Spreading the Indie Virus

I had a very rewarding game session last Saturday. My group plays 1st ed. AD&D.

Highlights

[*]Witnessed an unprompted shift to a more selfless, strategy-based approach by a risk-aversive power gamer.
[*]Used scene framing to fast forward through mundane sim exploration.
[*]Was able to free my mind to react to player probing by hooking them in. (Mainly because I forced myself to read the module through to the end, visualizing each potential scene.)
[*]Freely spun 2 scenes as character exploration of situation. What was most notable is how each player had something to add.
[*]Gave a brief promotion of 3 indie games I picked up at the Forge. Now they're talking about running a game of Sorcerer after this module is finished. Which is great, because Mike Holmes is right: I need to catch up. And if my group wants to lead the way, that's even better.
[/list:u]

I wanted to mention an underlying dynamic I've noticed that I feel helps to contribute to the well being of our group. One of our players shared a video of a sports event he participated in before we got started. Another player and I had an e-mail argument in which he said some insulting things; my response was to apologize and wait. He warmed up a little slowly that night, but shortly later, he was leading the interaction.

And when a player wiled away his boredom while focus shifted to others, I was laughing instead of irritated since he was reading that Sorcerer manual I bought:)