As with any activity that requires you to perform in front of other people, GMing can be nerve-wracking. Some amount of nervousness is to be expected, but when your fears overwhelm you and you consider canceling the session at the last minute, you can unwittingly put your entire campaign in jeopardy.

Many of us creative types know how anxiety and depression can interfere with the way we want to live our lives. If you haven’t already heard Wil Wheaton’s powerful talk on anxiety, depression, and recovery, you owe it to yourself to have a listen. Our inner demons are insidious, but you can empower yourself to mitigate their effects on your game.

Arm Yourself with the Tools You Need

It’s natural to worry that you haven’t prepped enough for a given session, but have you ever felt so unprepared that you wanted to cancel the session outright? If you feel this way often, it’s time to take stock of your current prep habits. Maybe you need to try a different method (I’d recommend Engine Publishing’s Never Unprepared for ideas). Can you devote more time to prepping, or can you switch to an adventure that requires less prep, such as a published module? Alternatively, you might investigate improvisational techniques for RPGs (again, check out Engine Publishing’s Unframed) or games that are designed to be run with minimal prep. If you have the time to prep for your game, yet you still find yourself falling prey to procrastination, perfectionism is probably rearing its ugly head.

Whether this is your first or your hundredth time rolling up a character for a new roleplaying game campaign, coming up with a compelling backstory can be tough.

Maybe you’ve spent a ton of time trying to come up with a character, but you still end up bored with them or worry that they’re one-dimensional. Or perhaps you have the basics down and want to take your characters to the next level. The following steps will help you write a killer character backstory, one that will get you excited about your character, provide cues to roleplay them, and give the gamemaster (GM) tools to enrich the campaign in a way that engages and excites you.

Step 1: Ground Your Character in the Campaign Setting

Before you can begin creating, you need to fuel your creativity. Now is your chance to settle down with the rulebooks or source material for the setting and enjoy them. (Yes, this is permission to rewatch the show/movies or reread the books!) And if your GM is building a world from scratch, she’ll likely be more than happy to tell you all about her original setting if you ask.

Once you’ve immersed yourself in the world, examine which world details strike you as coolest. What do you want to know more about? Is there a remote monastery devoted to a mysterious deity that piques your interest, or is there an interesting settlement that you think would be an intriguing hometown for a character? Make a list of the setting elements—people, places, artifacts, prophecies, etc.—that you might want to incorporate into your character’s backstory. Next, brainstorm how they could have influenced your character. It’s okay if you come up with a couple of different concepts.

In September of 2013, I picked up the reins for the Teen Intro to Dungeons & Dragons class at my local library. I spent a year having a blast introducing kids, tweens, and teens to the hobby, but Dungeon Mastering for kids aged 6 to 16 comes with its own unique set of challenges, especially for someone who is not a parent themselves. There are a few pit traps I had to learn to avoid along the way that I hope to point out here. Without further ado, the following is a list of five ways you can fail at hooking the next generation of gamers.

#1. Dumb Things Down

Kids are a lot smarter and cleverer than many adults give them credit for. You can “dumb things down” for young roleplayers and let them run roughshod over towns and NPCs Grand Theft Auto-style for lack of anything better to do, but then they’ll miss out on the most rewarding aspects of role-playing: character development, investigating mysteries, and progressing through a story.

Sure, they might not be ready for an intricate game of political intrigue, but most RPG campaigns I’ve played in don’t get that sophisticated either. Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, for example, was aimed at the general D&D populace but is perfectly suited for the 10+ demographic. In some ways, it seemed like it was written with kids in mind, given the hefty dose of humor in the form of the “dworcs,” curses, clockwork cat familiars, and a pet black dragon hatchling.

Kids will rise as high as the bar you set for them, in my experience. When you’re running a game for young people, take the game a step further than it was before. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how quickly they can learn and grow, and soon you’ll be able to take them to the next step after that.