Initiative Tracking Tools

Initiative tracking is very important when it comes to running a Dungeons & Dragons game. Gamers all over the internet have come up with some unique and creative ways for tracking initiative. I thought I would take a[...]
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The Old Girl: Vehicles as Characters in Your Game

 "She's not old, she's in her prime." I'm not going to lie to you gentle readers, I'm an inveterate gearhead. I love machines of all kinds, but vehicles especially turn my crank, as it were. Anything from a 50cc min[...]
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Previews for RPGs (No, Not the Catalog)

Here's a nifty trick I tried based on advice in the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG: Previews of the next session! Now, DWAITAS is strong on genre emulation, and since it is based on a tv show, it recommends[...]
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The A-Team: A model for RPG campaigns?

Yesterday while watching  an episode of The A-Team on TV, it struck me. Wouldn’t The A-Team make a perfect model for a RPG campaign?  Let’s look at the basic premise, which is summed up pretty good by the voiceover[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: The Thumbnail Method

This is technique number 1 for getting inside your character’s heads. It’s something I was taught in a Graphic Design course that I completed back in 1992 – so here we are 18 years later, and it’[...]
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March 2010 RPG Blog Carnival: How to be a Better GM?

Wow, time really flies and it's already March. I remember signing up to host the RPG Blog Carnival back sometime last year and now the RPG Blog Carnival is pitching their tents for the first time at the Questing GM.As fo[...]
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The Sandbox and Player Character Backgrounds

My post yesterday on structuring your sandbox has been making the rounds of other blogs. Like this one at Trollsmyth. This caught my eye.There’s been some talk about getting players “plugged in” to the campaign. [...]
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Mapping Outdoors: The dilemma continues…

Here is the second twisty little cave complex in the Caves of Chaos. Luckily the rest of the lairs are much easier to map, being much more traditional 10' corridor style dungeons.So do I just give this to the players on[...]
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Some structure for your Sandbox campaign

In this post at the Old Guy's RPG Blog Chgowiz talks about a difficult session he had as a DM. One comment caught my eye1. Make some defined missions available. Not everyone wants to go out and explore and just figure [...]
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Mapping Outdoors: What’s the best way?

I have worked the original module B2-Keep on the Borderlands, into my group's D&D3.5 game. The party are trying to find the lair of a White Dragon, which is ravaging the lands and cities held by their patron, Lord Le[...]
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DMs Should Join Other Games

I think the best thing any Dungeon Master can to do improve his or her game is to join a game. You can learn a lot from other games and gamers. I find that I learn so much about how to improve my own DM’ing skills [...]
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Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills

What are the essential skills of a GM? Loz is a frequent contributor to the comments here at CM. So when he submitted a question to Ask The GMs, we were inclined to pay close attention. Here’s what he had to [...]
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Regions Sizes in a setting

On the Swords & Wizardry forum here a question what asked on how size different realms on a map. This is my answerEstateFundamental unit of feudal societies this is typically 1,500 to 3,000 acres supporting a landowe[...]
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February 2010 Blog Roundup: Choice Bits

I keep telling myself I’m going to do a weekly roundup of posts I like in the blogosphere, but I never get around to doing it. So here in no particular order, are ten of the many posts I bookmarked this past month.[...]
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Anatomy of a TPK, Addendum

I made a key dungeon mastering mistake during last week’s near total party kill in my Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition campaign.  I share it here as a warning to those who follow. As I’ve mentioned, I’m using Harl[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: When personalities are hard to find

Developing a characterisation is like a jigsaw puzzle. You solve the bit around the edges first – the most obvious characteristics – and then try and fill in the middle a bit at a time until the whole pictur[...]
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Well, Would You Look at That! The Fine Art of the Random Encounter.

