elanya

I have been playing in a tabletop game with some of my local friends since about..... January? It's a really good group, and while the system isn't perfect, we are a flexible bunch, so it is all going quite well. The system in question is Scion, by White Wolf, where you play the children of the gods fighting evil titans and their spawn in the modern era.

Anyway, because we are, as I said, a flexible group, our GMly overlord allows those of us with stories in mind to take over for shorts arcs to run them! And that is what I am doing now :) I haven't run any kind of game in a really long time, and this is making me remember the sorts of things I really enjoy about it - creating engaging NPCs, figuring out how to make people involved and interested, coming up with good connections between people and events, letting PCs do things that I know will trip me up and trying to figure out of to keep control of the story without railroading things, and so on...

I ran the second part last night - in theory the story could have played out in a single session, but in practice it is going to take three. Which is cool - people seem to be enjoying themselves, and I know I sure am! I think I have done a good job so far at getting people engaged with what is going on - interested in the characters (some more than others, heh heh heh), curious and concerned about things that are going on around them, having a lot of pieces of the puzzle, so to speak, but still not knowing exactly what is going on. There are many many different ways that things could play out at this point - I've got two weeks to plan for some of the more obvious ones, but who can say what will happen! I know what I'd like to see, but whether or not it will be the most logical outcome is a different matter

The energy and excitement I feel as a GM are somewhat different from those I feel as a player, though I appreciate them both. Thre is more control as a GM, because I know what is going on, and I can watch the players figure things out, and when they gets things right, and when they get them wrong, and take satisfaction when they do what i want them to - and when they don't, it is a creative challenge in its own right that I enjoy facing, for the most part. As a PC, the joy is more in the discovery, in that sense. relationships - not necessarily the romantic kind - are important to me in both roles though. It like to create interesting connections, which I may have said above, but that means exploring the dynamics of friendships and rivalries and vendettas, and all kinds of other things. When I ran my first game, waaay back in the day, I used to make charts to keep track of who knew who, and how. For me, gaming is much more about developing character and story than killing things (although killing things can be a great way to do both those things :) It is a creatively inspiring energy - I personally find a lot of similarities between creative writing and gaming, with the latter being more dynamic, where you have other people, and also pre-established (to some extent) setting and rules to help guide and tell your story. I used to do a lot of collaborative writing when I was involved with different writing groups online, and maybe it is similar to that. Having other people around to feed off in a creative process is helpful to me - its why I like to talk about things I am writing (....when I am writing - and that goes for fiction *and* non-fiction), or why I like to talk about games I am in, or am running. I like having the sounding board, and having people to help me point out things I could do better, or listen to my explanations of things and tell me if they seem interesting, or what have you.

In both cases, it is easier to maintain with a good group, and I'm lucky in that for pretty much all the games I am involved in. This is making me wish I had time to run something regularly, but realistically, even if I dropped one or two other things, the prep time I'd need to invest on a regular basis is time I should be spending on other things - much like how I should be spending time on things that are not blathering on about gaming on livejournal ;p

I wanted to write something coherent, but I think I am desperately failing! So, instead I am going to sign off here and get my ass in gear for the day, but with a big thanks to all my fellow players and all my fellow storytellers in all my various games - much love for all of you :)