Mastering the Game of GMing

     I’m the GM¹; it says so on the beads hanging from my rearview mirror, so it must be true. My wife claims that this is true away from the gaming table as well, so that it is a term the seems appropriate to encapsulate the totality of my personality. Although I’m not sure I like what she’s implying there…

     The point is, I love being the GM. The writer in me thrills at the chance to create worlds and characters on a weekly basis. It is the type of creativity that, in some ways, novel-writing lacks. Because it’s interactive, a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story that a handful of your best friends get to run through with you². Sure, there’s a fair amount of ego to the position of GM—playing God, in some sense—but really it’s about telling the story. For me, there are also bonuses if I can link things to my writing. For example, my D&D³ campaigns take place in the same world as my fantasy novel. Although, to be honest, the D&D world came first, and was just adapted for my novel.

     The problem I always run into as a GM is that I also want to play. For instance, we are right now hip-deep into a Shadowrun campaign that I am GMing, but I can help but think about the next character I’m going to play when I sucker convince somebody else to run the game for a bit. And you know what’s going to happen after about three weeks of playing in somebody else’s game? I’m going to be itching to get back behind the screen.

     Not that I don’t like playing, or that I don’t like the way other people GM. The last game I got to play in was pretty spectacular, really, and it created some of the most memorable characters I’ve ever been privileged to be a part of. But I have a hard time turning off the GM, and when I watch other people run games, all I can think about is how I would do it. Or what ideas I’m going to steal from them the next time I’m in charge.

     I need to find some other GMs and see if this is a common scenario, or if it’s just me.

¹ That stands for Game Master, although if I really have to explain that to you, you’re probably reading the wrong blog.

² On the rare occasion that I have to explain tabletop roleplaying to somebody, this is usually the first analogy I use.

³ That stands for…wait, really? Just…never mind…