Twenty-Five Years Behind the Screen

I didn’t notice the anniversary at first.

It snuck up on me the way most milestones do: quietly, while I was looking up some stuff for an upcoming Star Wars RPG project I’m working on, when it clicked. Star Wars d20 came out in 2000. I bought it the week it hit shelves. I ran it immediately.

That was twenty-five years ago.

Twenty-five years of sitting behind the screen. Twenty-five years of half-finished notebooks, hastily drawn maps, overconfident villains, and players doing things I never planned for. I’ve been a Dungeon Master, Game Master, Keeper, Watcher, Judge, Storyteller, whatever the system wanted to call me, for a quarter of a century.

That realization sent me looking backward to see what stuck.

The Rules Matter Less Than I Thought They Did

Early on, I treated rules like scripture. If the book said it worked a certain way, that was the way it worked, even if it slowed the game to a crawl or sucked the tension out of a moment.

That didn’t last.

Over time, I learned that rules are tools, not chains. They’re there to support the experience, not dominate it. Some of my best sessions came from bending a mechanic to fit the fiction or making a snap ruling because the moment demanded it.

Consistency matters more than correctness. If the table trusts you, they’ll follow you through a bad call. If they don’t, no amount of page-flipping will save the game.

Preparation Is About Confidence, Not Control

I used to prep obsessively. Flowcharts, contingencies, fully statted NPCs who would never see play. I wanted to be ready for anything.

Players cured me of that.

No plan survives first contact with a table of creative people. The goal of prep isn’t to predict what players will do. It’s to give yourself enough footing to react when they do something unexpected.

Now I prep situations instead of plots. I think about what factions want, what will happen if the players do nothing, and where the pressure points are. Everything else can emerge at the table.

Improvisation stopped being scary once I realized it’s just collaboration, happening much, much faster.

The Table Is the Game

This one took the longest to sink in.

I spent years thinking the game lived in the setting, the plot, the clever twist I was saving for act three. None of that matters if the people at the table aren’t engaged.

Every great campaign I’ve run wasn’t great because of its lore. It was great because of the group. Their jokes. Their arguments. Their emotional investment in things I barely expected them to notice.

My job isn’t to perform for the table. It’s to listen, respond, and give their choices weight. The story belongs to everyone, even when I’m the one describing the world.

Failure Is a Feature

Early Mark hated failure. Missed rolls felt like interruptions. Character setbacks felt like derailments.

Now I know better.

Failure creates texture. It forces characters to adapt. It makes victories mean something. Some of the most memorable moments I’ve seen at the table came from plans going wrong in interesting ways.

Let the dice complicate things. Let consequences linger. Players remember the scars more than the clean wins.

Tone Is More Important Than Plot

I can barely remember the full story arcs of some long campaigns. I remember how they felt.

Was the game hopeful? Bleak? Dangerous? Those emotional through-lines matter more than whether the villain’s plan made perfect sense.

Once I started thinking in terms of tone, my games became more cohesive. Every ruling, description, and NPC reaction reinforces that shared emotional space. Players pick up on it immediately, even if they can’t articulate it.

You’re Allowed to Change

I’m not the same GM I was in 2000. I’m not even the same GM I was five years ago.

I’ve learned new systems. I’ve abandoned old habits. I’ve become more interested in quieter moments, smaller stakes, and character-driven play. That doesn’t mean the old stuff was wrong. It means growth happened.

If you’ve been running games for a long time and feel restless, that’s a signal, not a failure. Try a different genre. Shrink the scope. Hand the spotlight to the players more often. Let yourself evolve.

Why I’m Still Doing This

After twenty-five years, the reason hasn’t changed much.

I run games because I love watching people make meaning together. I love the moment when a table goes quiet because something just landed. I love laughter, surprise, and the strange alchemy that happens when imagination becomes shared reality.

Star Wars d20 was just the beginning. The systems changed. The settings multiplied. The lessons accumulated slowly, session by session.

If I’m lucky, I’ll be writing a similar post in another 25 years, still learning, still making mistakes, still sitting behind the screen, dice in hand, wondering what my players are about to do next.

And knowing, at last, that whatever it is, it’ll probably be better than my plan anyway.