The plight of the Dungeon Master is to make the game entertaining while maintaining a level of understanding to the rules that allows the game to function. There is an eternal struggle of ensuring the plot carries on without impeding upon what the players are trying to do and allowing them to create their own stories. There is a consistent struggle to keep putting more and more difficult obstacles in their way so they can continue to challenge themselves and grow but also to make sure they don’t get so damaged that they die.

Additionally, if they do end up getting so damaged they die, do you bring them back? Do you reincarnate them? Or do they need to make a new character entirely? If they end up walking down a path that is not the correct one, do you let them keep going? Or do you try to re-route them?

Then, if you do end up deciding to put something in their way to try and push them in another direction, will they take that as a sign to go the other way? Or will they forge ahead, determined that the way they’ve chosen is correct?

I definitely believe in a higher power, but whether that higher power is just science and the universe or an entirely individual sentience is something I am unsure of. However, if a god that was a sentient being that in their own right does exist, I’m sure they ask themselves these types of questions every day.

If there’s an all knowing, sentient being out there that isn’t just the life-force within all of us that extends through every crevice of the universe (which is closer to what I believe), it must be very complicated to determine what the best path is to take in each situation for each person. Sometimes when I’m DMing, the players take control of the story, which can end up in a better place, telling a better story than I had in mind originally. Sometimes the characters change the lives of the NPCs in ways that I never would have anticipated originally. For better or for worse, it seems that the choices of the players affect the world and story in ways I couldn’t have planned for.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the point of this piece of writing is. I was just writing the first couple paragraphs and drew a comparison to some of the questions that I’ve heard religious people asking about their respective gods. I suppose that regardless of whether there’s a sentient, all knowing being out there or not, we should do our best to follow the path that we think will be best for us because if we don’t and that being doesn’t exist, then we’ve just spent our whole existence trying to appease something that isn’t real. But if we live the best we can in a way that makes us happy, we will have the best chance of making a difference.

There’s a great quote that I found recently by Marcus Aurelius which says, “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them.”

The DM can tell when you’re trying your best and doing your best is all that DMs can ask for. I’d like to think that whatever higher power feels the same way.