1. Pirates Need Conveyance! – Whether or not yer pirate game has anything to do with the little traversed waters of reality, all pirates need some form of conveyance. While there might be means of piracy capable of being committed without a ship o some sort, nothing screams the idea of pirate like a ship. Be it a triple masted schooner, a trim and tight helium powered airship, or even an underground tunneling giant worm, the idea of pirates is almost always linked to traveling about. A pirate’s ship is more than his means of travel. It is his home, the thing that keeps him safe from the people he plunders from, and the place he spends most of his life. In your games you can easily make a ship of some sort available. The players might acquire it through the traditional piratical methods of taking it from someone else. It might be granted to them for the purpose of harassing a king’s enemy (in which case they would be freelancers), or the players might find themselves stranded near an old wreck that they need to fix up. Granting the players a ship changes the paradigm of the game a bit, but it can enable whole new ways to play.
2. An Enemy – One thing common to all pirates is that they are against something or someone. Whether it be as simple as the fact that most pirates were freelancers who attacked enemy nations, or is merely the idea that the pirates are out for their own profit and that puts them against the forces of law and justice, pirates are always pitted in constant struggle. Noble pirates might be struggling against a corrupt empire. Scoundrel pirates might be fighting for themselves. Whatever the case, the enemy of the pirates becomes a defining point of any game involving pirates. You can explore worlds of interesting ideas all around a pirates enemy. A pirate game can be a great place to showcase that BBEG that you’ve always wanted to try. Players tend to take notice of the enemy in a pirate game more so than in a game full of standard fare.
3. The Potential for Profit – Pirate games should be about being able to profit in some way. There is nothing better in a piratical game than looting a galleon and getting an incredible surge in wealth. That feeling is one of accomplishment and reward.  If you are running a pirate game, but don’t want it to be a monty haul game, there are many ways your players can be kept in check. Pirates prey on other pirates all the time. Ship upkeep is required and expensive. There are also tithes if a crew is operating on behalf of someone. The fine line to walk with a pirate themed game is providing the reward of loot, but not letting it overburden the game. You can always dip into a pirate theme for a while if you want to give your group a needed cash inflow.
4. The Switch To Piracy – The skills required by a pirate crew are often different than the skills required for most adventurers, even when you are talking about modern day settings. When switching into a pirate themed game from an already existing game, allowing players to modify character classes, skills, and abilities to be more effective for the ship might not be a bad idea. You might let them replace their most recent 2 class levels or give them some temporary points in something that would be relevant to the ship. This is a great way to throw some rewards your players way and to let them try out new and  interesting character classes.
5. Outside The Law (Freedom) - A very freeing thing about a pirate game is that the players get to be outside of the law a bit. They get to loot and pillage without worrying about the moral grey areas. Not the right fit for the paladin, but a great fit for most gaming groups. Looking over the horizon and saying "Jolly well, let’s plunder that ship today just because we can!" is a very freeing attitude, and that is something really attractive about pirate games. They are often less restricted by the nature of the theme.

So what be ye thinking about a pirate game? Have ye run or played in one? What was the most fun thing about it?

IMG: Some rights reserved by Kid’s Birthday Parties

Use Broad Strokes – Detail is the death of interactivity. This might sound harsh, but if your players wanted to read a book instead of playing a game, that is what they would do. If you present your players with a 300 page world history, most of them are going to start zoning out. Think about what happens when players start making characters from a published  sourcebook. The majority of them pick and pry at the elements they find cool and figure out how to make use of those. That’s about the only thing they really read in-depth. “Sweet picture of an airship, how do I get to pilot one of those!” “That class gets to use Jedi mind powers without being a Jedi? Hell yeah, let’s read more!” They go through the book in this way and grab the bits of the backstory that are important to them. Your homegrown world or story has to function in this way as well, and too many details that aren’t relevant will turn the players off.

When you sit down to write up the war of a thousand years, start and stick to the broad important ideas. Don’t get too bogged down with the way the elven prince was snubbed and why he sent an assassin to kill the human lord, focus only on the fact that he did. When you paint with broad strokes, you leave room to add the details in later. This idea leads right into the next one…

Chronicle In A Way The Players Can Connect To – When you come to the table you come to game, and your attention isn’t on the backstory of why and what caused the current event, but on the event going on in the game itself. Backstory should be in the background but accessible. That way it can sprout up in your game when it is important. No matter the medium, your backstory has to be accessible to the players when they read it. There are a few ways to tweak the presentation of these elements.

• Keep it neat and organized - Make sure it is neat and organized. Keep separate sections for NPCs, Places, Stories, Relationships, Gossip, etc. Keep them neat and organized and don’t put any GM only information there. Keep that separate so that the players can feel free to browse through the notebooks or online wiki site. This way they can rifle through it in their free time.
• Make it available all the time, but don’t shove it down their throats – There is an old chinese saying that “A person mistrusts the money thrust on him, but loves the money he finds on his own.”, and the idea behind it applies here. The more you actively try to make the backstory of  the world or setting a requirement, the less interested the players are.  If it is available to them whenever they want it, then they have more engagement when they read it. If you can provide multiple copies of the backstory or world details, excellent. Let them keep them it and read it when they want to.
• Make it visually dynamic – Reading through reams of words in order to play a game isn’t that fun. Break the source up with pictures. Find cc licensed pictures on the net, use the reference pictures from campaign books, or find great images on deviant art (It is always nice to shoot an artist a thanks email or ask permission to use it personally) that illustrate elements in your backstory.
• Outline, don’t overburden – From a player perspective, the only necessary details in backstory are the ones relevant to what they need. Four or five paragraphs on the way Ser Madena rose to power in the inner-planetary corporation aren’t really necessary. One will probably do. Even then a bullet list of people she stepped on and how she pissed them off will provide the information the player needs and wants. This kind of information wouldn’t cut it for backstory if you were writing a book, but you are writing for an interactive game and can fill in the details if asked. The negative space will give the players area to fill with their imaginations and that makes it more relevant to them.

Build The Backstory, But Build The Characters Into It – Ok, so you’ve built your backstory in a way that the players can connect to and you haven’t overburdened them with details, but you still aren’t seeing the investment you’d hoped for. Maybe they need a reason to be connected. You don’t want to force them into the backstory, but you can help them incorporate themselves. After describing the basics of the world or the story, ask the players to write up their own backstories, but ask them to use generic descriptors instead of names. You can then take that backstory and weave it into your overarching backstory with details that act like sutures holding two pieces of skin together until they heal. Have your players give you a backstory that looks like this:

“So, Sajeren used to be a pilot for a rebel army’s pilot squad. He came from a small farm planet and always wanted to go off and join the big army, until they went and caused a big massacre and killed his brother, Marcus, at a prominent battle. He saw how bad they were and decided to join the rebel army. However, he got kicked out for being unable to follow orders. He really just had an issue with his commanding officer.”

Take elements from your backstory (or create them) and weave them in to the character’s story. Take elements from the character’s story and modify your backstory to fit the character hooks that the player provided. Rework the generic elements that you asked the player to use and give them back something like this:

“So, Sajeren used to be a pilot for the Anterian Army’s Barking Bee’s bomber squad. He came from Anterios, a small farm planet in the quadrain sector, and always wanted to go off and join the Dranzer Empire’s Universal Navy, until the Battle of Reimos, which many call a massacre because of the use of germ warfare and mercenary soldiers.  It was at this battle that his brother Marcus was killed. He saw how bad the navy was and decided to join the Anterian Army. However, he got kicked out by Major Allison, for being unable to follow orders. He really just had an issue with his commanding officer, Major Allison who later turned out to be a traitor and spy for the Dranzer Empire. She now holds the title of Sector Admiral, Second Class and runs things from her flagship, the Matronia. There is a small resistance group working out of an asteroid base in the system. Sajeren might have friends who are now transferred there and are looking out for Admiral Allison.”

Ask the player if the changes are okay, let him revise them and you’ve now got a player who is engaged in the backstory with a few plot hooks they can follow and not a lot of work that they had to do. Give them links to the detailed entries in your wiki (or the hardcopy of the backstory) and they’ll start building the backstory into their character’s mind. This strategy will require willing players who have some idea of their characters, but if they are up for it you can turn the framework into a well fleshed world-integrated character. BE CAREFUL not to step on toes or try to control characters, use what they give you and only change the names. With a tactic like this, the player should always have final say.

Provide Mechanical Benefits To The Backstory – One way to get the players engaged is to provide mechanical benefits that are backstory specific. You might make thematic changes to powers and abilities, create your own versions of new classes or jobs, and provide these to the players. Perhaps you can provide some free powers or traits that tie in to and help the players engage in the world setting. The players might not use the world or story specific powers, but if they are something extra that the player didn’t have to give up other options for, then they will find more value in them. If you don’t like the idea of reskinning already existing abilities or creating your own, provide XP bonuses for backstory integration or use. Some players are there for the mechanical side of things, and if you provide them a mechanical element that is tied to the backstory, they’ll have a reason to engage the backstory within their own particular play style.

