Roleplaying Games As Managerial Training (Patreon)

In the 1990s I worked as part of the banquette set-up crew at the Student Union for the University of Oklahoma. From there, I ended up as the manager of the Union's parking garage. I had no experience with either parking garages, or being a manager. I held that job as I begin my freelance ttRPG writing career, and when that began to show real income potential I left the garage to write full time.

But even before I was doing game writing full time, roleplaying games were a crucial part of my career, because they are how I ended up being the manager of a parking garage with no idea what I was doing, and keeping the job for a couple of years until I walked away.

I know that sounds odd. Let me explain.

My core gaming group back them (which has very heavy overlap with my core group now) played ttRPGs in a specific way. We'd done the Monty Haul phase, and I at least had gone through the 'All For Me And None For Thee' phase in the mid 1980s. By the 1990s, we'd largely learned that we had the most fun if we all worked towards our common goals as players. (And yes, "largely" is doing a lot of work in that sentence--there were exceptions and mistakes and drama, but the trend was definitely there).

The most common games I played at that point were Champions/Hero, 2nd ed AD&D, and the International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS), which was a LARP using boffo weapons we mostly played in the woods. I was a GM for many but not of the tabletop games, sometimes ended up with a PC in a leadership role when playing, and was often involved with helping to run IFGS games, which could involve a hundred or so people needing coordinating and both fantasy support (making sure everyone knew the rules they needed to for their scene, has the right names for fantasy people, knew the lore of the game we were playing, etc.) and real-world support (running and fighting in Oklahoma summers means making sure there is shade, water, first-aid-trained people, communication and transportation in case of emergencies, and so on).

I had no particular aspirations as a member of the banquette set-up crew--it was literally a job that did not require any particular skills or experience that paid enough my wife and I could afford basic cable (which we had done without for a few years at that point). My real interests were much more focused on gaming, so I took scheduling, creating adventures, and being a good team player as a PC very seriously. Learning and understanding rules were a core part of my social life. Knowing different PCs were good at different things and trying to match the best person for each task and give them the backup they needed to accomplish it was among the most successful tactics I had found for both fantasy problem-solving and real-world issues when, for example, we needed a styrofoam altar or 4-foot long foam sword that looked like a minotaur's weapon (which we called Ex-Cow-ibur, sword of Moo-cenaries).

I was a lot younger and a lot dumber back then, so I often didn't realize that how I handled things often fell back on these tactics, nor could I have expressed them this clearly. But, with nothing else to lean back on, my experiences with co-ordinating ttRPG players (and characters) and helping with LARP logistics informed my go-to methodology when I ran into a situation where, for whatever reason, a group of people looked to me for guidance. Honestly in the mid 1990s that didn't happen much outside of gaming situations, and when it did it was usually a group of people doing me a favor, like helping me move.

But because I was rules-focused (yes, you could fairly call me a rules-lawyer), my work on the banquette set-up crew often did not require as much managerial oversite or correction as some of the other people I worked with. As a result, when one of us grunts needed to keep track of what we were setting-up where, and how long we had to do it, I was often chosen to be that grunt. The set-up crew got used to that, and it's not that this role came with any authority, just that it was expected I'd know what we were all supposed to be doing. I was the newest, least experienced member of the crew, but none of them seemed to like keeping track of such things so no one cared.

(Yes, this is what I looked like in the 1990s)

One day, what we were all supposed to be doing was cleaning out the basement of the Student Union, and making sure all the safety issues someone had identified were taken care of. (While "banquette set-up crew" was the official job title, 'grunt able to move things in specific ways' was a much closer job description, so we did nearly all the non-janitorial clean-up.) That was a long list of tasks, and our manager divided them up and had groups take on all the little ones, and then we were to meet at a specific room (that had the most junk in it) for the biggest task. And, after that, we had actual banquettes to set up for.

When I and my partner got done with our minor task, we went to meet everyone else in the room with the big task... and found the rest of the team was just standing around not doing anything. I asked why no one had started cleaning anything up yet, and they jointly responded no one had told them what to do.

Now, I absolutely did not know how anything in that room was supposed to be cleaned up. But I did know we had limited time to do it, since we needed to finish in time to set-up tables and chairs of a banquette that afternoon. So, I suggested we start with some obvious stuff, so we'd have a head start by the time our manager arrived.

No one moved.

Okay, I suggested, how about we just organize this pile of PVC pipes by size and length, so we can take quickly each category of pipe wherever we are told they go?

Oh, piped up one member of the team. All the PVC pipes are trash. They just need to be chopped up to fit in the dumpsters outside.

