Knew I'd been missing something...!
A while back, I agreed to helping out a friend and offered to run a role-playing game for the Student Nationals being held in Cardiff this year. She was part of the team from Cardiff who won the Nationals last year, and so were hosting the event this year. I'd not heard of it before, despite my love of role-playing and gaming, but she's a friend, I've run Call of Cthulhu before now, and I offered to help.
I was given the task of GMing a game for the Myths and Legends catagory. Games run on the Saturday and Sunday of the weekend, and there are 2 GMs for each catagory, so the players signed up for it have two days of different games within that catagory, and are scored by the GMs on a number of areas, such as role-playing, teamwork, advancing the plot and other areas. I had a good think about what I wanted to give the players, and figured that, as they were coming to Wales, I'd hit them with some Welsh atmosphere and legends. So I turned to the Mabinogion, and the tale of Lludd and Llefelys, and the Three Plagues of Britain. I only gave them one of the plagues, which was that of two dragons fighting under a mountain, set it in a modern village, and gave them premade characters based on the Mabiongion, that of Lleu (husband), Blodeuwedd (wife), (Blodeuwedd's love interest), Arianrhod (Lleu's angry mother), Tal, a musician and historian student, who was staying in the village for research purposes (and who was basically Taliesin) and the landlord of the pub, Lludd.
I was terrified, as it had been far too long since I'd GMed, I wasn't fully confident with my skills, and I tend to run games very loosely, as I never know where the gaming will lead, so I prefer to think on the fly, so to speak. I wasn't sure if my game technique would suit poeple, but I had offfered to help, and I was stuck. Pogona had offered to minion for the weekend, run around, help people out, and sell posters and raffle tickets etc.
It was my birthday weekend, and I was a bit panicked and stressed out that I wouldn't be a good enough GM for people. However, I bit the bullet, and we went to the meeting on Friday night, following a meal out. I was also blown away by quite how big the weekend was, with about 500 people involved from all areas. The GM meeting helped to calm me a bit, as I caught up with the friend who got me involved, and another friendly face, and when I got my yellow staff tee-shirt on, and my official GM lanyard, I began to feel a bit better. We got back at about 11pm, and I didn't sleep due to nerves until about 3am.
We were up at 7am, for a 9am start. Not the start of an idyllic birthday!
Pogona gave me a card and present, and we rushed into Cardiff for breakfast (somewhere that served pancakes and bacon, and maple syrup and good coffee) and then off to the opening ceremony, where we were allocated our game banners, and our groups, and we headed off to our various rooms. I was thrown. Instead of the six on my score sheet, I only had 3 players for the Saturday session, all male. It freaked me out for a short while. How could I possibly get these three to interact when I had to play the 3 others? They didn't seem the sort to run with the characters. I hung around for a short while, asked a minion what was happening, but didn't find out til the end of the day that two had been stuck in a group who had been horribly let down twice, firstly by the person booking the weekend for them, and secondly by the coach they'd booked which had cancelled on the Thursday. Poor buggers. Anyway, I got the game going, and there were some particularly fun moments in the afternoon. One of the moments included a character descending into the dark passage in the mountain, with the intent of photographing the "dragons" using their mobile phone. I smiled sweetly at them and asked them if their phone camera had a flash. "Of course it does...." they replied, indignantly...before the penny dropped that a flash might JUST alert something big and gribbly to their presence. The look on their face was a picture, and reminded me of one of the joys of running a game. We had other fun moments, including the "Deploy the sheep!" line, and a classic "Pavlov's dragon. Pavlov rings bell, dragon eats sheep.". There was much laughter, and I think they enjoyed it overall.
I also sold a number of dice during the session. The Nationals provide the GMs with six sided dice to be sold for £1 each. They have different symbols instead of the number 6, and there were a total of six different symbols. These dice differ each year. The idea is that, as well as buying souvenirs, you pay £1 for a dice if you want to reroll a bad dice roll during the game, and pay £1 per reroll, the profits going to charity. This year's was the PDSA.
Rather than hanging around, we headed back home after the day was done. Pogona had done a shedload of running around and his feet hurt. I'd rather expected him to be totally grumpy about it, but he was completely the opposite. He was glowing, and confessed he'd not had so much fun in ages - he'd really enjoyed every moment! We took it easy for the evening, and while I had cake, I didn't want any. I went to bed early and slept.
