Holy mother of f$&%, I’m actually finishing something! That’s right! Today’s the end of the Let’s Make a Simple Homebrew Campaign series.

Granted, I can still find a way to stumble at the finish line and break my teeth. So, instead of daring fate to take a shot at me, I’m going to skip the Long, Rambling Introduction™. Sorry.

Anyway, let’s start finishing this s$&% up.

I’m Done; You’re Not

This is it, class. We’ve reached the end of our Simple Homebrew Campaign odyssey. That is, I’ve reached the end. You’re just getting started. Because, after today, you’ll know everything you need to know to start and maintain a Simple Homebrew Campaign. Well, not everything. You’ll know enough to do it well enough to learn the rest on your own. Because, as I’ll explain later, it’s time to stop learning and start doing. And to keep doing.

Because that’s how you really learn.

Anyway, this final lesson’s all about how to keep doing. Which is what running a campaign’s all about. Any campaign. It’s about running session after session over and over until you finally manage to win by killing the entire PC party at once. Or until you get sick of this s$&% and quit.

Oh, sure, you can theoretically end on a high note. The PCs can retire, happy and successful, and live out their days happily ever after. Theoretically. Just like theoretically Jeremy Crawford and I might someday be bestest friends and ride unicorns to the Mushroom Kingdom where we’ll live in harmonious, fungal splendor until the end of our days.

Anyway…

Once you’re done running your first Simple Homebrew Campaign — and once you’ve taken a sufficient break from behind the screen; two weeks is usually enough — you’ll be ready to start a new campaign. A More Complicated Homebrew Campaign. But I ain’t plugging another f$&%ing series. Because you’ve got all the tools you need to run as complicated a campaign as you want. You can run the Most Complicated Campaign Ever Conceived with the s$&% I’ve taught you.

Every campaign startup’s the same. Write a Premise, Plan an Adventure, Build a Party, Make a Town, Map a Region, Build a Next Adventure, and then Keep it Going. Round and round she goes.

Round Like a Circle in a Spiral in a Wheel

Being a GM’s really about doing the same s$%& over and over and over. Week after week. Session after session. But that ain’t news, is it? After all, you know running a game’s a matter of setting the scene, resolving actions, describing the results, and transitioning to new scenes. Over and over.

But keeping a campaign going is about more than just the moment-to-moment gameplay. And it’s about more than just getting ready for every next moment. And every next session. As I alluded to last time, there’s a sort of turn order to it all. A cycle. Remember that s$&% I explained about the Big Prep and Little Prep cycle? Yeah, that.

But that ain’t the only cycle I’ve mentioned, is it? Remember way back when we started this s$&%? I explained Gameplay Loops? The idea that good games cycle through different kinds of gameplay? And how those loops help pace and structure the game and maintain its internal variety?

Hell, even the individual sessions go through cycles. They ain’t just endless strings of narrations and actions and resolutions. Every session’s got an ebb and flow and rhythm to it.

Maintaining a campaign’s about spinning through different cycles. It’s like riding on a circle in a spiral on a wheel. And that ain’t just a clever song reference. I put more thought into this s$&% than it seems. Trust me. Maintaining a campaign is very specifically about going on a circle on a spiral in a wheel.

The Session Circle: Ending Where You Begin

First, let’s talk about how to manage individual gameplay sessions. Briefly. I’ve actually got a much longer article coming about session structure. Because it turns out that the Session Circle is the structure that most determines whether you run a good campaign or a s$&% one.

And that’s pretty ironic given that the Session Circle is a total metastructure. It has nothing to do with the in-game, in-world action. It’s totally imposed by the meatworld the players live in.

See, sessions don’t exist in the game world. Between sessions, the game’s world and its characters are frozen in temporal stasis. When a session ends, the GM hits the big pause button on the gamespace simulation. When play resumes at the start of a new session, the world unpauses. The characters in the world experienced no break at all.

Anyway, I ain’t going to explain a lot of the whys and wherefores. I’m just going to tell you that it’s super f$&%ing important to structure your sessions properly and tell you what a proper structure looks like. And then I’ll trust you to wait a few weeks for the bigger article before you all piss and moan about why I’m obviously wrong.

