The Knight In The Gray - Lessons II

The following words are a reflection on the strange progression from last November (when the community center I once DM'ed professionally for closed) until now.  More lessons, better observations, and a stronger step forward.  Come along into my head and heart.

Death and Rebirth

When you're running a business, certain theologies creep in.  You're constantly weighing cost and benefit, risk and reward, with every new endeavor.  Often, you take risk - to stretch your creative muscles, to seek new tiers, and to press your luck for that big win.  Sometimes that works, often it doesn't.  And when you're running games professionally as one facet of a much larger business, the pressure to perform just to stay afloat can create subconscious perspective and habit, some of which are more detrimental than affirming.

To be frank, putting pressure on myself to put "butts in seats" in order to simply run a game...destroyed me.  

I was constantly pressuring myself to strike a balance between margin and equity.  The quantity of players mingling with the quality of the experience.  Now, I went along with this idea, because, let's be honest, Game On! (my section of the larger business) knew what it was doing, and it was doing pretty well for the small tribe it had fostered.  If it were ONLY that, perhaps the total might have survived.
  But it wasn't, and the added pressure to carry the weight of everything else going on forces you to consider adding one more player when 5 was plenty, because one more player allows the class to cover its overhead, and actually make a sliver of  profit for once; one more player keeps the lights on a little longer, the heat running.
  And some players clash.  Some tables work with a certain group of 4, but that 5th player throws it all out of whack, while other tables struggle with 5 only to synergize with 6.  Some can grow and get over it, and others just can't.  But these people are customers, so I would weigh the business's success to form a Social Contract, and hold players to it.  This helped some groups tighten up; achieve a greater synergy, and augment play to new heights.  Others, it drove the nail into the coffin.  Players stopped showing up (which means they weren't paying), or would "forget" to pay.  Do that enough, and now it costs too much to even run the game and the campaign gets scrapped.  
  
  When a single player at a table is the difference between your business succeeding or failing, it can CHANGE the way you view your game mastering.  You tend to sacrifice more of yourself to make the clients "happy" or satisfied; you bend over backwards to make it work with way more players than the table should have; and you put up with things that legitimately bother you because the alternative is that client quitting.
  It wasn't like this all the time, and as we went along, I became more acclimated to the idea of "owning" my tables.  We set boundaries, we stopped and hashed things out, we posted clear and precise expectations for our tables.  We adapted, and made our experiences tighter and more immersive with every new lesson.  I am a thousand-times grateful for the professionalism I gained by treating this pursuit as my full-time job.  
And.
When the business as a whole shuttered its doors and I had 5 campaigns unfinished without a space to play...we adapted.
  The most splendid tribe of people in history rolled with the changes and followed just me instead.  I did my best to honor the rapport I had cultivated over the last three years and kept the transition as seamless as possible.  So, games once in a community center are run in a dojo, or a home, or a rented game store.  Wherever we can gather, we play.
  And THEN.  A pandemic.
We moved every campaign to online play only, and kept rolling as I learned the ropes.  And, just recently, I finished one of those massive campaigns (Knight Owls Season 3 just ended this evening - it was AMAZING).  
  As humans approach the close of something, they often become much more reflective on the whole experience.  At the end of June, I was BURNT OUT.  Creatively spent, frustrated, emotionally exhausted; I needed time to reacclimate to my stories, and find the fire again.  
  I did.  And.  I thought deeply about the future.  I thought about Knight Owls Season 4 here and there, toying with curious scenarios.  I thought about Pugmire, and Exalted, and my old 4th Edition Knights Of The Round campaign from college.  But most of all, I thought about Gray Owls; where it was headed, where I lost my players, where I lost myself, and my excitement when I considered the NEXT campaign.  All the things I would fix for NEXT TIME; lessons learned once more.

Lesson 1 - It Took Loss To Free Me

To be blunt: Questers' Way needed to close in order for me to flourish.  It took the loss of that job to allow the space to restructure EVERYTHING on MY terms.  
Finally.
  To not worry about overhead, and mark down some of the best experiences I've been able to run at a table, digital or otherwise.  All that professional training to justify a price tag still pays off, but play to play and player to player, how that price resolves...has no pressure on the electric bill.
  This means I can adapt to the needs of others based on what I'M comfortable with...because I'm the boss. 

