Building a Binder, Part 1.
The following is advice for running your games. This part mostly concerns manners around the table before the game ever begins. It’s intended to help build confidence and camaraderie at the table. This series is intended to be very digestible. These are written in regards to “dungeon crawlers” meant to be played at a material table with people and may not be applicable to every game or situation. Play is praxis.
The Binder
Suiting its purpose, the 3 ring binder is a great tool for organizing everything surrounding your game. With a three hole punch handy you can add pretty much anything to its guts. Keep your eyes peeled at second hand stores, thrift shops, corner stores and hole in the wall stationery shops. You’ll otherwise need graph paper, post it notes, notecards, scrap booklets. No paper is sacred and prepare to write in a moment’s notice. If you need a minute to write something let your players know, they’ll appreciate you taking the time to notate details as they are invented out of wholeclothe.
Pencils should be plentiful, a jar filled with them. The most important part of a pencil is the eraser, making sure it wipes away lead easily. Pencils with hard and dry erasers are good for little more than kindling. The Ticonderoga pencil is one of the best out there. Secondly, you will need pencil sharpeners, preferably a metal model. Too often cheap plastic ones snap lead as they sharpen; a pocket knife is more efficient in this task.
Blue painters tape is the best for tacking paper on paper as it peels away with little chance for tearing or leaving residue. It is good for makeshift labels or affixing paper minis to stands. No cyclops figure? Tape a single paper eye to your biggest toy.
Digital programs have their use for organizing, even within mixed media note keeping. Google docs are handy for creating shared logs, house ruling documents, shopkeeping sheets or other player facing procedures. Google sheets are useful for tracking NPCs and Hirelings, downtime actions, business accounts, farm plots, etc. Don’t get caught up in programs that promise productivity or usability when organization is more key.
How You Feel Before & After a Session
I dread every game session regardless if I’m running for friends or strangers. My best practice is to put aside everything related to the session 30 minutes beforehand and do something completely different. Wash the dishes, take a walk, read a bit. What happens is largely out of your hands. We can’t anticipate everything, so don’t fret over it too much.
There have been times when I end a game and feel like it was the biggest dogshit session in the world. Your players probably won’t feel that way. They will rarely notice when you mess up, forget a roll, forget to track for light, etc, etc. Some mistakes like that can easily be passed over.
If people want to play a game where nothing goes wrong they can play a video game. We are not computers. The breadth of our mistakes will help to determine what is truly broken and what is not. You will constantly jury rig while running and find the beauty in the patchwork.
Streaming actual plays has been detrimental to the act of GMing. The horror of being perceived is channeled into marketability. You are not pitching yourself to your friends, you are creating inside jokes. Do not take it so seriously. This is one of the stupidest hobbies in the world to get bent out of shape about.
Session Prep & Post-prep
Prep should be kept simple, going over the characters expected to make an appearance, thinking over situations and time sensitive events. Place post-it notes with details or reminders where they cannot be ignored.
When performing postprep, it’s time to gather notes scribbled and clean up the table. I find it the best time to summarize the session while it’s fresh in my head, this creates a handy refresher before the next time you prep. It’s a contemplative moment where you may feel very good or very bad. In the best scenarios it’s like a performer’s high. Think about things you did in a session you reacted to poorly and how you might react to similar situations in the future. This is the time to be forgiving to yourself.
Setting Time
Beyond writing, beyond hosting, beyond any sort of preparation you will find scheduling to be the biggest hurdle. Here’s the thing: if you want to play a game then you have to actually make time to play it. Work with the rest of your group to nail down a date, even if it’s weeks out, but as the GM it is your responsibility to decide when to run (obviously GMless games don’t have this problem wink wink). There are a number of websites that do the heavy lifting of scheduling including RSVPify, Doodle, even Google Calendars. Make that date and time consistent if possible.
Setting Expectations
Figure out what sort of game you want to run and how you pitch that. Are you running to goof around with your pals or do you want a serious exploration into inhabiting a fictional character? Are you playing Looney Tunes or Flesh + Blood? A point of expectation is key key key.
There’s a plethora of safety tools put in place for your group to utilize and I won’t include an exhaustive list when they are readily googable.
Having Meals
I say this with the utmost conviction, sharing meals is the most important part of any game session. It’s expected to bring snacks while gaming, but I would encourage your group to set aside time to eat meals together. A good ice breaker meal is pizza. It is easy to share but requires agreements about the toppings. You can learn a lot about someone from the toppings they like, being a good sign of compatibility. Have a handy rotation of places you like to order from and try new places often.
Likewise, if you are on a budget and if time warrants it, cook together, even 4 for $10 frozen pizzas. As GM I’ll prepare a meal of soup or curry to feed the party on occasion. I do so because I like it. Feeding slop to your pals has never been so fulfilling. This also creates a natural break for R&R.
Building Your Repertoire
When writing for games, kill all hints of emulation. When running a game, embrace it. What is the repertoire you are drawing from: paintings, music, movies, manga, fan-fiction? Use troupes of your repertoire to your advantage. If your players are drawing from the same sources that’s a plus. Friends usually have similar tastes. Duh.
The Music of Your Game
Probably the most important influence in your games whether you know it or not is the music you listen to. If I put on music while writing or prepping I find it begins to seep into my work with content derived from lyrics or imagery.
Music is a powerful tool to directly convey tone or emotion. I sort songs into playlists based on feelings on tone (Joyful, Wonder, Creepy) as well as more utilitarian roles (Explore, Travel, Town). I would recommend even keeping your pool narrow. Choose a handful of artists who drive at the tone you’re going for. Who is your main go-to? For me, the Thee Oh Sees discography pretty much covers the entire range (from cozy-calm to face-melting) I could ever need in a game. This is followed closely by the LISA OST from Widdly 2 Diddly, which began my unfortunate interest in video game music. Music doesn’t solely do the heavy lifting for tone, but elevates it. It’s the salt at your table.