My brain was full of D&D today. We are entering a new arc of the campaign I’m running (that I’m estimating to be the final quarter) and I had all sorts of planning to do — plot points to start shoring up, characters to place in the world, information to review from more than a year ago when the campaign started. It wasn’t all needed for the session I ran tonight but when players enter a new area I need to have a good idea of what’s going on in the world, whether they run into it or not. And if I don’t think ahead to later I risk not putting the right information in front of the players.
My confidence as a DM has grown since I started doing this but I still have my fair share of anxiety, especially when making calls on the spot. I want everyone to have a good time and it’s hard to know if I’m always making the right choices to make that happen while still making the game challenging and interesting. It’s also pretty easy to just forget things with everything going on in the game . . . whether that’s an ability one of my NPCs might have or an offhand plot point that the player remembers but I didn’t.
I think that’s why I want to play and DM so much, I really want to keep practicing to get more ease with certain aspects of the game so I can work on other weak points — like better character voices and roleplay, uffda.
Doing a lot of prep before these arcs usually cuts down prep in the future. At least, it’s been a cycle so far of heavy and light prep periods. But last night I littered my counter with post-it notes — questions I had to answer and ideas I didn’t want to forget. This afternoon I spent a good portion of time just thinking. I went out for my walk and kept my headphones in my pocket. Instead, I literally talked out loud nearly the whole time, banking on the Door County quiet to let me externally process in peace.
It is fun but it also took more time than I imagined . . . at least I got my studying (for my upcoming HR exam) done in the morning.
With Love,
Natalie