Accused anglophile, husband, father, gamer, and full on fanboy/groupie of all things TTRPGs. Cheese enthusiast.
YT Channel: youtube.com/@orcusdorkus
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/titterpigs-the-ttrpg-podcast/id1585863093
Orcusdorkus - Counting down to ChaosiumCon
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So yes, starting small is excellent advice and should be followed to avoid many of the common pitfalls.
But if your head is swirling with a world so vast it makes you dizzy, consider ignore that advice, fully aware of what may come.
In the end, the lessons learned from a campaign that stumbled under the hubris of your ambition will teach you more than any book or word of advice ever could.
And that’s why the advice to start small may make you a more efficient GM, but ignoring it, at least once, might make you a better one.
Your players may lose interest. The campaign may collapse under its own weight. You may fail spectacularly.
Good.
That’s because failure has a way of teaching lessons that success never bothers with.
We'll be streaming two live episodes of @goodfriendsofje.bsky.social this weekend.
@rossbryant.bsky.social will join us for the first, at 19:30 UK time on Friday the 12th of June, discussing Reactive GMing.
youtube.com/live/Ce7GL-y...
The thing is, that advice is often given by those who ignored it themselves, because when that first spark catches, it rarely stops at a village.
Suddenly there are kingdoms, histories, creatures, all coming faster than you can write them down.
Imagination doesn’t care for sensible worldbuilding.
And honestly, who are we to tell someone not to chase that feeling?
Sure, it often ends with disappointment and failure. Most GM’s have unfinished maps, abandoned notebooks, and campaigns that never quite get off the ground.
But there are some lessons that cannot be taught. They have to be lived.
Start small, they say. A village. A few important NPCs. Some local problems and a rough idea of the surrounding area.
It’s common advice for GMs and good advice at that. It can save you countless hours of wasted time and spare your players from wandering through an unfinished world.
Second Delta Green playtest has begun. Again, can’t say much, but the notes taken by the players were continuously inscribed, so there was a lot to take in for what amounted to only a two hour session tonight. 📝🔎
If you want to see me sitting among a collection of talented people, wondering how security failed so horribly, I’ll be joining this year’s Hook Jam panel.
At a minimum, I’ll be nodding thoughtfully and occasionally asking, “What if it was worse?” 😅
Watch Live Tomorrow: youtube.com/live/HeAmKsN...
