
That's good advice -- and very true from my experience.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this Jeff. It's something I need to print and stick over the desk.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely awesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this!
That is advice worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteYah, good words. I'm writing a dissertation right now, and it sucks ... both the process and the content itself as far as I can tell. And I'm struggling against my perfectionism, and fear of looking like a dumb-ass, which are both blocking the work from getting done.
ReplyDeleteSo this is a good reminder that you have to suck before you get good, and you have to be ignorant before you can learn.
in post action rundowns i also try to share and get my players to share what we liked, what we hated, what we thought could change... im pretty hard on myself during these, to the point that i repeatedly have to tell them i DID enjoy the game, thoroughly, but we dont get better if we dont analyse what we enjoyed and what we didnt... I know im still a newbie and im ok with that, but i also want to improve, faster rather than later!
ReplyDeletealthough lately, im beginning to think perhaps the players shouldnt be involved so much in this, as it does seem to take them out of the game a bit...
This is the one thing, that should take the place of any religious/national symbol in any school in the world.
ReplyDelete