MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
When I got back into TTRPGs a few years ago, I read a lot of articles and watched TED talks about the benefits of D&D and how playing D&D provided players with skills that proved useful "in real life."
That's not what this thread is about.
I want to know what non-gaming experiences in your life have affected your game, positively or negatively.
I'll start.
First the negative: After being away from gaming for over two decades, while I built a career and family, I can tell that my creativity had ossified quite a bit. Now, I was able to come up with lots of ideas for plots and enjoyed creating a homebrew world for about six months before ever running a game, so I don't mean in the sense of "writer's block." More in the sense of relearning creative live play. It took a good long while before I became comfortable in my own skin as a DM, trying to come up with interesting descriptions on the fly, making combat more than mechanical, acting out NPCs, etc.
As for the positive: I think the main thing from my non-gaming life that has positively impacted me as a DM is travel. I did not grow up in part of the world or in the kind of family that gave me opportunities to travel internationally and did not have much exposure to other cultures. But since starting college I have traveled, lived, and worked in a number of countries and have met and worked with people from all over the world. Not only does that give me a more nuanced approach to roleplaying NPCs, but it also makes it easier for me to come up with personalities, person names, and place names on the fly.
I could come up with other examples, but I don't want to start with a wall of text and I'm more interested in reading what you all have to say.
That's not what this thread is about.
I want to know what non-gaming experiences in your life have affected your game, positively or negatively.
I'll start.
First the negative: After being away from gaming for over two decades, while I built a career and family, I can tell that my creativity had ossified quite a bit. Now, I was able to come up with lots of ideas for plots and enjoyed creating a homebrew world for about six months before ever running a game, so I don't mean in the sense of "writer's block." More in the sense of relearning creative live play. It took a good long while before I became comfortable in my own skin as a DM, trying to come up with interesting descriptions on the fly, making combat more than mechanical, acting out NPCs, etc.
As for the positive: I think the main thing from my non-gaming life that has positively impacted me as a DM is travel. I did not grow up in part of the world or in the kind of family that gave me opportunities to travel internationally and did not have much exposure to other cultures. But since starting college I have traveled, lived, and worked in a number of countries and have met and worked with people from all over the world. Not only does that give me a more nuanced approach to roleplaying NPCs, but it also makes it easier for me to come up with personalities, person names, and place names on the fly.
I could come up with other examples, but I don't want to start with a wall of text and I'm more interested in reading what you all have to say.
Likewise I think I developed lecturing & tutoring skills more from GMing than vice versa, though the two are certainly synergistic. Occasionally I get to use my academic derived legal knowledge (or just patter) in-game, but far more often I just use it to argue stuff on RPG bulletin boards. 