Here’s how a good session’s put together.

Bang in the Session

Whenever it’s time to actually start playing — once everyone’s connected or settled in chairs and everyone’s gone potty and picked out their dice and has beverages and all that s$&% — when it’s time to start, signal that. Doesn’t matter how you do it. Come up with an official way to start your session. Usually, I raise my voice over everyone and say, “okay, let’s get this s$%& started.”

Discuss Group Business

Once you’ve got everyone’s attention, handle the Group Business. What’s that? It’s s&$% like schedule changes and reminders, rules clarifications, conflict resolutions, homework checks, and so on et cetra ad nauseum. Anything that affects the group and the gameplay but not the actual in-game events.

Before we start playing, remember that Alice is going to be absent next week. The week after, the game’s on Monday and not Tuesday. Also, last week I allowed Dave to cast a fireball spell underwater. Fortunately, the doctor was able to remove the brain tumor behind that stupid-a$&% call. From now on, fire magic does not work underwater. Did you all remember to level up your characters and update your equipment lists? Yes, including encumbrance. Yes, we’re still tracking that. Here are a few calculators. Get that s$&% updated now before we begin.

If you don’t have any group business, invent some. Seriously. Even if it’s just something like, “the last session went really well. We were all on the ball and made good progress. Let’s keep it up.”

I s$&% you not. Say something — anything — about the game or the group before you move on to the…

Recap the Story So Far

With Group Business covered, it’s time for you — yes, you, the GM — to give a recap. I know some GMs invite their players to do start-of-session recaps. I know some GMs actually think it improves immersion and investment. And I know some GMs even like immersive little in-character journal readings by way of recap.

Those GMs are wrong. You can share all that s$&% between sessions. The GM does the Start-of-Session Recap. That’s how it is.

And you’ve got to learn how to do a proper recap.

First, remind the players what goals they’re working toward. And why. And remind them of any information they need to accomplish those goals. Provided it’ll be relevant in the upcoming session. Skip information that’s no longer relevant. And skip information that won’t be relevant until next week.

Next, briefly remind the players what major plot-relevant events happened before the start of the last session. The session you’re recapping. Skip the minor, incidental, or irrelevant s$&% that happened.

Next, provide a brief summary of the previous session’s events. Do not give a blow-by-blow account. Just remind the players what things happened, what they learned, and what the outcomes were. Sum up minor, incidental, or irrelevant s$&%. But if there was a particularly high, low, exciting, or emotional moment, include it in the recap. Even if it wasn’t plot-relevant.

Finally, remind the players where the characters are right now. And what they were planning to do next.

Once you’ve given the recap, ask the players if there’s anything they want to add. And answer any questions they’ve got. Make sure everyone agrees on the recap’s accuracy before proceeding. But don’t be afraid to tell players, “yes, that did happen, but it ain’t important. It was just a random encounter.”

Here’s a good recap…

Hired by the Crimson Alliance, the party agreed to travel to the village of Oxbow to find one of their explorers. Jacen set out for the village three weeks ago and didn’t return. The Crimson Alliance promised you 200 gp for the job and access to their master smith. You’re to rescue the explorer, recover his remains, or at least report what happened to him.

The three-day journey involved some minor encounters on the road. You also met a half-elf minstrel named Sindel who agreed to accompany you. You discovered he had no combat training, but knew a lot of local legends and myths. Including one about an imprisoned demon in an ancient church in the woods near Oxbow.

Last session, you reached Oxbow. The village was deserted and the village’s Temple had been burned. You didn’t find any bodies, though. It was like the villagers vanished. Tasla the Arcanatrix detected a lingering aura of conjuration magic and surmised the people had been teleported away somehow.

In the rubble of the burned Temple, Rodge Fastfingers found a cloak pin with the Crimson Alliance’s sigil. It was left lying prominently atop some rubble near the altar, suggesting someone from the Alliance — probably the missing explorer — had visited the Temple after it had been destroyed. And had left his pin as some kind of sign.