Build The Backstory Together – One thing that I particularly like to see is when the players and the Game Master build the backstory together. This won’t work well for a Game Master who already has a big backstory in mind, but it will create something that all of the players can engage with. It will also eliminate a feeling of control on the Game Master’s part, which is good. Without that feeling of someone else change the paradigm of your story, you can feel more at ease with the epic and unexpected changes that are going on at the table. You can make use of world building games like Dawn of Worlds  or Microscope. Games like this turn the art of world or history creation into a collaborative game. They can make for a very interesting trifecta -  Group World Creation, Group Character Creation, and then the actual game where the players are incredibly involved and connected. Building the backstory together definitely changes the paradigm, but I think it’s worth it for a trial game.

When you sit down to run a game with a world setting with lots of backstory or detail,  you can have some incredibly deep and fun games. The more backstory or detail there is though, the harder it is to keep players engaged with it. That’s just the nature of the beast. At the table things move at a different speed and in a different way that isn’t often  friendly to detail heavy settings and worlds. So how do you get your players engaged in the backstory or details of your game? Do you find it hard or easy? When you are a player, how do you feel about backstory heavy games?

1. Play The High Or Low Game – When a player presents something completely off the wall to me at a convention game and I have no idea if it should work or not, I don’t want to drag down the game by having them make skill check after skill check to try to pull off their ingenious plan. So instead, I play the high or low game. I ask the player: “High or low” as I take a d10 into my hand. As they make their choice I roll the dice. If they said high and it comes up high, it goes in their favor. If they said low though, then things don’t quite work out. It’s a really simple variation on flipping a coin. I don’t use this technique for everything, but when something comes up that I don’t want to belabor over or devote a lot of time to. Maybe the player came up with an insane plan. I’ll let the dice decide if it is viable. I might let them attempt skill checks from there, but let the High or Low decide if the story gets changed to meet the ingeniousness of their plan or not.  Sometimes I roll it in the open, sometimes I leave it behind the screen.
2. Cut The Hit Points In Half – When I’m running games at conventions, I don’t want combats to take forever. I also don’t want them to be lame and unchallenging. The easiest way I’ve found to do this so far is by cutting the hit points in half or to a quarter of their original total. I leave the enemies as combat worthy as they were before, but they get taken out a bit more easily. For big enemies that should be tough to take down I don’t do this, but I do it for any smaller enemies or less dramatic encounters. I also sometimes us the 10 Good Hits system to pace out a combat more effectively.
3. Front-load Your Encounters – When I read Kurt’s article Front-load Your Encounters, I went “DUH! Why the hell did I never think of it like that!”. It’s great advice that we often forget, but there is no reason for the enemies not to use their most effective things up front. Sure it is a bit of meta-gaming, but the PCs are likely going to win. To make it as challenging as possible, have the Dragon use his fire breath, the mercenaries fire their disorienting flash bangs, or the enemy ship blast away with its biggest gun. Combined with lessened hit points, the combats become quick, deadly, and exciting.
4. Gimme Tokens For Puzzles – Nothing is more frustrating for a player than spending a gaming session not getting the solution a puzzle. Maybe they missed a vital clue, or  forgot that the flavor text spelled out the color pattern, or just aren’t the type who likes puzzles in games. Now think about that frustration compiled into a convention game. This is the one time that they get to play that game, and they got bogged down on a puzzle for most of it. But puzzles can be fun and interesting, so you don’t need to write them off entirely. Just give the group a gimme token or two if you are going to include a puzzle. They can use the gimme tokens to ask for the solution or a major clue to the puzzle if they are getting frustrated by it. The gimme token also puts the choice in their hands. They get to say when the puzzle attempt ends.
5. Prep And Make Use of Your Index Cards – Index cards are GREAT tools, and for convention games their utility is multiplied by a hundred. You can prep so many things on index cards beforehand and use those during the game.  What all could you do with them to speed up a game?
   
   • Write out the stat blocks for each enemy or enemy group
   • Put every NPC name on an index card and then clip them to your GM screen. No more forgotten names.
   • Have the players write their character names on the cards and use them as name cards to increase immersion amongst strangers.
   • Sketch drawings of items or put bullet point descriptions of important things/scenes so that the players don’t miss anything. “Oh, I forgot each level had a different color.”
   • Pass secret notes quickly.
   • Use them as tokens/action points.

   There are hundreds of uses for index cards, but prepping them beforehand is the big thing. That way you’ve just got a pack of cards that you can shuffle through to introduce a new item.

So, those are a few tips for helping speed up games for conventions. What other tips do you have? What things have helped you keep games quick and fun?

That’s right, you go looking for toys. Toys of all sorts can make great miniatures for your games. They are often bigger in scale, cheaper to purchase, and they provide incredibly unique options. Not really buying it, well a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s get garrulous!

(Apologies for the quality on some of these pictures, they were taken with a cell phone with less than stellar quality.)

Ok, let’s make the case for why toys as miniatures are awesome. First off, they are frigging huge. Really. Check out this dragon toy I found at a local toy store. Not the prettiest….

but . . .

frigging huge. Yup, that’s a reference picture of some random guy’s leg next to the big dragon. Imagine an actual miniature facing off against that.

Ok, argument the second. Toys can be big, but the ones that make good miniatures are often cheap. Check the clearance aisle and you can find lots of good deals. These clearance aisle toys make great demons, satyrs, and monsters.

The third argument I’ve got is in regards to sheer numbers. Ever want to drench the map in miniatures? Want to throw an army against the PCs or just populate the map with civilians about to die? Great miniature sized toys can be found en masse. They even come in sets with some landscape. Just check out these bulk packs of army men.

Or go check out these packs of pirates and knights. A little bigger than your average miniature, but great fodder for the battlefield.

Argument Vier, toys make great unique miniatures. Want a good robot or giant mechanical suit? Check out a toy like this. The size fits, it has firing parts, it has a grappling hook, and you can even slide miniatures into the cockpit and make some nifty challenges where taking out the pilot is the real objective of the very tactical oriented combat.

Point five, toys can make great set pieces. This barbie castle from goodwill and a bit of model paint and you’ve got a great, cheap castle. A pirate ship makes a great pirate ship or the basis for a great airship.

Hopefully I’ve showcased some of the nifty ways that toys can be repurposed into great miniatures. All it takes is a trip into a toy store or thrift store and a bit of imagination. Have you used toys as miniatures before? What other unique solutions do you use for fun miniatures?

1. The Subtle Details Are Going To Be Forgotten Anyways
Ok GMs, let’s face it. No matter how much nuance we cram into our NPCs, or how much detail we write down on index cards that we give out to our players, the little details of the NPCs are always going to be forgotten. The vague general sense of the major thing that NPC represents is what is going to be front and center. The arch-dukes sense of evil is what is going to be remembered, not the small plot point that he was casually seen speaking with a hooded man as the PCs entered the throne room to speak with the king. If this is emphasized and overacted, the detail has more of a chance of sticking. Remember, the players are always looking at your game world from a slightly different angle.

2. Realism
Our brains are god damned amazing, but they are also weird. Our images of others is never a complete image. Think about any person you’ve ever met. The biggest and brightest things, their most obvious physical and personality traits are what comes to mind first. In some cases, especially for people you’ve just met, the idea of the person is more like a fuzzy image with some things defined. If we think about our NPCs in this way, we want to present the most relevant details about the NPC to the players so that their brains, working in the natural way, will have the information they need.

3.Makes Them Memorable 
In the game that inspired this article, my buddy acted out the strange monk’s odd behavior and weird voice. We definitely picked up on this and noticed him. He also acted out the irate and angry behavior of the “refined doctor” and the pompous boasting and loud nature of the nobleman who was the beneficiary for the expedition. I remember these things about his game incredibly clearly, despite it only having been a 3 hour game that occurred over a week ago. Grabbing these couple of elements about the NPCs distinguished them from one another and helped us keep the decently large cast of NPCs (7 important NPCs on the train we were riding on)distinct during the short game. If you want more proof, just look at this little montage from “The Gamers”.  (p.s. You should totally go check out their new web series called Journey Quest.)

4. Overacting The NPCs Encourages Interaction With Them
The loud guy across the room is a whole lot easier to talk to than the quiet one sitting in the corner. By being loud and noticed, a person breaks the personal space barrier around themselves and encourages people to communicate with them in some way, even if that way is only watching them intently. Kids at theme parks are more drawn to the larger than life full suited mascots than they are the more realistic looking character actors. Overacting your PCs and making them larger than life makes them much easier to engage with roleplaying. It also breaks a little of the tension for players who are less prone to roleplay or get “in character”. If they see you doing it, they are going to feel less silly when they pull out the crazy actions and character accents.

