November 27, 2023: Wisdom Of The Next Generation

Since the needs of the Daily Illuminator are voracious and insatiable, I asked my youngling when he walked in the door from school: "What's your favorite bit of gaming advice?" He's run a few well-respected campaigns as part of his Dungeons & Dragons club at school, and he's been raised from birth by parents who won't shut up about gaming, so I liked my odds at getting something useful from him.

After a few moments of thought, he offered the following:

Players will feel better about having a few awesome moments than a consistently good campaign or adventure. This means you shouldn't be discouraged if there are rough patches or moments where the heroes are floundering, so long as they get to be epic or cool.

It's great advice, which I'm not sure I've ever thought about in that way. I'll definitely be adding it to my tabletop arsenal. (This is the same young man who – while recounting a particularly gifted session of winging it with his players – concluded with, "Any sufficiently advanced improv is indistinguishable from preparation" . . . so I'll be keeping an ear out for any other wisdom I can glean from him.)

And, since he was kind enough to provide the impetus for today's installment, it'd be churlish if I didn't plug his own project: Knightvale News, a storytelling card game for three to five players where you're writers at a medieval newspaper, trying to accomplish your own personal goals via heavily editorialized reporting.

-- Steven Marsh