With no other leads, you decided to follow Sindel’s directions to the Forgotten Church in the Tangled Wood. We ended the session just before you reached the churchyard.

Does that jive with your recollections? Does anyone want to add anything?

Set the Scene and Start Gaming

Once everyone’s happy with the Recap, start running the game. Set the Scene and go. You know how to do that. And no, the last part of the recap doesn’t count as Setting the Scene. Describe the approach to the churchyard and invite the players to act. You know how to do this s$&%.

Wind Down with Plenty of Time Left

Eventually, the hour will grow late and game time will grow short. Because that’s how time works. And that’s when you’ve got to figure out when to wrap up your game.

Here’s the deal: you’ve got to have one eye on the clock. Because you never, ever want to end late. Trust me. It does way more damage than good. So, no matter how much you want to — and no matter how much your players beg — do not allow your session to go even one second later than the scheduled end time. Ending early’s okay. It’s good, even. Running late is never okay. Not ever.

You do schedule an end time, right? If you don’t, start.

Now, that end time ain’t the time you stop playing. It’s when everyone packs up to go home. The actual playtime must end before that. Well before that. At least fifteen minutes before. Ideally, more like thirty minutes before. But if you run really short sessions, that ain’t gonna be feasible.

Point is, when you hit T-minus thirty minutes, you’ve got to start looking for a good cutoff. And there’s an art to deciding when to end the gameplay. Lots of GMs will give you nice, simple rules of thumb. One of the most popular is “always end on a cliffhanger.” Do not listen to any simple rules of thumb. First, because every session’s different and the right end-point varies. And second, because following simple rules of thumb means you’ll never develop your own GMing intuition.

Really, there’s only three factors that determine when’s a good time to end the game.

First, never end the game in the middle of a scene. You always want to stop after a scene’s wrapped up or when a scene’s just about to start. That’s the classic Set the Scene and Trail Off cliffhanger gambit.

Suddenly, the back wall explodes into the room. Masonry, rubble, and flame fill the air. A massive demon pulls its way through the gaping hole. Its coal-like eyes alight on you. And… that’s where we’ll start next time.

Second, you never want to interrupt the players while they’re making plans or sorting s%&$ out.

Third — as I’ll explain below — absolutely always end a session when the party Returns to Town so the next session starts in Town. And if you had planned a bunch of road encounters on the way back to Town and you don’t have time for them before the session’s end, drop them. Skip them. Trash them.

Basically, pay attention to the clock and what’s happening in your game and what’s about to happen. Take the first good opportunity to stop playing that comes up in the last half hour of play. And if you’re at thirty-five minutes to go and you know a big combat’s about to break out, use your brain and end there. And if the players are confused, lost, or if a big reveal scuttled all their plans, rearrange things so they’ve got time to plan. Or break the game early and give them time to talk through the adventure and come up with a plan before you end the session.

Because you absolutely must know what the party’s pursuing and what their next move is before you let them leave for the night.

And you can’t let them leave late. Not even one second late.

Grade the Players

Once you’ve stopped play, it’s time to review the session’s events and dole out XP. I know some of you don’t use XP. I know some of you only give out XP at the end of adventures or at specific milestones or whatever. Guess what? You’re wrong. F$&%ing wrong. Stop. Dole out XP at the end of every session. No, I don’t care what you say your players like or what you think works best. You’re wrong.

To properly dole out XP, recap the players’ victories and defeats. Out loud. While you’re tallying. You don’t have to give a specific XP award for each thing. But you do have to let the players hear you recapping all the s$&% you think was XP-worthy. Hell, if you pull a random XP total out of your a$&% at the end of it all, the players will never know and it won’t matter.

Let’s see… you defeated the cultists in the yard and the ones in the shrine… you solved the three-headed vulture statue puzzle and got into the inner vault… you killed the animate slime mold… and you got information from the mad prisoner. But, you had to beat the crap out of him to do it. And he bit off Rodge’s finger. So, let’s call that a partial victory. All told… that’s… carry the one… umm… divide by four… 900 XP each.

