Most game masters want to improve their craft. They want to make better monsters, craft better worlds, and run better games. The perfect game. But with the inundation of online advice that can feel overwhelming. Should you run a sandbox? Use fronts? What about side initiative? OSR? The path to better games is much simpler than all these. It starts with you.
By inspecting our own games, we can learn and grow for the future. What went well? What could have been better? What are you going to change next time? The key is to consider these questions at a session level. At the campaign level, things are too distant. “My next campaign will be better than the last,” is a bit too abstract to be useful. “My next session will be better than my last,” is much more valuable. We’ll have a quicker turnaround when trying improve bad habits or double-down on good ones. Speaking of habits…
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” - James Clear
A system or habit of inspecting our games is key to succeeding. Don’t say that you’ll think about your game more often. Our brains have enough to worry about as game masters. Put the inspection into your process. For me, a review section to fill out after my sessions helps me distill this information. I spend only a few minutes and write only in bullet points. Some examples of recent retrospective outcomes:
- Shopping scenes were too long and slow. Reinforce that shopping happens outside of sessions.
- I wasn’t prepared with Archsmith Weapon prices and they ended up being whacky. Define prices in my note for Archsmith Weapons.
- I didn’t have name generators at hand. Add name generators to my GM Screen.
- I wish I had done more research on locations within Hammerfast. Spend time reading about it.
- Combat descriptions were a bit weak. Lean more on players.
- Combat tactics from the monsters were too routine and boring. Add light tactics.
These quick reflections will help put you on a path towards a better game next time. Focus on no more than 2-3 small things you can improve. Be specific. If the experiments fail, reflect and try something new for the next session. If you want to go further with this, ask your players these same questions. Their perception is likely to be quite different from your own. You need both to make it work.
Universe willing, we’ve got a lot of games ahead of us. Let’s make the most of that time with our friends.
Game on.