It has been a mad last 2 and a half weeks. I was officially hired at Zulu’s Board Game Cafe. I say “officially” because I’ve been doing work at and for Zulu’s for the last 2 years. In fact one of the first things I did was a beginner Dungeon Master class, which you can watch by clicking here.
I started doing these events for 2 reasons. The altruistic reason for running events, classes and building a Dungeons and Dragons community at Zulu’s was to bring the joy of tabletop role playing games to people that wouldn’t have otherwise tried it out. The selfish reason was because I wanted to get paid to play games.
Regardless of why I wanted to do it, I knew it would take a lot of work. And it has been; however, I have learned so much and grown so much. All the lesson I’ve learned from mistakes and missteps and poor planning, mean that I am going into this with a confidence that I wouldn’t have had I not just jumped into the deep end and started running events.
This isn’t about me though. This is to say you can do it. Right now it might seem hard and like you will never figure out these very complicated rules. I’m here to say you can do it. I didn’t start with the knowledge I have today. I didn’t used to be comfortable using D&D to weave compelling interesting stories. It has taken almost 2 decades to get to where I am.
I’ve said this many times to many new DM’s. It takes time and practice.
I’d love to say that one day you will have a moment when you suddenly get it. And you might. What has happened to me time and again is I’ll stop and look back at where I was a month ago, a year ago or longer and I’ll think, “oh, huh, I seem to have grown.”
4th Level Games 