Category: GMing Advice
| June 18, 2013 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Aliens are Coming! One of the things that interests me is seeing how other GMs create their notes and where their inspiration comes from. It turns out that I’ll be running a couple of games at our roleplaying mini-con on Free RPG Day, so… I generated some notes. (I’ve actually done this before; back in 2010 I wrote an article creatively titled Adventure Notes, where I shared some notes from my first 4e game and a Spirit of the Century. You’ll see some commonalities and…
| June 13, 2013 | Posted by Don Mappin |
This afternoon, after several weeks of waiting, my final order of Marvel Heroic books arrived. I was pretty excited (“yea, new books!”) and then fairly despondent, remembering that the game was dead. As in, no more. Finished. Kaput. And while we only played a brief Marvel Heroic campaign, it was awesome, so much so that it was my clear pick for “Product of the Year” at the 2012 ENnies (they won Silver). But this also brings up a good reminder of the value of RPGs…
| June 5, 2013 | Posted by Walt Ciechanowski |
While these days I tend to play games where PCs are built from beginning to end, I sometimes wax nostalgic for the old days when I never knew what I was going to play. Grognards like me (okay, I’m more of a neo-grognard) can recall our earliest days of (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons, when we used to roll 3d6 for each of the six ability scores in order. Today most gamers I know tend to look back on that model as harsh and ruthless; certainly…
| May 31, 2013 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
In my last article I talked about how to rules shift a campaign from one set of rules to another. In today’s article I am going to break down the steps I used to convert the dystopian future of Underground from its original system over to the new Fate Core . Straight From The Underground Underground’s original rule system is a variant of the Mayfair Exponential Game System, which I first encountered in the form of the Original DC Heroes RPG. It’t not a system for everyone,…
| May 23, 2013 | Posted by Scott Martin |
I first came across the concept of the “supernatural dial” in Dogs in the Vineyard, but I’d encountered it in casual form long before. Sometimes the supernatural dial is expressed as “How gritty do you like your fantasy?” or “It’s a low magic setting”, while similar analogues exist for modern and sci-fi games. (“Is the tech Hard SF, or space opera?”) In Dogs, the towns you visit are plagued by demons—but depending on your specific Dogs campaign, demons might be walking tempters with red scales,…
| May 22, 2013 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest article is by Angela Murray (aka Orikes), an occasional graphic designer, a sometime photographer, and one of the voices over at Rogue Princess Squadron, a new gaming blog put together by several female authors. Though she’s been gaming for years, GMing is still a new love in her life. Thanks, Angela! In an ongoing campaign, the character sheet is in the hands of the player. It’s their baby, their lifeline into the game world. They often put a great deal of time and…
| May 21, 2013 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest article is by Richard Dansky, who tabletop gamers are most likely to know for his extensive work with White Wolf, particularly Wraith: The Oblivion. He’s a GM, a 14-year veteran of the video game industry, and the author of six novels, including Firefly Rain. His latest novel, Vaporware, comes out May 24th. Thanks, Richard! Nobody gets GMing right the first time. To be fair, most people don’t get anything right the first time, but GMing can be particularly tricky. After all, the novice…
