Introduction: Improvised Hopes

A blog. About Dungeon Mastering. I feel like I've gone back in time about ten years. It seems like content in the present is all about Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and (let's not forget) Google Plus. But although I have a Tumblr that I love, it isn't a great place for conversations. It isn't a great place to post the ramblings of a dungeon master that feels like she has something to say after running games for over two decades. It turns out that saying something longer than 120 characters is better off in an old fashioned blog.

I don't know. Maybe that's just two decades of bias showing itself.

But this is a blog. And as the subtitle makes clear, its about running table top rps. I want to stress the plural in that. 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons is a wonderful system that will get plenty of time and space. But I love other systems too. I love simple, one page games like Lasers and Feelings. I love games like FATE and PBtA that focus on story and create mechanics to manipulate stories in ways that are completely foreign to a standard D&D game. Those systems will get plenty of space as well.

Then there is the homebrew stuff that I am constantly throwing together. Often times my creations are half hazard monstrosities forced to fit a very specific situation for a single game or session. But sometimes I spend more time designing new things, and I am sure that I'll talk about my design process here as well.

But most of all I created this blog because I want to share my experience as an improvisational Dungeon Master. I learned early (and hard) that careful plans and plots get destroyed well before the first roll of the game is tossed. I've learned to deal with the ridiculous, and how to embrace it and make it good (sometimes even amazing). I've learned that saying yes is more important than saying no. And I've learned that players will always, always surprise you.

Then again, any Dungeon Master with more than a few games beneath their belt has learned most of that. What I hope to bring to the table are tips and strategies that let you roll with moment, and suggestions people can use when they are suddenly slack jawed in horror.

We've all been in that moment. The precise instant that a game you think you have a handle on is suddenly thrown off the hook with a single statement. In Lord of the Rings that moment is when Frodo decides to put on the ring. One of my first moments was when my players used durian fruits to banish a hoard of demons. These are the moments that hit you out of nowhere, that you never saw coming, and that leave you in a panicked mess.

But that moment passes, and what a Dungeon Master does in the seconds that follow can distinguish between the good and the great. And that's what I hope to bring here - advice for turning those moments from disaster into memories that players will talk about for months and years to come.