Give Yourself a Break

So last time we covered initiative, action economy, turn order, and the different ways of handling them. I said that there was another way of looking at the whole topic and, um. Well. And you see…

[Record scratch sound effect] Okay. Remember even longer ago, when I wrote about creating with the brain you have? When we discussed being neurodivergent?

Well, that’s going to come into play again. See, I’m about to break a cardinal rule for people who write essays and articles like I do here, and let down the veneer of authority or even competency. We are supposed to come across like we’ve got everything all planned out and we’re guiding the reader down a path toward enlightenment (or something). Like Mr. Miyagi, once we teach someone to “wax on, wax off,” the truth of how waxing a car helps you become awesome at karate eventually becomes clear at the end. I guess. (Did that plotline make sense to anyone? I’ve washed and waxed cars in my life, but I’m pretty sure someone actually trained in martial arts would have no trouble kicking my ass.)

But the truth is, I’m just a gamer like you. I’m not a sensei. I don’t have it all figured out. I don’t even remember what the other way of looking at actions and turns I promised was supposed to be. “But Monte,” you might be asking, “shouldn’t a professional writer have written down the notes for the next article and have it all planned out?” 

The answer is, “Yeah, probably. In a perfect world.” But it’s not a perfect world and I’m far from a perfect writer. I swear I did write down notes for the next essay, but damned if I know what happened to them. 

The follow-up article was probably going to relate back to my game Stealing Stories For the Devil. How this very “indie storygame” approach ironically ties back into the earliest days of D&D, where a combat round was an entire minute long and actually represented a series of blows and parries and whatnot. How dealing with the events of a game scene by scene rather than action by action is a good alternative. And how that approach arose out of RPGs’ wargaming roots, where die rolls didn’t relate to individual actions any more than a unit represented a single soldier, but rather a few turns would actually represent hours of battlefield action carried out by entire units of men at a time.

And I could write about that. But I kind of just did. And that single paragraph is hardly an article. (Just go check out Stealing Stories, or its rulebook, Liars, which you can get as a separate pdf for pretty cheap if you’re interested in this kind of cinematic abstraction.) I could, of course, have padded it all out and made it look like that was the follow-up plan, but it would have been pretty shallow and frankly, if you’ve subscribed to this, you deserve better. I mean, yeah, it’s free, but still, I really, sincerely appreciate how many of you have signed on to read what I have to write about game design when there’s so much content out there to distract your attention elsewhere.

So instead, I’m going to write about something very, very different. But it does relate to gaming, if not game design, if you follow it through to the end.

See, I have been going through a rough time lately on a personal level. I don’t want to get into the specifics, so suffice it to say that doing good, solid work that requires focus has been difficult. I’ve managed it, but it’s been hard. I’ve also had great help. Fellow MCG designer Bruce Cordell helped me get The Magnus Archives RPG over the finish line by writing up the very cool monsters and artifacts for that game. MCG managing editor and project manager Teri Litorco has helped me keep a lot of my management and development tasks organized and on track. See, in addition to working on my own designs, I work on all the initial concepts for all our products. I read and approve every product that comes out of the company at numerous stages in the process, which often involves doing a development-level pass to help provide ideas and insights, doing final approvals on art and layout, and a lot more. I help plan out the crowdfunding campaigns. And that doesn’t even touch on all the top-level leadership decisions for running the business itself. It’s a lot.

But I easily fall into the trap of being pretty hard on myself when I don’t do everything perfectly or in a timely fashion. In addition to all the work stuff, my lawn needs mowing and my home office is a disaster. I really need to make a dentist appointment and get my car’s oil changed. That’s just normal stuff that everyone does, but sometimes when life throws you a curveball (or multiple, unrelated curveballs, all at the same time, which, let me tell you—can absolutely happen), things don’t get done perfectly or on time.

Over the last few weeks, my close friends have all told me that I need to give myself a break. I need to quit having expectations for myself that would be nigh-impossible in good, trouble-free times, let alone when life hits a rough patch. Which leads me here. Where, instead of bluffing my way through a follow-up article, I let the mask slip. I pull back the curtain and show you that instead of a well-oiled machine, it’s a cobbled together jury-rig that’s running in fits and starts. It’s not a disaster—the machine’s running—but it could be better. And frankly, the reason it’s running at all is because of my great friends and coworkers. The fact that Monte Cook’s personal life is a mess but Monte Cook Games is going great is a testament to the rest of the team who are wonderfully picking up the slack, even if they don’t completely know it. And the fact that I’m remembering to eat lunch and put gas in my car is thanks to great friends who help me out when my neurodivergent brain has fallen down a deep, dark hole.

And in truth, we should all be giving ourselves a break. When things aren’t going perfectly, rather than beating yourself up, allow yourself to learn what went wrong so that you can do better tomorrow. Or, if you can’t do that, just have some ice cream and watch an episode or three of that show you love. Accept that not everything can be perfect—that’s not how life works. In fact, life isn’t about perfection and efficiency at all. Those are traps. If you’re running a game and the session goes badly, give yourself a break and remember that you get to try again next time, and that session will probably go much better. Running a game isn’t a performance, it’s something fun to do with your friends. (See, I told you I’d bring this back to gaming.)

A friend of mine turned me on to a book by Oliver Burkeman called 4000 Weeks. The title comes from the fact that even if we live to be about 80 years old, that means we only get 4000 weeks. That’s not a lot of time, when you put it that way, because weeks go by pretty quickly. So the book is about making sure you’re using your time in the right way—not the most efficient, productive way, but the most rewarding and enjoyable way. I’ve not yet finished the book, but it’s already given me the perspective that we have such an absurdly short span of time, we should decide what matters to us individually (because your time is your time, not anyone else’s) and focus on that. 

For me, that includes not putting up some kind of veneer to make others believe that everything I do is perfect. Or worse, to make myself believe that everything is perfect. Because that only leads to disappointment. I’d rather give myself a break and prep for tomorrow’s game session. Wait—that’s tomorrow? Shit, I don’t have time to make those handouts and… no, no. Tomorrow’s game will mostly involve hanging out with friends, and that’s absolutely what I need and want right now.