How Versatile Is Your Gaming Group?
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Recently, I was unable to game master for our weekly gaming group. It wasn’t because I couldn’t show up. It wasn’t because we didn’t have enough players. It was because I had a very long week at work, and my wife and I are adjusting to a new addition to the family. Mentally, I wasn’t there that day and I knew that if I started running it just wasn’t going to be that spectacular. I didn’t have time to prepare and my brain wasn’t in the mode to throw something together on the fly. So what did we do? Our other group’s game master stepped in, took over the campaign for a night, and ran an adventure on the fly. Which leads me to ask the question, how versatile is your gaming group?
Our gaming group currently has five players. We have a primary game master and a secondary game master (myself) which switch off running campaigns periodically. However, of the three other players, one also has quite a bit of experience game mastering for his old group while another has game mastered before as well. So we’re pretty fortunate in the fact that we actually have a lot of versatility in our group, as far as game mastering goes, if we needed someone else to run a campaign.
Unless you roleplay at a hobby store, most players don’t have access to many different groups and game masters. Most likely, the ‘burden’ is being shouldered by one or two individuals. Let’s face it, there are some players that are never meant to be game masters. Some do not have the time, the willingness, or some other aspect required to be a game master. However, without one you cannot play.
I was fortunate in our recent gaming session that our group had another game master to run that day. He actually ran a prequel adventure to our campaign which was a great idea. It filled in a little bit of the background story on how the different characters met. It was a creative way to allow the players to continue to play their same characters, in my campaign, without majorly altering any of the storyline.
If you frequently cancel gaming sessions because the game master was unable to run, I highly suggest that you look to building up others in your group that can take the lead when your game master is unable to run. This can lead to more consistency with your group and can prevent missing out on sessions. Also, it can’t hurt for some people that may not have visited the other side of the GM screen to experience what it is like.
How versatile is your gaming group?
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May 20, 2009 at 7:52 am
My group is fortunate in that all of us have DMing experience. Some of us enjoy it more than others, but we could all step in and run a session. Where our versatility shines is that if we run low on people we either play Illuminati, Munchkin, or any other game. Our group has been on playing Sunday nights for over 10 years so it’s as much about getting together with the guys as it is D&D.
Wimwick’s last blog post..Change Is Coming To The DDI
May 20, 2009 at 11:38 am
[Wimwick]: “Our group has been on playing Sunday nights for over 10 years so it’s as much about getting together with the guys as it is D&D.”
Nuff said.
May 21, 2009 at 7:35 am
Well in a 3 people group we have 2 DM’s (if you have the courage to call me DM considering my inexperience). The regular DM is our current (and previous campaigns)runner and I step up when we… well we had nothing better to do as he was preparing for his campaign. I was running some small (quality level, the players were at one of them at levels 30 (if i remember correct), it was a pure hack and slash experience
) )campaigns to have some fun and not lose the contact with the game.
).
Before that when we were bigger group (6-7 people)and we couldn’t gather up… (kind of pathetic isn’t it?)and had some times gaps of 1 month between meetings… at least now we play every week (ok we may lose a weekend but only one
May 22, 2009 at 8:06 am
Almost all of my group will run a game. It is just a question of endurance, most of them burn out after only a few sessions. Great for mixing things up, bad for long term campaigns.
We are also varied in what each person can run. I’ll run pretty much anything, some in the group can or will only run D&D (some 3.5, others 4). One member the group will never run anything but Mutants and Masterminds.
Nicholas’s last blog post..Two Problem Player Scenarios and How to Survive Them
May 27, 2009 at 7:51 am
Of those who I meet with on a regular basis I’m the only one with GM/DM experience. Which is rather sad considering that I feel I’m still a newbie (though I was told by some old-schoolers that I run a game like a veteran [the highest praise I think can be given]). The other members who have experience have a) joined the Navy and b) work weird hours. I would love to actually just be a player at some point and my fiancee is always saying how she wants to DM D&D 4e. But I don’t know when that will be.
Has anyone had experience in using social services like MeetUp.com to form successful gaming groups? I’m thinking of using it to recruit some more experienced RPGers but I’m not sure…
May 27, 2009 at 8:14 am
@ Wesley Street – That is funny that you ask that Wesley! I have an article coming out this Friday on the topic of How To Find Other Gamers… Online. It includes information about MeetUp.com and quite a few other online resources to meet other gamers!
May 27, 2009 at 8:40 pm
@ Sam and Wesley: That’s cool! Now I know how to start looking for my third back-up group!