Whenever I GM, and fairly often when I don’t, I lug this thing with me. It’s a gym bag, Oleg Cassini I think, that I acquired for free somewhere along the line. It’s just about the right size. It usually … Continue reading
Tag Archives: GMing
A lot of gaming folks seem to be using their blogs as places to display and store their campaign worlds. Blogs have a lot of advantages for this kind of worldbuilding. If your purpose is to have audience interaction, then … Continue reading
I like games that use hero/fate/plot/benny/luck points. These points work differently in different games, of course, but they generally tend towards giving the players small amounts of narrative control as a reward for doing cool things. In some game sessions, … Continue reading
Every time I’ve been to WisCon, I think, I’ve been to the “Let’s Build a World” panel. In it, the panel and the audience build a very well-functioning and detailed world from first principles, all within an hour. (Those first … Continue reading
One of my favorite GM aids is from the black book version of the Traveller RPG. It is Supplement 6: 76 Patrons. It presents 76 different patron encounters, each with a variety of different possible twists. The patrons are organized … Continue reading
At last WisCon, there were several great panels about worldbuilding. One, in particular, brought up the concept of using different standard blocks, like “elves who are immortal and hate dwarves”, “the monotheistic religion is on a crusade to destroy the … Continue reading
One question I’ve often gotten at “Beginning GM” panels is, how do you write an RPG scenario? For a lot of beginning GMs, this can be a daunting task; it feels like you have to write a novel from scratch, … Continue reading
How do you award experience points? The standard method comes down to GM caveat: “Jane, you convinced the mayor to allow that dragon in town; you get 3 XP.” That can work well, especially in a system like Blade & … Continue reading