5.Prep Is Easier
Knowing that you are going to overact an NPC makes it much easier to create them. You only have to focus on the elements that you are going to be over-representing. Focusing on big elements during NPC creation also tends to help you flesh out the little details that you may keep in your mind about them. Knowing the NPC is an occult NUT can spark your mind into thinking of all the ways that they express that. Even on the fly, when someone asks how the person is dressed, keeping those one or two defining factors up front makes them easier to build off of on the fly. “How is he dressed? Umm . . (Wait a minute, he is an occult nutjob and I want the PCs to figure out that whatever he is telling them is bullshit.) You see a pentagram tattoo on his hands, but not the kind that looks like it came from an old researched book. No, more like the one that comes from a removable tattoo from Hot Topic."

So, there are lots of reasons to “overact” your NPCs. Do you think the tactic is valid? Do you usually play your NPCs over the top or try to keep them more realistic? Do you think it kills the realism to overact the NPCs?

• One-shots don’t provide a lot of room for character development and don’t get a lot of character investment from the players. Making a new character for a one-shot lets you try out new power combinations or character concepts, but you never get to level them up past where you made them. Since a one-shot character isn’t planned to be in play long, seeing them die is really no big deal. Knowing they will have a character for 6 or 7 sessions lets a player invest in the character and even plan a little development if they level up.
• Mini-series campaigns have a definite ending. Running a 6 or 7 session game gives you enough time to detail a story without feeling the need to stretch it out too long. Some stories are made for the long epic quest with multiple dungeons, attacks on mega-corps, travels through the stars saving ships and planets, etc., but some feel too thin if stretched out over the course of a year or more. When you build your story to fit 6 or 7 sessions you can keep key themes and NPCs in the forefront.
• Mini-series campaigns can be played directly in the sweet spot of whatever game system you are using. Playing a mini-series campaign lets you more accurately judge where characters are going  to be at the end, power wise, of  your story. Common scenario: The GM creates a BBEG at the start of a campaign. The players go through the campaign and find nifty exploits that grant them lots of unforeseen power boosts as they level up. By the time the BBEG is met, he no longer matches up to the characters’ power levels and needs to be redone, or drops like a ton of bricks. The opposite could happen as well. The challenges you built for your characters as they leveled up might end up being far too powerful for them and you unwittingly commit a TPK before they ever reach the BBEG. Having a shorter amount of sessions gives you less space to try to plan for. You can build challenges without trying to think too far ahead of your players, and thus give them a more balanced play experience.
• Mini-series campaigns let you try out new games and ideas. You can run that interesting steampunk D&D game idea  (steampunk beholder, how awesome would that be in your game?)  for two months, then jump into that GURPs Antarctic horror game you’ve been thinking about, let Sarah run that Savage Worlds Deadland’s game she wanted to do at some point, come back to running an all rogue fantasy  D&D game, take some time off over the holidays, and then let Roger run that Traveler space game he was thinking about. You can get a lot of diversity and new gaming in when you keep the length of the campaigns shorter.
• Mini-series campaigns can give the group’s main Game Master the chance to play and other people the chance to run. This lets people share the work and fun of GMing, prevents a lot of burnout, and helps facilitate new ideas and game styles. Even if you play the same game system and setting for each game, new people GMing means new styles and stories to explore. Plus, knowing that they don’t have to plan anything too massive puts less pressure on new Game Masters.

A good structure for a mini-series campaign is 6 to 8 games. I personally prefer the 6 game setup for a short campaign and the 8 game scenario for a campaign with one or two sub-adventures or sidequests thrown in. This lets the campaign be broken up into 3 or 4 sections with a definite beginning, middle, and end.

1 – 2 sessions in - Backgrounds and character entrenchment, initial encounters that are "easy" wins, or situations that setup the main story. These are the games where the group establishes their new characters and gets most into the game’s story.
3 – 4 sessions in – The discovery and the juicy bits. This is where you make the plot matter and the PCs get to effect it. While the plot will be introduced in the first two sessions this is where the PCs really get to interact with it.
5th session – The beginning of the end, the climax and anything that precludes the main fight/end scene. This is where the players know they are getting to the end and gear up for it. Their hardest, most meaningful fight is ahead and this is the penultimate session where they take their first steps towards the end, for good or bad.
6th session – The end scene. Everything happens here. The PCs face the BBEG, they save or let down the town, the dragon is fought, etc. This is also the session for resolution. The personal plots that are important to the PCs should be wrapped up in this session.

So what do you think about the mini-series campaign? It certainly isn’t a new idea, but it is one I think a lot of Game Masters overlook when planning a new game, even when running from a published adventure. Do you run your games like this or does it feel too short or too long to accommodate your campaign ideas?

While looking over this, and seeing some of the forum buzz it created, it struck me that a lot of things done in this room are solely for the game immersion factor. A  lot of things he does here are the same kinds of things that I do with my gaming space to keep my players focused and involved. The gaming space you play in is incredibly important to your game. Anyplace with a table (if you need one) will work, but if the space you are gaming in is working against you, then you have a lot more work on your hands. So here are five things to think about in regards to your gaming space.

1. The walls are your biggest problem and your biggest asset
   When a player isn’t in the spotlight or is feeling slightly bored, the thing that is going to take up most of their visual wandering is the walls of your gaming room. That pineapple wallpaper from the 70s is going to turn them right out of gaming mode if that is what fills most of their vision. If you are playing a fantasy game and the walls look somewhat dungeon-like, then the gamer’s mind is never going to leave that mental space they have while involved in the game.The same goes for sci-fi, horror, western, or any other genre. Sure we can’t redo the walls of our living rooms or basements for every game, but throwing a few props or art that fist the genre of your game up on the walls will help keep a continuous stream of mental immersion into the game world.

    
   These props layered around my game room help the steampunk/anime-fantasy feel of the game I am currently running.

2. Table props trump room props
   The players are going to be looking at the walls sure, but their main focus is going to be on the table. Any visual element there helps the players keep focused in the game. Use bits of scenery, make sure you’ve got minis (even if they aren’t being used in the current action), keep maps interesting even if they aren’t to scale. I can’t overemphasize the importance of the visual space of the gaming table. Even if you are doing maps on the fly, there are little touches for making them nifty. I use Jenga blocks and dominos to build most of my dungeons, but I paint them up to look like dungeon walls and doors. When I make use of ships or airships in a game, I make use of the cardboard ships from various ship trading card games, like Pirates. These little elements keep people visually engaged with the action going on. Even if I can’t make use of appropriate props, I make use of permanent markers and poker chips to represent spacing or the fact that something is on the board.

   

3. Try to remove anything from the room that visually breaks game immersion
   Anything in your room that breaks the immersion of the genre you are playing in is bad for the immersion. Burntwire’s awesome setup has speakers hidden in the ceiling, no visible light switches (all controlled by the DM and hidden under the table), an old looking table that doesn’t look modern in any way, and walls that look like dungeon brick. The only modern looking things in the room are the plethora of games he has collected and the closets (a plain grey color). I’m not saying you shouldn’t strip everything electrical out of the room, but you should take minimal steps to cover it up. If you play mostly sci-fi games primarily then make use of dimmer switches or more futuristic lighting options. If you are playing horror games, spread some cobwebs and remove any happy and "warm" items or things from the room. You don’t need to be as extensive as this guy (although seeing his apartment makes me want to rent it and play a star trek game there), but if you are setting up a permanent gaming space, tweak it out to help the types of games you play.

   
   The fireplace isn’t something I can cover up, but I remove all the modern cleaning tools that sit around it before game and try to sit with it to my back for the brick effect. 

4. Background music is great, but it should stay in the background
   I love me some background music. I think it is great for game immersion, and Martin covers it in-depth in the article I just linked to, so I’m not going to rehash already great advice. I do want to add to it, though. Music should not play in a space that puts it between you and your players. The biggest lesson I ever had to learn when playing music was to not play it directly off of my laptop. It put the music pointing at me and the sound was something I had to talk over or turn down low (because of the way that humans localize sound). Instead, get some cheap speakers and run them around behind the players, and keep them a decent distance away so that they aren’t right in the players’ ears. This makes the music a factor but not the central one. When you are doing this think about step 3 and try to hid the speakers in a non-visible area or cover them (unless they help build immersion).
5. Burntwire’s setup is definitely extensive, but lots of things can just be layered on top of where you already play. Don’t break the bank.
   Ok, this is more money saving advice, but it is important. Immersion is important to a game, gaming space is important to immersion, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. No game is going to suffer because the Game Master didn’t spend wads of cash and time on building something awesome. Doing so might help a game, but it isn’t necessary. If you want to do things to liven up the gaming space and help with immersion, there are lots of easy things you can do on the cheap:
   • Print out things to use as props for the walls. There are many sites that have generic images for genres like sci-fi, fantasy, etc.
   • Use things you may already have (like replica swords – BE SAFE!) to hang on the walls.
   • Party stores have wall coverings and really nifty props that are fairly cheap. Need a dungeon wall or a western saloon look – they’ve got it.
   • Kid’s craft books have lots of recipes for making things suitable for nifty table props. Paper mache, contractors foam from stores, even cardboard boxes with a little bit of marker drawing can make great terrain. It sure isn’t going to be as professional as purchased or hobby-store created stuff, but it will work.
   • Focus in one in-game element for ease of setting up your space. In one shadowrun game I ran I had the group stationed out of a mechanic’s shop. I grabbed some spare tools and a rolling toolbox from the garage. A few adhesive hooks and the toolbox in the corner made the place feel like the shop.

