I've been quite introverted all my life and this is something that helped me break out of that. It’s a social role-playing game. You play someone else and it can be, I guess, an escape. You could escape from your life, your world and you can go somewhere else. I think people do that with different things, but this was something that was also social, so you could do it with lots of different people.
I was never the top at school. I was one of those people who try really hard. I was just OK. That made me quite envious of people and I guess my self-esteem went down. But then in more recent years when I started my club up, I did this with so many different people and every week I'd be playing with different people and that was just something that really got me out of my shell. As I was in charge of it as well, I had to do a lot of public speaking. Speaking to the group of people was something quite big for me and changing, I guess, the way I see myself as well.
I always thought of myself growing up that I wasn't talented at anything. I always thought it's a bad thing that I'm not like amazing at one thing. But I've realised that being good at a range of things is a lot more useful than being amazing at one thing.
Running a game, if you don't listen to what your players want and then empathise with them, they're not going to stay very long and it's a skill, I guess, that's just part of me. You've just got to really listen to them all the time and I think when I say listen sometimes it's more a feeling rather than just with your ears.
If you want to do Dungeons and Dragons, a shared storytelling adventure, it's a shared story. Make sure your players have impact in your story, make sure they're part of the world. It's so important, because if they're not, then what investment do they have in it? Collaboration is what makes it work.
I wrote a blog recently about tips and one of them was just have fun. I remember being so stressed sometimes, trying to get every little bit in place for my players, running around like a headless chicken and I missed some of the fun. So just enjoy the moment, like you enjoy the moments in the game. Enjoy the moments in your life as well.
