The best game I ever ran
It’s been a while since I ran a game. In fact it’s been a full 11 months since I sat at a gaming table and rolled some dice. Those people who I know read this blog will understand how strange that is for me. With moving house halfway up the country (or at least what feels like it) starting a new job that I was not all that happy with and having to work shifts did not make finding a new role-play group easy. Neither did the fact that there seems to be no organised role-play clubs in the west Cheshire area, which for a university town is pretty bad. Now I have a job that I am much happier with, am not working shifts and it seems that one of our friends has found a group of people who are at least interested in learning how to play, so recently I have been turning my thoughts back to role-play and reflecting on what I’ve done in the past, and what I would like to do in the future.
For the game I want to run, I can think of no better inspiration than the best and most fondly remembered (by myself at least) campaign I ever ran. To set the scene; it was my final year of university and I was a very busy man (for a student) I was rehearsing from 9am to 8pm five days a week with one day set aside for lectures and only one day to call my own. This went on for three months, and it nearly drove everyone on the course crazy. In my wisdom, I had also volunteered to be chair of the uni wargaming and role-playing society or W.A.R.P.S as it was known. Luckily this usually happened on a Sunday and I had to do my best to make sure that there were regular games running that people could join in if they wanted to. With a bit of foresight on my part, I picked up the 15 year anniversary collection of the Dragonlance modules, that mirrored the story of the Dragonlance ‘Chronicles’ series. Thinking that it would be nice and easy for me to run the game seeing as I knew the books backward, as well as having something fairly traditional that people could join in with very little thought. I had no idea that the game would re-ignite my love of Dungeons and Dragons (that I had abandoned during my university years in favour of angsty Vampire and white wolf games) and have players that continually took by breath away with the quality of their role-playing, humour and luck.
I was a very lucky GM about half the players were new, in that they had either role-played very little, or not at all, and the other half were well versed in both the books and the story. I simplified the rules and character sheets, to make them more understandable by the new players (this was back in the days of 2nd edition), disregarded whole swathes of the rule-books in order to make the game run smoother and all of the characters were pre-generated, biased off the characters from the books. This did lead to some strange results, like thin Anthony playing the voluptuous priestess Goldmoon, but I’ve seen stranger things at games. From day one the game ran like a charm, the experienced players having fun playing their favourite characters and the newer players not feeling constrained rules or set ideas of what they could do. The scope always managed to be cinematic, and the dice certainly favoured the players, often rolling critical successes when they where attempting particularly daring stunts, Riverwind the Barbarian acrobatically launching Goldmoon into the air to strike a flying enemy with the groups only magic weapon sticks in my mind particularly.
There are so many moments to remember. Frasier, Anthony’s girlfriend, playing the Elven princess Laurana was a delight, becoming a more confidant player as her character it’s self changed from arrogant princess to skilled warrior, being able to take on her nemesis and rival In love, the evil Kitiara in single combat. Chris, who played Tasslehoff the kinder, purposely taking his character along a different route than the one followed in the books, adding to his enjoyment of the game, creating many opportunities for humour in the midst of a world shaking plot, and for having the magical kinder fork of door opening in his pouch at just the right time… Harry, playing Sturm the knight, deciding to split the party at exactly the same place as they part in the books, with no prior knowledge (making It much easier for me to handle two groups than one large player party of 10 to 11 players).
I could go on, but I won’t. If the game I am planning is half as much fun as the one above then I will be a happy man. I can learn the lessons from that game though, let the players play the game, not the other way around. Cut out any rules that seem forced, strange, or just to complex. Keep things simple. Focus on the story and who the characters are, not what they can do.
I think It’s going to be great.