Keeping Promises
A few weeks after I started this job as Online Community Coordinator for a major health association, one of my co-workers who was even newer to the office than I, whom had been introduced to me in one of those interminable orientation things where you have to say something like "things people wouldn't immediately know about me" and I admitted my love for things like comics, came up to my cubicle and said, "You look like someone who may, in the past, play things like...Dungeons and Dragons?"
Why, yes. I'm scared to admit it, not because I'm ashamed of it, but because I had last played the venerable role-playing game nearly 20 years ago.
That started a very nice friendship (this is the same Matt Cutter mentioned last month) and an extended D&D campaign. After about five sessions or so, my rule-meister nature started to come out as during the game I would remind Matt, the DM, of some obscure rule or other. This led him and another player to suggest that I might try my hand at the director's chair.
During the school year, I teach a class or two as adjunct professor at American University (I teach college writing--I know, I know, you couldn't tell sometimes by the entries here), so I begged off until this summer. Matt, anxious guy that he is, made it easy for me and purchased a module, "The Standing Stone," for me to use.
This past weekend was the second and final session in my recent DM career. I had thought it would go for three sessions, but the adventuring party made some smart decisions (there's a spot in the module that can really tie them up investigating a certain spot that has nothing to do with the rest of the module) and, although we ran a bit late, we did finish it up. I enjoyed sitting behind the DM screen, but I was reminded of just how much you have to keep track of when you're the game god. The reason why I could remind Matt of certain rules when I was a player is that I've got extra time on my hands as a player. The DM has to run multiple characters plus react to what players are doing; players just have to worry about their single character.
This is D&D, even with the new rules (which are somewhat simpler...but not much). Other role-playing games share the storytelling aspect out to the players (and reduce the amount of rules even further).
For a written journal of the game from the characters' point of view that I was DM for, see Promises to Keep on the EN World message boards. The previous session, with Matt as DM, can be found in the Aerunedar thread.
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