A few weeks ago, I wrote a letter to my past self, giving him some advice, about GMing… what I know now that I did not know then. To make things fair, I figured that my past self should have the opportunity to write a letter back to remind me of some of the good things that I did as a GM then that I should be doing now.

And here is the letter that came back….

Dear DNAphil,

Kind of a strange name we wind up with, but that’s cool. So biology, huh? Ok, I guess there are worse things to be good at. So, we are still gaming in the future? That’s great. And thanks for the advice that you sent. I thought it was only fair to send you some tips on some things I am doing now that I hope you will continue in the future.

Don’t Be Afraid To Run A Short Campaign– One of the things I like to do now is run a very quick campaign. Just take an idea and run it out for a few sessions, no heavy prep, based on a single simple topic. Typically these campaigns are thought up on the fly, often while talking to the players. They are all based on some central idea, something cool to try. The campaigns run for a few sessions, and then we switch to something else, but they are a lot of fun. Remember that Martial Law style campaign using Heroes Unlimited? That was fun.

I guess what I am saying is that not every campaign needs to be some huge undertaking. You don’t need reams of background notes and NPC stats to run something that is going to be fun. You also do not need a campaign to run for years or even months. Sometimes just playing a few sessions to explore some idea or trope is fine. There is something to be said for simplicity.

Reboot It When It Goes Bad– Sometimes a campaign gets away from me. I run my material too fast, or I get all caught up in supplemental rules. When that happens, rather than scrapping the whole campaign, I just reboot it. Sometimes I pick a spot back a few weeks, before things went crazy, and start again from there. Other times, I take the same characters, change up the setting, and start over. It works for us because the players are invested in their characters, and rather than forcing them to scrap their characters because I burned through all my material in a few sessions, they can keep them, and we just back up or start over. That technique has kept my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles campaign running for quite some time.

So, don’t be afraid to ret-con your own campaign if the core of it is good, but it gets a little messy. Everyone makes mistakes, and rather than keeping some kind of campaign purity, by never going back to a scene after it’s done, don’t be afraid to back up and correct them.

Don’t Buy Every Supplement You See– If you are buying gaming books at the same rate that I am, then your house must be overrun in books by now. I have a voracious appetite for gaming books and never pass on buying a supplement for a game. I am in high school and have a lot of disposable income and a ton of free time. I am figuring you have more bills and responsibilities than I do, so you likely don’t have the cash or the time to buy and read every supplement to read. So, be a bit more picky about the books you buy and get ones that are good values both in dollars and to your campaigns.

A lot can be done with a core book and one or two well selected books. Don’t feel the need to buy a supplement because it is sitting on the shelf in the gaming store. You don’t need more rules to make a good game, you just need a good core mechanics and a lot of imagination.

So, that’s my advice for you. I hope that are having as much fun gaming there as I am having here. Thanks for the advice about those games I will be playing in the future. A third edition of D&D, wow what will they think of next?