I'm currently playing in a D&D campaign, run via Roll20 on Saturday mornings. The guy running the game, Mike, is an Elder Gamer in Ireland, and most of the players have been in gaming for a long time too - I think between us, we probably have more than a century of experience. Mine, however, has almost all been from the other side of the screen.
I'm not saying I've never played -![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dualpurpose ran a couple of not-really-system-mostly-narrative games some years back, and a friend growing up ran single-shot games fairly frequently, before our attention drifted onto something else, which usually took hours rather than days. But I have never played D&D, specifically, for more than two sessions with the same character, nor have I ever before levelled up a character of my own. In 30-some years of playing, that's kind of weird.
It's a very different experience from the player side. Mostly, it's a huge amount less effort - you turn up at the game, you remember what happened in the last game, and you play, and that's it.
The GM, on the other hand, has to keep weeks, months, or years of continuity in mind, understand the rules, write down (or at least read over in advance for published modules) roughly what should happen in this session, balance encounters, make sure all the players are as involved as they can be, and manage the complete unpredictability of people confronted with a plot. That's in addition to things like making handouts, or writing the setting. I reckon games I'm running occupy my time for about 3 hours for every hour of actual active game, and that's without the time spent just thinking about what to do, or reading various supplements, gaming forums, and other GM-related stuff.
And for some reason, I have never really copped this before. I have always vaguely assumed that players spent some proportion of as much time thinking about the game as I did; clearly not as much, but still some. Some time reading forums, say, or looking at relevant rulebooks, or working on background, or thinking about what their characters can do about X or Y problem in the game setting. And it's absolutely possible for a player to do so, but it's not necessary in the same way. It's kind of eye-opening.
Game tomorrow. Haven't done a thing since last week for it. It'll be great.
I'm not saying I've never played -
dualpurpose ran a couple of not-really-system-mostly-narrative games some years back, and a friend growing up ran single-shot games fairly frequently, before our attention drifted onto something else, which usually took hours rather than days. But I have never played D&D, specifically, for more than two sessions with the same character, nor have I ever before levelled up a character of my own. In 30-some years of playing, that's kind of weird.It's a very different experience from the player side. Mostly, it's a huge amount less effort - you turn up at the game, you remember what happened in the last game, and you play, and that's it.
The GM, on the other hand, has to keep weeks, months, or years of continuity in mind, understand the rules, write down (or at least read over in advance for published modules) roughly what should happen in this session, balance encounters, make sure all the players are as involved as they can be, and manage the complete unpredictability of people confronted with a plot. That's in addition to things like making handouts, or writing the setting. I reckon games I'm running occupy my time for about 3 hours for every hour of actual active game, and that's without the time spent just thinking about what to do, or reading various supplements, gaming forums, and other GM-related stuff.
And for some reason, I have never really copped this before. I have always vaguely assumed that players spent some proportion of as much time thinking about the game as I did; clearly not as much, but still some. Some time reading forums, say, or looking at relevant rulebooks, or working on background, or thinking about what their characters can do about X or Y problem in the game setting. And it's absolutely possible for a player to do so, but it's not necessary in the same way. It's kind of eye-opening.
Game tomorrow. Haven't done a thing since last week for it. It'll be great.
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Having played "Basic" (Expert, Compendium, Masters) D&D for years, then AD&D first, second and fourth editions, then nothing for about 3 or 4 years, I'm finding it really difficult to get to grips with the subtle changes in the new ruleset.
Thankfully, I have a player who just sort of absorbed all the rules and who doesn't take the piss.
I'm still occasionally thrown by unexpected changes (a character cast the campaign's first fireball last session, and I was convinced there'd be player casualties, but no - although fireball can now do friendly fire damage again (ha!), it no longer fills a certain volume). I'm finding balance an issue, but hey, that's nothing that can't be fixed on the fly.
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