Most of my adult life, I have been impetuous and hasty with my gaming. I have generally got a cool idea in my head, raced to bring the beginnings of that idea to the table, persuaded friends to play, and dived head-first into the first session or two. Then the next shiny idea pings into my brain and repeat.

Recent musings about Tiny Prep have me thinking it’s high time I changed that dynamic. Given that I am only running one game in Mystamyr right now – which is manageable give my new-found tiny prep habit – there is space for some tiny play all of my own.

I am beginning to realise that a good use of my play time would be in quietly writing the next world but without pushing to bring it to the table anytime soon. In other words, the play is in creating and imagining an RPG setting without any commitment to play in the short term.

In fact, any play I do embark on will be the kind of solo “self-play” which helps me to learn how to run my chosen rules, test out the details of the world, and generally experiment with how things might work when/if I eventually bring this to some other players. It’s the test-bed approach, an Alpha creative process.

This approach might lend itself well to my ADHD brain’s desire to jump around in a project. One of the big challenges I face when I build a new world for immediate play is that I need specific stuff, places, and people built in short-order. When there’s no need to run the game anytime soon, I am free to explore the design process from any vantage.

I’m curious to see what my hobby will end up looking like in a year or two. Dialling back now and focusing on small but deliberate steps towards creating something I feel is worthwhile for the future is a different challenge. Perhaps I will be able to make progress in ways that running up against a deadline tends to kill my enthusiasm towards.

Either way, at least I am learning to break things down and make them more approachable day to day.

Game on!