An introvert with anxiety attempting to run their first session

[donotwant]

Be me.
Get new table top RPG, not an expensive one, but spend about $100 on materials and the game.
Read DM and players manuals because you really want your players to have a great session and be a reliable source of the rules etc.
Spend lots of time making notes and preparing for the session and listening to podcasts of other people running a similar game.
Be really excited and looking forward to your game that was supposed to be today.
Slight inconvenience (non-game related) occurs.
Panic.
Remember that time 5 years ago when you tried to run an improv session with your D&D friends and it ended poorly and you felt like you disappointed your friends.
Lay in bed for about an hour staring at ceiling, not knowing what to do.
Message all players to cancel the session.
Pack up game, never intending to play it again.

I hate mental illness. That has been my day so far today.

Does anyone have any advice to help someone like me who really wants to run a game but has issues with anxiety and being introverted?

[slickrcbd]

Well, this forum is about an old cRPG called "Dungeon Master", rather than being a "Pen and Paper" tabletop RPG Dungeon Master.
I expect a moderator to move it to one of the other subforums.

I recall this topic came up on another board called "Sorcerer's Place" (originally focused on the Infinity Engine games, which are also now ancient by computer gaming terms). You might want to check out that discussion, which I did not realize was that long ago until I looked it up.

That said, you did not say what particular RPG you are playing, which makes it more difficult to give advice. However, you weren't focused on that. You were focused on the panic attack. I'm no psychologist, but face it the same way you would face having to give a speech in front of the classroom in school. We all have to do that, and they force us to do that for good reason.

Don't fret about not remembering the rules. If this is Dungeons and Dragons, which is implied because I think they have the term trademarked and every other system uses "Game Master" plus the reference to PHB & DMG, then you should know that the game is so complex and has so many rules that it is impossible for anybody but Data on Star Trek TNG to remember them all the first time. I had a group that ran from 1990-1997 and even at the end in 1997 we occasionally had to double-check the minute on some rule. Expect a lot of stopping to look up rules in the first session.
Also remember Rule Zero: "The DM's word is god. " A DM can override a rule in the book for any reason, but make sure you have a good reason to do so.

Talk to your friends about it, if they are aware of your problems then they will probably offer some support as well as pressure to keep you from "chickening out" the next time. Give them some information on your disorder, so they can know to prepare something to "break the ice" in case you freeze up when everyone is there so you can "snap out of it" and get the session going.

With many people I know who have such anticipation anxiety, it's actually getting started that is the problem, where they might freeze up when the moment comes, but if you can get somebody to snap you out of it and get started, they usually get their confidence back and can get going.

Sorry, I can't help you, my degree is in Information Systems, not psychology. I fix computers, not heads.

[Ameena]

Hi, welcome to the forum . First of all, as Terkio says, this isn't a forum specifically for DnD, it's a forum based around a game called Dungon Master that came out on the Atari/Amiga back in 1987. You're far from the first to just dive in and post about DnD without checking that, though, and a bunch of us do play DnD, so feel free to stick around (we also have a Discord server if you're interested) .

Anyway, I recently started running a tabletop game of DnD myself properly for the first time, though I've been running a forum-based one for about five years now which has been going well (if very slowly ). The tabletop game had its first proper session last Monday, with the second one coming up tomorrow (still need to finish expanding my notes as I don't know how far the players will get). I think it's gone pretty well so far...perhaps if I outline how I did it, it might give you some ideas for your own game .

I have three players, one of whom has done tabletop RP before but not specifically DnD, while the other two are new to tabletop RP in general. Character creation was handled mostly over Discord - I posted up some basic world info on my setting and had them create their characters separately from each other, sharing no info on what the other players were making since their characters wouldn't know it in-game and I tend to like to keep player and character info as close as possible to avoid inadvertent (or deliberate) metagaming. Most of the character creation was done via PM in Discord although one player came round my house since she said she would otherwise be too distracted (she has a nearly-three-year-old ) to properly focus on it all at once. So we put together everyone's characters and did some worldbuilding as part of that - most of the world (outside of maybe two or three locations I have in mind for later on) didn't even exist until these guys made their characters and needed somewhere for them to live, so we got a whole bunch of historical/geographical/cultural stuff done there as well to add into the world thanks to their choices of character.