If you absolutely, stubbornly, obstinately, stupidly insist on running your game wrong and therefore will never, ever do the simple, straightforward math involved in properly awarding XP, then at least end every session by recapping the victories and defeats. It’s almost as good. In the same sense that a sandwich made with dogs$&% and broken glass is almost as good as one made with roast beef and provolone.

Nice work! You defeated the cultists, solved that statue puzzle, and killed the slime mold. And you got some useful information from that crazy guy. It’s a shame you had to rough him up considering he was just an innocent victim. And a real shame that Rodge Fastfingers is now Rodge Ninefingers. But what can you do?

Preview the Next Session’s Start

Finally, end the session at last by telling the party where and how the next session’s going to start. And what the party’s plan of action is. That’s as much for you as it is for them. Because you absolutely must leave the session knowing what the party’s trying to accomplish and how they’re trying to accomplish it.

And that’s where ending on a cliffhanger can bite you in the a$&. If you end the session just when you reveal the whole quest’s been a lie based on false information and the party’s trusted ally was a traitor working for some unknown nemesis, the party is now totally at a loose end. They need to regroup and reassess and figure out what to do next. This means you’ve got to start the next session without a plan.

And you can’t do that. Not ever. That is never okay.

You must always be able to end the session by saying something like:

Next week, you’re going to have to deal with that massive flaming demon. Then, you can keep searching the church for signs of the missing villagers and the lost Crimson Alliance explorer. Sound good?

Write the Recap

Now, you ain’t done running the session just because you kicked all your players out. I mean, you are. Sort of. But you’ve got one last thing to do. And it’s what makes this a Session Circle and not a Session Procedure. You’ve got to write the recap that’ll start your next session.

Seriously.

You don’t have to do it right away though. Go ahead and get some sleep first.

The best time to write the recap is the day after the session. Don’t wait too long to do it, but absolutely never write it immediately after the session ends. Give yourself several hours at least. Then plan the Start-of-Session Recap you’re going to start the next session with. You can write or type out exactly what you plan to say — and you can even read that s$&% out loud at the next session — or you can just write a nice, simple list of key points to use when you’re recapping.

Make sure you hit all the s$&% a proper recap’s supposed to hit. Goal, motivation, information, major events from prior sessions, session summary, starting point, and next move. And do not count on yourself to remember jack s$&%. You won’t. I know you think you remember everything. But I can’t trust you when you say that because no one remembers anything they forget.

Just write this s$&% down, okay?

The Adventure Spiral: Technically an Adventure Helix

A campaign’s more than just an endless string of sessions where s$&% happens, right? Adventures have beginnings and middles and endings. And gameplay passes through loops, right? There’s modes of play and structures and s$&%.

Except, the gameplay loop’s not quite a loop. That is, it doesn’t just go around and around and end up back where it started. Each time it comes around, it’s a little different. And sometimes, it’s a lot different. That’s why I call this the Adventure Spiral and not the Adventure Loop.

Let me show you what I mean…

There and Back Again

So, I keep talking about this circular, looping structure that’s built into the bedrock of fantasy adventure games like D&D, right? In the first Simple Homebrew Campaign lesson, I called it a gameplay loop. I built it into my premise in the second lesson. And I reintroduced it when I taught you how to Build a Town. The whole idea of going on an adventure and then Returning to Town? Remember?

That gameplay loop’s actually super important for some pretty non-obvious reasons. The most important most non-obvious of which is that it actually syncs the campaign’s narrative structure with its gameplay structure. I ain’t going into too much detail about that high-level s$&% here. Just consider this. A story has an inciting incident, rising action, a climax, and a denouement. Meanwhile, a D&D adventure has a goal, a bunch of minor conflicts, a major conflict, a resolution, and downtime. See the parallel?

Your game’s likely going to fall into a natural cycle of Adventuring and Returning to Town. Even when the adventure takes place in a town. Thus, your game will generally comprise two or three sessions of actual adventure s$&% followed by one-half to one session of downtime and Town business and adventure setup. It won’t always work out perfectly, but the closer you veer toward that ideal, the better your game will feel.

