The end of How to be a Great GM channel

ruticker 04.03.2025 15:24:46

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# Special Announcement from the How to Be a Great GM Channel Hello and welcome to this very special announcement from the **How to Be a Great GM** channel and from me, the guy who's been running the channel for nearly a decade. Some of you have noticed, rightly so, that the viewership numbers on the channel have been decreasing. That's a combination of factors we've been looking into, watching it very closely. I would want to say that it's because everybody started a YouTube channel during COVID on GMing; that could be a reason. I want to say it's because YouTube is actively calling the channel. I literally went to their offices here in London and had a conversation with them where they said, "Your numbers are not great. What's your next YouTube channel going to be?" Because **How to Be a Great GM** is going to be gently pushed to the side, and there's nothing you can do about it either. Okay, fair. But I think that **How to Be a Great GM** was started because I wanted to show people the way that I played role-playing games, and I wanted to show people that anybody could do it. The channel was never meant to run to several thousand episodes; it was never meant to last for seven years. It was meant to be a couple of videos on a few bits and bobs, and that was it. So the fact that we have run for so long and produced so many episodes, I think—and I think you'll agree with me—that we have got to a point where we're like, "Well, we kind of have explored all of the different aspects." At least I've explored all the different aspects that I have always found intriguing, interesting, and curious. I'm sure there are aspects that I haven't covered and that there are aspects that will emerge. Already, we've got new Dungeons and Dragons; after 10 years, suddenly we're on 2.5.24. But does that bring in a new way of telling stories? Are we looking at the group collective narrative experience in a different way? No, no one—not whether it's fifth edition, third edition, or fourth edition—storytelling is still the same. It still boils down to you and me and your friends sitting around the table and collectively telling a story, and that hasn't changed for thousands of years. We know that. I have changed on the channel, and I'm the first to admit I was wrong many, many times. It's because of your input that, yes, I had to go, "You know what? You're right, I'm wrong. Yes, I made a mistake." You've been with me when I have made mistakes. You've been with me when I've broken body parts. You've been with me when I've moved to different continents. And all through that, you have stuck with this channel, and it's been amazing—absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, as a matter of fact. If you had said to me in 2014, "You're going to be traveling the world playing role-playing games with people, and that's going to be your living," I would have told you that you're completely bonkers. But it's happened, and it's been amazing and wonderful. But it is also time for us to say goodbye—well, at least to **How to Be a Great GM**. I can't think of any other way to make these videos in terms of content because the content's done. We've released all of the books that I have ever wanted to write on roleplay: *How to Be a Great GM*, *How to Run Epic Adventures*, *How to Create a Great Player*, *How to Be a Great Player*, *Great Locations*, all of that kind of stuff. It's time for us to say goodbye, and I think that now is the right time as well, with 2024 coming to a close. But I did want to say I cannot thank you enough. I really, I can't. Recording this video doesn't do it justice to just how absolutely amazing it has been and how wonderful it is. Now, it's not all doom and gloom, and it's not a final goodbye because, like all great stories, this one is simply leading us into another. It is perhaps the end of one and the beginning of a new one—or two, as might be the case. So, YouTube, in all of their financial, money-grabbing business approach—and I can't blame them for it—said to me, "Right, your channel is going to be shunted off into oblivion," which is where so many channels disappear to. We don't remember them; they just forget and fade into the past. So your channel is being shunted off. It will still remain on YouTube, and it will still be accessible and still be able to be found, but it will no longer be presented to new folks. That's basically the bottom line. Immediately, they said, "So what's your next channel?" I will be honest with you; I went to the Web Goblin, my stalwart business partner of this entire journey, without whom we would not have anything at all. As a matter of fact, he has literally kept everything going behind the scenes. His constant support has been mind-blowing. I said, "Are we doing another YouTube channel?" He looked at me with his crazy hair, as he is wont to do, and he said, "Well, do you want to do another YouTube channel?" I had to think long and hard: What would I do if I did another YouTube channel? YouTube had already said to me, "You are not allowed to do another GM advice channel because **Great GM** is that, and it is no longer relevant. It's no longer presented in a way that is appropriate to younger audiences," and so on and so forth. You've spoken about everything already anyway, so all you'd be doing is just launching a new channel to speak about the same stuff. So, no, not allowed to do that—or strongly advised against doing that. That's very fair. The Web Goblin said, "Well, what would you like to do if you did one? What would you do? What makes you inspired?" And that's a good question. That was a very good question. I said, "Well, I'd like to do Star Trek because I'm a huge fan of Star Trek." As you know, on this channel, I have spoken about Star Trek since the very beginning, and I constantly go back to it. The Web Goblin said, "All right, okay, well, let's do a Star Trek channel." "It won't keep the lights on; you'll have to get a regular day job again, but let's do a Star Trek channel." I said, "But at the same time, one of my greatest joys, which I don't think I ever properly capitalized on when I started traveling around the world, was going to a ruin or a reconstruction or a battlefield or a site and thinking about what that was and what happened there and the people and the events and all of that stuff, which just feeds into my little gray cells," to quote Hercule Poirot. I feel it contributes to being a great GM by being able to draw on this experience. I said, "So I want to do one of those as well." He said, "Well, two channels? Okay, Star Trek and this." I said, "No, no, no, no, not history. I'm not technically accurate enough for history. I get inspired by facts and then I use them to my advantage. I don't follow them religiously, and I compress stuff and all that kind of stuff." So