Exchange of Realities

I’ve always envied writers with large fanbases. They get people who overanalyze everything, trying to find secret hints even where there are none to find, who if they even think something is out of place will be all over it and theorize it and explain it in ways the writer never even expected. I’ve always wondered what it would be like—how flattering it would be—to have people who believed that much in your narrative cunning and had such an interest in the world.

So when people run games for me, I try to achieve that level of interest. One way I try is by asking questions, to try to approximate that sort of dedication to the story and the world (it helps that I want to know anyway). Sometimes it works, and I manage to trip over something they were hiding, or even create a situation simply by remarking on “wouldn’t it be interesting if”? Other times it’s digging a little deeper than they would have wanted, and instead I trigger panic in them.

Then there’s story writing. It’s not quite fanfic, but not quite not, either; a lot of the time, I’ll take a situation in which we were left to our own devices and write what happens, play a little with theoretical situations from the backstory, or just do an in-depth in-character braindump and leave it in the GM’s file transfer folder in basic .doc format. It seems to go over decently well.

Last fall, though, I decided to try something a little bigger. What ended up happening was a mass sketch. It was a frustrating piece; the group lost a member not long after I began it (a pity—his picture was one of a few that came out good on the first try), one player’s entire description of the garb he wanted his character wearing was three words that made no sense whatsoever to me, another went downright perfectionistic on where the lines were landing and a couple of the colors. It took me months, and I nearly gave up on it several times, including just as it was within a few cuts and a scan of being finished; the main thing that kept me going was just how excited my GM seemed to be that I was drawing this thing.

“I’m really, really looking forward to it. It’s been getting me excited about the entire game arc.”

Can you say “made my evening”? Sure you can.

It’s a long, hard road running a game, particularly when your players can’t agree on what they want, or your free time keeps disappearing right when you need to get a plot together. And compliments are easy to forget. But something more lasting—tracking down one of the little mysteries, tossing a little bit of “Hey, if you need some reading material” or “Was this how you imagine this scene?” their general direction—and you’ll make their day, and possibly even far them out of their own block or insecurities.

Feed your GM. You won’t regret it.