     
     Elements of the “Hunters Lodge” which my group played out of (plus a quickly made spiderweb/rock structure piece of scenery).

Gaming space can be tweaked out for immersion to great effect. It can be done with small things added onto your gaming room or can be done full bore, like Burntwire’s setup. What steps do you take to tweak out your gaming space? Have you ever had a horrible gaming space that was detrimental to the game? What was the best gaming space you have ever used?

1. Puzzles should be meaningful and fun
   When a group encounters a puzzle in a game, it should have relevance to the game and be fun. Incorporating a puzzle into a doorlock is fine, so long as it isn’t the 13th one in a row, or if it is then there is a reason for the puzzle to be there. While working on a puzzle or riddle can be incredibly fun and let the players flex different brain muscles, they should fit and be fun for the group to tackle.
2. Puzzles should be tactile and 3D
   No matter what kind of puzzle you are dealing with, solving it becomes easier when you can visualize it, and visualizing it becomes easier when you can touch it and work with it. Any kind of prop that can be incorporated into the real world will be a blessing to the players. Even if it is just writing down the words of a riddle, seeing it can help players solve it more quickly. Think of this as a good guideline: If at all possible, the players should be able to interact within in a similar way that the characters can. This may be writing numbers on Jenga blocks, making sure you’ve got minis to represent the room accurately, drawing out the symbols, marking symbols onto a completed rubiks cube  in order and then messing it up, or doing a stick figure sketch of the painting that holds the clue and giving it to the players. Whatever it is, if you can give them something to interact with, do so.
3. Puzzles should be easy
   Gamers are generally fairly smart and enjoy being challenged mentally, but unless your players are in the top-ranks of Mensa and really enjoy mind-bending puzzles, the puzzles you use in game should be easy to figure out. Even if the players solve it in microseconds, bypassing an easy puzzle will probably be more enjoyable than struggling for hours on a very hard one. Clues that are evident to characters (or to the GM) may not be remembered by players, which makes even easy puzzles more complex when used inside of a game.
4. If puzzles aren’t easy, they should be skippable
   If a puzzle isn’t easy to figure out, it shouldn’t bar the players from moving forward in the game. A complex puzzle on an optional benefit is great. The players should be challenged in order to get that awesome artifact. If the complex puzzle is on a door and the players can’t figure it out, have them make the appropriate skill rolls and checks until it is solved. There is nothing wrong with making players sweat a bit while trying to get through the adventure, but have an escape plan.
5. Puzzles should be geared towards character, player, or common game world knowledge
   Puzzles in games should be relevant to something the characters know, the players know, or is common(ish) game world knowledge. What do I mean by this? A puzzle that relies on arcane knowledge or cyberhacking shouldn’t be included if there is not mage or hacker type character in the group. A puzzle that relies on knowledge of ancient Byzantine architecture shouldn’t be used if the players don’t know about it. If a puzzle in a world where Ogres have a very unique background relies on information about Ogres, then the players should be fairly familiar with that knowledge. If you are designing a puzzle for your game make sure it has some kind of hook for the group to get the logic behind the puzzle.

Puzzles can be a great addition to any role-playing game, and they have deep roots within the genre. What are some of the best puzzles you have used? What other advice have you got on using puzzles in your games? How pissed would you be if you never found the puzzle I secreted away in this post? There is no puzzle, stop looking!

(Image: Here. / CC BY-NC 2.5)

• Focuses on a group of people instead of one "everyman" hero.
• Sets up an epic adventure with many locations, layers, and twists as opposed to a single story with a definite end (until the sequel).
• The movie theme fits many stereotypes of a particular role-playing game or setting.
• Characters have a depth of personality indicative of massive time spent plotting out backstory.
• Characters have a cookie-cutter feel, as if they are the shining example of a character class.
• Comedic dialogue of the style which might be found around a gaming table.
• Evident hooks of some sort bring the characters into the story and give them a reason to work together.
• Pacing that mimics the flow of a game with all of the unnecessary "down time" bits cut out.

Sure a lot of these are tropes of many different types of media, but some movies just resonate as "Game" to the RPG attuned mind. Some movies like these 5:

1. Ice Pirates – This is the movie that drew me onto this line of thinking. The jokey dialogue, outrageous string of scenes that felt like multiple stringed encounters, and the epic quest for a universe saving planet that is spoken of only in legend. Sounds like a roleplaying game to me. The cast of characters that surround the main two "heroes" were well fleshed out and had that "character" feel to them. Plus it had Ron Perlman in it.

2. Vampires: Los Muertos – An B-movie flick starring Bon Jovi as a vampire hunter, which was totally written off of someone’s W.O.D. Hunter notes. Whether it is the computer network used to collect information about the vampires, the supporting character who is a vampire but uses special pills to fight off the infection, the other hunters who join the party before the climactic battle, the vampiress villain who is seeking an unholy artifact to overcome her weakness, or the incredibly cinematic ending everything about this movie screams campaign.
3. Indiana Jones Movies – Every time my gaming group travels long distances one gamer plays the Indiana Jones theme on his cell phone while the other makes a dotted line on the map. Despite focusing around the adventures of one man and his sidekicks, the Indiana Jones movies have so many crossover elements with RPGs that it is hard to separate them sometimes. World spanning journeys, a quintessential main villain and his/her lieutenant’s, a huge cast of NPCs, long abandoned dungeons with epic traps, the search for magical artifacts of great power, and a slew of other elements too numerous to list. The newest movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, felt one step removed from the last Eberron game I ran.
4. Firefly – Long have I been a devotee of the church of Whedon, and long have I known that he was a gamer. In one episode of Buffy, a scene shows 3 characters seemingly planning an assault on a demon base, shortly revealed to be a game of D&D they are playing. Firefly was not immune to Whedon’s gamer side. It focuses on a group of people, each with individual specialties and personalities, who travel on a ship taking on jobs but inevitably doing good for the world. The characters, for the most part, get equal amounts of screen time. The group each has a role that might correspond to common sci-fi themed classes. It has even spawned a wonderful RPG of its own. Firefly can even be considered a game campaign in that it ended halfway through, before the main villain could be but hinted at (2 by 2 – Hands of blue).
5. The Fifth Element – A classic story of an ancient evil reawakening after a set period of sleep and only one "chosen one" has the ability to stop it. Together with her band of stalwart companions, she journeys across multiple worlds, fights off the orc-like minions of the sub-lieutenant for the BBEG, and acquires the pieces of the key that will release the only weapon able to defeat the BBEG. While there is a lot more to the movie than that, it has all the earmarks of an RPG plot.

The GMing Advice?
Those 5 movies are just some examples of movies that have the feel of gaming sessions or campaigns, but what does that have to do with helping us all become better Game Master’s? Movies like this are a great example of building off of the elements we find in almost all RPGs and doing something different with them. While all these movies have the feel of gaming sessions, they also do things that are necessary to create the drama and action found in a movie. By picking out the gaming similar elements, we can see what else the movie does to create its feel. We can pick up on lessons new to us, or old lessons that we never should have forgotten but did. Examples?

• While some of these movies feature "dungeons" of a sort, they are not an endless grind. The action is fast and furious and does not stop.
• Battles occur anywhere and have dynamic terrain. While the terrain can have an impact on the combat, some leeway should be granted for the sake of characters being awesome enough to jump between moving cars.
• Shows like Firefly can show us that each character needs a moment to shine, and the way people build their characters (Kaylee = Mechanic with no gun skills) show us what they want to do in the game.
• Ice Pirates did not have the high action and incredible budget of some movies, but the hilarious situations and interplay of the characters made the experience an enjoyable thing, much like the joking of the players makes the experience enjoyable outside of the game being played.

Even sitting down and watching a movie like this before designing or playing in a game can get you thinking in a different way.

In trying to get the best examples of these kind of movies I could, I proposed the idea to the Gnomes to see their movie choices. Here is what they said:

Matt

• Kindred: The Embraced – Remember that vampire soap opera based on VTM that played late nights in the 90s?

