The Science of Selling Yourself Short
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings Dungeons and Dragons (D&D)

The Science of Selling Yourself Short

I find that I’m constantly comparing myself to other DMs. This is an aspect of my personality that I’ve never quite been able to avoid, my whole life I’ve walked around comparing my life to that of my friends, and now I’m even comparing myself to other gamers I read about online? I read about, see videos of or have actually had the experience of playing with them and I somehow always walk away feeling like a chump that can’t run his game worth a shit.
One shots: Introducing a new player & refreshing old ones.
Posted inDungeon Master's Musings

One shots: Introducing a new player & refreshing old ones.

First go read “Burning down the tavern” over on @rjschwalb’s blog to understand where I’m stealing this concept from. Go on….go. Okay now that we’re on the same page allow me to introduce the cast of my Monday night one shot coming up next week. I had originally planned to have a good friend of mine (@danjbailey) who’s never played D&D come over for a night of beers and some role playing boot camp but after realizing I’d only have  two players I put some calls out.

I only expected maybe 3 of the 6 people i contacted to respond with a possible yes but instead I got all of them. Turns out when people don’t get their D&D fix they pull out all the stops to get together for a game – either that or my exquisite DM’ing skills are just that alluring (just kidding, I’m terrible).

Anyway, I decided to ditch the tavern for the first time in a while and opt for something more predetermined on my behalf and chosen to go for the ‘band of traveling entertainers’ option. Hey, anything beats that awkward “uh yeah so we’re all in a tavern, we have drinks and become friends – can we kill stuff now?” I’m pretty excited about running this one shot because it’s going to be the first one shot I’ve done in a long while and because of the following:

  • Group dynamic should be much better than those starting arbitrarily in a tavern.
  • I made all the characters myself so class synergies are already built in and optimized.
  • Players don’t have to bring anything but dice and their imaginations.
  • This will be a great first time experience for some and really encourage role play.
  • I can’t wait to get @danjbailey playing D&D!

I’ve come up with a light background and personality trait or two for each character to help in adding flavor and since the players will all have the option to pick whichever character they want I think they are unique enough everyone should feel they have a specific role and there won’t be any squabbling over who get’s to play who. Since this is a first time for at least one of the players