After a long absense, our gaming group was finally able to get together for a game. The real world sucks sometimes (like we’re actually required to attend jobs to make money, which is dumb), that’s why we escape to a fantasy one. So we were all excited to be entering our one-shot verse again and leaving our troubles behind. Except that’s not how things worked out.
By the time we were an hour and a half into our game, our DM was ready to murder us all. We players had decided to be petulant. All of us were tired from the week and taking a nap on the floor was sounding like a really nice option. And much like 2-year olds, we expressed this through immaturity and temper tantrums. So in this hour and a half we insulted some people in a tavern, poisoned each other, had a stand off with the good guys (we’re an evil party, remember), burned down another tavern, attempted to extort money from the tavern owner in exchange for saving him from said burning tavern, stole all of this tavern owner’s valuables, and then once again fought amongst ourselves.
It didn’t help that our party was made up of a female Drow assassin (who somehow ended up being the group leader and spokesperson), Zugg the half-Orc Fighter, a falsely philosophical Dragonborn Monk, and a samurai with a lot of swords and truly questionable morals.
It was about dinner time, so our DM declared it time for a break. He needed a reprieve from our in-fighting and really scary decision making processes, and a trip to the game store and a local fast food joint would be a perfect distraction. About an hour (and some ibuprofen) later, we reconvened.
The game improved from there. Energy was low for a while after our dinner break, but by the time our samurai got a hold of the time travel artifact and went back in time to change his back story in order to save his master who had been murdered, we were all invested once again. The DM was able to handle our antics and we finished the adventure on a high note, ready for the next game.
The moral of this story? Sometimes, you need to step away from a game in order to reinvest yourself in its success. This could mean taking a 5-minute water break, an hour dinner, or even putting the game off to another day. If you feel that you can’t enjoy playing because you’re tired, or unfocused, or you developed a headache because your Drow just suggested letting a bunch of people die in a fire because they couldn’t pay her to save them, call a time out. It will be more enjoyable for you and for all of your fellow players if you can bring your best to the game table.
Baby DM out.
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