Telas

• GI Joe felt like a gaming session – 5 min of exposition, 20 min of over-the-top action, and so many coincidences…
• Parts of Dollhouse feel gamey, notably the missions and some of the ‘character building’.
• The Unit had both the ensemble cast and mission-based storyline that feel gamey. And some of the story arcs had that Gygaxian ‘peeling the onion’ plot reveal.

Walt

• Hawk the Slayer
• Conan the Destroyer
• Willow
• Mission Impossible
• The A-Team (soon to be a movie)
• And for a quintessential 80s and completely obscure film, there’s "Eliminators." A cyborg, a scientist/gadgeteer, a ninja, and a Han Solo-ish riverboat captain team up against a mad scientist in power armor with time travel powers.
• Stargate: SG-1 (I know it’s an RPG, but it was a TV show first and a very good RPG set-up)

DNAPHIL

• The TV show Leverage feels likes someone’s d20 Modern group.  There are hints that the writers are geeks of some sorts.  One episode the alias of all the characters were names of actors who played Dr. Who (Tom Baker, etc).  In one episode, starting Will Wheaton (need I say more), Will was part of a Rival Party that faced off against the main group. Just the plans that are laid out and executed in the episodes feel like some gaming group cooked them up and the GM just let them roll.

Also, after writing the majority of this I came across Johnn Four’s excellent list of movies for Game Masters. Go check it out for more movie ideas. He mentions a lot of the ones that we Gnomes have mentioned here. Go check it out: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/top_movies_for_game_masters.html

So what movies have you seen that feel like they were written as games? What about them might make you see your own games differently?

(Image: Modification of this image. From -  http://www.flickr.com/photos/dr_television/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Some games make shared narrative the cornerstone of their concept and I definitely enjoy these types of games. I also love getting those elements of shared narrative into more traditional games. The entire feel of an action sequence changes when the player describes their character’s actions and effects on the game instead of the Game Master doing it. If you’re trying to get a little more shared narrative into your gaming group, here are 5 quick tips that might help you out.

1. Set Guidelines, Ask Questions, Use Examples
As a GM, I’m no fan of telling the players what to do. However, when it comes to unfamiliar concepts it is sometimes necessary to provide guidelines that people can work within.

For example, lets say that the current session has the  characters jumping from a fast moving train to a train car that was detached. You’ve decided it would be much more cinematic to have the players describe how it happens, but they aren’t really taking to it. They just say things like: “I jump and grab onto the other car.”  Not very cinematic, but a necessary part of the description nonetheless. In order to get something more dramatic, take that easy answer away and ask them for elaboration. Give them an example to build off of. Say: “Ok, you make your roll and jump to the other car. What does it look like? Is it more heroic and dramatic like Indiana Jones being a badass, or is it more comedic like Wiley E. Coyote, but with your character barely making it? How does it happen?”

Now the player has scenes in his head that he can pull elements from and change around, instead of a big blank canvas that might seem intimidating. Since you ended with a fairly open question, the player is encouraged to break away from the examples you gave.

2. Shared Narrative Is Much Like Acting, Get Up And Move
Shared narrative is not larping, but it is like acting. The player has to get much more into the mindset of the character and the landscape of the current game situation when they take some of the narrative control. To help achieve this, have them stand up and show you some of what is happening. When they player describes that they grab the ledge right before they fall, ask them to show you how they are holding on. It sounds silly, and it is a bit, but it can help break some narrative barriers. One of the most awesome game moments I ever had, as a player, was a one on one combat with a yeti type creature. The GM and I mimed out our actions and attacks, and then rolled our die consecutively. The rest of the group stared with rapt attention for the entire fight. It wasn’t anything more than two geeks swing imaginary swords, but the narrative we were telling grew to epic levels because of the aid it gave to the visualization.

3. Award A Mechanical Bonus For Good Narrative
Players who are entrenched in the mechanical side of a game might need some mechanical incentive to get into narrative. Offer up a bonus of some kind for good shared narrative on the players’ parts. Set a generic diplomat in front of them and ask them to describe his mannerisms and personality to you. Tell them you will act it out based on what they describe and that you’ll give them a small bonus (+1 die, +2 on their roll, etc.) when they negotiate with him. Tell the players that a really nifty description of their attack will give them +1d6 damage on their roll. It can be a great incentive. It can also cause a kind of storytelling min-maxing, with players telling just enough that they expect the mechanical bonus. I’d suggest the mechanical bonus method as a sometimes bonus.

4. Award An Extra Experience Award For Narrative
One way that I like to award players for getting into narrative is by giving them an experience award for narrative throughout the session. Since the players know they aren’t getting one bonus for one really good description, but a bonus for their multiple descriptions, they tend to do it more often but with less fervor. Rewarding a player for taking narrative control with a mechanical bonus is like giving a kid a toy for being  good at that moment. Rewarding a player with extra experience at the end of the session is like getting a child to be good all year so they get presents at Christmas.

5. Provide Good Opportunities For Narrative

While in the gaming room at this year’s Con On the Cob, I overheard someone running an Arabic themed storytelling game. The goal of the game seemed to be getting the players to tell stories, ala 1001 Arabian Nights. The person who was running the game used a framework where the characters were forced to tell the stories to save their characters from the evil sultan. While this was incredibly blunt, it did the trick.   A player isn’t going to jump in and start utilizing narrative control in a traditional game without an opportunity or a reason to do so.

Make the opportunity relevant.  Asking a player to describe the decor of the Inn they just walked into will provide an opportunity, but not a very good one. Asking the player to describe the Inn that they grew up in and are returning to after 5 years is much better. The narrative suddenly became personal to the character, and thus to the player.

Shared narrative is a great tool that can really liven up a game and a story. The best thing that I’ve found about shared narrative is the player getting to make their character cool through their own description. Sometimes all it takes to get a player into narrative like this is to say: “You killed the monster, tell me how it happens.” Sometimes it takes a little prompting and reward to get a player into it. Shared narrative isn’t for every player or group, but it is definitely something to try. Hopefully these tips help you to incorporate it. Do you use shared narrative in your more traditional games? How did you introduce it?

1. Prevents loot hassles by providing a steady paycheck
This is the big one for me. Sponsoring the group of characters in-game provides them with a steady paycheck. While they  may acquire some loot in-game, they can always count on having a steady progression. If they have their eye on a particular magic item, an upgrade to their cyberware, or some other expensive item they know they will eventually have enough for it. I no longer have to try to estimate the amount of money they “should” have, nor do I have to drop a treasure chest or expensive art relic into the middle of a dungeon where it should not be.

2. More options in giving the party high-level items
Can you really just walk into a shop and get the +12 sword, or portable hole that you are looking for. Mechanically speaking, yes. Worldwise, maybe? Sure you might have enough money for it, but the presence of these items in the marketplace isn’t guaranteed. I’ve always hated making such things easily available to anyone with the money to buy them, but I’ve hated denying my players the opportunity to get them more. One of the things I plan to do is to make items available through the group(s) sponsoring them. Now, instead of merely getting to money together to go out and buy it from the Local world-breaking magic and high powered illegal assault rifle store, the characters might ask the group that sponsors them to search for an item. Then, through means available to the more politically and financially connected patron, the item can be acquired. While this is mostly a justification for certain things being available to the group. It has a lot of merit. It need not be limited to items, but favors and other game changing events could be provided by the sponsor.

3. Salaries give a group a reason to go places and do things
I like to let my players have a lot of freedom with their game structure, but that often leads to party paralysis. While many of the players & characters have individual goals, they are often at a loss for what to do next. If I have something specific that I want them to do, getting them to do it with a believable hook can sometimes be tricky if their characters aren’t personally tied into the plot I’ve got. Putting the group on salary and having their employer tell them works pretty well. No justification or awkward introduction phase, just a message from their sponsor asking them to take care of something. The best part of this is that I could set up the sponsorship in such a way that I only pull it out when it seems necessary. Their sponsor might keep them on retainer and only call on them every so often, which enables them to pursue their own path most of the time.

4. Living Expenses
Ever actually charged living expenses in a game? Yeah, me neither, but I’ve always liked the idea of it. The idea of living expenses is pretty interesting, but would bog down a lot of games and not be very fun. However, I like the idea of a street samurai going home to his luxury apartment and getting clean or the paladin returning home to his loving family after a long crusade. These kinds of things give the characters dimension. With a sponsor for the party, I have an easier time getting the players to whip up some details for their life outside of adventuring without worrying about spending their loot on maintaining them.

