Give them enough time, and Wizards will claim that they have the rights to your campaign because of some fine print on their books or something.

Our current campaign has a recurring mook named Qarl who the party has killed several times… somehow he keeps showing up every time they square away against the baddies. There’s a little riot every time they find out he’s back!

Blorbos from my friend group’s shared imagination

Frankly, I think this is a very good thing. One of the worst things to happen to roleplaying was a generation of GMs thinking they have to be Brennan Lee Mulligan or Matt Mercer.

Stop worrying about how marketable your game is. Stop worrying about how good your writing and your performances are. Roleplaying games are, by their nature, intimate. Every single game is an experience shared between a small group of people. And that’s exactly what makes them so powerful.

I’ve lost track of how many times players have literally cried during my games. I’m talking “Grave of The Fireflies” kind of tears here, not “My GM is an abusive dick” tears. Just the other day one my players told me that I’m the reason they can’t listen to a particular song without crying, because it reminded them of a particular moment in one of my games. And that’s the sort of thing that makes you think “Holy shit, I should be recording/livestreaming this.” But if I did that, none of those moments would have ever happened, because my players aren’t professional actors, and they would have been so self conscious about performing to a crowd that they would never have lost themselves in their characters like that.

Enjoy the intimacy. Enjoy the imperfection. There’s nothing else like it.