That’s the fantasy adventure gameplay loop right there. The party accepts a quest in Town. They complete the quest wherever. Then, they return to Town, turn in the quest, get their rewards, interact with the world a bit, recover, resupply, and level up. Then, they find a new adventure.

Make that happen, cap’n. Distinguish between Adventure Sessions and Town Sessions. Plan accordingly. End your sessions to align with that s$%$. Even if it means ending really, really early. Like I said above, always end a session when the party Returns to Town. Even if it means dropping, adding, or adjusting your content.

Town Sessions must start in Town. They can move on to Adventures later. But Adventure Sessions can’t Return to Town.

But this Town Session and Adventure Session s$&% is still a loop. Not a spiral. So let’s talk about the next level.

Moving On

Honestly, there’s lots of ways this adventure cycle s$&% constitutes a spiral and not a loop. The characters get stronger and the players get smarter with every adventure. In theory anyway. So the game’s always moving upward. And good GMs up the scope, scale, and stakes with each new adventure. But none of that’s what I’m talking about here.

When I say this adventure cycle’s actually a spiral, I mean that sometimes the party’s going to move on to a new Town. Maybe even a new Region.

After the party’s done two or three adventures out of one Town, they’re usually ready to move on to some bigger, better, grander place. And even if they’re not, you — the GM — likely are. That means, every so often, you’ll have to Build a New Town. And since there’s only one other settlement on your Regional Map, you’ll also occasionally have to Map a New Region. That’s no big thing, though. You know how to Build Towns and Map Regions. So, Build a Town or Map a Region. Eventually — if you can keep this s$&% going long enough — you’ll have a whole world of adjacent, regional maps taped together.

Moving On’s an important part of all this fantasy gameplay bulls$&%. Especially when it comes to Simple Homebrew Campaigns. Oh, sure, some campaigns stay in the same home base Town forever. But that’s a lot trickier to do right than it seems. So, once the players have had a few adventures out of one Town, whether they’re ready or not, push them out of the nest and on to the next Town.

How? It’s simple. Next time they Return to Town, instead of dropping an Adventure Hook on them, drop a Move On Hook instead. Basically, give them a reason to head for the next dot on the map. The easiest way’s to build a one-session adventure about going to the next Town. Let the party escort a caravan or an important NPC. Or give them a trinket with runes that only the expert in the next Town can translate.

There’s some galaxy brain s$&% you can do to really push the party to the next dot. Maybe their NPC friends are moving on, leaving the players feeling like they’re getting left behind. Maybe the shopkeepers can’t afford to buy their treasures anymore. Maybe their trainers are all like, “wow, you’re good enough that you could probably train with Master Tenoshi in Big Pond.” S$&% like that.

When the party Moves On, Town sessions tend to stack up a little bit. Because they usually Move On from Town — leaving during a Town session — and they usually need a Town session or two when they arrive at their new home to get their bearings and make contacts and s$&% like that.

Point is, Moving On tends to jumble the Adventure and Town Session cycle a little bit. That’s fine.

It also f$&%s with your prep a little.

The Wheel of Prep: It’ll Raise You Up and Grind You Down

Speaking of prep…

When I started this series, I introduced the idea of Prepping One Session at a Time. Then, I told you I’d lied and introduced the idea of Big Prep and Little Prep. Well, guess what? I lied again.

Sorry.

Now I’m going to add another twist to the whole prep thing. Or rather, a wheel.

The Wheel of Fortune.

The Wheel of Fortune ain’t a TV show. Though the TV show did actually have a thematic connection to the Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune was this medieval idea that everyone was strapped to a big wheel. Like a wagon wheel. Metaphorically strapped. Sometimes, the wheel would grind you down into the mud. And sometimes, it would carry you up toward the sky. Wherever you were at, your fortune was always destined to change. And it didn’t matter whether you were a king, a peasant, a knight, a wizard, a hobbit, or a dragon.

