DM-ing Babble: Finishing off a campaign.

It's been a couple of hours now and I think that it's finally started to hit me. I'm done with my Sunday games running Waterdeep Dragon Heist. 

This was the second time I've run that particular campaign (and not the last) but it was the most challenging from a motivational standpoint. One thing I already know about myself and which became painfully apparent is that I'm not terribly flexible as a person and as a DM. I like my law and order, and so the absolute anarchy of the party left me quite stunned more than once. It made me have to pause and process a great deal more. It made me forget story beats and levelling. Because really, who would expect the first reaction to meeting an NPC who has done absolutely nothing up to that point to be "I headbutt her in the face"?

It was difficult. I've learnt that you (mostly) have to make your players the "heroes" of their story. It's their story after all. You have to be rooting for them. The whole idea of being an adversarial DM is anathema to me. But what do you do when the moral fiber of your party is... not so heroic? Not evil. Criminal maybe, but not evil. But when they actively seek to better themselves at the expense of others all the time, it's difficult for me to haul out my pom-poms and cheer them on.

Essentially, my perfect little world was being shattered by men bordering on murder hobos and I didn't have the mental agility to make the leaps with the party. That made the campaign difficult and a lot shorter than it could have been as I focused on nothing but the story material. It just wasn't a game I wanted to run and so my motivation for it dwindled and I didn't actively go out to expand the world beyond the confines of the book. 

I learnt much from this little experiment in DM-ing. As I finish off with this group and wish them well on their future endeavors, I realise that I am very fortunate that I discovered the two gaming groups I comfortably reside in. They're an odd bunch, but they are a quality of players I should truly appreciate. My search for such gaming friends could have been much longer and far more arduous.

I should make a point of telling them how much I appreciate them...