Wounds and Wound Penalties
Most RPGs have combat as their central conflict resolution mechanic, and why not? The kinds of stories that most gamers seem to want to play, it even makes sense. If you make a grand epic of swords and sorcery, at some p[...]Read on >>
Toronto Fan Expo: The DM Master Class Seminar
One of the highlights of my visit at last weekend's Toronto Fan Expo was the one hour panel I had the honour to share with RPG legends Ed Greenwood and Robin D. Laws. We ended up speaking to packed room of 100+ people. I[...]Read on >>
Rolling the Hard Six
"Sometimes you have to roll the hard six" ~Admiral Adama, Battlestar GalacticaDo you know what that means? It's a term from Craps, and essentially means rolling a pair of 3s on two six sided dice, instead of getting a si[...]Read on >>
preparation – everything or nothing?
This month's RPG Blog Carnival is about preparation. For some a necessary evil, for others a breeze and for the brave few, something they've heard of - once - but have no truck with.... Click the title if you want[...]Read on >>
The Importance of a “Go To” System
Yesterday we talked about how important it was to play multiple different systems whether you are a GM, a Player, or a Game Designer. While doing that, I briefly made mention that it was also important to have a 'Go To' [...]Read on >>
Come to me my jungle friends!
August 31, 2010 from Stargazer's World
Filed under: Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub, advice, pathfinder
Recent events in my life have me thinking about pets. Be they familiars, animal companions or summoned animals, whatever way your system of choice calls them, why do we feel the urge to have pets in our games? I can see [...] Filed under: Fluff/Inspiration, Legacy D&D, RPG, RPG Hub, advice, pathfinder
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Why You WANT To Play Multiple Systems
Everyone has a go to system. The system they're the most comfortable with. The system their group knows. A system that has given them hours upon hours of enjoyment, where they pretty much know the rule book backwards, fr[...]Read on >>
Are mini-campaigns the solution?
Back in the day, when we were still young and had too much time on our hands, we played in long campaigns, sometimes even spanning years. But in recent years I haven’t finished any campaign properly. Either we lost int[...]Read on >>
What Starcraft 2 Taught Me About Running a Game
I’ve been playing Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty for a little over a week as of now, and I am having a blast. The game is fun so far, and the campaign mode has some very interesting [...]Read on >>
Dealing with Problem Players
One of the things which has been on my mind recently is the issue of dealing with problem players. My weekend group has recently shrunk in size due to a lack of shared vision leading to a horrible rift in the group. Wha[...]Read on >>
Bad Choices
This is kind of an offshoot of the post I made yesterday, as well as stuff I have talked about several times before on here. It is also probably going to be a quick post, but hey, it's Friday right? So what I want to tal[...]Read on >>
What Going Rogue Teaches About Super Hero RPGs
So, I'm not sure how many of you people out in the blogosphere are playing MMOs, but I'm going to assume that most people here have at least played one. The question is then, how many of you people are currently subscrib[...]Read on >>
What’s in a name?
I’ll admit it, naming non-player characters and places in role playing game is HARD! If you are not careful you’ll end up with names your players will make fun of for years to come. The noble and serious NPCs that wi[...]Read on >>
Handling Conflicts of Interest
It’s bound to happen in any game. Maybe it’s over something like material wealth, or perhaps over a given course of action to be taken by the party, but conflict of interest happens with a moderate frequenc[...]Read on >>
Catching The Feel of a Universe
So, yesterday I had myself a little rant inspired by a blog post by Robert Donaghue. You can get all the details by clinking on that link above, including links to Mr. Donaghue's original post. The gist of it, for those [...]Read on >>
Eureka!
