Posts Tagged by GMing
| November 19, 2012 | Posted by Walt Ciechanowski |
There’s an old adage amongst my gaming circles: “There are roleplaying games, and there is D&D.” This is not meant as a knock against Dungeons and Dragons of any edition or its derivatives for not being a true ‘roleplaying game,’ but rather an acknowledgement that playing D&D often requires a different mindset and assumptions than other games. I’ve often met players and GMs that find it difficult to transition from D&D-style play to other RPGs and vice versa. Some go so far as to “only…
| March 16, 2012 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
I am frequently tired on Monday’s after I GM. At first it would be easy to say that my source of fatigue is from gaming until midnight on a Sunday. If I just went to bed right after the game, perhaps I would be less tired. The key word is “if”; if I would go to bed, or perhaps better stated, if I could go to bed. Today’s article is not so much about advice, but about something that I observed lately from being a…
| November 7, 2011 | Posted by Walt Ciechanowski |
I have an affinity for mystery/investigation adventures. I love setting up a crime scene and having the PCs uncover clues and follow leads until they reach the final confrontation with the perpetrator. Mystery adventures require careful planning. All of the clues need to fit (or be dismissed as red herrings) and the players need to be able to weave them together effectively. A mystery that is too convoluted can frustrate the players or make them apathetic, while a mystery that is too quickly solved offers…
| January 28, 2011 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
Lets face it, if you are a total improv GM or an uber-prep GM, game mastering is work; more work than being a player. Considering that most of us do not make a living GMing, and have other jobs and responsibilities, why would we want to take on more work in our lives? There must be a reason we accept the responsibility and work of creating a game and running it session after session. So dim the lights, light some incense, and let’s do some…
| November 18, 2010 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Over in Le Pote du Suggestiones, Gnome Stew reader gustavovp asked us a great question. As I was typing up a response that began “I don’t think there’s an article in this, because…” I realized that there was — and that many of our readers may not know about the Suggestion Pot at all. The Suggestion What, Now? Given that close to 4,000 of you read the Stew via RSS or email while around 1,000 of you visit the site itself, there’s a good chance…
| October 27, 2010 | Posted by Walt Ciechanowski |
Martin’s excellent article on episodic gameplay made me think about my own episodic campaigns. For many of the reasons he outlined, I’ve found episodic campaigns to be a fun way to run a game and I’ve run several successful ones. That said there were a number of pitfalls that I’ve encountered along the way, and some of these did derail episodic campaigns. I thought it might be a good idea to list them here in tandem with the previous article. Before I go further, I should…
| July 19, 2010 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
One question that comes up over and over when I talk to different GMs is about how to take notes for their session. It is a topic that I take personally, as I have gone through a number of different note taking styles and used all sorts of different tools, over the years. Thanks to Stew reader Tabulazero for suggesting this article topic. Rather than this being an article all about types of notebooks, special pens, and templates, I want to discuss the philosophy of…
