u/ThomasCookAndroid

Hey, I want to play some games in PBEM. Decisive Campaigns, maybe Shadow Empire. Just 1v1, reply here if you're interested

Hello there. I'm fairly new to GM'ing. I've ran about 10 sessions of Traveller, about 10 session of PF2E and several 1-2 session "one shots" of various OSR games and recently I've been running some Zozer's Modern War as well.

When I've asked for feedback I've had mostly positive, but I know I'm not doing a great job.

My default style has been to "state what the NPCs would have said" sometimes even going as far as to sum it up which I'm gathering is really boring and not immersive for my players. Without thinking consciously about improving my "performance" aspect, this is what I default to.

What I'd like to be doing is acting as the NPC's, being able to think on the fly etc.

Instead I'm floundering and getting all in my own head unable to think on my feet what NPC's would say or how they would act, even though when I think about it before in my own calm head (without performance anxiety) ideas flow easily.

It's getting me down because I want to improve, and I have been trying to by doing stuff like slowing down and taking a moment, but as a session goes on and we get further from my initial prep and players ask things I wasn't anticipating I'm falling apart and reverting back to my kind of "sum it up" style.

I feel like it's killing my players enjoyment of the game(s) I am running and if they're not enjoying it, I find it stressful.

Help!