gamemastering

When playing a tabletop roleplaying game, you can broadly split the parts of the game that we interact with into two broad categories: mechanics, and flavor. Mechanics are the fiddly bits that we deal with on our character sheets, the numbers, which dice we roll, when we roll them, how we engage with the GM and the game. Flavor is the fiction, it’s what we envision in our heads as we play, and it’s the setting, genre, and tone that builds the worlds we inhabit....

I’ve been GMing for years in various systems, and I’ve been subject to burnout, I’ve lost campaigns as session after session gets canceled until the whole thing just collapses in on itself, I’ve given up on GMing for years at a time, and I’ve come back to it again, only to run against the same frustrations time and again. This time though, I’ve come out on top, at least for now, and it’s been because I’ve adopted a different philosophy towards my games....

I’ve been GMing What’s OLD is NEW for a while, about 5 years at time of writing, and I came to it from a background of playing and GMing the world’s most popular fantasy TTRPG, the one with the dragons and the dungeons and stuff. If you are also coming from there, or perhaps any number of other TTRPGs, I think you might find this article useful, as it compiles my learnings from my last 5 years GMing WOiN into the things I wish I had known when I started out....