Lesson 2 - This Is MY Table

And I will run it well.
  However, just as some players don't always fit together, some GMs and their style don't jive with certain players.  I'm pretty easy-going, but over the years I've established some strict boundaries.  These help with having clear expectations at the table, meeting my players as fellow human beings, being patient and kind, and allowing everyone (including myself) a bad day.  And the best thing?  My brand is my own.  It won't be bigger than me.  So I expect my players to talk to me if something's up.  In fact, they kind of have to, there's no one else.  Meaning I'm not out of the loop on the stuff that matters.
  In order to run an effective table, I need to know what's going on.  When I was working in a larger organization, it was a weekly occurrence that I would be "out of the loop" on something that affected me and my campaigns directly; the communication infrastructure was terrible sometimes - there were just too many heads to the hydra and it never got back to the heart.  Not anymore.

Looking Forward
- Gray Owls Book 2 + Knight Owls Season 4

With Knight Owls Season 3 finished, and Gray Owls Book 1 ("campaign" 1) nearing its climax and conclusion, I have been doing some deep thinking on both formats: where they shine, where they struggle, what makes them special and distinct, and how I want to run things in the future for the betterment of my table as a whole.

SOCIAL CONTRACT
This one is a no-brainer.  OF COURSE we have a Social Contract, established and agreed to at our Session 0.  We'd often verbally establish this before the start of a new campaign, hanging out in the larger business's cafe and fielding questions casually.  However, not everyone could make it, AND, it seemed, some would forget what they signed up for.  It happens, so this time around we seek clarity and consistency.
  Moving Forward: There will be a written Social Contract that is shared with everyone in the campaign, discussed and edited where needed at our Session 0.  We all agree to it, and hold ourselves to its ideal to the best of our abilities to ensure a comfortable table and campaign experience for all (DM included).  
  Now, we (our community) understand most of these already (don't be a jerk, respect others' time, etc.) - nothing too untoward here - but it's nice to have it in writing.  If you can't agree to it, then maybe this isn't the table for you, but at least we know that up front.  
  
IMMERSION MATERIALS + LIVING DOCUMENTS
Sometimes I use props.  Often I'm building custom miniatures and terrain.  I've recently taken up digital map-making, including battle maps for spaces like Roll20.
  No matter your campaign or party, I want to have professional and comprehensive maps of regions, cities, and the known cosmology before Session 1.  I aim to split up Gray Owls chapters with in-game "news clippings", and focus on NPC "journal entries" to mark the passage of time in Knight Owls.  These elements are special to each campaign, and a little exclusive to those playing, so I'll give them openly to each party for each campaign as appropriate.
  An evolving document of world lore and glossary of people, places, factions, and items will be shared with every party in every campaign.  This aligns and grounds everyone in the setting, and ensures that they have the same information I have (they can still keep their secrets, but this ensures that common knowledge and party knowledge are consistent).
  Not only will this help to center the players and their characters table to table, it will also help ME tremendously with internal consistency, bookkeeping, and dripping information clearly.  Even at tables where I am impeccable with my word, there's still going to be a player that heard something differently; so this way we can literally stay on the same page.

PARTY SIZE
It wasn't just the transition to Roll20 and balancing bandwidth and banter that brought about this consideration.  As noted above, bigger parties kept the lights on, and now, smaller parties work well online.  
And.  There is a certain magic to a party of 5 that you don't tend to achieve with 6.  Turns are exponentially faster.  Spotlights are shared more easily.  Social interactions carry stronger weight with less interruptions.  We can play for less hours and get more done, feeling like we cheated time.
  And I have run smooth games with 8 people, and rickety ones with 4, but with the allowance to pursue smaller party compositions, there have been so many more satisfying and dynamic games with a party of 5 (with two I can name with 6).  It's like the game was built for that or something.  So, looking forward:

Knight Owls: Party of 5 maximum, once a month for 5-hours.  If the interest is high enough, I'll run a second party where appropriate each month (but not every month).  Tighter games, tighter turns, more fun.
Gray Owls Book 2: Party of 4 and Party of 6, each once a month for 6-7 hours.  Two groups with two very different stories pursuing different tracks in the same timeline, but on different ends of the world.

