The Pre-GMing Ritual
Or my lack of one, to be precise
I attended a D&D 5e one-shot campaign at a bar once and just before we started the dungeon master asked us to wait a few minutes. When he came back he wore a silk shirt, a black baseball cap that said “DM” in bold, red letters, and he stood over the table with enthused focus. He hosted a great session filled with wacky hijinks, funny voices, and some genuinely impressive improv.
When the session ended, I bought him a beer as thanks and then asked, “so what’s with the shirt and hat?”
He explained that every time he game mastered, he wore those clothes. I asked why he changed into them as opposed to just wear them all day on the days he was going to GM and he said it was part of his ritual. He never ran a game without those clothes or his ritual.
That fascinated me, because it was the first time I really equated the art of game mastering to acting. There’s obviously a lot of overlap as they are both performances, but a game master has so much more to balance when it comes embodying both a world and a ruleset. In my opinion GMing is a challenge that can’t be tamed with a methodical procedure.
From my experience with stage comedy, I’m familiar with rituals. I knew one stand up who would spend 10 minutes in the bathroom trying to vomit before their set. The actors of a sketch show I helped write would take a selfie together before each show. An improv group I was in would have all the players sit in silence together for a few minutes before each show. To this day, I have no idea if any of them worked, but everyone swore by them.
Well everyone but me of course. I’m oddly suspicious of other people’s suspicions; there’s no intent to ridicule, but I have a hard time accepting any form of spiritual transcendence. I wasn’t a very good Sunday school student either.
Prior to every game I run, I have no ritual. I’d get set up early, maybe eat something and just use my time to write up notes, memorize rules, and read some lore. That could be argued as a ritual in of itself, but it doesn’t feel like one to me. Nothing about it changes my mindset or gets me amped to run the game, so I don’t consider it a ritual.
However, as I’ve jumped into the world of professional GMing I can’t help but wonder if I’m limiting myself. Would I be better GM if I did 100 jumping jacks, or if I meditated under a tree, or if I did a couple of shots of whiskey before a game. Maybe I would be better, but it’s probably too late to indulge in a new ritual to create a mindset.
Perhaps I will develop one, maybe not that whiskey one, but I don’t think it’s a top priority. If there’s anything to takeaway from these ramblings it’s that the only blocker to anyone becoming a better GM is yourself. Whatever ritual you might need is the right one.
Do you have a ritual before you GM? Let me know in the comments. And welcome to my Substack.