Our group is starting a new campaign. We've never been good running two games at once so this means we're shutting down our previous campaign. With excitement about the new game on the rise, was this a foregone conclusion?
I’m pretty chuffed (can you tell I hung out with some Brits during GenCon?) right now about kicking off a new 13th Age campaign tonight. If starting a new campaign less than two weeks after purchasing the book seems fast, you’re probably right. But that’s how excited our group is to get this thing going.
Before we got this far, however, I needed to have a conversation with my best friend who had been GMing our group prior to GenCon. We have this old maxim in our gaming group, “As soon as we start getting excited about the New Thing, it spells a quick end to the Old Thing.” A week ago I felt like I could probably forestall the start of 13th Age in favor of his Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3e game if needed. I didn’t want him to feel like I was dictating an end to his game.
The conversation went about like I expected, with him saying it was fine to set aside WFRP and start up 13th Age. Throughout the spring and summer he’s been in the process of selling his house and moving a few miles away, so he’s been distracted and harried by the process almost constantly. Taking away the weekly responsibility of running a game is actually somewhat of a relief for him. He even said, with everything else going on, he’d had little time to prepare anything with depth and he wasn’t very emotionally invested in the game.
There have been times in the past where such conversations have gone less smoothly regardless of which side one of us was on. In situations where you do have a lot of emotional investment in running a campaign, hearing one or more of your players are ready to do something different can be tough. Especially if you are then asked to participate in the next campaign as a player. It’s a little bit like hearing, “I want to break up with you but we can still be friends!” Yay?
It can be rough to hear the players are not enthusiastic about your game anymore. But what are the alternatives in that situation? We’re doing this to have fun, and having players forcing it or faking it is probably not the best way to do so. A couple times we’ve managed to refocus on what makes for the most fun and sort of “rally the troops.” But usually we end up seeing some new, shiny thing which pulls us in a new direction.
This whole situation suddenly took me back to the end of last year when I was still running my video company as I transitioned into full-time coaching. Videography had been my primary occupation for the previous eight years. I had been reasonably good at it. For most of that time, I viewed myself as somebody who worked for the time and money to enjoy other parts of life, not somebody with a “calling.” Because I’m an innately happy, upbeat person, I didn’t typically dread my work. Until one day I recognized the new, shiny alternative.
One day I woke up and realized, for the relatively modest income I was making, I should be doing something which brought me genuine enjoyment rather than mere sustenance. After quite a lot of soul searching, aptitude testing, and an epiphany or three, I discovered I DID have a calling all this time. I just wasn’t listening.
The romantic version of this story is one where I began my coaching career that day and never looked back. But practicalities intruded of course. There were bills to pay, and I had a long way to go before I was deriving substantial income from my coaching business. So I kept my video business open even as I worked to launch my new venture.
It was then I got to taste the ashes. What had previously been a job now became a chore, because I saw it in stark contrast to the joy I found in coaching. I dreaded it. I breathed a sigh of relief when jobs would cancel. This is a dreadful state of affairs when you are the owner of such a business.
The last day of 2012 I made it official: My video business was CLOSED. I have heard the day you buy a boat is nice, but not nearly as nice as the day you sell that boat. I guess my feeling about my business was a lot like that. It had become a liability and it felt very, very good to put it astern. Let me move on from this boat metaphor before I mix it further…
It’s a cautionary tale, this business about vocations and campaigns. If we’re not careful about what we choose to do and how we choose to do it, we end up with the taste of ashes in our mouths. If we pick the stuff which is best for us, truly in alignment with our joy, it will be much easier to sustain. And if we picked wrong, or if we have evolved to a new frame of mind, let us have the wisdom to embrace the new shiny.
What is new and awesome that you have recently dived into with gusto? What has lost its flavor that you know you should let go of?
I’m pretty chuffed (can you tell I hung out with some Brits during GenCon?) right now about kicking off a new 13th Age campaign tonight. If starting a new campaign less than two weeks after purchasing the book seems fast, you’re probably right. But that’s how excited our group is to get this thing going.
Before we got this far, however, I needed to have a conversation with my best friend who had been GMing our group prior to GenCon. We have this old maxim in our gaming group, “As soon as we start getting excited about the New Thing, it spells a quick end to the Old Thing.” A week ago I felt like I could probably forestall the start of 13th Age in favor of his Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3e game if needed. I didn’t want him to feel like I was dictating an end to his game.
The conversation went about like I expected, with him saying it was fine to set aside WFRP and start up 13th Age. Throughout the spring and summer he’s been in the process of selling his house and moving a few miles away, so he’s been distracted and harried by the process almost constantly. Taking away the weekly responsibility of running a game is actually somewhat of a relief for him. He even said, with everything else going on, he’d had little time to prepare anything with depth and he wasn’t very emotionally invested in the game.
There have been times in the past where such conversations have gone less smoothly regardless of which side one of us was on. In situations where you do have a lot of emotional investment in running a campaign, hearing one or more of your players are ready to do something different can be tough. Especially if you are then asked to participate in the next campaign as a player. It’s a little bit like hearing, “I want to break up with you but we can still be friends!” Yay?
It can be rough to hear the players are not enthusiastic about your game anymore. But what are the alternatives in that situation? We’re doing this to have fun, and having players forcing it or faking it is probably not the best way to do so. A couple times we’ve managed to refocus on what makes for the most fun and sort of “rally the troops.” But usually we end up seeing some new, shiny thing which pulls us in a new direction.
This whole situation suddenly took me back to the end of last year when I was still running my video company as I transitioned into full-time coaching. Videography had been my primary occupation for the previous eight years. I had been reasonably good at it. For most of that time, I viewed myself as somebody who worked for the time and money to enjoy other parts of life, not somebody with a “calling.” Because I’m an innately happy, upbeat person, I didn’t typically dread my work. Until one day I recognized the new, shiny alternative.
One day I woke up and realized, for the relatively modest income I was making, I should be doing something which brought me genuine enjoyment rather than mere sustenance. After quite a lot of soul searching, aptitude testing, and an epiphany or three, I discovered I DID have a calling all this time. I just wasn’t listening.
The romantic version of this story is one where I began my coaching career that day and never looked back. But practicalities intruded of course. There were bills to pay, and I had a long way to go before I was deriving substantial income from my coaching business. So I kept my video business open even as I worked to launch my new venture.
It was then I got to taste the ashes. What had previously been a job now became a chore, because I saw it in stark contrast to the joy I found in coaching. I dreaded it. I breathed a sigh of relief when jobs would cancel. This is a dreadful state of affairs when you are the owner of such a business.
The last day of 2012 I made it official: My video business was CLOSED. I have heard the day you buy a boat is nice, but not nearly as nice as the day you sell that boat. I guess my feeling about my business was a lot like that. It had become a liability and it felt very, very good to put it astern. Let me move on from this boat metaphor before I mix it further…
It’s a cautionary tale, this business about vocations and campaigns. If we’re not careful about what we choose to do and how we choose to do it, we end up with the taste of ashes in our mouths. If we pick the stuff which is best for us, truly in alignment with our joy, it will be much easier to sustain. And if we picked wrong, or if we have evolved to a new frame of mind, let us have the wisdom to embrace the new shiny.
What is new and awesome that you have recently dived into with gusto? What has lost its flavor that you know you should let go of?