We were up early again, and in Cardiff by 8.45am. Both of us were knacked, and I felt grumpy as hell. Still, I grabbed more dice from Headquarters, and headed over to my allocated room, and my different group of people. This time I had 5 players, 4 female, one male. I gave them the characters, keeping Llud's character for myself, as he wasn't really that necessary to the personal interactions and could be played easily enough as an NPC. They took in the characters, a couple burst out laughing as they were totally perfect for them, the musician and storyteller being allocated Tal quite randomly! It didn't take them too long to get into the characters, and they interacted beautifully, with loads of personality. I was complimented on having created characters that already knew each other, and had relationships with each other - as it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it could in games. In fact, the personalities worked beautifully, and a lot of the game was spent in character, to the extent that we had to rush the end of the game, because they were all having so much fun with the situation. We had a couple of "fade to black" moments between Blodeuwedd and Gronw, and a few dice were sold at that point! There was a LOT of laughter, and a good few compliments on the setting, and on the use of the Mabinogion for the myths and legends basis, and the copy I'd brought along - the players were all really impressed that someone was doing something different to Greek and Roman, as some of them have experienced a distinct lack of imagination in the past. (I think one of our players was also quite delighted that when she'd mentioned the Irish legends and the Children of Lir, I smiled, and said that I loved that legend and mentioned Fionnuala!) My fellow GM had also run a VERY different game, so they had a pretty good weekend this year.
The game ended all too soon, and we headed back to hand in scores, and discuss with the other GMs in our catagories. My fellow Myths and Legends GM was great, and, while it was hideous having to judge so many wonderful people, we managed to sort out our 3 winners, and I was given the task of getting up on stage, and announcing the winner of first place to a hall of about 500 over a mic! When I gave her the certificate, she gave me a huge hug - I was one of only two to be hugged, my friend being the other!
Afterwards, a couple of our players, including the overall winner, said to us that after this weekend, they didn't think they'd want to play another Myths and Legends catagory again, as they doubted it would match up to this weekend, and the winner called me her favourite GM! Yes. I almost cried! It was one of my best birthday presents, both a boost to my confidence, and that I'd been able to contribute to others having such a wonderful time.
Actually, I almost cried a few times. One was when it was announced that the weekend had raised over £6k for the PDSA.
I'm seriously surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience, and how much I'd like to do it again. I think we may well sign up to go to the next Student Nationals next year. I've got my imagination and creative mojo back, and a huge heap of confidence too. I think I'd like us to have more role-playing in our lives again. I'd forgotten quite how much I'd missed it.
I can feel this swan's wings beginning to unfurl once more.
I was given the task of GMing a game for the Myths and Legends catagory. Games run on the Saturday and Sunday of the weekend, and there are 2 GMs for each catagory, so the players signed up for it have two days of different games within that catagory, and are scored by the GMs on a number of areas, such as role-playing, teamwork, advancing the plot and other areas. I had a good think about what I wanted to give the players, and figured that, as they were coming to Wales, I'd hit them with some Welsh atmosphere and legends. So I turned to the Mabinogion, and the tale of Lludd and Llefelys, and the Three Plagues of Britain. I only gave them one of the plagues, which was that of two dragons fighting under a mountain, set it in a modern village, and gave them premade characters based on the Mabiongion, that of Lleu (husband), Blodeuwedd (wife), (Blodeuwedd's love interest), Arianrhod (Lleu's angry mother), Tal, a musician and historian student, who was staying in the village for research purposes (and who was basically Taliesin) and the landlord of the pub, Lludd.
I was terrified, as it had been far too long since I'd GMed, I wasn't fully confident with my skills, and I tend to run games very loosely, as I never know where the gaming will lead, so I prefer to think on the fly, so to speak. I wasn't sure if my game technique would suit poeple, but I had offfered to help, and I was stuck. Pogona had offered to minion for the weekend, run around, help people out, and sell posters and raffle tickets etc.
It was my birthday weekend, and I was a bit panicked and stressed out that I wouldn't be a good enough GM for people. However, I bit the bullet, and we went to the meeting on Friday night, following a meal out. I was also blown away by quite how big the weekend was, with about 500 people involved from all areas. The GM meeting helped to calm me a bit, as I caught up with the friend who got me involved, and another friendly face, and when I got my yellow staff tee-shirt on, and my official GM lanyard, I began to feel a bit better. We got back at about 11pm, and I didn't sleep due to nerves until about 3am.
We were up at 7am, for a 9am start. Not the start of an idyllic birthday!