DM tip - don't feel like you have to do all the work yourself. Yes, you're running the game and serving as both the arbiter of the rules and the narrator, but your players are part of this too - their characters are part of the world and giving them some input into how said world works can, I feel, help greatly with both immersion and the feeling of having contributed to/being part of the game. If you try to control everything, it may result in your players not having as much fun as they otherwise might. Also, say the group later visits the really cool city full of swirly bronze architecture with giant statues and weird slug-monster-things everywhere that the citizens use as pack animals/wagon-pullers, and the player whose character is from said city suddenly announces proudly "I made this place!" and everyone else can go "Wow, cool! Also, eww, giant slug things!" and everyone gets an extra thing out of it that way too, because the other players will know that they also made a part of the world and one day maybe the group will go there and elicit the same reaction from the others and sense of pride themselves that they helped build the world .

So anyway...everyone made their characters but we didn't dive into the first proper session straight away. Nope - I had everyone attend a solo session, each on a different day based on when people were free. This served as a kind of intro/tutorial mode to DnD where their character was "alone" (no other PCs around) and could get to grips with the basic mechanics of DnD as well as the more specific aspects of running their character. Two of them had already left their homes as part of their backstory while the third was still at home at the start of their intro session so left it as part of that. That character went with two other people from their home while the other two characters travelled for a bit and each met two NPCs in the wilds somewhere. So we had some RP and a few skill checks as they navigated various natural hazards, and each group also had a combat against a couple of fairly weak (but not Minions) critters that attacked them (one had two storm scorpions, one two fire beetles, the other a pair of...erm, I think they were called thornback frogs). They all won their fights (alongside their two NPC allies) with no major issue but that was the point - just showing them how combat worked and getting them used to knowing what to roll, how to use their powers, etc.

Then each trio of characters (one player plus two NPCs) ended up at a village. The two who'd met NPCs in the wild were led to said village by the NPCs they were with, as they were all hunters who came from there (they were all siblings who usually hunted together but had been split up when something huge attacked them one night and they scattered - my world is full of very dangerous wildlife ). The other PC, who had set off with two of her fellows from their home, just found the village by themselves and spent the night there. I had reasons for them all to be indoors when an NPC villager ran past outside yelling "We're under attack!", at which point their NPC allies all headed for the door - naturally every PC announced that they were following, and that's where I ended each of their solo sessions. Since I had to get everyone to the same point, the solo sessions did skip over quite a bit of generic stuff such as travelling ("you head in X direction, you walk for several days and don't see anything of note" rather than actually having them set up camp, take watches, etc) so that they could all be in tha village in time to hear the alarm being raised before too much time passed IRL and it started getting late .

And then we had the first proper session, with everyone there, and actually I didn't have to do too much prep for that, since I knew we were gonna start with a combat against some kind of large creature (or multiple creatures) and that was probably gonna take most of the session, especially as I was gonna be running at least seven or eight combatants myself (the six NPCs plus whatever the group ended up fighting). I ended up picking an ankheg (giant acid-spitting beetle thing that burrows and tries to drag people into its tunnels to eat them) and had the group fight one regular ankheg plus five broodlings (Minions). So the session started with everyone emerging in time to see this thing surge out of the ground on the heels of the guy who was running away from it. I did roll Initiative for him but he rolled lower than the ankheg so didn't manage to live long enough to get a turn . For this battle, actually, I rolled Initiative for all my combatants in advance, to save time, and just added in the PCs to the list once they'd rolled theirs during the session. Anyway, it took a while but no-one went down and it was quite entertaining (for me >:)) in places, such as when one PC had rushed up to whack the big ankheg (at the time thinking it was the only enemy) and then it got to the broodlings' turn and all five of them scuttled up from the tunnel and had a go at that one character - only one of them managed to land a hit and another one couldn't reach as the other four were in the way by that point, but it was very amusing to see the characters' reactions .

