Best advice you were ever given for your game of choice?

The best piece of advice I was given was for GMing in general, and it was a “lightbulb” moment for me as a younger game master. That piece of advice?

“The Game Police Don’t Exist.”

Which is to say, the gaming company is not sending Game Police around to make sure you’re following The Rules. There is no wrong way to play your game. If your players and you are having fun, you’re doing it right. If you have to house-rule the crap out of the rules to get there, do it. Every RPG is open to tinkering and adjusting and house-ruling to make the game work the way you want. Do the thing you need to do to get the game to where you find it fun and exciting. The same goes with settings, or modules/scenarios, or any other RPG books. Use what you need, put the rest aside for later.

This touches a bit back to Gatekeeping and the idea that there is some mystical Right Way of gaming. When I was younger, yeah, I was one of those annoying gits who thought that way. But if I can tell you one thing, after 37 years of gaming, it’s this: there are many paths to a great game. Talk to your players and figure out what your group needs, then get rid of everything else. It can take work, and trial and error. But it’s worth the time you put in; no one has time to waste playing games which aren’t fun.

And thus ends RPGaDay for 2016. I hope you found some of it useful and/or entertaining. We resume a three posts a week schedule starting this weekend, so if you tuned in for the month I hope you’ll keep coming back.