It feels strange as the lead writer of D&D Duet to be writing to you about extended breaks in duet gaming. You may have seen external signs of that already in the slow-down of content we’ve produced over the last few months, even this year on the whole, but at the same time, maybe it isn’t so strange after all.
From the beginning, Jonathan and I set out to share the truth of our game and experience so that we could help others with their one-on-one D&D game. With all the advice we share, the adventures we write, the interviews we give, we’ve made a conscious effort to specify when what we’re saying is true for our gaming table so we’re not setting ourselves up as a standard by which others should measure themselves.
We like to share from both our successes and our mishaps: how to avoid conflict in high-stakes combat, how to be mindful of pacing and action economy, how to check in during intense social encounters—all of these lessons emerged from experiences at our own table, and in this post, I want to share, openly and honestly, about one of the new sets of lessons we’ve been experiencing.
Confession: It has been approximately three months since we sat down to play our duet game together. And I would say that off and on for the past year or so, we’ve hit rough patches where the inspiration for what comes next just doesn’t seem to be there.
This is a problem I’ve run into before as a novelist and, as a novelist, I know that a story cannot be forced. (And in the times I forget, I have a very kind husband, a thoughtful editor, and a wise writing coach who are ready to remind me.)
As a novelist, I also know that much of my best, even my favorite, work has come out of periods of stuck-ness. I even have a course in partnership with the Storytelling Collective to help people break out of being stuck on their projects!
what feels different this time
But the stakes for not being sure of what comes next, even not feeling the inspiration for our next steps in our game, have been different coming from our duet game.
For one, there are two of us! When we’ve gotten stuck in the past, we’ve just switched who was the GM and who was the player, and on we went. (If this isn’t something you’ve tried in your game, we highly recommend it! Even just for a session or two, there are many benefits on both sides, and it’s a great change of pace.) What were we supposed to do when we were both stuck? When our well of inspiration had run dry? Did this mean something deeply significant, and should we be concerned?
Playing in our duet is one of the primary ways we spend time together, close, dedicated time every weekend, weaving a story and a world, exploring different parts of each other and ourselves. It has been difficult, at times even painful, to not be able to have our gaming time.
But we have also tapped into important lessons we’ve already learned as writers and storytellers, and it’s those lessons I want to walk us through in case you have or are going through something similar.
Lesson One: It’s totally normal.
Of course we’ve all heard of writer’s block, and I am embarrassed to say that I have more than once declared that there’s no such thing as writer’s block. (Oh past Beth! But we don’t know what we don’t know!) In this case, it was more about DM’s/GM’s block, and this is something I’d like to see us normalize a bit more. Yes, we’re playing D&D or another tabletop game for fun and connection, but depending on our brain wiring, there are myriad reasons we may not be able to see the way forward, and that way may need time and/or the right inspiration to unlock. Trying to force it is almost never the way ahead.
Lesson Two: Look to your circumstances.
As we seek to normalize GM’s block and needing a break, I’d like to bring in another lesson I’ve picked up from writer’s spaces, which is that our life circumstances play a crucial role in our creative energy levels.
I don’t want to spend a great deal of time here, but this year (2023) has been a difficult one for me and Jonathan in terms of loss. Those of you who were here may remember us both losing our dads within three months of one another at the beginning of 2021, and just as it felt like we were recovering from that, we lost my grandmother at the beginning of this year right at the time when it seemed like we might not be able to continue publishing D&D content anymore. (Thank you, D&D community, for sticking together and protecting 5e and supporting independent creators!) And then at the end of April, five days before my dissertation defense for my PhD, we lost our dog, Carolina, who was really the heart of our home and family.
The storytelling work that we do while playing D&D and preparing for a D&D session is intensive and vulnerable. And that may not be true for everyone, but from what I’ve seen and heard from this community over the years, I know that very likely, if you are reading this, that is true for you. During times of pain, of grief, we may not be able to access those deeper parts of ourselves. Alternatively, those parts may be expended and dried up from our efforts at holding ourselves together.
External circumstances like jobs and energy levels play a key role in this equation as well. I started a new day job at the beginning of August and, suffice it to say, it’s not going well. I knew it would be an adjustment, but I underestimated how exhausted and drained I would feel at the end of each day and each week. Jonathan, too, has been pursuing a graduate certificate so he can advance to the next level in his work. Playing D&D together fills us both up, but it also takes time and energy we haven’t seemed to have.
Lesson Three: Be patient.
Maybe you’ve been going through something similar recently. There are plenty of stressors in the world that can make it difficult for us to escape into ourselves and into fantasy worlds, sometimes when we most need to escape. In a future post, I’ll talk about some of the alternatives we worked out, ways we filled that gap and spent time playing together when we weren’t in a spot to play D&D. (This post on how to navigate being stuck may help too!)
Between now and then, the other thing we did was stay patient. We made sure to acknowledge how much we wanted to be able to play but that we couldn’t right then. Jonathan, I know, puts a lot of pressure on himself to DM for me in part because he knows how much it helps me creatively. So I’ve tried to be extra mindful about not adding any of that pressure myself while also acknowledging how much I’m looking forward to when we do get to play together again. (At the time of writing, it looks like it’ll be next weekend! Yay!)
Sometimes the story threads need time to come together. Sometimes external (or internal) circumstances need some time to sort themselves out so they’re not taking so much of our energy and time. D&D will be there for us, our duet game will be there for us, when we’re ready to come back to it, to explore and play again. And that in and of itself is a wonderful thing to remember and hold close.
Post-post update: There was a slight delay between the initial writing of the post and the sharing of it here, so I am delighted to say that we’ve played together the last two weekends and are having so much fun!!! We even figured out some cool backstory lore for Eldura (the pre-world of Azuria) and the origins of Eldura’s dragons which you can read over on my fiction website! We’ll be getting into dragons and Eldura more in a future duet campaign called The Tree of Silver!
We’d love to hear your thoughts and questions!