A good friend recently brought up a question to one of her gaming groups about "GMing styles" and she used me as an example. It kind of brought up a lot of thoughts I had recently about my "GMing style" and how dissatisfied I've been with [my] GMing lately.
See, the thing is, I don't feel I've come through with what I think of as "my style" for about... oh, over a year now. ("Please and Shank You" was good through about the third session...) I had some success in the recent InSpectres game, but, dude, if you're not having a good time with InSpectres, UR NOT DOIN IT RITE, as the LOLcattian parlance goes. Even then I had a couple false starts and probably should have put a kibosh on a confession or two.
So, the real question is, how do I change? I've been reading and observing closely over the last couple of years for things I long to do and have happen and be like, for that matter. I want to have and be fun again, and the more I try to follow what seems to be "the new conventional wisdom" (if there is such a thing) the less successful I've been.
Some obvious thoughts are, I should stick to what I do best. With that in mind, I should stick to PBeM and/or old-fashioned dungeon crawls, because I do still have a lot to unlearn in the regards of the "GM feeds the players" methodology. It doesn't help that my husband is a fan of those styles.
I've got one PBeM (or, in this case, a journal-style) game in the works. ("Aurors Gone Wild.") I haven't been able to commit to it, which is why it hasn't started. (I need to be able to visit it at least twice a day, not just once after work.)
Some might wonder why I consider PBeM a successful medium for me with 1/2 the games I've started having more run down than "ended." The truth is, when I'm on, I've had some fun interactions. l can do evocative. I'm good at evocative. I even have tricksy plots...too tricksy at times.
(I'm just not good at energy.)
I'm tired of dungeon crawls in other gaming engines. Look, I love a good dungeon crawl when I'm in the mood for it, but 4E is kicking my butt in having to learn all new ways of handling things. I'm still not very convinced that it's all what I want from it, but I do entertaining dungeon crawls so I'll learn the new tools.
[Frankly, I don't know if I ever want to do another Shadowrun game with its own rules. I could *do* amusing InSpectres dungeon crawls. But keep your dungeons away from my Amber!]
Second obvious thought - don't just play to my audience, play for my fun. I have a habit of going with what "the group" seems to enjoy, and that's good up until the point that I start to hate it. This is probably the underscored issue with the Elfquest game - I'm flexible and I can enjoy a lot of scenarios, but once it becomes too much of what I don't like, I need to step in and see if I can pull it back or if I need to get out. (There's also a serious sidenote about "getting out" being a valid strategy.)
This dovetails a little with the third obvious point - play more. 'Nuff said about that, except to say that playing with DIFFERENT people is included in both 2 and 3.
Fourth obvious point - make the players do more work. Part of my "style" has always been that it's such a privilege to work so hard for people being willing to indulge me and play in my world. So, I can do some bending...but I don't have to go over backwards. I know I'm a control freak, but if they take on some narrative responsibility, I have more time I can use to do, you know, bookkeeping. I still don't see my allowing the LintKing to play a Windling, but maybe I could unbend enough for a pet or somesuch.
So, that's at least 4 places where I could change my energy. I don't want to always be in a comfort zone, which is where the first point goes off, but maybe if I can focus on the other obvious places for a bit, I can turn things around.