Author: Don Mappin

Having just wrapped up its first season, the FX Cold War spy show seems a natural selection to spend some time dissecting, looking for elements to use (or avoid!) in your games. Suffice it to say that there will likely be some spoilers involved, so if you haven’t seen up to the season finale, you may want to come back a bit later. The Setup The Americans is about two KGB deep-cover operatives who are put together by design to act as a newly married…

You’ve no doubt heard — or uttered — the phrase that “no adventure survives contact with the players.” The argument being that even the best GM cannot possibly account for all the permutations that players come up with. Typically the bonzo, crazy ideas that come from out of nowhere (“I steal his pants”) are the ones that make us shake our head, pause for a moment, and then pick up the pieces. But this isn’t about handling those types of plans, it’s the opposite: the…

It recently occurred to me during the course of play in our current Hunter game that one of my Disadvantages–much to my horror–had not been used after roughly 8 sessions. My character is “Unlucky,” which is to say that once per session a roll–at the Storyteller’s discretion–should have its difficulty increased by one. So who’s responsibility is it to remember these character facets? Honestly, I had forgotten, but I’d certainly put the onus upon the GM of the game in question. So, here are some…

I’ve a fondness of a quote by Carlos Fuentes, “Writing is a struggle against silence.” There is always a story to be told and as an author it is difficult to not be thinking about that next tale that is struggling to escape. Writers are always writing, if not literally then conceptually, fighting against that silence. As a GM I wonder if some of those same concepts apply to our craft as well. While I am not running a game at the moment, I’m always…

There will come a time, through no fault of your own, when you will be expected to run a game or exercise your GMing prowess and you will feel…lacking. We speak often of player and NPC motivation within the context of constructing a game or campaign, but very little about what keeps a GM motivated and returning to the table, week after week (hopefully). Some ideas to get through that darkness and into the light…. Fake It Until You Make It You’ve probably heard this…

In a nice bit of synergy, I composed this piece before Matt’s excellent article on Alan DeSmet’s GameScience Dice Analysis, so it continues the die theme nicely. Unfortunately, this article doesn’t have nearly the comprehensive analysis (or fancy charts) that Matt’s did. Soldier on, I say! The question — and potential solutions — posed today revolve around the sharing of dice: Friendly gesture to the unprepared or sacred taboo to never be discussed? It’s Only Weird if it Doesn’t Work Gamers are a superstitious lot,…

It’s a rare situation, but what if one of your players comes to your table with the idea to play a child as their character? What would be your initial reaction? Now, I’m not talking about childlike as in, say, a kender, but an actual child. Furthermore, can we even agree on where the bar is when it comes to defining a child? Is the 16 to 18 yr old teenager staking vampires at night a child or do we have to go even further,…