Some time ago, Martin Ralya of GnomeStew.com and Engine Publishing asked me if I was interested in reviewing Eureka. I’ve read about Eureka before and since I am chronically under-prepared for my games, it looked like [...]Read on >>
The Iconic Character Type
So, over at Space To Think yesterday I saw this post. The author talks about it, but I want to go into it a little bit more.What is 'it'? Well, it is the fact that when you are making a game for an established fandom you[...]Read on >>
RPG Survivor 105: Mode of Transportation
Today’s RPG Survivor question is as open-ended as you wish it to be. The end has come, zombies wander the landscape, demons flood out of the gate to hell, our alien overlords have landed… and you need t[...]Read on >>
Ask The GMs: How to survive political games with paranoia and intrigue
August 24, 2010 from Campaign Mastery
Filed under: Advice/Tools, Play, Player Advice, RPG Hub, advice
Lilith Laing asks the GMs: “Recently I started playing in a Vampire: The Masquerade Old WOD game. Even after one session, it is probably the best game I have ever played in (or even run), but I have never play[...] Filed under: Advice/Tools, Play, Player Advice, RPG Hub, advice
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… and what if..?
That’s roleplaying. Pure and simple that’s exactly what it really is. And that’s all it really is. Roleplaying is an exercise in a shared storytelling mechanic that manifests itself in a moving narrativ[...]Read on >>
A concise definition of a sandbox campaign/setting
Over in the private beta of the RPG Stack Exchange (it will be public in a week) I worked up a concise definition of what the term sandbox means for RPGs.The term originated in computer games and there it typically descr[...]Read on >>
Variety in Conflict
One of the things I try to implement in my games is a good spread of challenges that engage players in multiple fronts. In broad strokes, challenges for characters in rpgs come in three basic forms: Combat - The most b[...]Read on >>
The many Spinward Marches
I am a fan of Traveller even though I only refereed the game only a handful of times. I bought products across many eras of Traveller. I bought products in just about every edition ever produced. James of Grognardia ha[...]Read on >>
GameScience Dice Review
Last March I wrote a post titled The Importance of Dice where I talked about how important dice are to both players and game masters alike. It seems like everywhere I look every person has their own unique way of holding[...]Read on >>
RPG Survivor 104: Skills not kills
The image chosen for this post is specifically not a depiction of a skill that you might consider important in a post-apocalyptic setting. However, I could easily contend that horsemanship and all that goes with it could[...]Read on >>
Open Source Apps for the Roleplaying Desktop
Everybody have different budgets they can spend on their computers and applications. Invariably most have a gap in the basic software you can use to produce roleplaying stuff. So I went around and looked at the best of t[...]Read on >>
Running for Proactive Players or, Keeping up with the Convolutions
I’ve always felt that having proactive players that go after their personal agendas and plots without prodding is a good thing. They’re self-starters, capable of throwing themselves into the fires of a GM&#[...]Read on >>
Gen Con: GM’s Jam!
One of the highlights of this year’s Gen Con was definitely the GM’s Jam seminar. Since I had brought my video camera with me, I recorded the whole thing and uploaded it to blip.tv. Alas I forgot to bring a tripod, s[...]Read on >>
A Fantasy Sandbox in Detail Part XVI
Part XVThis is the fifteenth in a series detailing the 34 steps I recommended for making a Fantasy Sandbox Campaign. Today's post will cover part of the following step.Pick the 4 or 6 most important Population locales an[...]Read on >>
RPG Survivor 103: Left Behind.
First up in our Trilogy of Terror for this Friday the 13th is an RPG Survivor Series question to twist your mind and challenge your survival skills. The end has come to the world; demons pour from the gate, bent on feast[...]Read on >>
[Gming] Thinking About Limited Information
It’s easy for a GM to bounce around from NPC to NPC, changing voices, mindsets and attitudes. It’s a little harder to bounce from NPC to NPC and making sure that NPC A doesn’t necessarily know what NP[...]Read on >>
Running a Horror Session – Friday the 13th Special Edition!