Anyway, I didn't have too many notes for the rest of the session, just some extra stuff on a couple of NPCs. I also had a spur-of-the-moment idea right after the battle when the villagers (all tieflings, not that it's super relevant here) wer slowly emerging from their houses and I thought to myself "Hang on, that dead guy probably had some family or something" so I described a tiefling woman running over all tearful toward where the dead guy was lying in the entrance to the ankheg burrow - I knew I had scored a bunch of immersion points when the players were all like "Aaww, noooo... <sad>" as they realised this was probably the guy's wife or something (it was). I think when I get a reaction like that, it says I'm doing stuff right - I was actually a little nervous before we started that session!

Anyway, I think I'm going into far more detail here than I need to but meh, I like talking about how it went . Anyway, yeah there was some more dialogue and stuff - I hadn't made too many more notes for the session since I knew the battle would take up most of it. The villagers had a meeting about what to do (stay in the village and risk being attacked again by something worse, or leave in search of a new home in a world full of somethings worse ), and the PCs ended up volunteering to go out and find some place for them to live or maybe something they could use to strengthen themselves against further attack, or or some people who could help, or whatever. Conveniently this meant that nearly all the NPC allies they'd made would have to stay behind to protect the village, though they suggested the PCs let one of them go with them but couldn't decide who should go (because it's the place of the players to determine stuff like that, not me). The players ended up going with one of the healer NPCs as they don't otherwise have one. Also, she's a windsoul genasi and can fly short distances, so if they need to send her back to report to the village, she can probably travel the easiest and also avoid attack from the ground.

So the PCs rested for the night and that was where I ended the session. I've made some notes for tomorrow's session and will make some more in a bit, as well as going through my various Monster Manuals for what kind of stuff they might run into. But I expect there will be a lot of RP so they may not travel super far. We'll have to see. I don't have a set storyline for them to follow - there is stuff happening in the world that they'll likely want to end up dealing with, and I have some ideas for NPCs they can meet in the future, and plans that one of my players has unknowingly managed to fit right into with their character and backstory >:). But that's for later. For now, they're off into the wilderness in the direction of some stuff the villagers vaguely told them about.

So that's how it went for me - seems to be going well so far, so yay . I can get a little anxious in some social occasions (as mentioned, I was a bit nervous about the first proper session in case it messed up somehow) and am generally fairly introverted depending on the situation, but doesn't sound like I have it as badly as you do so I don't know whether what I do will help. But I made notes - not super detailed notes (Rule One of GMing - the players will do something you didn't expect/plan for, so don't plan too much ), but more kind of brief sentences/bullet points on the various NPCs and locations. The solo sessions all had to end in a specific way so that was the most "guided" part of the game and had more of a "story" to it. For the first proper session it was more just notes on what the various NPCs would say or do after the combat. If you keep your notes vague and brief, you leave more space for improvisation when the players inevitably ask about something you hadn't thought about yet. If you try to rigidly plan every little detail, you might find yourself coming unstuck when the players want to say/do/ask about something you didn't make notes on. And if a rule comes up in-game that you're not sure about, feel free to do whatever makes the most sense at the time and say "This is how we'll do it this time", then look it up later, after the game, so as not to slow things down.

Most important thing about all of the above - everyone has fun. If someone isn't having fun, something needs to change. This includes you - it's not just about the players. You need to have fun too. If you get a problem player, talk to them about it (possibly in front of everyone else, so that they can offer input too - you're all one group together, after all) and don't feel bad about kicking someone out if they're creating a bad atmosphere or whatever (clearly it's not the game for them and maybe they can find another one where they're a better fit). And don't worry about getting stuff wrong - it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this for, chances are you'll get something wrong at some point, miss a rule, forget to make a roll, it's fine. As long as everyone is having fun, it's fine . And if these people really are your friends they'll be okay that you're nervous, and will hopefully act to encourage you and, you know, make you feel less anxious .

If you've read this far, well done . Feel free to ask me more DnD stuff or other gaming stuff if you have any questions if you're still here .