Pogona gave me a card and present, and we rushed into Cardiff for breakfast (somewhere that served pancakes and bacon, and maple syrup and good coffee) and then off to the opening ceremony, where we were allocated our game banners, and our groups, and we headed off to our various rooms. I was thrown. Instead of the six on my score sheet, I only had 3 players for the Saturday session, all male. It freaked me out for a short while. How could I possibly get these three to interact when I had to play the 3 others? They didn't seem the sort to run with the characters. I hung around for a short while, asked a minion what was happening, but didn't find out til the end of the day that two had been stuck in a group who had been horribly let down twice, firstly by the person booking the weekend for them, and secondly by the coach they'd booked which had cancelled on the Thursday. Poor buggers. Anyway, I got the game going, and there were some particularly fun moments in the afternoon. One of the moments included a character descending into the dark passage in the mountain, with the intent of photographing the "dragons" using their mobile phone. I smiled sweetly at them and asked them if their phone camera had a flash. "Of course it does...." they replied, indignantly...before the penny dropped that a flash might JUST alert something big and gribbly to their presence. The look on their face was a picture, and reminded me of one of the joys of running a game. We had other fun moments, including the "Deploy the sheep!" line, and a classic "Pavlov's dragon. Pavlov rings bell, dragon eats sheep.". There was much laughter, and I think they enjoyed it overall.
I also sold a number of dice during the session. The Nationals provide the GMs with six sided dice to be sold for £1 each. They have different symbols instead of the number 6, and there were a total of six different symbols. These dice differ each year. The idea is that, as well as buying souvenirs, you pay £1 for a dice if you want to reroll a bad dice roll during the game, and pay £1 per reroll, the profits going to charity. This year's was the PDSA.
Rather than hanging around, we headed back home after the day was done. Pogona had done a shedload of running around and his feet hurt. I'd rather expected him to be totally grumpy about it, but he was completely the opposite. He was glowing, and confessed he'd not had so much fun in ages - he'd really enjoyed every moment! We took it easy for the evening, and while I had cake, I didn't want any. I went to bed early and slept.
We were up early again, and in Cardiff by 8.45am. Both of us were knacked, and I felt grumpy as hell. Still, I grabbed more dice from Headquarters, and headed over to my allocated room, and my different group of people. This time I had 5 players, 4 female, one male. I gave them the characters, keeping Llud's character for myself, as he wasn't really that necessary to the personal interactions and could be played easily enough as an NPC. They took in the characters, a couple burst out laughing as they were totally perfect for them, the musician and storyteller being allocated Tal quite randomly! It didn't take them too long to get into the characters, and they interacted beautifully, with loads of personality. I was complimented on having created characters that already knew each other, and had relationships with each other - as it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it could in games. In fact, the personalities worked beautifully, and a lot of the game was spent in character, to the extent that we had to rush the end of the game, because they were all having so much fun with the situation. We had a couple of "fade to black" moments between Blodeuwedd and Gronw, and a few dice were sold at that point! There was a LOT of laughter, and a good few compliments on the setting, and on the use of the Mabinogion for the myths and legends basis, and the copy I'd brought along - the players were all really impressed that someone was doing something different to Greek and Roman, as some of them have experienced a distinct lack of imagination in the past. (I think one of our players was also quite delighted that when she'd mentioned the Irish legends and the Children of Lir, I smiled, and said that I loved that legend and mentioned Fionnuala!) My fellow GM had also run a VERY different game, so they had a pretty good weekend this year.
The game ended all too soon, and we headed back to hand in scores, and discuss with the other GMs in our catagories. My fellow Myths and Legends GM was great, and, while it was hideous having to judge so many wonderful people, we managed to sort out our 3 winners, and I was given the task of getting up on stage, and announcing the winner of first place to a hall of about 500 over a mic! When I gave her the certificate, she gave me a huge hug - I was one of only two to be hugged, my friend being the other!
Afterwards, a couple of our players, including the overall winner, said to us that after this weekend, they didn't think they'd want to play another Myths and Legends catagory again, as they doubted it would match up to this weekend, and the winner called me her favourite GM! Yes. I almost cried! It was one of my best birthday presents, both a boost to my confidence, and that I'd been able to contribute to others having such a wonderful time.
Actually, I almost cried a few times. One was when it was announced that the weekend had raised over £6k for the PDSA.
I'm seriously surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience, and how much I'd like to do it again. I think we may well sign up to go to the next Student Nationals next year. I've got my imagination and creative mojo back, and a huge heap of confidence too. I think I'd like us to have more role-playing in our lives again. I'd forgotten quite how much I'd missed it.
I can feel this swan's wings beginning to unfurl once more.