GMing, Ritual, and You: Preparing the Game, Preparing Yourself.

The most important preparation a GM can do before a game is to prepare himself.  I’ve been thinking a lot these days on how I can prepare myself before a game.  I’m not talking about the usual preparations here -maps, adventure overview, props- I’m talking the core, the fundamental -yourself. 

I’m sure we’ve all shown up for game in less than stellar shape. You can pack it in when you feel like that (and sometimes that’s the best choice, but I’ll discuss that in a second) or you can carry on.  Like in a great many things, the best GMs, the real pros, don’t wait to run a game when they feel inspired.  Instead, they find ways to get themselves going and to get a good start when they’d rather be doing something else.  Indeed, I can count amongst my best sessions those I began not ready to climb the mountain. 

What are the best ways to get yourself ready to give the players a good time?  First, I’ll look at the ways a GM can be afflicted with “the blues”.  Here are the major reasons I see for folding it up or not bringing your “A” game.

Problems with the Group.  Maybe the group is not your normal style.  You like roleplay and deep plots, they like to kill things, and…kill things.  Or vice versa.  You’ve got a new group and you’re not getting what you want.  Sometimes it’s best to cut your losses and move on, but I think in many of these cases you can stick it out and reap benefits.

Personal Problems.  Your life is on tilt for better or worse. It’s completely understandable that some matters deserve your full attention and may detract from your ability to focus or manage a session.  But for everything else…my advice is to play through it.  Games are fun!  They can be used as a great distraction from what ails you.

Game Problems.  Personal life is good, but the game is on tilt.  The players aren’t taking the bait, they’ve put themselves in some position to get devoured by the BBEG and then you’re going to have to start all over. Solutions are in reach, but not if you don’t play it out with feeling and intent.

Creative Blahs.  This is has been the bane of my existence. The brain is pickled and inert.  It’s got nothing to offer except…more nothing.  I’m going to discuss some other details on how to deal with, but in short, remember that your brain never is on empty.  No, really.  In fact, the times when creativity seems null actually tend to mean you’re on the verge of a creative breakthrough.

Feelings of Inadequacy and other Strangeness of the Soul.  For whatever reason, you feel as though something’s wrong and it’s all your fault.  And it just might be!  But again, you can’t fix what’s wrong if you don’t make an honest effort.

So what do you do to bring yourself to a state where you run the best game that you can? For all of these problems, I have one solution: rituals.

In every-day life I  dread ritual.  My instinct is to do something new just not to do the same old thing I did last time.  I’m a bloke dwelling on the chaotic end of the old alignment scale. As for Good, Bad, or Indifferent?  I’ll let you decide that for yourself.

But when I need to perform in work or in play, I find rituals to be a lifesaver.  Before I can get my players focused, first I need to focus.  No matter what I’m feeling like, running through my pre-game rituals gets me ready to go.  By walking myself through that ritual I’m telling my mind “OK, the game is started, we’re running it” and neatly bypassing my conscious anxieties and my subconscious dreads.

What do I do? I have my games set up so that I have between one to two hours to setup.  More time is better, so I can do other chores/tasks, but an hour more or less to myself is ideal. 

• First, I clean the table (thrilling stuff, eh?)
• Next, I turn on my itunes to the music I’ll be playing during the session.  I fiddle with the volume until it’s at the setting that it will be during the game.
• I keep all the characters at my place (prevents forgetting character sheets), and then I set up everyone’s sheets and cards in the center of the table.
• I run over the best scenes in my head, while I get out everything we’re going to need –pencils, glasses and drinks, coasters.
• I have the bad bad habit of smoking, so I go out on my porch and have one last cigarette before people start arriving.
• I pour myself a glass of water.
• After everyone arrives, I let the players chat for a few then I cut in with a question of some sort.  I take a sip from the glass of water, and we’re off.

Nothing thrilling, right?  Rituals don’t have to be transcendental meditation;  The prime use for a ritual if to align you with the task at hand.  A certain amount of elaboration is needed to shuffle your brain into it’s new zone, but it can be any set of tasks that do that.  And it’s something that you do every time, to build an association of that ritual with the activity that you’re doing.

It’s not a miracle drug, it won’t make you the best GM ever to walk the planet; but I find that it does help.  Rituals help you reach your potential on the days you’d rather be somewhere else.

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