Failures as a GM

At brunch yesterday, one of my oldest friends commented about one of my earlier roleplaying games that "all your villains were like Napoleons." I knew exactly what he was talking about-- at the time my idea of how to make villains frightening was to give them advance information about fights and let them plan accordingly. They all came off like tactical geniuses as a result.

But the comment stuck in my mind for some reason, and I'm still thinking about it this morning. Along with a comment from my friend's wife, the lovely kayoteelsewhere, who said a little later "But he really has gotten better."

I've probably spent more hours roleplaying at this point than I did getting my BA. Around half of that has been running games. And I have gotten better at GMing, I think, by sheer osmosis if nothing else. But man have I made mistakes.