Tori sat at the head of the table behind her GM's Screen. Today was the start of her new post-apocalyptic campaign and the group would start by generating characters. Tori: Okay, what are you guys thinking of playing? Marc: I want to play a scavenger that kitbashes vehicles and equipment. Gina: I'm going to play a merchant with leadership skills. Brandon: My guy is going to be a gladiator that fights ...

Here's something that is important for the whole group to pay attention to: Character Roles. The best description of the problem I have read came from Fang Langford when he was working through his description of Scattershot a few years ago. At the time he called it Sine Qua Non, Latin for "without which not". [The current version is here.] It is important to clearly label the ...

I apologize for the almost exclusively "D&D-ish" nature of today's Hot Button, but I think it definitely deserves addressing. It's a question that also comes up in other games that have similar distinctions (such as Palladium's alignment system or Star Wars Light Side/Dark Side distinctions). Do you allow evil player characters in your standard campaigns? I mention "standard" because I'm sure all of us old-timers can recall at least one ...

How many times have you been party to some variant of the following? Sammie invites you into her new D&D campaign. Since you've been out of the loop, you inquire into what the others are playing so that you can decide what to play. "Sure," she smiles. "Danny is playing a dwarven cleric, Shiela is playing an elven wizard, and I'm bringing in a halfling rogue." There are many reasons why ...

When I ran my first 7th Sea campaign I introduced each adventure with a short piece of fiction. This was often a cut scene that gave the players a little metagame knowledge as to the focus of the adventure. For those of you unfamiliar with 7th Sea, it was a swashbuckling RPG based on a fictional world that strongly resembled 17th century Europe lightly flavored with magic. One PC in ...

Several years ago, a GM that I was acquainted with organized his weekly group into a club. Everyone paid a fee and the GM would ostensibly use this money to purchase gaming materials that he would keep after use. A few years later (but still several years ago...darn I feel old!), I was discussing this arrangement with a fellow gamer buddy. He had a rather heated reaction against it, ...

While Martin covered this topic before, no "hot button" column worth its salt wouldn't tackle this question: Do you thin it's appropriate to fudge dice rolls or consequences?  For those of you not up on the clean-shaven Keebler forest gnome lingo (oh, come on...they're way too short to be elves! And if it's fudgy and delicious, it was obviously made by gnomes!), fudging is whenever the GM covertly breaks the ...

You've spent the week preparing for your session and you eagerly pull up to the house hosting the game. You're excited, not only because you've got great plans in mind for tonight's adventure but also because one of your players, the host, is making his signature chicken curry. Your mouth waters as you exit the car, enter the house and say "hi" to the host working his magic on the stove. You walk ...

Heh, that title alone should probably spawn 50 comments :-) In the early days of RPG when AD&D was king, my groups eventually crawled out of the dungeons and started running more soap opera style games. Rather than clear out an orc infestation, we were more likely to be found courting maidens (or men, if one of us were in "drag"), running fiefs, and forging alliances. This being AD&D ...

“Or: How to draw aggro on a GMing blog” One of the Holy Grails of gaming is the “sandbox game”, where there is no overarching meta-plot, or even individual plot arcs, but where the characters are put into a world that is both realistic and autonomous, and allowed to interact in that world however they see fit. To a True Believer of the Way of the Sandbox, everything else ...

You've just walked into the game room and are patiently setting up your notes and props. As the players gather around you, you turn to Bob. His last character, Chance Fortune, was gunned down after a particularly unwise scuffle with some space station guards. You plan on introducing his new character to the rest of the party, who are busily hoisting drinks in the Starbase lounge in honor ...

I once pitched a new RPG to a friend. His first question was "Does the combat system require miniatures and a grid?" I'm paraphrasing a bit, but his essential point was that he enjoyed RPGs that emphasized stories and roleplaying while foregoing detailed tactical combat. If the RPG did have a highly detailed combat system, he was walking away. This brings me to today's hot button: Does the grid inhibit ...