Tale of a First-Time Dungeon Master

Tales about everyone's first dungeon-mastering experience have been popping up on Twitter lately. It's really been too long for me to remember the details of my first attempts so it has been fun reading the stories of fellow gamers. This past week, I even had the privilege of witnessing my daughter run her first Dungeons and Dragons 5e game.

Well, to be honest, this wasn't her first attempt. Her first try was a couple of years back. It didn't go well. The players were a mix of junior-high boys and girls. Most of them were only partially interested in the game. After a series of unfortunate events, YouTube was on, the phones were out, and the game was forgotten.

My daughter was understandably disappointed. She wanted to play. I agreed to run a campaign for her and any of her friends who still wanted to give it a try. That campaign is still going, albeit intermittently. It even involves another parent.

My daughter was (and still is) grateful, but she couldn't shake the desire to run a game herself. A few weeks ago, she came to me and said she wanted to use what was left of her summer vacation to take another shot at being a dungeon master. She began a vetting process to find friends who truly wanted to play D&D. She set a date. She dove into planning the session with enthusiasm. The story she came up with was straight forward and entertaining. The party is on its way to Fantasy ComicCon when they are ambushed by goblins who steal their costumes and weekend passes. Much fighting ensues to retrieve the stolen equipment.

I wasn't a part of the game. I was catching up on Rick and Morty episodes and digging into my backlog of Dr. Strange comics. I was basically exiled from the living room until further notice and this seemed like a good use of my time. I judged from the shouts of surprise, laughter, grumbling, and cheers that all was going well.

When the last player was out the door a few hours later, she turned to me. The look on her face was priceless. It was a mixture of exhaustion, excitement, satisfaction, and pure joy. She launched into a frantic explanation of how leading up to the game she had been nervous about whether the players would like the story, worried whether she had prepared enough, and worried whether the game would fall apart as it had before. She went on to relate how the players had bought into the story and had been completely in character right from the start. During the game she had felt as though they were all riding a wave together, a wave that she had set in motion but had only partly retained control over once it got going.

"I get it," she said to me. "I get why you lock yourself away when you're doing prep work. I get why you're always just a little nervous as our games start. I get why you're always so wiped out when we're done. I get it." She collapsed on the couch, exhausted. "It's so much fun!"

I laughed because I knew exactly how she felt. It's exactly how I feel after every game I run. It's why I play. It's why I keep playing. Nothing beats the feeling when plot, character, and action all fall into place under a cooperative, mostly-improvised effort with a group of friends. You're making something, together. It's the dungeon-master's high. There's nothing like it.

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