Okay, I noted, maybe we should start working on that? That just took 3 people, since we only had 2 sawzalls and 1 person could push the bin to the dumpsters . So 3 people started doing that... and everyone else still just stood around.

Well, I noted, there's a second pile of pipes mixed with some other junk. Maybe we should pull those out and lay them over by the people cutting up pipes to get rid of?

Oh no! A different person nots that the second pile of pipes were all copper, so they were not trash. They needed to be taken to the room where we kept the things to be recycled.

Okaaaaay... so maybe we get two of us to start doing that?

Some GMs reading this will already have seen the problem. Each person in that room knew on piece of the puzzle of 'how do we clean this room up.' No one knew the whole picture. Rather than talk to each other, the crew just stood around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do next. It was almost exactly like trying to get a group of PCs to figure out the next plot point in a ttRPG adventure -- they each had a bit of lore, but were waiting for the GM to tell them what the next stop of the railroad was.

So here I was, with experience both trying to run an adventure, and being a PC trying to figure out how to overcome seemingly-impossible odds, asking questions and breaking things down into small discrete tasks. Not, note you, out of any desire to lead or because of a deep love of cleaning things, but just because I knew the O'Hanessy's had a baby shower in Ballroom A in two hours, and needed eight 5-foot round tables with 6 chair each, and two 8-foot rectangular tables by the front door, and that room currently had twelve 8-foot rectangular tables set up and almost certainly needed to be vacuumed.

What none of us knew, as it happens, was that the director of the Union -- the boss of the boss of my boss, had gotten to the room we needed to clean first, before any of the team, to check our progress. And has just stood, way in back, and watched while people gathered and... did nothing. Then I showed up, and had no idea what needed to be done, and got people working on the right things anyway.

I learned this after we were all done, which was only about 45 minutes later, when he stepped out of the shadows (in the most Batman way you can imagine a suit--and-sneakers-wearing director of a Student Union could possibly do), put a hand on my shoulder (eliciting a scream of surprise from me), and told me "Good job, Owen."

Once my heartrate was normal, I said thanks, and helped move another copper pipe.

But two months later, when the director offered me the job as manager of the parking garage, he specifically called out that one moment as why I got the job offer. He wanted to promote from within, no one on that team had any formal training with parking garages or management. But having observed us in an unstructured moment, he felt he'd learned enough to know which one of us would do the best job.

I accepted.

Though this. I learned I shouldn't pre-disqualify myself from jobs and positions I lack the formal training to do, if I believe I can do them and I want the position. (Sadly I still do it sometimes--learning I shouldn't do it is a far cry from overcoming all my imposter syndrome). That's why I applied to WotC for a designer role in 1999, despite lacking the required college degree (and got the job). It's also why I applied to Paizo in 2014 despite lacking the required college degree (and got that job). I have, in fact, gotten a lot of gigs I didn't meet the qualifications for thanks to this lesson, and managed them just fine.

Though to be fair, I've applied to WotC several times since I was laid off in 2001, and only gotten one interview, and the 2014 Paizo application was my third with them, and I have applied twice since, without any of those turning into a job. So, persistence is important too.

Also? You can't always get by on general knowledge and an ability to learn quickly.

In 2016 I got a phone interview with WotC for a 5e D&D design position. One of the questions the interviewer asked me was what was my favorite moment as a DM of a 5e D&D game. At that point, I hadn't RUN a 5e game, just played in a couple, so I had to pivot, and in the pressure of the moment I did a terrible job answering her. Sometimes, the people with the money want to hear your experience with exactly what they are hiring you for (though I've always found playing a game MUCH more useful in understanding how it works than GMing one... but then, if you want WotC to hire you, you really ought to have experience on both sides of the screen).

In a lot of ways, my gaming hobby and my career have been positive feedback loops. Each has taught me something I find useful in the other, and helped me achieve things that were impossible for me before that lesson. When my brain chemicals are working properly, it makes me realize that hardships I am going through today may well prepare me for something good down the road I can't even imagine now.

And if not? It at least gives me insight into the backstory of another ttRPG character someday. :)

Hey, Since I Have Your Attention! 

My friend (and brilliant cartoonist) Stan! has done a whole series of drawings inspired by my online ramblings. He refers to them as "Damn It, Owen!" cartoons, since they get in his head and prevent him from doing other work until he draws them. He's been doing these for years, so now we're collecting them into a book!

We've launched a campaign on Kickstarter, which funded in 90 seconds and hit it's first three stretch goals in a few hours. We're on the last week of the campaign, and are less than $400 from our next stretch goal. Please go check it out, tell your friends, and consider throwing us your support.

Damnitowen.com