5. Ok. Not so much a reason, but here are a couple of scenarios for sponsorship:

• Part of a military or para-military group 
• Itinerate problem solvers on a duke’s, noble’s, kingdom’s, or corporation’s payroll
• Freelance investigators for an insurance company
• Henchmen to an evil (or misunderstood) genius
• The group has sold rights to the reenactments of their adventures to a magazine or tv-show
• Attached to a corporation as a security or black-ops group
• Sponsored by a merchant group who wants to ride the wave of publicity generated by the group’s good deeds
• The group is sponsored because they cause problems for a sponsor’s rival
• The group is sponsored by a country because of the monsters/troubles they inevitably clear up

The idea of an in-game group or person sponsoring the party is going to work for some types of games and not others. I’ve only thrown out a few reasons that you might want to add the idea of patronage/sponsorship to your current game. What do you think of the idea? Would your in-game group benefit from it?

Zaraphina
I’m a fairly new DM with a problem. I have a HUGE PARTY. I’m not exaggerating. My whole party is about 13 people, with 7-10 showing up regularly. It’s sort of my fault. I wanted to have a big enough group so that even if half the people were gone i could still run. I kinda expected that by now the party size would have gotten smaller (due to scheduling conflicts, etc.) but it hasn’t. The game is going fairly well, everyone is excited to come back every week. So I’m not looking to downsize, (plus it’d be rude as I personally asked them to come), but am looking of r some tips on how to manage such a large party.

Ok. That is an interesting take. A group with 10 people showing up on a regular basis would be VERY hard to deal with. I’d be looking to get the group down to 5 or maybe 6 people at most. I’d also be wringing myself senseless with guilt over asking people to leave, so I get where Zaraphina is coming from. That being said, let’s look at a few ideas to keep the party size and make the game playable.

1. New Game System – This is some very basic thinking, but some game systems are made to deal with larger groups in a better way. If you are playing something fairly rules complex with a large group, then the game is going to get slowed down and you’ll be doing a lot more work. We are talking exponentially more work than most game systems are designed for. The more rules light the system you are using, the easier it will be on you for GMing. What I am about to write next will make Patrick smile with glee. Try out Fudge. At Con On The Cob a Fudge game was run with at least 13 people there. It was of course a very big group and it took a while for everyone to get a turn, but the rules-lightness helped out a whole lot. 

Another one to look at is QAGS (Quick Ass Gaming System). I haven’t had the chance to play this myself, but have heard a lot of great things about it. I think with either of these game systems you could handle a large group relatively easily and still get a play feel you want. The reason I mention these two is that they are very free form. I can easily see someone taking their Cleric’s or Street Samurai’s character sheet and quickly making the same character in Fudge or QAGS. There are a LOT more out there though. This might be a good place to look for some.

2. Split The Group –  At one point I had so many players wanting to get into the game that I was running that I decided to run the game twice. Once on a weeknight when some people could attend, and again on a weekend day. I ran the exact same scenario, but used two groups. This was a 2nd ed. D&D game and I was running out of a published adventure. It worked very well. Everyone got to play and have a good time. The group didn’t split optimally (some people changed characters in order to have a party balance), but it worked out in the end. I did make some modifications to the adventure between sessions. The second one always ran better because of the test-play with the first group.

3. Play to the Epicness of the Party Size – Ok, so you don’t want to split the group and you don’t want to change the game system. Understandable. Make a change to the type of game you are playing then. If you have a group of 10 regular players, then understand that you are dealing with a large group in-game and make the adventures reflect that.  A group of 10 regular characters, even low level ones, are going to be taking on much larger and fiercer opponents. It is time to throw out some dragons, giant robots, megacorp death squads, or Cthulhu himself. If you aren’t playing a combat-centric game, then make the social situations much more world altering. One phrase that I hear bandied about is that 1 PC is worth 10 real people. 10 PCs is equivalent of an Army company.

If you are going to do things to make the game more epic, I have 2 suggestions. The first is to make sure that each player feels more epic. With 10 people, you are zipping the spotlight around a LOT. Make sure it does get to shine on everyone and that everyone has something awesome to do.  Encourage group interaction as much as possible so that everyone feels engaged. Getting someone to be assistant Game Master is also a good thing to do.

The second suggestion is to work up an in-game organizational structure within the group. Determine which players are going to take leader roles and ask them, privately, if they are ok with that.  I like to determine things like this randomly, but some people aren’t suited to being leaders. Once you know who is going to become an in-game leader, have an in-game reason for them to be leader, but make them earn it.  Maybe a King gives them a title and deputizes the rest of the party under them. Maybe the party gets a ship, but only if the leaders are in charge.  Just make sure that all the other players get some upgrade when the leaders get their leader upgrade. Large size parties are hard to deal with, but jealousy is a game ender.

4. Change The Nature Of The Play – I once had a Vampire game where the group was too large for the story being played and was on the verge of being split. So in order to get the type of game we wanted we changed the way we played. I met with or called people individually or in groups that were connected in-game. When needed, we met for a big game and it played almost like a larp. People plotted and worked on their own plans in private, but had times when everyone got together. This might work for your group, but depending on what your game is, it might not. Sit back and take a long look at what it is people are enjoying most and what the biggest issues with the group size are. Maybe you stop using a table.  Maybe you rearrange the gaming room so that it accommodates your group better. Maybe you implement an game-show buzzer system for imitative.

5. Use Technology – While I dread seeing iphones around my gaming table, there are a lot of places where a large group could benefit from even a simple chat program on a lot of wirelessly linked mobile devices. Making your maps all digital and using a program like maptool and a cheap digital projector can help some of the confusion of a large group. Even getting a magnetic whiteboard and a bunch of magnets to determine the initiative order can help. While I’m on Google Wave, I haven’t tried it out to be familiar enough with it’s capabilities. I have however heard it touted as a new platform for running games. Anyone have suggestions for good software programs?

Great_Idea posted a similar question, but his situation was a bit different. His group ballooned with friends of friends and then became smaller, but with different people. Now he is playing with people whose play styles don’t mesh.

Great_idea
I have been GMing a group for about a year and a half now. It started out with me playing with my close friends, who are all very good, very fun players to play with. Over time, my friends brought in their friends, which I encouraged, and over time, they brought in their friends. We had an unwieldy huge party for a while (It was not unusual for twelve players to show up), and we tried to split it into two smaller groups, but nobody but me was willing to commit the time and energy to GM regularly.

Eventually, my original core players started leaving the group. Some of them didn’t like the size that the group had ballooned to, because it made everything take forever, and reduced everyone’s spotlight time to practically zero. Some of them didn’t like the playstyle of the newer players, who were combat-hungry minmaxers while the original players had played light, humorous, but roleplaying-heavy characters.

At this point, the party is down to a manageable size, but I’m no longer playing with my friends. I’m now playing with people I don’t really know, and I don’t really enjoy their playstyle very much. They are not people I would spend time with outside the context of the game, and I feel a little cheated that I am having to adjust my style to suit their wants, when I started out with a group that shared my interests exactly.

I just finished a fairly long campaign (with only one of the original players), and I’m currently taking a break while some of my players run short adventures and mini-campaigns. I had kind of hoped that this might encourage one or another of the players to take on a major campaign of his own, and maybe take the new crop of players with him, allowing me to go back to my incompatible older group. This is looking less and less likely as they fail to prepare for their sessions, and their adventures are generally treated as inferior to my “official” ones.

Anyway, I’m preparing for my next campaign now, and I’m just not enjoying the prospect of returning to the other side of the screen with these players. I want to play with my friends, and with players who are interested in something other than killing monsters and taking their stuff. Is there any good not-hurting-anybody way to get my favorite players back (without adding another high-preparation, time consuming weekly session), or am I stuck catering to the players who still show up?

I definitely hear where you are coming from with this. Running with people who you don’t mesh with is hard, especially when it wasn’t what you signed up for in the first place. I’m adding a 6th point to this Johnny’s Five. It is based solely on how I would handle the situation.

6. Stop The Game, Take Time, Then Restructure How You Want – This is as extreme a measure as you get, but it is one that sometimes has to be taken. If running for too many people is getting to be too cumbersome you can always step back for a short break and decide if you want to come back to the game or not. When you come back to GMing, you can always say you need to limit the party size in order to not burn out. Make it known that you’ve got a max party size and will only let new players in if old players leave or don’t show up on a regular basis. It means you have to be a little forceful, but sometimes that has to happen.

If you have certain players that you mesh better with, then invite them first. I’ve approached specific friends for a game before other friends because I knew they would mesh with what I was trying to run better. Being the Game Master is still playing in the game. It shouldn’t be something you dread. It means you have to say no to some people, but that is better than running yourself ragged and coming to hate Game Mastering and eventually gaming itself. If someone says it isn’t fair that you aren’t GMing for them or that you didn’t invite them, kindly respond that they could start a game up themselves. It’s a tricky situation.

So, what is the biggest group that you’ve played in or run for? What is your optimal group size? How do you handle large groups in your game? Any software suggestions for handling large groups?

1. Run A Zombie Game With The Player Characters Being The Players Themselves
One of my friends did this one year. It sounded awesome. They used d20 modern and made the characters only with skills they could justify with their own personal training. Savage Worlds would be an excellent system for this. Fudge would also be a really quick and easy system to do this in. The only contingency that you as the Game Master need to enforce is that each player takes skills only relevant to themselves. So no heavy weapons training unless the player was military or had the experiences to back it up.

2. Put The Monsters In The Party’s Hands 
Use your system of choice and flip things around. You take the party’s sheets and run everyone in the party. Let the players have the stats for monsters and let them run the dungeon. Now this will take some setup on your part to make the game work successfully. I would suggest organizing the encounters together on separate sheets or stacks of index cards bound together. Let the players play it like a board game, playing the cards against you when they want. This will work easier with some systems than with others. You might also want to make it so that no matter what the outcome of this game it doesn’t affect continuity as a whole. You don’t want the players killing their own characters off.

3. Run A Slasher Flick Game
Halloween is a time to be scared. It is also a time to watch slasher flicks that aren’t really scary at all. Introduce a slasher element to the game you are currently running. Have it pick off ancillary, unimportant NPCs and lead up to it having a connection to the PCs. Maybe even hunting them down. Now how are you going to make the players actually scared of this? They are practically super-beings already! Easy. Do what every slasher in a slasher flick does – Cheat! Use some creature or monster that regenerates or can’t be killed by traditional methods. Don’t use a standard monster that the PCs can look up the stats on, create something new and unknown. The key to the suspense in a slasher flick is the sense of being unable to triumph and not knowing what you are really fighting against.

4. Run A Realms Of Cthulu Game
Ok Lovecraft lovers. If you want a good game to run for a Halloween themed game, try the Savage Worlds Realms Of Cthulu. I’ve got a full review of this in the works (I want to get a good playtest in before I review it), but here is the number one reason I would say to run it for a Halloween game: The book makes it easy to put a game together. The Realms Of Cthulu Book is exactly what a setting book should be. It analyzes the themes inherent in the Cthulu Mythos, it provides framework for games, and it provides more than enough NPCs to use at the drop of a hat. There is a full adventure and a “Mythos Tales Generator” which helps you put together Cthulu Mythos themed games.

5. Run A Game Of Dread
Patrick did an article on Dread a few days back. I’ve been a long time fan of Dread, and long time friends of the people who run it at cons, so I’m a bit biased. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen when I say this: Dread is THE game to run for a horror experience. Dread’s unique wooden block tower mechanic gives a tangible feel to the suspense and fear a horror game should have. The questionnaire method of character creation ties you into a character from the get-go but lets you personalize it with your own thoughts and ideas. Dread isn’t hard to run and it is very newbie friendly.

So what are some of your Halloween gaming plans? What horror themed games have you run or always wanted to run? Give a shoutout if you are dressing as a gnome this year! Or just download this very chic and stylish gnome hat that I whipped together for you! I swear it totally took me more than 5 minutes to make.

1. Inventory and Carrying
The amount of things your character carries is waaaaay out of proportion. The USMC ILBe carries up to 120 lbs. While a character could definitely carry that much weight anyone who has been in the military or packed for an extended hike can tell you that an efficient packing and weight distribution system is necessary. Let’s take a quick look at a basic adventurers equipment layout.

Backpack (empty)     2 lb.
Bedroll                         5 lb.
Lantern, bullseye      3 lb.
Pot, iron                      10 lb.
Rations, trail              1 lb. (1 week, 7 lbs.)
Rope, silk (50 ft.)      5 lb.
Torch                          1 lb.
Waterskin                  4 lb.
Traveler’s outfit         5 lb.

Total = 42 lbs

According to the D20 SRD, this would be within the light load limit for a character with a strength of 12.  This is a pretty sparse loadout for a person traversing the wilderness and dungeon for weeks on end.  Without the Iron Pot (10 lbs) cooking anything you found along the way would be somewhat hard. Leaving it out drops the load to 32 lbs, but we haven’t factored in armor or weapons, let alone loot, treasure, or the specialized equipment for any of the classes.

2. Damage and Healing
A character takes a slash across the chest and gets d8 +4 hit points worth of damage (to keep going with the D&D 3.5 examples). The character takes 9 hit points worth of damage total, they then proceed to make their attack and deal an amount of damage to the opponent. The opponent makes their attack, etc. until one of them dies. This is, quite frankly, a ridiculous scenario. When hit points represent the physical level of health for a character, then damage, if realistically taken, would be crippling. At lower levels it can be deadly, but the actual damage itself is abstract. If you were to take 9 hit points away from a 30 hit point character, the would would be fairly massive. When people take massive wounds in real life they tend to be put out of commission for a bit.

Aside from the unreality of taking damage, healing it back without magical means or care is a very unrealistic thing in games. According to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act of 1997, there are standard healing times (with appropriate care) for the various types of injuries.

Soft tissue injures                 3 Months
(Cuts, Stabs, Non Muscle Compromising)
Fractures (Not Breaks)        3 – 6 Months (Depending on Location)
Nervous system injuries     3 – 12 months  
Tendon Repair                       3 Months
(With appropriate care)

Those times are with appropriate, modern healthcare, not something that is likely to be available in fantasy gaming worlds, and not something that is likely to be found in a dungeon or camp-side.

3. Adventuring is dirty
People in the middle ages faced some pretty serious diseases and were not ones for cleanliness. Even taking into account fantasy elements and pretending there is a semi-clean society, your adventurer isn’t part of it. Travelling from town to town, fighting in the woods, exploring dungeons, being in the vicinity of sqwicking and exploding orcs are all things your adventurer (in a standard fantasy world) will get be getting dirty from. This is a level of dirty beyond even the grimiest peasant, and the grimy peasants at least have constant access to some sort of water where they might be able to take a cold, unheated bath.

Fantasy gaming isn’t the only offender in the cleanliness category. Sci-fi and modern gaming often have the player characters facing a slew of grimy settings and disgusting creatures. Even when this isn’t the case, the activities that any self respecting group will come across are likely to get them quite grime covered or at least sweaty. Showers and bathing are more common in modern and sci-fi settings, but there is probably not a lot of access to them while breaking out of the enemy base or trudging in the sewers to find the monstrous creature that is hiding there.

4. Dungeons
Ever been inside an abandoned building? Ever walked in a catacombs or cave? Ever been in a non-tourist capacity and off the path? Ever tried to climb or spelunk and found you couldn’t get through that one crevasse, that your squeeze gets you stuck for 15 minutes as you try to wriggle back before the panic takes hold.  Ever think about methane buildup in an abandoned building and how that torch would actually work in the environment.

Try to think about traversing all these minor obstacles with just your sword or weapon tied to your back. Now your 42 lb. pack (pre looting). Now think about getting back out. In almost every common adventuring situation that I can think of, the terrain is going to work against you if it were realistic. Caves are awesome places, full of incredible scenery formed by the slow flow of water over unfathomable amounts of time. They are nothing like the linear cave maps with halls that are usually at least 5 ft width. Even when looking at dungeons that are created with clear intent and modern architectural design, reality has very little leeway. The layout and design of most gaming dungeons has nowhere near the number of support rooms and facilities to accommodate the inhabitants, nor is it built in a way that is even remotely useful to the residents.

Let’s not even get started on the ecology of a dungeon and what would be needed to sustain enough creatures to make challenging encounters.

5. Bathroom breaks
There is only one thing to mention on this subject. Adventures must shit in corners, near where they sleep, a lot. That wizard’s eight hour break to memorize spells isn’t going to be done out in the monster infested corridor, but likely in a closed off room or barricaded area. No one is going to go wandering alone outside to make use of the facilities, especially when keen-nosed creatures might pick up on the scent. For more modern scenarios, do you think the mech your character is tied into has a catheter?

Ok. I will fully admit that I am being incredibly harsh. I’ve been an utter git and played devil’s advocate for the sake of the theme.  Let me emphasize the point of this article: Gaming is incredibly fun because it doesn’t take into account realism. Gaming is an allegory and a chance for us to live out heroic archetypes that modern society, for the most part,  doesn’t afford us the opportunity to be.

It’s great to tramp through a complex dungeon as a heroic character without worrying too much about how much we are carrying. I love being able to play the barbarian who looks like a porcupine because of the number of arrows sticking out of him.  It’s fun to play out the story and build the interesting personality of  the sneaky thief who rides on the fringes of society and is a likeable ruffian. If I had to worry too much about the realism of any part of the game, I would become bored quickly. 

This isn’t too say that realism doesn’t have its place in a game. How much realism is present should be up to your group and play style, but no matter how deep into realism you take your game you will never get all the way. So how much realism do you like in your game? This was just a quick list of some of the things that don’t pass the reality test, what other gaming tropes can you think of that don’t pass the reality test? Does lack of realism bug you in some situations?

What exactly does con on the cob offer?

• Great Guests  – This year Con On The Cob has Jamie Chambers, the guy who created the RPGs Battlestar Galactica and Serenity for Margaret Weis Productions. They also have Sean Patrick Fannon who works on so many projects that it is hard to list them all. Here are a few: Champions RPG, Shadis Magazine, Dragon Magazine, Origins Gaming Convention, Shaintar: Immortal Legends, and Onebookshelf.com. Finally, as far as gaming goes, Larry Elmore, who has likely produced any fantasy illustration you ever drooled over as a kid.
• Gaming, Lan Gaming – Gaming is no stranger to Con On The Cob. The gaming room is usually packed. Doing a quick count, there are well over 100 games being run. That doesn’t count the lan room which is always available if you’re looking for something to do for a few minutes.
• Art & the Mother Of All Marketplaces – There are a lot of great artists hanging out in the Artitorium and there are a lot of great vendors every year. The mother of all marketplaces has an excellent atmosphere and lots of great comics, games, costumes, organizations, and artists selling their stuff.
• Miniatures – Miniatures have an entire room and lots of seminars. If you’re into making miniatures or just want to find out how, I can’t think of a better place.
• Music & Movies – When there aren’t music acts going on, there are movies being shown. When there aren’t movies being shown, there are movies going on.
• Seminars – There are a lot of great seminars going on, the best of which is being given by two of us Gnomes. I don’t see why you would need any more reason than that, but if you do those other people who I mentioned in the guests list are going to be talking a lot too.
• Parties -  Jeebus, lets not talk about the parties. Ok. If we must. I’ll say only one thing about the parties. They are great. They are memorable. I’ve been recognized at other conventions because of parties . . . The parties are good.
• Great Size – I mentioned that Con On The Cob was small-ish. It definitely isn’t the size of Origins, but it is getting there. The beautiful thing about the size of Con On The Cob is that it is perfect for meeting and making connections. At almost every other “big” convention I’ve been to, I’ve met someone who was at Con On The Cob, or who heard about it and was planning to come to a future date.
• Style – Con On The Cob definitely has a different style, as does Any Hopp, the guy who runs it. I can promise you it is like no other convention out there.

So, Con On the Cob, definitely a great time. If you are looking for one more convention to make it to this year, or you haven’t been able to make it to any, I would definitely suggest Con On The Cob in mid-october, but I got in touch with Andy Hopp and asked him a couple of questions about it.

Johnny’s Five – Five Question Interview With Andy Hopp
For those not familiar with Andy’s style, get ready for a wild ride. I’ve left Andy’s answers EXACTLY as he gave them.

Hey Andy, thanks for answering a few questions. First off, when and why did you start Con On the Cob?

Way back in the day. I mean waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay way back in the day. Seriously, like 2003 or something, I met a certain aspiring artist at Gen Con. For the sake of anonymity, let’s called him Jim Y. No, wait, that’s too obvious, let’s call him J. Yoder instead. Anyway, this mysterious fellow showed me his sketchbook, which was filled with all manner of fantastically twisted scribblings and creatively stylized drawings. They were very imaginative, but I could see he would benefit from a bit of tutelage in the basics -stuff like perspective, creating depth and shadows and the like. You know, basic artsy-fartsy stuff.

Anyway, I said to myself, “Hey, why not invite some of my artist friends and aspiring-artist friends over to my house for a weekend so we can draw stuff together and maybe play some games and stuff?” “No reason,” I replied. “Cool, let’s do it.” Wow, I just noticed, due to a barely caught typo, how “aspirin” and “aspiring” are only one letter away from each other. Some poet or something should notice that and do something about it.

So that’s what we did. I expected maybe ten people to show up but almost thirty arrived. Friends came from all over the country. We went to the Cleveland zoo and drew animals. We had some art workshops. I made waffles. We played a Call of Cthulhu game with a nightclub called “The Swinging Cock” (it’s sign had a rooster on a trapeze) and much fun was had. I woke everyone up in the morning with a song…* 
The waffles had blueberries. I think. My memory’s a bit fuzzy on that detail.

Fast forward, if you will, to the futuristic year of 2005. Flying cars and personal jet packs were all the rage. Soylent Green filled every lunch box and our alien overlords only ate the slow ones. The prevailing philosphy of the day suggested we have another event like the one we had in 2003 (we skipped 2004 because my daughter was busy being born). We were like, hey, if it was that much fun and it was just sort of an informal gathering of chums how much fun would it be if we actually invited people? So we did. This time we had it at a hotel instead of my basement. Sean Fannon almost got arrested. The hotel staff were dangerously unaware we were coming even though I set it up months in advance. We only had one little room and a breakfast area. Everything that could go wrong went wrong, but it was still the most fun ever.

We did it again the next year, in a larger but even shittier hotel with an even more incompetent staff (with a single tooth among them). We added some music shows with Worm Quartet and Sudden Death, a vendor’s room, more art programming, and expanded gaming. We had parties and Klingons and the Corny Awards and broken glass in the carpet and no running water and no toilet paper and trash everywhere and Jeff Easley and Shane Hensley and Bill the Lizard and gaming out the wazoo and I lost my voice by the end of it and it was the most fun ever.

The next year we moved to another hotel. One with an actual semi-competent staff and lots more room. We had Larry Elmore and a bigger vendor’s room and a bigger art show and more gaming and more music and more parties and cops and hot dogs and Extreme Twister and miniatures and my parents and it was the most fun ever.

The last year we moved to another hotel. This one was bigger and cleaner and we had even more gaming and music and parties and art and guests and all the crap I’ve been talking about. It was awesome and you were there and so were you and it was the most fun ever.

Now it’s now and it’s going to be the most fun ever.

Con On The Cob has a great amount of diversity to its offerings. What are your favorite parts of it, and do you have any plans to add or improve any areas in the next iterations?

Absolutely everything is my favorite part but my real favorite part is just meeting people and making new friends and swimming in my money pool like Scrooge McDuck. For me Con on the Cob, or Con on the Mu’Fu’in’ Cob as it’s known in some necks of the woods, is like a big whirlwind of fun. I’m constantly pulled in sixteen different directions like some sort of Stretch Armstrong being drawn and quartered (drawn and sixteenthed?) by a horde of awesome people. Or maybe Stretch Monster, he was cooler. I make it my personal mission to individually meet every single person who comes through the door.

As for specifics, I always enjoy the music shows, and the gaming, and the parties. Oh, and especially the art show and the vendors room. And the Children of the Cob events. And also, I especially really like the miniatures painting and all the demos and seminars and stuff. I love that it’s all about everyone. Kids, adults, old people, middle-aged people, teenagers, embryos, tweens, etc… There’s always something for anybody to do. If you’re not having fun you must be dead.

Of course we’re always trying to make sure there’s new stuff to do, games to play, and  interesting guests to meet. New on this year’s rooster is Life-sized Tsuro, a buttload of Living Forgotten Realms games, I know I said rooster instead of roster but I like it better that way, a whole room dedicated to miniatures, karaoke, more vendors, more artists, three rounds of Iron Artist, new parties, trick or treating, a zombie walk, LARPs, an extended LAN party, Rock Band and Mario Cart, and so much more I’m making myself nauseous just thinking about it.

The trick is not to over think things. Just do what’s fun and see what happens. We’ve scrapped some old events that didn’t appeal to people too much, like the anime room and the cannibalistic blood orgy, and we’ve added all that stuff I just went on about. Trust me, it’ll be the most fun ever. If it’s not you can punch me in the stomach.

A phrase that is bandied about in conjunction with Con On the Cob is Shiny Wazoo, can you guarantee me a shiny wazoo?

Absolutely! Official Con on the Cob Wazoo Polish can be purchased in the gift shop.

Con On The Cob has a sister convention that you also run called Oddmall. What is that all about? What’s different in Oddmall from Con On the Cob?

Actually Con on the Cob’s sister and BFF con is AnCon, which is run by Dave Radzik and the gang. It’s uber-fun and you should go to it. www.anothergamecon.com.

Oddmall is an arts and crafts show I run in May and November at the same hotel as Con on the Cob. It’s all about strange and unusual art and crafts and you really should scurry your unpolished wazoo over there as well. www.oddmall.info.

Every article we write has to have a Game Mastering bent to it. So tell me this, what does Con On The Cob have to offer to to the Game Master in particular?

More than anything else CotC offers Game Masters (and everybody else) the chance to interact with game creators, industry professionals, artists, and other like-minded sorts in a casual and non-intimidating environment. We actually want to hear about your adventures.

* Andy’s Wake Your Ass Up Song 

Way up in the sky the little birds fly
While down in their nest the little birds rest
With a wing on their left and a wing on their right
The little birds sleep all throoooough the night.
Shhhhh! YOU’LL WAKE THE DAMN BIRDS!!!!!!!
The bright sun comes up, the dew falls away
“Good morning, good morning,” the little birds say.