Rose Garden

I Want

This is, I suppose, some kind of poem.

In a real sense, this is a transcription of a full page of a notebook I filled at about midnight. It lists what, after eight years of TTRPG GMing experience, I feel I want from a campaign, a game, and a group of players. It is meandering and in the order it was written: which is to say no particular order. It may read, in large part, like a list of complaints: in many ways this makes it true to me, I suppose.

I want a D&D game based on mutual respect.

I want players to know the rules and act on them fast.

I want players to interact with the world and each other when it isn't their turn.

I want players who know that it is rewarding to engage with the fiction in good faith—I want players who engage in the fiction and reality before the rules.

I want players who take notes.

I want rules that empower player choices, but are not played to.

I want GM rules that easily produce the most dramatic but consistent outcome.

I want rules which model a world with possibilities to be explored.

I want rules that allow a PC to be very, very bad or very, very good at something.

I want players to think that consistency exists.

I want different fictions to have different mechanical effects.

I want players to care about NPCs and cultures.

I want players to engage with politics or gods as much as they want, but always have them there.

I want a game that serves as a contract for the constraints on the fiction.

I want players who each pay attention >70% of the time.

I want players to RP with each other and grow as people purely for its own sake.

I want players who surprise me and each other with their hidden consistency.

I want players who can live with things that do not always go well in game, and GM mistakes out of game.

I want players who check if I am also having fun.

I want players who sometimes talk about the game.

I want a group I do not need to comically entertain.

I want rules which bridge the gap between idea and mechanical information with balance and speed.

I want to use music and art to set a tone.

I want rules that are extensible with content that brings its own homebrew rules.

I want a game with the emergent, messy physics of having a large amount of content.

I want rules that force players to make in-character choices, and sometimes get them right or wrong.

I want players to cheer for dice rolls as a result of the fiction and physics.

I want villains with dastardly plans that players can fail, or fail accidentally.

I want players to be more excited for each other than themselves.

I want to be excited for the world away from the table; and excited for the PCs while at it.

I want to never give a PC an easy out.

I want to always let brilliant plays stand.

I want players to fail fairly.

I want players to consider my fun too.

I want to think about games every second.

I want prep to never be a chore.

I want a bad moment to never ruin a night.

I want players to occasionally betray each other, and respect each other for it.

I want drama to happen when people create fun, and vice versa.

I want people to laugh.

I want every locked door to contain something.

I want less-mathematically-gifted players to be able to participate.

I want a lot of messy rules.

I want fighting to be fair and fun but not overbearing in focus.

I want a game about real-ish lives.

I want a game whose details and plausibility matter, both in measure.

I want a game where everyone is excited for next session.

I want a story not reliant on twists and turns all the time.

I want players to make choices that make them squirm.

I want to think about stories forever.