Author: Patrick Benson

Imagine that you are playing King Arthur as a PC in an RPG. You wield the mighty Excalibur – not just a sword but a defining part of the legend surrounding your character! While wielding the blade that identifies your PC as the one true king you are struck by a powerful spell. “Roll a saving throw for your items” says the GM. You roll for your crown. It is safe! You roll for your coconut shells carried to the British Isles by a pair…

Disinformation is a fancy term for lying via a network for the purpose of achieving some form of gain. Need an example? Just look to the recent U.S. election campaigns and you will be sure to find plenty of them. In the real world disinformation sucks, but in the gameworld it is merely an annoyance. Just follow this simple formula to introduce disinformation to the PCs in your game, and to have it develop from there into a nice plot point. First Step: Disinform the…

Every year my local game shop hosts a Halloween party. Part of the tradition of costumes, good food, and gaming is that I run a game of Dread for whoever wishes to play. Each year this game of Dread has a full table, and it always turns into a sort of spectator sport for non-players who follow the story as it unfolds. There has just been one significant problem with this game of Dread: Character creation takes too long for people to focus on while…

As a GM you present, entertain, and lead others. Your role includes management of data and people as you track stats and determine who has the spotlight next. You describe various scenes in order to promote interest and inspire others to take action. These are the skills that if you practice them regularly will take your games from average to amazing. What if you could have access to an organization that teaches these very same skills and lets you practice them on a regular basis?…

Plots for RPGs are tricky beasts to deal with. Too strict and the game is nothing more than a GM’s railroad. Too loose and there is no cohesion to the story for it to feel like it matters. The ideal plot has structure, but unlike the plot of a novel a game’s plot also adapts to the player’s choices. At the same time these plots need to accommodate the GM’s desire to share his or her game world with the players. Lately I have been…

Recently I had a game to prep for and I was mentally bankrupt. I had no good ideas whatsoever. Every concept that I came up with seemed tired and mediocre. Nothing clicked for me. I thought about just foregoing my prep work and improvising the entire session, but I am making a serious effort to no longer rely on improvising as a GM. If a game goes over the edge and I have to rely on an improvised plot or encounter that is fine. I…

I struggle with today. I am sure that I am not the only person who does so. I cannot bring myself to offer any GMing advice to you today. It just seems so trivial to me in comparison to what today means to me. My apologies in advance if you are disappointed by today’s article because of this. Instead please allow me to be so bold as to share some advice for your life in general today: If you and your friends are getting upset…