we sat, we mulled, we thought, we pondered, we cried a little—there were some tears going on, but that was mainly because the biscuits ran out—and we said, "Right, we're going to do two channels, and we'll see whichever one lasts. If they last, if they don't last, they don't last, and we carry on with life. But if they do well, then we must make sure that we want to do them." So I sat down and I started outlining the videos that I would make just to see if there was some content, if there was some inspiration. Because one of my greatest trials with **How to Be a Great GM** these days is sitting down and going, "What on Earth can we talk about this month? What is left? Is there anything left to talk about?" No, no, there isn't. So it was a mental anguish to try and find stuff that was new for you guys and to present it in a new and different way. So I sat down with Star Trek. Well, I stopped myself by June, so I have planned out content for the Star Trek channel until June at least. Then I thought, "Well, let me sit down and talk about the other one, the travel log thing." Well, I've got content for that until December next year. So both of them really sparked my imagination and my passion to go, "Oh, we can talk about that, and we can talk about this, and we can do this, we can do that." So it gives me great pleasure and great sadness to say goodbye to **How to Be a Great GM**, but to say hello to **Off My Bridge**, which is the Star Trek channel about me talking about Star Trek—Star Trek role-playing in particular, *Star Trek Adventures* too, because I love that system. So I'll be talking about Star Trek role-playing, I'm going to be talking about Star Trek board games that allow us to do some role-playing in Star Trek, and Star Trek as an inspiration for creating adventures. Just Star Trek, and just having fun and talking about it. And going, "Oh my God, did you see *Lower Decks* last week?" Or this week, as a matter of fact, whenever this video comes out—wait, yeah, two weeks ago, last week—they had all the biggest Star Trek crossover ever! This is amazing! I can geek out about the things that I love again because I certainly geeked out about **How to Be a Great GM** when I first began with all the costumes and all the sets and all that sort of thing. It was lovely; it was absolutely fantastic, and that passion is going to come back for that. Now, the other channel, **Guided Adventures**, which we say quickly is guided adventures. This is me going to historical sites and places where things happened of significance and looking at them critically from how to turn them—how to draw inspiration from them and turn them into adventures that we can use. So each month, I go to a different place or a different location, and we look at it critically and say, "Right, how does this create an adventure?" And then we create the adventure. So we go through the whole step. It's not advice on creating adventures; it's me saying, "Right, in this one, what are we doing?" The first one, they literally in London in 1939 found a mummified heart in a lead-lined box in a stone coffin in the crypt of an abandoned ruin church. It was like, "This is pure gold!" It doesn't matter what role-playing system we're playing with; that's just gold! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! So I'm going to be doing those two channels: **Guided Adventures** and **Off My Bridge**, which I'm really looking forward to. Links are down below for you to go and have a look at and subscribe. We're still in the early days; I'm still recording episodes for January, going, "Oh, well, we've got this one, we've got that one." So it's still early days, but I would encourage you that if you enjoy spending time with me as much as I enjoy your commentary and your thought-provoking comments as well, then I would ask you to go and have a look at those two channels. Hit that subscribe button for both of them. You can watch them; you can have a look at them. If you're not a Star Trek fan, maybe I'll convert you to the dark side. Oh yes, yes! Don't worry; Star Wars is also going to be involved there. You can't talk about one without the other, in my opinion. They are both amazing and wonderful and lovely, and we should look at all of them. Anyway, go and join the channels. Let me know what you think as well in the comments down below. I would love it—I would absolutely love it—if you shared some of your moments over the past seven years if you've been with the channel for that long. Even if it's been for the last couple of months, share some of your favorite moments from the channel. Because it's been a long time, and I mean, I've done stuff where I've had people running around with furry fox heads on—that was crazy! We had printed backgrounds at one point. Doing stuff in Japan was insane. Just being invited to run games for Wizards of the Coast, *Ghosts of Saltmarsh* and *Descent into Avernus*, it's just been amazing. It's been absolutely amazing. And so there we go. Now, we will still be releasing some content on **How to Be a Great GM**, by the way, so it's not like the channel is just going to die completely and there won't be anything new. We're still doing our live plays because the **Dorn Chronicles**, which if you haven't watched but you do like watching live plays, I think is the epitome of character role-playing. The guys sitting around that table that hadn't role-played together before are now fast friends; they came to my wedding. They're absolutely amazing folks, and the role-playing that they get into is just fantastic. It really is tears during some of the episodes. Anyway, that will still be continuing in the new year, although we are taking a very brief break for *Mage Hunter*, which is with the No Small Roles cast playing my *Mage Hunter* role-playing system. So that'll be running until February. Then *Dusk M* will be back; we've taken a break over the Christmas period, which I think is deserved, so that will be back. So we will still be doing live plays and things like that every now and again, but for the most part, you'll have to go and dig around in the archives, which also, by the way, will be revamped and relabeled. We're going to be doing a whole process; it's one of my many things to do is to recategorize, reorganize, and sort of say, "Well, watch these videos," and put these ones in this group and that sort of thing. Because now we can afford to do that; we can actually go in and change all the labels and all the names and all that kind of stuff because YouTube is no longer really looking at those videos seriously. So it is what it is. It has been fabulous. I say thank you to you once again, and I hope to see you either on **Off My Bridge** or wandering around some ruins with me as we go and create some absolutely epic adventures. Until next time, on a different channel, I just want to say: **Happy gaming!**

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