DNAphil

In December, my gaming group went on a gaming hiatus for the Holidays.  We had a brief return for two sessions, in January, and then on January 18th, my daughter was born, putting us on another four week hiatus, while my family and I adjusted to having an infant in the house.  For the past four weeks, I have been trying to get as much sleep as I can, helping my wife out, as she has been taking the late nights up feeding our daughter, giving our 3 yr old son as much attention as I can, and settling into a new role at work.  What I have not been doing, is much gaming stuff.   The blog posts took a dip, my work on RPG’s, in general has been very low. I feel as if my creative spark has gone dormant.

This Sunday the hiatus is over, my gaming group comes back together, as we are going to start a new Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, run by Sargon.  The following week, is the return of my Iron Heroes campaign, and to be honest, I am a bit concerned.  It’s now been about 8 weeks since I have created any session material, or been behind the screen.  Right now I am feeling a bit numb.  I know that I have the GM spark in me, but this is the longest I have gone, in the past 10 years, without exercising it. What I need right now, is to wake it and get my GM Groove back. I have been giving it some thought and I have some ideas…

…on How To Get Your GM Groove back:

Watch some movies- Movies are always a great source of inspiration for most gamers. I know few gamers that cannot quote their favorite movies to no end.  How many movies have you wanted to turn into a game?  For most campaigns, a GM can name several movies that directly or indirectly have been a source of inspiration.  Watching those movies, will put you back in the moment, and allow you to experience the movie again, and to be reminded of what about the movies inspired your campaign.

For me, there are a few movies that inspire my Iron Heroes game.  The first movie, is 300.  Without a doubt, 300 is like a shot of adrenalin…hell its a defibrillator set on full.  300 is spear and sandals at its best, a visual masterpiece of cinematic combat.  After I come down from 300, then I think I am going to need some more sword and sandals, like Gladiator.  It’s not as good as 300, but the combat scenes are good (though I can do without that shaky-cam, fog of war cinematography style).  Seeing those combat scenes will remind me of how combat in Iron Heroes should be, and get me thinking about how to cook up the next great fight scene.

Crack Open The Rulebook- The rulebooks and sourcebooks for the game you are running are seeded with ideas that can be used to develop ideas with.  Sometimes they are campaign ideas in a sourebook, other times they are an interesting rule that you have not had a chance to use yet, but could be the focus of an upcoming game.

It’s not like I have forgotten how to play Iron Heroes, but I know that if I read some of the chapters in the book, it will refresh my memory of the game, and often they give me inspiration, by reminding me the elements of the game that got me excited about playing it in the first place.   I also have the added duty of reading through the The Fields of Blood book that I am going to use for the mass combat.  I am hoping, this year, to create the feeling of large scale combat, within my game.

Read The Recaps-  If you are like me, you are keeping some kind of recaps from your sessions.  Take some time to read through the recaps and remind yourself of what has happened.  Recaps are also a great place to mine ideas from.  It is not uncommon for loose ends to be left dangling from session to session.  By reading your recaps, you may find some of these loose threads, and wake the inspiration to turn some of them into the focus for a session.

For my Iron Heroes campaign, I have included a recap in every set of session notes.  In the last year, those recaps have gone from being mostly factual, to being more creative mini-stories.  I am sure that reading those recaps from the past year or so, will remind me of the not only what has happened in those past sessions, but will connect me to the excitement of those past sessions, and remind me of what made me so excited to GM this campaign.

Get A Boost From My Players- There is a symbiotic shairng of energy between a GM and his players.  A kind of feedback that occurs, like holding the mic to the speaker.  If the GM gets the players excited, that energy from the players cascades back to the GM.  That energy is often used by GM’s to spark creativity or dig in and get some notes written.  Sometimes, as a GM, its your job to put some energy into your players, if for no other reason then to reap the rewards of that feedback, when the players get all excited.  That flow of energy from GM to player, and player to GM, is often what attracts a GM to running a campaign.  It is also a great tool that can be used to pick a GM up when they are down.

For me, I will get my players fired up by writing a mini-story about the campaign, and sending it out to them the week before the game.  I have used a similar technique when I first started this campaign. I started by sending them the Opening Story, which got them all fired up to try the game out. Now I will do it again, by sending out another story designed to inspire them and to get that feedback of energy going, so that it will flow back into me.

I hope that if you are a GM that is coming off a long break, for whatever reason, that you too can use these techniques to revive your GMing Groove.  As for me, I think that these things will be all that I need to find that ember of GMing and breath some fire back into it, and give me the fire I need to create my session notes and inspire my players to help continue our campaign with the same intensity that has made it so successful for the past two years.

I will let you know it goes.