​PLAY STRUCTURE AND WEIGHT
I've spoken on this idea before, but I'll reiterate it here for clarity.  Knight Owls and Gray Owls are not the same.  Not even close.  And that has to do with more than just the fact that Knights is for ages 12 and up, and Grays is a 21+ mature campaign.  It also has to do with the weight that I place on each Pillar Of Play.
  D&D and many tabletop games like it factor out play into three Pillars.  Social Interaction, Exploration, and Combat.  
Social Interaction is how the players interact with other creatures, characters, and entities in the world.  This includes each other.  They build rapport, make connections, form alliances, make enemies, pursue goals, and secure goods.  It's extensive what you can do, but it can be very player driven.  There's a back and forth to it all; a give and take.
Exploration is how the players navigate and interact with the world.  They research, explore, investigate, traverse, observe, and interpret the world around them.  Often this is mostly DM territory with descriptions first, then player with the exploring, but it goes a lot deeper than that.  Exploration is a pillar of DISCOVERY.  This is where my players see what they can see, listen to the details, piece things together, and gather valuable information.  They dig in deep to the story of the world they're collectively playing in and seek to add to our cooperative story.
Combat is where the majority of our classes and features come into play.  Time slows down and we take things in terms of turns and actions and rolls and damage.  This is where the game becomes a GAME.  It is the most mechanically-driven part of the experience; always a puzzle of strategy, risk, reward, and luck.
  In short, I've said that Knight Owls is more Combat focused and Gray Owls is more Exploration focused, but if I had to be more specific...it's a weighted system.  There are three pillars, so we weight the most important pillar to the experience with 3.  Thinking like that, we can use the following setup to understand the difference between each style:

Knight Owls _______________________
Social Interaction: 1
Exploration: 2
Combat: 3
**This doesn't mean that characters never talk to anyone or that the only solution is to "hit it until it dies", and each Knight Owls episode is presented with a clear problem and a mission to solve it.  That overall decision is presented at the onset, like a serialized adventure show, a monster-of-the-week approach.  I admit that this last Season had a lot more organic moments that built player-character investment I did not expect, and that also speaks to the organic nature of every game and campaign.  It is allowed to evolve, but the core emphasis won't change.  The Owls are mercenary soldiers at their base; an opportunity to have a rotating cast without consequence where you can test your combat and play styles as you mess around being D&D superheroes.

Gray Owls_________________________
Social Interaction: 3
Exploration: 3
Combat: 2
**I know that looks a little tricky.  Social and Exploration are weighted the same because they tend to intertwine in a "cloak and dagger" campaign.  Information is both currency and weapon, and you need to explore and interact to get it.  But combat is still dangerous (in fact, at least at the start, avoiding it is the smarter option), it just isn't as common.  What it means is that we could go a solid 6 hours exploring and learning about stuff, and then fight for an hour in a tense knife duel that has sweeping implications.  The power of our mature story is that our decisions have weight and consequence; there's a lot going on, so everyone does the best they can with what they have.  Sometimes that ends in conflict, and sometimes it gets bloody; you walk away with lasting injuries, new scars, and pick yourself up, scraping through by the skin of teeth.  It's gritty, it's dangerous, and its restrictions breed creativity, so when you rise victorious, it is that much sweeter.  

INVESTMENT
I'll go quick on this one, because it makes sense for my planning and ties directly back to our Social Contract.

Knight Owls...is casual.  You opt in or out every month as you like.  Hence the rotating party, passage of time, and episodic nature of it all.  We have players who opt in every single time, and others who jump in every couple of months.  It works that way, so I'm keeping it.

Gray Owls...is a commitment.  This a full campaign story with a beginning, middle, and end over the course of 2-3 years of play.  I know that sounds intense (and it is), and it's also freaking amazing.  That's 24 -36 sessions maximum.  A lot can happen in that time and I'll be spinning custom content for each of my players every session.  If I'm going to dedicate that much time and energy up front to a player, I expect them to invest a measure in this campaign too.  That's the truth - which means, if there is a problem, I EXPECT them to talk to me about it.  Players have done this (I discuss it with them, we adapt, and everything gets better), some have not (it festers, it grows, it explodes), so it bears repeating.  This is a mature experience - it's gonna' go dark places, difficult places, and won't always be forgiving - and I'll be there for you if you choose to meet me.  You have my word.  I need yours too.

So there it is.  My plan for the future of the DM's Den and my industrious Owls.
Like it?  Hate it?  Let me know.  
I'll meet you at the table.
​-Adamus