Performance Anxiety (and Downtime) as Campaign Killer [more gaming]

[the_gneech]

I've mentioned before how my D&D game has suffered from something of an identity crisis, jumping from homebrew world to Greyhawk, starting a megadungeon one week, then teleporting across the continent for a side trek the next, and so on -- and how I have to fight my impulses to make it even more so all the time.

I think I've identified another factor that's made this so much more of a problem for this game than it has been in the past, which is the scarcity of actual game time compared to the time I spend sitting around thinking about it. When we're actually in the midst of a scenario, usually, I'm fine and content, and the players seem to be as well for the most part. But then the scenario finishes, and it'll be weeks -- or months, le sigh -- until we're on the next one. During that time, all I can do with my game is to sit and stew and putter with ideas.

And when I sit and stew and putter, I start thinking about all the many, many different things I'd like to do with a game. I'd like to do a Conan-esque sword-and-sorcery game. I'd like to do some swashbuckling on the high seas. I'd like to do one of the old D&D classics like "Temple of Elemental Evil." But I only actually have 10 - 30 game sessions a year, total, and so I feel enormous pressure to squeeze everything I can into that small space.

This is one of the reasons I end up dithering and changing my mind and wanting to change things constantly; it's the same reason I hate inking -- there's such a small window of "success" that I'm paralyzed by my desire not to screw it up. So I need to let go and see the game as an opportunity to have some fun, rather than worrying about Running the Perfect Game Session. A decent game that actually gets played, is far better than a brilliant game that never sees the light of day.

-The Gneech

Comments

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

I need to let go and see the game as an opportunity to have some fun, rather than worrying about Running the Perfect Game Session. A decent game that actually gets played, is far better than a brilliant game that never sees the light of day.

This is very true, and something I've tried to get over myself in my various endeavors, as you well know. I think you'd be great coming up with stuff for MMORPGs.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

*nods* I've never been a fan of "the perfect game" senerio.

Might as well read a book at that point, imho.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, by "perfect game," I don't mean one where the plot goes a specific way, but more of a session that has all the coolest moments, niftiest bits, and so forth. The adventure where you guys were rescuing Kyriela from the tower, with the Battle of the Familiars and Jaer's knocking the dragonpriest down a peg by taking out the familiar has a pretty high coolness rating as sessions go for instance. (You guys high-fived when you got past the beholder's riddle contest -- that's a pretty hefty compliment to a GM that you're that into it.) Compare that to the one where you guys were in the boondocks town being plinked at by the sniper, which just ended up being frustrating.

The other problem with trying to achieve the perfect game session, is that everybody who comes to the table has a different idea as to what that might be. For one player, it might be a night of pure butt-kicking; for another, it might be a night where everybody sat around plotting and doing skullduggery, but in which not a single combat came up. It seems to me that my trying to tailor the game to be what I would consider the perfect game session is actually a pretty selfish sort of exercise, and I'm trying to break myself of the habit.

-The Gneech

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

"Return" is pretty significantly different from the original ToEE, actually. :) I was originally thinking of running that one, but I got reports -- and with some reading of the adventure I can see why -- that it has a tendency to bog down somewhere in the "Crater Ridge Mines" section. "We got about halfway through before our DM got bored" describes a lot of groups' experiences with "Return to ToEE."

What I would do would be an updated version of the original.

-The Gneech