Another Wizards Article: Unflappable

Two Wizards article posts in a row from me? I'm starting to feel like a WotC lackey or something. Anyhoo, The Dungeon Master Experience is a column by Chris Perkins and it caught my attention so I had to weigh in here. Unflappable asks the question, what one word best describes your DMing style? Chris' unflappable style elaborates on some of his pet peeves at the game table and how he copes with them. I tend to agree with his views.

What one word best describes my DMing style? Relentless.

Alot can go on at the table to slow you down; late starts, distractions, criticisms, repetition, etc. These things can be discouraging for some gamemasters. I always know however, that if I can power through the first couple of months, the campaign will gain traction eventually and every one of my players will be on the same page. Then, three to four months later, they'll be fully invested in my story enough to care what happens to their characters and see it through to the end. Once that story arc is completed, the campaign and characters have now solidified in our collective consciousness and take on a life of their own. We still talk about characters and adventures from many years past like they were still actively going on and once in a great while they do get revisited. That sort of gameplay only comes with being a relentless DM.

Not surprisingly, I credit the World of Greyhawk setting in part for my relentless attitude. It has proven to me that this is a setting which refuses to go away. Though newer and more fancy D&D worlds come along occasionally, Greyhawk churns on for decades and yet never ceases to run out of space for me to start a new story. I am relentless with the setting because I know in the long run the players will remember their time spent there more than if I chose a random game to do a one-off campaign. I am not putting down other settings or even RPGs (Lately I have got the same results with Mutants & Masterminds), I am just saying sometimes you need to stick with one for an extended period in order to develop that kind of lasting, shared experience with your players. And if you do, it'll make all the headaches of DMing worth it in the end.

Update 05/09/2021: Had to remove broken link to old article. Sigh!