It being that time of the year, I decided to reflect again on my year of gaming and see what lessons I learned. This is the second year I have done this. 

Overall, this year I gamed less than 2023. There were two main reasons. The first was that at the start of the year, I had some terrible back issues, which resulted in several months of chronic pain, such that I was not in a place to feel creative or be able to run any games. I am happy to say that I am free of any back pain, and mobile with the help of physical therapy and a professionally monitored workout regimen. 

The second reason was the end of the year. My November and December became fraught with both work (the day job kind) and a family emergency, those plus the holiday season killed nearly all my gaming from October until now.

So what did I learn this year? 

The End of the Campaign May Not Be The Most Memorable Thing About It

I typically strive to have a large and dramatic climax for my campaign arcs. I think that is pretty natural in terms of how campaigns are structured. I did this for the Children of the Shroud AP that I ran, earlier in the year. The campaign built up to a battle to prevent a new elemental force from being formed. It was the kind of battle that you would see in most TV series or a movie, but it was not the penultimate story of the campaign. 

That honor went to the third story of the campaign, Smarty Pants, which was recorded the year prior. That story had such emotion and drama that all my memories of the campaign fixate on that story, with the conclusion of the campaign being a distant third. 

The lesson from this, is that is ok. Your next game does not always have to be better than the one before it. If you are running entertaining games, having fun, doing no harm, etc, you do not have to chase the curve to make every story better than the last one. 

Also, due to the interactive nature of this hobby, you won’t be able to control which stories or moments are going to have the greatest impact, because what you prep and what happens at the table can be two vastly different things. So don’t sweat it. Keep prepping good material, and let the table do the rest. 

Some Crunch Can Be Fun

Over the past decade I have favored games with lighter rule systems, but this year I ran Mutants in the Now, and its combat system is a bit more crunchy than I am used to. For the first few months of the game, I re-read the combat system before every session. While it took more to achieve any kind of mastery, the combat system for that game was tremendous fun. The Focus system was killer-tech for me. 

My lesson learned from this is kind of an obvious one…which is to sometimes stretch beyond your comfort zone, and to make that more useful, you should stretch, but also adapt and adjust to make the experience a possible success and not a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I mean by that, is that when I chose a more crunchy game I increased my studying of the mechanics, in hopes that I could enjoy my play of it by getting to a level of mastery, and it worked. 

Gaming With Old Friends Is A Treat

I am blessed that many of the members of my regular gaming groups have been friends of mine for years, but this year I had the chance to run a game for my high school gaming group. The details of the experience are in my earlier article, but suffice to say it was a great experience and a chance to go back in time, to visit my teenage self. 

My lesson learned from this, is to do it again. My group is going to plan another gathering in 2026, and I plan to have a game to run for them. 

The Outside World Can Affect Your Campaign World

My Mutants in the Now campaign was about mutant animals as a marginalized community, living in a District-9-like environment. The campaign had themes of oppression and marginalization, with the heroes fighting to overcome those things. The campaign was going along quite well until November. 

After election day, I suddenly could not imagine running a game about oppressing a marginalized community. I asked my players if we could end the campaign after the current story, which did conclude a small arc. 

I understand Bleed as a player, but this case was one of the first times that Bleed affected me as the GM. The geo-political situation, and the impending struggles of what could come, bled into my campaign and made me unwilling to play a game that could land so close to a possible reality. For me to do a good job running that campaign, I would need to take on the mindset of an oppressor, and that was too uncomfortable.

My lesson learned from this is that Bleed for a GM is possible and not just as a character, but as the world, setting etc. 

I Was Not Bold Enough

Looking back this year, I find myself struggling with something that is not new. I wish I was bolder as a GM. I don’t mean bold, like crushing the characters under opposition, but bolder as in being less casual about my gaming and running things with more energy. 

Part of this was just the amount of pain I was in at the start of the year, and the amount of stress I had at the end. But in the middle, my own insecurities were the culprit. I am always concerned that I am “too much” and that my natural intensity for things will turn people off. I hide this by trying to be somewhat casual and detached, taking a “no worries” mentality. Often that casual approach is fine, I have run many a successful game and campaign with it, but other times I just want to let “Phil be Phil” (to paraphrase The West Wing). 

My lesson learned here is that I need to let Phil be Phil and have faith that I won’t be too much or that my group will still like me (and talk to me about it) if I am too much. 

My Hopes for 2025

First, with my health improved and with my work and family stress passed, I am hoping that I will be able to run more games. I am feeling pretty confident in that. 

Second, I think I want to get into Traveller. I have always had an interest in the game, and I have been reading a lot of sci-fi recently. I think I would like to try my hand at a long-form Sci-fi campaign.

Third, I want to work through my insecurities and really let Phil be Phil. It is something that I can bring to therapy for next year, so that I can do the work. 

Fourth, I have some ideas about some GMing advice I want to research that could lead to a new GMing book. I am not putting pressure on myself for this, but I like the idea of writing something longer than a blog post. 

My Wish To You and Your Lessons Learned

As I finish up this article, and another year of writing GMing advice (my 16th year since being on this site), I wish for you that your 2025 is full of great gaming, in the games you like to play and the ways you like to play them. 

I am also curious about your lessons learned from this year. What did you learn from gaming in 2024?