Description

I’m going to talk about player agency in sessions and out of sessions. I will cover a few topics with this. I want to cover player motivation, emotions and share a bit of my GM’ing journey in which I will put a spotlight on specifically this subset of running the game. Since I am both a Dungeon master and a Game designer the anecdotes I have will be mainly D&D centric but should apply to both games and other TTRPGs.

A GM once told me that there are certain phases in the GM learning curve. She told me that over time you’re going to wonder why the players aren’t doing what you have prepared for them. You get defensive of your story and expect things of the players. And then you eventually enter a certain mindset that will completely change the way you look at hosting. You realise the players are writing the story too.  I went through it all, and I want to share with DM’s how I came to eventually understand the advice more and I want to share that bit of knowledge with you.