Prep’s a lot like the Wheel of Fortune. Sometimes, you’re at the top of the wheel and you’ve got to do a bunch of big-picture s$&%. Like Building New Towns or Mapping New Regions. Sometimes, you’re grinding out sessions in the mud. And you’ve got little s$&% to do. Statting Encounters and Mapping Dungeons. S$%& like that. And sometimes, you’re in between and you’re doing the mid-tier s$&%. Planning Next Adventures.

I’ve got two points here. First, you’re always strapped to the wheel. Which means you’re always prepping. And you’re always heading back to the mud. This means you’re always going to be running a next session. Which means you’ve got to find time to prep between every session. Even if it’s just an hour. It’s unavoidable.

Second, you’ve got to pay attention to where you are on the wheel. Specifically so you know what’s coming next. That way, you can prep the s$&% you need when you need it.

World Prep

World Prep’s the highest-level, longest-view prep there is. But don’t confuse this s$&% with world-building. Real homebrewers don’t world-build. They World Prep. And they World Prep only when it’s time for the party to Move On. World Prep’s when you Build New Towns and Map New Regions. And when you figure out how to get the players heading off toward those horizons. World Prep’s involved and time-consuming. And because you need to build the Move On Hooks into the next Town session, you usually do it before the party Returns to Town.

Adventure Prep

Adventure Prep’s the mid-tier, middle-distance prep. It’s what I called Big Prep before. Top-level adventure planning s$&%. Writing Premises, Summarizing Adventures, Determining Motivations, Setting and Baiting Hooks, Writing Act Structures, all that s$&%. Whenever you know the party’s close to finishing an adventure, you need to do this s$&%. And because you’ve got to hook this s$&% into Town, you usually do it before the party Returns to Town.

Side Note: The Importance of Town

If you’re paying careful attention — and you’d better be — you’ve probably noticed that I mention this Returning to Town thing a lot. That’s because the Town — the concept itself — keeps all the different campaign cycles in sync. At least, it can. And that’s really valuable. That’s why you always start Town Sessions in Town but never return to Town partway through a session. Even if you have to end a session super early or cut a bunch of game content or whatever. That keeps the Session Circle in sync with the Adventure Spiral and helps you manage the Prep Wheel by ensuring you’re never trying to do World Prep and Adventure Prep at the same time or in the middle of an adventure.

I told you this s$%$’s way more thought out than it seems.

Session Prep

Session Prep’s what you do when you’re about to get ground down into the mud of actually running a game session. I called it Little Prep. It’s where you build the encounters and scenes and stat the NPCs and map the dungeons and basically design the moment-to-moment gameplay that fills each session.

You absolutely must always do some Session Prep between gameplay sessions. Even if you think you don’t need any Session Prep. Let’s say, for instance, the party leaves Town and heads for their next adventure at the end of a session. Now, it just so happens you had a super-productive weekend before the Town session you just finished. Insofar as planning out the plotlines for your pretend elf game can be termed productive.

Anyway…

As luck has it, you did all your Adventure Prep and two sessions worth of Session Prep too. You’ve got all your maps mapped and all your encounters statted for the next couple of weeks. Great! That means you’ve got two weeks off from prep work, right?

Wrong.

First, nothing ever goes according to plan. And if things are going according to plan, you usually want to derail that s$&%. So, if you’re between sessions and you already have enough content to fill the next session, you do some Tweak Prep.

Tweak Prep

Tweak Prep’s the lowest level of prep. It’s where you re-prep s$&% you already prepped just to make sure that nothing’s changed. Or to make sure you don’t want to change nothing. Basically, you review the recap you prepared for the next session, check over what you do have prepped, make sure the party’s still headed where you thought they were going to head, and see if you need to make any changes.

Even if the s$&% you planned in advance does align with what the party’s doing — by some utter f$&%ing miracle — you might still have some new things to deal with. Maybe the party adopted an NPC unexpectedly and you want to add a scene that develops the NPC a little. Maybe the party missed some important info and you want to figure out how that’ll affect some other encounter. Maybe you pulled a rival NPC from your a$% mid-session last time and you want to find a way for the rival to f$&% up the adventure’s climax.

