TTRPG Babble: How do we cultivate more game masters?

 This is going to be a pointless ramble, because I don't actually have an answer to the question. If anything, I'm rather ardently looking for it. The TLDR (too long didn't read) version of this is simply the following:

• The problem: There aren't enough people willing to step into the shoes of Game Masters to run games.
• Which creates the problem: There's no way to facilitate growth of people playing TTRPGs.
• Conclusion: Stagnation/Shriveling and general disappointment.

The longer babble:

As far as I know, there aren't any conclusive answers as to what the ratio is of GMs versus Players in the hobby. Even with D&D, it's hard to say. It is played internationally by thousands of people, sure, and for that to happen there has to be GMs running the games. But there also isn't any information on how many people are waiting to play that lack the opportunity because there isn't any facilitation of the game.

Now there are some old grognards that would say "It doesn't matter if you're new. Just GM for your friends. Read the book. It's not that difficult..." but those who learnt to GM this way are few and, in my opinion, the minority of game masters out there.

I've been playing the game for nearly ten years and started running my own games somewhere around three or four years after I started playing. The group I was in (and still play with) naturally encourages and cultivates the desire to run games for others. There is no one game master. Everyone has the chance to run. Everyone has a pet project that they would like to run and we take turns as life and busy schedules allow. It is an unpressured environment that naturally sparks curiosity and a sense of 'what if I tried?'

In the past two weeks, I've become aware of how... I don't want to say desperate... but how much people are itching to play. In the posts I see on Reddit, Discord, Facebook, etc. often involve people asking to play and other people also adding their voices to the post, wishing for the same thing: to be part of a game. 

This has bothered me quite a bit. 

I used to describe myself as someone with ultimately two passions: 1. to learn, and 2. to share what I've learnt. Because of these inherent desires, these needs required basically to function, I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from tossing my hat in the ring. To help DM multiple groups. To introduce people to this hobby that I love so much. But I can't... because I don't have the capacity to do so. I've only just started not getting burnt out from doing too much and so my ability to actually jump in and be helpful has been hobbled.

But even if I had the capacity, would that really help the problem? Because one more DM is not going to change the tide, is it? You almost need the same thing I had - where you not only learnt to play but learnt to run the game.

I guess it's the girl with the starfish story though, right? You can't save them all but you can make the world of difference to the ones you throw in the sea.

As I said above, I don't really have answers. It's just bothering me enough to write about it. I don't quite know what can be done. At the same time, I know I want to be part of the solution... without going into burnout.

Ironsworn Starforged: Yet another tale of loss, horrible dice rolls and death!

 

My tale begins in August 2023, when I received the printed copies of Ironsworn Starforged from my brother. We went to Plettenberg Bay for a couple of days and I started immediately to play the game.

Those who know Ironsworn games would know by playing I kinda mean prepping. But as Shawn Tomkin says "Prep is play". It took me a couple of hours to write out the 'Truths' of the galaxy I was going to have my character run around in and came up with a fairly interesting idea. The people had fled their former galaxy because of an AI war that broke out. But later in the truths it came out that AI were still something that some people had. So I imagined that the Ironsworn I was going to play would have strong feeling about AI and the cultivation of AI in the galaxy they were in now. She would probably do her level best to destroy any AI she could find.

There were a couple of other things I thought would be rather interesting to try out. I've always played close-combat, bashy-bashy characters, but in this world which takes inspirations from Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, there is a more gunslinger type feel. so I decided to make her a gunslinger and also an explorer - someone curious about this galaxy that they were still trying to figure out three-hundred years after arrival.

Because this game allows for improvements of assets (but not of stats), I sorta noted down some other things that she'd be interested in doing or things that could happen to her. Of course, the quest to destroy AI would be on the top of the list. She had lost her family, maybe finding a relative would be a nice thing to have her stumble over. 

I began my 'actual play' in December when work had calmed down to a crawl and life had decided to stop kicking me in the teeth. It was very slow going.

My character's first mission was to retrieve a data drive from a bandit camp. This drive would contain information on the transportation of an AI by ship to somewhere to be determined. I wanted to be cautious and play it safe, to not kill off my character in the first thing she tries to do. So I didn't make the firefights that ensued too difficult. She did get hit and such, but she didn't die and she got the drive and took it to the person who had initially wanted it. Their relationship was complicated. This helper wanted to sell the information on the drive, but kept her word and allowed my character to access the info first, not knowing that the latter's intention was to destroy the AI.

From the drive, they learnt that the AI was on it's way to Rhiannon and so the race from Argosy to Rhiannon began.

My character had a choice. She could either fly through the known routes to Welkin via Elysium and then cut to the unknown Rhiannon or go straight into the unknown. Being a bit of a hard ass and, seeing that I had gained confidence over the matter, the decision was made to go straight for Rhiannon. It would be a formidable journey that could lead to multiple discoveries.

It would also be a journey she'd never finish.

Along the way, she would encounter a pirate ship. This would be my first attempt at fighting in ship-to-ship combat. I again decided to play it safe and choose an 'easy' opponent. 

I Entered the Fray and the trouble immediately started.

*rolls the dice* 

Miss.

This meant that the opponent had the upper hand and I would be reacting to them rather than fighting from a position of strength. My character would not dodge immediately, exchanging fire with the other ship.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The miss meant that my character's ship had taken damage, but that was okay. One of the assets I had selected in the beginning of the game was a reinforced hull. So that meant that these rolls wouldn't be too difficult to do well in.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

...

By this point I was getting annoyed with my dice. But I'm not superstitious. I wasn't about to haul out another set of dice to try and break the curse that was befalling these ones. Besides, it was loadshedding and I was already playing by battery-powered lamplight. Trying to find it in the dark would not have been so easy.

This time I would try to dodge though.

React under Fire.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The ship bobs and weaves and still gets singed by the pirate. Damage is dealt and again I take heart in the fact that I have that reinforced hull.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

I almost head-desked at this point. My character's ship integrity was now zero, it was battered to bits and anything harder than a sneeze would make it fall apart completely. She'd be desperate now. Desperate to score a hit on this pirate and destroy it outright.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Strong Hit.

It was a feeling of elation that is matched only by having spent four hours in the dark and having the power finally come on. A strong hit meant that I didn't just mark one damage to the track of this pirate, but two. And because it was an 'easy' opponent, that would mean that I could finish off this combat with one last hit - even a weak hit would do.

Take Decisive Action.

*rolls dice*

Miss with Match.

I considered how to save my character. She had failed utterly and her ship was about to be blown to bits. She could probably escape, get captured, try to escape that... I just didn't know if I wanted her to be a captive to a pirate. So I decided that the dice would decide for me. If I got a strong hit, she'd be fine and captive. If I got a weak hit... she'd die but would have one last act. And if I missed, then she'd just be dead. A fart in the wind.

Face Death

*rolls dice*

Weak Hit.

So she died. But maybe what she had done, the cylinder she had shot into the void would find a curious scavenger who'd take up her cause. Or who'd write a book about her. Or something.

As for me, I'm already thinking of how to start prepping for the next character. I still kind of want to use the same Truths. Maybe I'll change the locations and have the character be from a different sector - different planets, routes, dreams, and plans. We'll see.

As inglorious as this death was, it had kept me occupied for several months and I had fun with that.

Might consider new dice though...