Prepping

Short post this week - there are some things going on at my day job that are drawing an inordinate amount of my energy and focus.

I'm getting ready to run a Legend of the Five Rings campaign. I've actually been dragging my feet for a while, because the last time I ran an L5R game, I got GM Burnout.  Burned out to the point where it was a decade before I was willing to run anything again.

So I'm doing a few things differently.  Right now, I'm working on a pre-Character Generation questionnaire. I've never done that before. But I have a larger-than-usual group of interested players, and I want to know what their expectations are before we sit down to play.

I'm starting with the basic questions - "What Clan(s) are you most interested in? Which Clan(s) do you most dislike?" But I'm also asking about the metaplot (like/dislike care/don't care) and the various eras of play. And, of course, determining the politics/mysticism/romance/action balance of the game.

Adding to this, I'm going to be using my (experimental) Winter Phase rules. Largely as a playtest - I want to make sure they work.

Until a week or so ago, my delay was "I don't have The Book of Void yet!" It was the last book I was stalling for, and, now that I have it, there is no reason not to go. Other than my own hesitation.

The last game I ran, I did a terrible job of balancing action and investigation. I dropped too many red herrings and not enough clues. And there were four or five different storylines that I had going on, which was too many for me - and when I'm off-balance, so are the players.

This game will be monthly. Or so. Everyone involved is a grownup with a busy life, so scheduling will be not great - which is another factor.  I need to make sure the game won't collapse if one or two players miss a given session. In fact, I need to plan for players to miss sessions.

But, most of all, I need to relax and let it go. I need to pull the trigger on my pre-game questionnaire, and I need to start working with players on character generation.