DB

I want to talk about the importance of setting boundaries for yourself or expectations of your own ability and how that affects your self-confidence. So, this comes from a video that I watched from Patrick Bartley who is a Grammy-nominated, renown and well known saxophonist, composer, and band leader within the jazz community. And he mentioned that within that community, there is an aspect of you where you put on a show or a performance, and someone comes up to complement you. And then, your immediate reaction is to downplay the compliment as a show of being humble. While that is taught to people, there’s a difference between being humble and truly believing that you do not deserve the compliment.

There is an amount of kindness that you should show yourself. While building proper self-esteem may be a discussion made with a therapist or counselor, and I am neither of those, there is a good amount of work that can be done with level setting “what is good”.

Comparing Yourself Against the Greats

In Bartley’s discussion of this phenomenon, this happens in the jazz community, and other communities as well. If you’re focused in a field and you want to get better at your craft, you compare yourself against the greats. So, you compare yourself against those that you Idolize, the people that you respect. You like their work and you want your form of the art to look like theirs. And that’s like, that’s what you would attribute to being good, right?

So, for me, in the tabletop field, I really look up to Aabria Iyengar. I like the way that she does transitions. I like the way that she can include her players in a game, and the way that she emphasizes moments that her players have created. I also like that she claims that she cannot do voices—she is not an actor. Although I have the flexibility of a voice to be able to do voices, I don’t currently have the skill set to retain, or be able to do voices based on notes that I take. So, while that is something that I would like to obtain, I think it is more likely, more obtainable, and more realistic within my current wheelhouse to focus on other skills that I already have a semblance of a foundation for.

With the skills that I already have, I can work to further refine them towards the aspects that forms an Aabria Iyengar styles of running a game. That sort of like prep and attention to details given by your players and given by yourself within the world. Highlighting players, and just giving drops and sprinkles of magic, within a game, which I think is like really fascinating. I would really like to take a closer look at some of her actual play samples. Well, some of her longer form stuff like, Exandria Unlimited, to fully understand what she really does. But, I do know that I like her games. Recognizing that you like something is a part of forming your own style, after all.

Brennan Lee Mulligan is another GM whose style that I enjoy. He can do voices and is consistent with them. The conflicts he gives to the party fees grounded and inspired by the player characters, which I think is a writing discipline and training, with ample discussion between GM and player to set that up. There is a lot of mutual work with one another, player and GM, and probably with a greater team who has that production skill set with them. His improv as a whole and learning to pivot off your scene partners to find and create moments that highlight aspects of characters, their relationships, or just highlights something funny in that scene.

But, You’re Not a Great

So, once you understand what you want to emulate, then you can measure yourself against them. And, so that’s how you check whether you’re “good or not”, right? There is a thing that not everyone’s going to be a professional athlete.  Everyone who plays basketball will not be at the .00001% of top ability of athleticism and game IQ and whatnot to be able to perform at that level. And it might be a resource problem and it might be like you’re just not getting it sort of problem and that’s okay. You can still be excellent within your field. You can still be great within like the context of your table, or your community, and that can be fine. You don’t have to be the next Michael Jordan. You can just be the next…you!

Be The Best Version of Yourself

You can be the best version of yourself, which is why we do art, and strive for perfection in the first place. It’s satisfying to obtain a talent, and hone it into a greater competency. It’s satisfying. So, there’s that.

 It is important to acknowledge that hey, maybe you won’t get to the level of “best in the world”, right? So how do you determine what is good for you?

Well, you can compare your current work and ability against your previous works. There is an excellent channel that I have been getting recommended lately. Pirate Software, who focuses on video game development. He talks a lot of shop, and one of the things that he says, when like trying to like figure out like, “Hey, am I good? Can I make games?” Pirate Software says, “Compare YOU to past YOU. That’s how you know if you’re progressing or not.”

So in terms of like, art and whatnot, while you can use the greats as a measuring tape or that golden standard that you want to achieve, it’s also important to measure your performance against your own capabilities, right? Like, while you’re growing as a kid, if you’re measuring your height, you only know you get taller because you have previous record of where you were. It’s not like, “Oh, I’m gonna measure my height and then I’m going to look at the tallest person in the world.” And in that comparison, I didn’t get tall at all. Understanding measurements and the context of using those stats is important for realizing what you are measuring.

So yeah, in terms of like what I think is good for me, I think like my golden goal that I want to reach besides emulating GMs like Aabria Iyengar, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Matthew Mercer, Jason Carl, and so many excellent others, is wonderful but I don’t think that’s the ideal for me that I want to reach.

The Skill Set I Want

I think within my own in terms of actual like measurable skills that you can develop, there are a few that I have in mind that I would like to form my style and expression of self within the TTRPG space.  I want to be able to make my players feel welcome at a game, so I can recognize moments where players are not engaging and I can cue them in and include them if they want to be included, if they need that push. It’s going to be hard to get your say in unless your fellow players or GM makes room for your say. Being able to learn how to both properly include others and to develop my listening, observation, and communication skills to ensure the safety of my players. That’s where I want to be as a GM.

Like, that’d be awesome not only as a GM but also as an improviser. Sometimes, I do notice that it can be hard for me to like understand what’s going on in a scene. If a person is a newer player, they don’t typically make strong choices or commitments to their characters. For me, since I typically like to support my scene partner and then build on my own thing, it can feel unsteady because neither of us are making strong choices. I have to work on leading in with a strong choice so that my scene partners can play off of something. Making clear decisions both for myself and the world can help set up a solid framework and a stable foundation for my fellow players to play off of, so that they feel safe both on stage and at the table. I still am working on it, and I’ll keep getting better at it!

I think that’s it. Be kind to yourself, set goals, but also know how to check whether you’re doing better or not.