 Kobolds!? Okay, looks like this week has turned into advice week here at the Gamewerks. Today, I'm going to discuss yet another tool that every GM should have in their toolbox, the random encounter table. Gamemaste[...]
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Mapping, Pen Tablets, and Drawing by Hand

Recently I bought this a Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet. When browsing the various cartography and art forums I keep seeing references to using tablets and the Bamboo line is pretty affordable as these things go ($70 for this m[...]
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Mapping, Manors vs Farms

One setting noted for it's detailed mapping of locales is Harn. Unfortunately it is a snapshot in to specific period of time where manorialism was the dominant form of rural organization. Manorialism means that the cou[...]
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Three more blogs you should be reading

In January I recommended three blogs you should be reading.  Although that post didn’t get as many attention as I hoped, I still think it’s a good thing to point out interesting blogs to my readers on a semi-regular[...]
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Building Better Worlds: Making the Most Out of Your NPCs.

  So tell me, gentle readers, how many times has this happened to you? You're in the thick of a gaming session, and the time has come to meet with a contact. So you get to the appointed meeting place, you size each [...]
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Spartacus Blood and Sand

I been following Spartacus Blood and Sands, a new Starz show on Netflix. I am finding that I really like it. Tim of Gothridge Manor already beat me to a post recommending this.What I will add is that this is a show wher[...]
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Hell Among the Playlists: Finding Inspiration in Your Music Library

Okay, this will probably be the last post I make on the subject of inspiration and idea generation. At least it'll be the last until someone asks me to do another. Anyway, today I'm going to talk about plumbing the dept[...]
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On Hitting Your Target

Sorry today's post is late, kids. Today I had a long lunch at my local rifle range with an antique Russian Mosin-Nagant, the latest addition to my budding WWII milsurp rifle collection. So, while I was sending my fifty [...]
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Finding Your Focus: How to Actually Work When Working At Home

  Maybe I should have apprenticed at the Consulate... Okay, Caine up there is about to burn the shit out of himself in some masochistic, quasi-Kung Fu ritual that looks awesome in a 30 second television intro b[...]
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Lazy Friday Video Post: “How To Play Dungeons and Dragons”

While looking for interesting RPG-related videos I stumbled upon this one: And I don’t really know what the creators intended this to be: a parody or serious advice. If it’s a parody, it’s not funny enough. And if[...]
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“You had me at hello…”

Hello all! Since I’m part of the new team of contributors around here, I thought my first post should be about something related to the idea of “new” and I settled upon this: Introducing new characters to an ongoin[...]
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It is a Harn Day

Got my latest autoship from Columbia Games filled with Harn goodness.Hunting 22 PagesThis is the center piece of this release 22 pages of hunting. They are through in covering all the techniques including trapping, ambus[...]
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Some Considerations of Polite Society

No one thinks he’s behaving poorly.  The unfortunate truth is, at one time or another, all of us has behaved poorly.  While there really is no concrete code of laws to govern behavior at the gaming table, there are s[...]
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This Hobby Is Not a One-Way Relationship

With regards to WotC promotional content for 4e, most attention is given to the tease content for D&D insider, the podcasts, and recorded features of actual play sessions. However, WotC recently posted a half-hour s[...]
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Magic and Society

Magic are a major part of fantasy RPGs especially in the various editions of D&D. However it's impact on the setting is highly subjective and dependent on the rules that govern magic for a particular system.For GURPS[...]
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More comments on historical settings.

