Session Anxiety: The Killer of campaigns
It’s lunchtime, and my phone buzzes. The GM just sent out a group chat message, “Its game night! Everyone ready?!”
And my stomach turns. Maybe I can just avoid responding. Another buzz with a reply from the party cleric. “I’ll be there! Excited for level 7!”
Suddenly it hits me. I forgot to level up. Not only did I forget to level, at level 7 my wizard Blastimus unlocks new spells. I need to read all of those and figure out which ones will be best. I don’t have time to figure all of that out before session starts. Everyone else remembered to level. I’m going to ruin game night coming in like this.
Buzz. Its the fighter. “I’m ready, lets do it!” God, why do they have to all be so quick to respond? Maybe I can just show up late so that no one has time to ask me about my character. Just get straight into the game.
Buzz. The rogue chimes in. “Sorry everyone, I’m not feeling well. Don’t worry, Blastimus will be able to make up my damage. Gotta love that new spell smell, amirite?”
Oh no. Now they need me to be prepared. If I don’t get Blastimus leveled, the party might die, and it will be all my fault. But there’s no time. God I’m so stupid. The GM spent all this time preparing, my party all leveled, and I can’t even choose spells.
I can’t do it. I pull out my phone. “Yeah, some bug must be going around. I think I’m out too.”
There’s a few minutes of silence. So much for being so responsive.
Buzz. Cleric again. “All right, well if both our DPS are out, lets just call it. Hopefully we can finish the dungeon next time.”
And with that, game night gets cancelled. Thanks, session anxiety. The hard truth is that when this happens time and again, whole campaigns can just fade away…
Identify Session Anxiety and Get out ahead of it to save your sessions
We want to game. That’s why we made our characters in the first place, and why we agreed to play in the campaign. When we let session anxiety get the better of us, it stops us from doing what we want. So how do we work around it?
Session anxiety is often caused by uncertainty. Uncertainty around whether you forgot something, uncertainty about what will be expected of you, or just uncertainty because you can’t remember what the quest you were on was. That spinning feeling that traps us in inaction is because we can’t anchor ourselves and get our bearings about the situation.
So how do we conquer this uncertainty?
To combat this feeling, we need to anchor ourselves in what we are going to do and what we have already done. Depending on when you feel the spike of anxiety, it changes what actions you need to take. Calming yourself five minutes before you leave for your session is a very different ask than calming yourself in the weeks between sessions. The uncertain feeling is the same, but as game night approaches, we worry about different things.
Feeling anxious just before session
Right before session, the best way to anchor yourself is with a review of your notes from last session(if any), and a review of your character sheet. This can remind you what to expect in the upcoming session, and give you inspiration about what actions you might be taking tonight. For a specific example of what questions to ask yourself, check out the 5 minute prep sheet.
feeling anxious Just after session
Uncertainty after session is often around performance, and whether things went well. Try to reflect on your session, and write down some notes if you haven’t already about what happened. Once you have a small summary of the session, note your favorite things that happened, and whether that was by you or someone else. If your favorite moment was something that someone else did, consider reaching out to the group and commenting how cool the moment was. This shifts your focus from judging yourself, to celebrating the success of the group as a whole. For a list of questions specifically to help you get over post session anxiety, check out the 5 minute session wrap up sheet.
feeling anxious in the long gap between sessions
Between session anxiety is generally caused by uncertainty around decisions you have to make. Leveling up can mean choosing feats, spells, or class features that you are locked into for a long time. Perhaps the DM has cryptically asked you about an NPC from your backstory, and you don’t know how it will affect you. They could be real life decisions as well, maybe about the untameable beast - scheduling. Work to identify the uncertainty, and take advantage of your remaining time by looping in your group. If you don’t know what spells to choose, there is probably someone in your group who can tell you their favorite. If you are worried about the schedule for an upcoming session, communicating that early to your group will let them know and problem solve. With enough heads up, the GM can set up the session that is fine to join late, and save a whole session from being cancelled. A list of questions to help clarify these uncertainties and get you focused back on the fun of the session is available as the between sessions RP prep sheet.
Good luck! hopefully these quiet your anxiety like they do for me
Anxiety like this can pop up a lot, and the best way I’ve found to deal with it is to catch it and quiet it. You’ll never know everything, so there will always be uncertainty in a TTRPG. The secret is to realize when there is too much building up, and get out ahead of it.