Let go, Jack!

Alright. I’m being a terrible person and instead of going to bed an hour ago like I said I was, I’m awake and updating. Hopefully you’ll forgive me.

Anyway…

I think one of the biggest things a DM has to learn is how to let go. In past entries I’ve talked about having to discard dungeons on the fly, and about having to ditch paragraphs. But that’s just the surface. There’s also villains killed before their time. Plots stopped before they even get rolling. Characters murdered by over-powered foes.

And more often than I’d like to think, players leave too.

In a way, I’ve lived a privileged life of gaming. Most of the games I’ve played in were pretty good, pretty well-run. I was a pretty good fit for the first group I played with I think, though that experience is tempered by the fact that I was learning. The next couple games I was involved with never really got off the ground, and then all the ones I played in my last two years of college went beautifully. And then for the most part I get along with all my players. Charmed life, I guess.

But in some ways, a DM has to be self-aware. He or she has to be able to acknowledge when something isn’t working and when there isn’t anything that can be done to fix it.

(Iiiiiiii’m still working on that latter one. I’m kind of like a border collie sometimes. “Oh I can do it! I can do it, let me fix it!”)

Sometimes, I have learned, a player and DM just don’t match up. Their play styles are different, or the player wants something the DM can’t (or isn’t willing to) give. Maybe the DM wants something the player can’t give. Whatever the root cause, something’s just not right. And when that happens, sometimes the only thing that can be done is to step back, especially if the disconnect might actually harm the out-of-game relationship.

That’s just not cool, man. When you lose a friend over a D&D fight, that’s just kinda lame.

So, maybe the player needs a hiatus. Some time to step back and clear his or her head, or at least to let the DM do so, without disrupting the game for everyone. Or, maybe it’s gone on long enough, gone deep enough, that the player needs to step out altogether.

That has to be okay.

I’m a clingy person. I don’t want to think there’s a problem I can’t fix. But sometimes there is, and I am learning that sometimes, I have to be okay with something, even if I don’t want to be.

It’s not all about me, anyway.

Right… And?

Okay, so you’ve reached the point of a player leaving a campaign. Now what?

Lame, I know, but– tune in next week! Since writing a character out of game doesn’t have to be over an inter-participant issue, I wanted to separate the two ideas. Such a cop-out, I know.

Tags: clingy, disconnect, expectations, letting go, out-of-character, Planning, play styles, Players