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"You're not ready to run your next D&D game."
If you're like me and lots of other DMs out there, you hear this voice in your head nearly every time you're getting ready to run a D&D game. This voice tells you you're not ready to run your game. You may never be ready.
Steven Pressfield, in his book The War of Art, refers to this voice as "the Resistance". The Resistance is the lizard-brain voice in our heads doing everything it can to keep us from making art, whatever that art is. It tells us that our art isn't any good, that we'll be laughed at, or that it's too hard to do.
The Resistance doesn't want us to fail. The Resistance wants us not to even try.
For a video on this topic, see "You Are Not Prepared for your Next D&D Game" – Battling the Resistance.
Many DMs feel this anxiety before they're going to run a D&D game. Creating art is hard and creating art in front of our friends is even harder. Add on that we don't really know what sort of art we're going to create at the table and it's even easier to see why it can be so scary.
Whether you've DMed hundreds of times, only just a few, or you haven't DMed at all — that feeling of anxiety, the feeling that you're not ready to run, is common.
Experience doesn't make the Resistance go away, but it does help us recognize it and learn how to get past it.
Combatting the Resistance
I propose three ways to combat the resistance:
- Have some sort of system to help you prep your game.
- Keep the tools on hand that make you feel confident to run your game.
- Remember your friends are with you, love you, and want you to succeed.
Having some sort of system to help you prepare your games helps battle the Resistance. I think that's why so many have found the eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master so valuable. It's one system, one that works for a lot of people, and helps you say "I know I'm prepared enough because I've gone through my steps and have what I need to run a game". Even if you modify the steps to fit your style or even if you have your own unique steps, having some system to help you prep helps you combat the Resistance.
The tools you keep on hand to run your games help combat the Resistance as well. If you've used these tools before, they help remind you that you can do this because you already have. Think of your tools as totems to keep away the evil spirits telling you you're going to fail. You'll be fine. You've done it before.
Finally, our friends are on our side. They just want a fun game. They're not looking for the best game ever. They're looking for a good time sharing a few laughs while enjoying a fantastic tale of high fantasy. Your friends are with you. Don't let the Resistance tell you otherwise.
We need not fight the Resistance. The Resistance is part of us. Don't arm-wrestle it. Instead embrace the Resistance as an old friend, thank it for its service against the sabertoothed tigers of old, and set it aside when you sit down at the table and enjoy a great game of D&D with our friends.
Related Articles
- Gaining Confidence to Run D&D Games
- 2016 D&D 5th Edition Dungeon Master Questionnaire
- Letter to a New Dungeon Master
- Improvisation for New D&D Dungeon Masters
- The Hard Parts of Running D&D
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Article copyright 2021 by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish.