How to Turn Over the Reigns

It is that time of year, the official launch of the boffer season for those of us that play Eldaraenth. As the guy in charge, I have to admit, that I’m a little nervous because this is the first event of our new National Story Marshal, and letting go of one of the responsibilities that has been weighing me down over the last couple of years has left me feeling more anxious that relieved.

Honestly, I shouldn’t be worried, I have faith in the new NSL and the other National Officers, but there is always a bit of worry when you let your baby go off into the hands of someone else. For the first time, I am really starting to understand the position our founders were in when I took over the game. Which leads me to the point of this week’s post:

How to Step Aside and Let Someone Else Do the Work

There are a lot of reasons you might need to step aside. If your game is growing (like mine is) you might need to take a more administrative role and have less direct involvement of the majority of the games day to day bureaucracy, or maybe you’re just worn out and need a good long break. The important thing is to recognize that you do need to step aside, and that there are ways that you can handle that smoothly.

1 – Find the Best Person for the Job

It’s important that you find someone who is capable, willing, and just as importantly willing to work with you. The better a relationship you have with this person, the better both of your lives will be. You need to trust them to do their job well, and force yourself to remember that if you didn’t trust them, you wouldn’t have given them the role in the first place.

2 – Make Sure They have What They Need

I’m going to admit to you all that I’m a little lacking in this. My new Story Marshal has asked me for quite a bit of information that she might need to run the story properly, and is only available inside my head. I have every intention of answering her questions because she does need that information, but something always seems to come between my intentions and my actions. For example, this blog post.

As a result she might be limited in what she was wanting to do with this weekend’s event.

I also have to admit that part of me is hesitant to turn over the entire world to her, and that has kept me back a bit. This is an issue I really need to get over, because:

3 – You Can’t Micromanage

I won’t be an effective game leader if I’m spending my time trying to do the jobs of my officers instead of my own. That means I need to get over the hang ups I might have with giving editorial control to the new person. This is especially stupid in my case because the person in question is probably also the person with the most knowledge of my vision of the world outside of myself and the game’s Head Game Designer.

Besides, 10 years under me has gotten a little stale, so it is time to let the world have a breath of fresh air so to speak.

4 – Concentrate on What YOU Need to Be Doing

There is a reason you have passed the torch, so focus on that. If you are just stepping down to enjoy playing, go play, if you’re stepping down to focus on developing mechanics or putting out fires, then you should do that.

Focus on what needs your attention, and before you know it, you won’t even have time to worry about what the new person is doing.

5 – Enjoy Helping Someone Else Shine

There is a definite feeling of accomplishment to helping someone else step up and take a bigger role.

That’s one of the founding ideals of the boffer tradition in Eldaraenth. We strive to make each other not just better fighters, but better leaders, woodsman, craftsmen and people.

Enjoy the fact that this is one way you can spread that tradition to more than just combat.

 

Take it easy this weekend. I’ll be back next week, hopefully not injured or too terribly sore from shaking off the winter rust.

Running a LARP Event: Recovery

If everything is going well, then you won’t be in the middle of this bonfire, but instead sitting around the outside of it drinking in both a well deserved sense of satisfaction and probably something best referred to as an “adult beverage.” Take your time to enjoy yourself and let the cares of the day burn away because after about the first 3 rounds of drinks, the comments of the day are going to come in.

Now, no matter what, 90% of the things anyone will say to you will be, “Great event, I had so much fun.” Gather these in your heart and hold on to them. These compliments will fortify you for the real work of the next few days, which is taking the other 10% of the comments and learning from them. Generally speaking, most of the negative feedback will actually be pretty good constructive criticisms that you can learn from, but some of it will just be hurtful words from someone that wishes the event had gone differently for any myriad of reasons, most likely because of something that happened to their character, and almost always it will be something beyond your control.

Of course, you should never forget that some people are also just dicks.

The key to all of this is to figure out who is giving you good feedback to make the next event even better.

I have a very simple way I determine the value of feedback.

Step 1 - Enjoy praise, and remember it, but don’t focus on it.

It’s important to remember what you did right, but we really do learn more from our mistakes. It’s good to get the compliments, though, it lets you know that the players, who you spend so much time thinking of as the enemy, really are your friends and do appreciate what you give them. Also, it makes you feel really good inside. You deserve to feel proud. Running an event is not an easy task.

Step 2 - Ignore the angry ramblers.

Generally speaking, you can easily tell who is just spouting garbage for the purpose of stirring up drama or because they have a personal reason to be angry. You can tell, because either they won’t say anything directly to you, or when they do, it will be loud and and spittle ridden. There is nothing you will learn from these people other than that you don’t want to party with them that night. Ignore them completely. If you don’t, you’ll only let their issues drag you down. If they have real issues, they’ll come to you or another officer when they’re calm and talk about it rationally.

Step 3 - Seek out the people that matter to you.

Chances are, there are players that came before you, and that you respect and admire. They have probably been there before and have already learned some of the lessons that you are going through now. Listen to their advice and take a bit more stock in their praise. Make sure you seek out other veteran players, too. Even players that have never run an event, but have quite a bit of experience being part of an event will usually give you great feedback on what you can do to improve.

Step 4 - Tuck it away, and play.

There will be plenty of time in the next few weeks to go over the notes and ideas that you got from people after the event, but there are only so many hours to a post revel. Go out and enjoy yourself with the stories, songs and jokes around the campfire.

Remember, this is a game that you love, and you should keep loving it.

Relax and Enjoy.