Well, being as today is Friday the 13th, I figured I'd pick something thematically appropriate and talk about running "Horror" sessions in your table top game. Now, I am not specifically talking about horror games like A[...]Read on >>
Joining the Party
So, earlier in this week I went over the XP/Power Level considerations when you bring a new character into your game. Yesterday, as part of the RPG Carnival we talked about introducing a brand new player to the game. So,[...]Read on >>
Electronic Tools for Gaming – The iPhone
I’ll admit it, I was a holdover. I didn’t make the switch to an iPhone until last winter. Before that I had an ancient Palm Treo that worked perfectly well for years. I used it to browse the internet, and on it I pla[...]Read on >>
RPG Blog Carnival – Teaching the Hobby
This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Evil Machinations and is being used as a continuation of last month's discussion on how expanding the hobby. So you've gone out, you've grabbed those new gamers from the [...]Read on >>
[Gming] When a Pitch Doesn’t Fly
Traditionally GMs often enjoy a position of relative popularity. Being the guys who put time, effort and often money into acquiring, studying and running games for the players, most people are only all too happy to go [...]Read on >>
A RPG Stack Exchange?
There’s a proposal up to start a RPG site using Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange powers the excellent technical advice sites Stack Overflow and Server Fault. I think this will be a great format. Frankly I’m[...]Read on >>
Bringing In New Characters
I'm not sure how it happened the first time in a game I ran. It was way too long ago now that I think about it, but I remember the anxiety it caused for me. Not because my hands were stained with the fresh blood of a PC,[...]Read on >>
Mapping, Moleskines & Me
That title should probably read “Mapping, Moleskines and I”, but I love alliteration. You know how you see every amateur artist (and many pros) lugging around a nice sketchbook everywhere they go? And of cour[...]Read on >>
Tomb
Dwayne, Tim and I had a lot fun last saturday playing various board games late into the evening. First Dwayne and I tried a few round of the Settlers of Catan card gams which was a lot of fun. Then when Tim got there we [...]Read on >>
RPG Survivor 102: Where’s my…?
We got a number of really good responses in the first part of our RPG Survivor series regarding the perfect (or worst) location to hold up in the event of some end of the world scenario. In truth, I figured we would sinc[...]Read on >>
The Bees Know
I’m a fan of Glenn Beck from way back when his show was mostly about comedy. That guy’s got a way with humor that just makes me chuckle. I’m sure those two sentences alone may have just changed some re[...]Read on >>
“Wasting” Combat Rounds
A lot of RPGs when you look at them are actually two games in one. The first is the actual Role Playing Game that you may or may not have signed up for. Making a character, rules for advancing them in power, rules for co[...]Read on >>
Carcassonne
As last Saturday’s D&D game was approaching, I came to the realization that I was not going to have an adventure ready. This has happened to me once or twice before and generally the game is just called off. This g[...]Read on >>
Maps earning their keep.
Many remember the light blue maps that came inside of B1 - Search of the Unknown, B2- Keep on the Borderlands and many other early modules. While there were some detail on those maps they were basically gridded rectangle[...]Read on >>
Know Your Character Sheet
Forgive me if this comes out a little ranty, it is not my intent. Also if I ramble a bit I'm sorry, I've been going back and forth for the last ten or so hours on what to write about today and have just settled on this t[...]Read on >>
Special 2nd Anniversary Post: Getting your Players to Play Indie RPGs
I have been spending the last few months playing such titles as Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard and 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars so I thought I could share some tips on convincing your players to try new, non-mainstream RPGs [...]Read on >>
[Hunter: the Vigil] A Hunter’s Survival Guide for Player Characters
August 3, 2010 from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer
Filed under: RPG Hub, World of Darkness, advice
Hunter is one of my favorite games since it presents a unique sort of challenge. You’re the underdog, mostly bereft of supernatural powers, and have nothing else but your own intelligence, resourcefulness and cun[...] Filed under: RPG Hub, World of Darkness, advice
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RPG Survivor 101: Nowhere to run.
In most Zombie-type horror games (and stories) the players (actors) are forced into a location where the GM (writer) has hopefully set some interesting objects for them to employ against the horde of walking dead. In a[...]Read on >>
[L5R] A Discussion of Perspective, or Narrative Modes
August 3, 2010 from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer
Filed under: Legend of the Five Rings, RPG Hub, advice
I’ve touched on this topic briefly in yesterday’s article, but I’d like to expound on the concept of in-character perspective a bit today. If you watch a movie and read a novel, chances are that you&#[...] Filed under: Legend of the Five Rings, RPG Hub, advice
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