A lot of quality comments yesterday thanks folks. Two stand out;Reverend Keith's comment particularly this line.What I'd love are historical RPG books that don't focus on historical minutiae, but rather just provide a b[...]
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Papers Please: Using Props to set the Tone in Convention Games

бумаги угождают! Since I'm relatively new to the whole 'blogging game, I've been asking friends who are experienced 'bloggers what they'd like to read about at Motor City Gamewerks. Chris Perrin, proprieto[...]
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Catching Fireflies: The Place Where Ideas Come From

I've been asked, on more than one occasion, where I get my ideas. Every writer gets this, and the question never gets easier to answer. I've never come up with what I consider a decent answer to the question, either. An [...]
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The Place Where I Come From is a Small Town: or Everything is Interesting if You Look Hard Enough

 So, in Monday's post I talked about where ideas come from and suggested that a lot of them come from your surroundings. Later that evening I was speaking with one of my regular readers and he put this question to m[...]
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1000 Word Rant: Internet Consensus, the Content Calendar and the Neurotic DM

Recently, The Spirits of Eden’s Dennis Santana aka Wyatt Salazar has chosen to take a break from 4th Edition D&D. He self-deprecatingly declares that “if Wyatt was a corporation, this post would cause its stock p[...]
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The Difficulties of Historical settings

Zach of RPGBlog2 writes about the Rolemaster:Rome supplement. In it he wishes there was more on the geography and the city of Rome while there was great stuff on Roman life. I am not sure what issues the author of Rolem[...]
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theme in the details and triangulation lists

"In war, victory In peace, vigilance In death, sacrifice"        -- Grey Warden motto, Dragon Age: Origins. A recent RoleplayingTips article about the virtues of Dragon Age as... Click the title i[...]
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Empathy and Emotions in an RPG

As a GM, I’m used to having to play multiple characters, each with their own motivations, histories and even varying levels of intellect.  Because of that, I have to attune myself to the character’s mindset[...]
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Preview: Kingdom Builder by Chaotic Shiny Productions

I love all kind of random generators, especially random name generators, since I usually have a hard time coming up with cool-sounding character names. When some time ago Hannah Lipsky of Chaotic Shiny Productions asked [...]
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My Favorite Blogs: Dice Monkey

I’ve decided that while my gaming is on a current downturn, I’ll occasionally talk about certain blogs on my blogroll. By no means, do I intend to suggest that other blogs are better than the rest. Rather, these post[...]
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My Favorite Blogs: Dice Monkey

I’ve decided that while my gaming is on a current downturn, I’ll occasionally talk about certain blogs on my blogroll. By no means, do I intend to suggest that other blogs are better than the rest. Rather, these post[...]
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Skill Challenges With Organic Time Limits in 4E

So I've been thinking about skill challenges again. One tweak I've come up with is to add in an organic time limit, by way of two steps:Calculate how many rounds a normal skill challenge would take at maximum, if all rol[...]
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You can’t do that in a RPG… at least not anymore

I’m a father now, have been for a few years so this isn’t an immediate adjustment, but something has definitely changed in me over the course of having kids of my own. Namely, there are things that now break[...]
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Are You a Leader or a Follower?

Your character Randy is chilling with friends at his house. They’re chatting, having fun, and then Randy has a suggestion. “Hey guys. You wanna go hang out at the beach? The other players reply, and their charact[...]
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[GMing] My Weakness

Further reflecting on yesterday’s post, I’ve come to realize what my weakness is as a GM. I have a hell of a time trying to think of plots for characters with little to no backstory. Perhaps it’s becaus[...]
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57 channels

The announcement of GoogleBuzz (and it's current privacy flaw) got me thinking about how many methods of connection to other people we have.  Facebook, Twitter, GoogleWave, blogs, forums,... Click the title if you [...]
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Ask The GMs: Systematic Systems Choice

How do you choose the right game system? The Ask the GMs questions here at CM never seem to stop, which is great, because they never fail to inspire new discussion topics. This one’s been sitting on the backb[...]
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A Market Solution

Our recurring Eberron campaign, the one mentioned in previous posts by this blog’s titular DM, has generally placed an emphasis on story elements such as prophecy and birth, and high staked action-packed combat. With t[...]
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Regret, Hobbies, Chores and Oppression

This simple graph was designed as a life comment; as with many things, the lessons of life apply to gaming.  Everything you do can be divided into four types, and each type has a quadrant.  The upper right is for “H[...]
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