Note I’m not saying you should change the adventure to make it winnable even if the PCs f$&%ed up. Don’t do that. Never do that. Never remove the consequences of the players’ choices. It ain’t your job to protect your players from their stupid decisions and crappy luck; your job’s to make them lie in the bed they made. Even if the dice helped make the bed.

But do take some time to adjust the adventure to incorporate the players’ choices. And do feel free to add clever, crazy ideas to your adventures as they occur to you. Especially if they build on s$&% you already set up.

Side Note: When Enough is Enough

I said it’s cool to add new ideas and game elements as they occur to you. But that’s only true some of the time. Honestly, Tweak Prep can be really dangerous. GMs are always pulling new ideas from their a$&es. And they always want to cram those new ideas into their games. I know. I do it all the time. And I sabotage the hell out of myself. No matter how great your ideas are, bogging your game down with too many new ideas always leads to disaster.

The rule’s this: if the adventure’s going into its third session — or beyond — or you’re past the midway point of a single Town session, you are not allowed to introduce anything you hadn’t already introduced. Or planned on introducing. No new plot threads. No new sidequests. No new characters. Nothing.

And that rule’s not just for Tweak Prep. It’s also for improvisational bulls$&%. Past the midway point of an adventure’s second session? Past the midway point of a single Town session? Use the s$&% you planned. Don’t add anything new. And if you’re out of content, wrap up the session or the adventure. It’s done. Move on.

Gitting Gud

I’m at the end of the lesson now. And, as I said, you know enough now to Start and Run a Simple Homebrew Campaign. You know more than enough. Way more than you need to know. And that means it’s time to stop reading about this s$&% and start running your campaign.

And now I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear. It’s something I say a lot. And something a lot of people disagree with me about. And the reason people disagree with it is that they don’t want it to be true. Because it sucks.

GMing’s an art. It’s not a science. It’s not a process. It’s a complex mishmash of a thousand different skills. And it’s about providing an entertaining and satisfying narrative and gameplay experience. Which is a totally subjective, emotional thing. Which means that GMing is beyond rational, logical, systematic understanding. It’s a mostly intuitive thing.

And therefore, it’s one you can only learn experientially. Through practice.

Once you’ve got a very basic level of proficiency — and that’s what I’ve given you here — you’ve got all the rational, systematic, learnable information that’s useful to have. There’s no use thinking, reading, or studying any more of this s$&%. Not until you’ve run your own Simple Homebrew Campaign for at least twelve sessions.

Seriously. I s$&% you not. Twelve sessions. At least.

I’m not saying you should stop reading my site. Please keep reading. I need you. But the reading’s not going to do you any f$&%ing good unless you also spend months and months and months putting this s$&% into practice.

Practice. Experiential learning. That’s how your brain’s wired to learn complex skills. And it ain’t pleasant. It ain’t fun. Because it means doing something you suck at. And doing it a lot. And because experiential learning is incremental — and most of the early gains are more about lessening the f$&% ups than building up the successes — you’re barely aware of the progress you’re making. Even though you’re making progress.

Originally, I had a thousand-word speech arguing this case. But there’s no point. Most of my readers aren’t going to believe me here. No matter what I say. Because if I’m right, it means that getting good at running games sucks. Who wants to believe that? But it’s true. There’s no easy, painless tricks to instantly upping your GMing game. If anyone says there are, they’re lying to you. And if you think there are, you’re lying to yourself.

So, take what I’ve taught you and run a campaign. And keep running it. For months. Keep slamming your head against it. Eventually, it won’t hurt so much. Commit to twelve sessions — at least — running your Simple Homebrew Campaign the way I laid out. No quitting. No matter how much it seems to suck. No experimenting. No looking for other, better, more different advice. Just f$&%ing practice.

The only difference between me and you is that I spent thirty-five years banging my head against this s$&%. Even though I had no idea what I was doing for a good, long time. And I knew I sucked at it. You haven’t put in your years. That’s the only difference. And beyond the basic-a$& proficiency I’ve tried to provide — and beyond this encouraging little speech — there’s nothing I can give you that’ll let you skip the years of practice.

Sorry. That’s just how it be.

Good luck!