I get the queasies every Saturday evening, sometime after dinner, when it's time to review my notes for the evening's upcoming AD&D game. Sometimes the feeling passes. Sometimes it stays until right up to the game. On rare occasions, my nerves get to the point I hope to get messages from players that they can't make the game, so I can call it off - but that has only happened once I think.
Just think, I've been DM'ing for the last 9 months, for the same group of friends. Heck, I started DM'ing way back in Junior High School. And I still get nervous.
Go figure ;)
It's a bit worse with the pick up games I occasionally run for folks via the G+ Hangouts app - because I'm not just one of a handful of strangers, I'm the stranger that has to be at the center.
Yet I come back, week after week. So do my players, so I must be doing something right. Besides, once the game starts the queasies are long forgotten ;)
So, do you get "DM Stage Fright"? How do you work through it if you do get it?
I can't recall I ever did, but I must have. I just don't recall. And I don't know why, because I consider myself shy, and I hate the spotlight. But when I'm the DM, I'm comfortable and "Don't give a fuck!". I've ran games at Conventions, Gamedays and demos for years, I don't even consider myself a very good DM, just competent. It might be a confidence thing, ... I'm pretty sure it's a confidence thing. And I'd run a table for a bunch of randoms without hesitation. But get this, I'm totally intimidated by playing on G+, so I've not yet done it. At all. So much for confidence. I've also DM'd some folks I consider AMAZING DMs, and they didn't hate me.
ReplyDeleteDak - if you ever want to drop in for an AD&D / OSRIC session in a saturday night, let me know.
DeleteWe'll break you in gently ;)
YES, very badly. I take Valium. :P
ReplyDeleteNot that I can recall. Like Dak, I've never used G+, but this has nothing to do with confidence and everything to do with time. I really prefer face-to-face play. Maybe, at some point, I'll teach myself the tools and use G+....mostly to reconnect with high school players and allow distant family to play. No guarantee though. My barrier is finding the time to learn the tech.
ReplyDeleteI was pretty nervous yesterday - starting a new campaign, eight new players only one of whom I'd met before, in a new London pub venue where I didn't know what to expect! That's a pretty extreme case though. The beer certainly helps. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm with Dak. Trying to learn how to play over G+ for some reason I think I would find stressful.
ReplyDeleteI do have stage fright when I GM for people I don't know (like at cons) or lately when I GM'd for a party in which my usual GM (who is a star GM!) was a player. Thankfully it wears off really quick.
ReplyDeleteEvery time,but for me it lasts the entire session.
ReplyDeleteNever a problem for me ( And I don't recall it ever having been). I've run some G+ but my habit of giving bad descriptions and not drawing for my players means that Old School dungeneering is a tad more intimidating online.
ReplyDeleteAny time I've been away from DMing for a month or more; it's as if I've forgotten how to compose myself, and how to keep the attentions where they aught to be.
ReplyDelete