Posts Tagged by meta

9
Four Great GMing Books
March 26, 2013 Posted by
redtide

Lately I’ve been on an RPG reading tear, and I’ve been fortunate to find, stumble upon, and have recommended to me four excellent GMing books that I’d like to recommend to you in turn. Apart from all being good books, they share a slant towards fantasy and setting creation, but also another important trait: It’s easy to use them for other genres, too. Red Tide If I could only have one book about building a sandbox fantasy campaign, it would be Red Tide. The first…

27
How Do You Pitch a New Game to Your Players?
October 17, 2012 Posted by
Crock Pot

Over the past few years, it’s become clear to me that I suck at pitching games to my players. That realization goes hand in hand with another: I’ve muddled my way through this key aspect of being a GM for 20-plus years without ever really knowing what I was doing. Sometimes I pitch a game and it gets traction right away, and we play it and it’s fun, and unicorns are fucking while an angelic choir sings in the background, but I have no real…

15
A Look at Downtime in RPGs and Board Games
July 11, 2011 Posted by
hourglass

This article looks at a parallel between RPGs and board games that I find interesting, but fair warning: If the last time you played a board game was a session of LCR with your grandma in 1982, it may not be as interesting to you. So: board games and downtime. In board games (and card games), “downtime” is the time you spend sitting around waiting for it to be your turn again, and it’s usually — though not always — a problem. In some games,…

6
Games Within The Game
June 3, 2011 Posted by

I’m likely going to make the world meta-explode with this one, but let’s take that risk and talk about games. Not just the tabletop games we play, or the video games  we play when we aren’t running a game or playing in one. No, let’s talk about games within the games we play. Amalgamation When we sit down to play a tabletop RPG, we are actually playing a conglomeration of a lot of different types of games. The mechanical aspects of engaging in a combat…

9
Nine Words That Improve Your Game – What Do You Want To Get Out Of This?
May 13, 2011 Posted by

Every Game Master has been in the situation where a player starts pursuing some course of action that you just can’t divine the purpose off. They attempt a long complicated string of skill rolls, roleplaying interactions, and other hare brained interactions to get to … well, you never quite know until the very end. Maybe they just wanted that extra +2 bonus, or to get a better price for the loot they were selling, or to get the security schematics for the place they are…

10
Gaming Products that Seem Magical to You
December 20, 2010 Posted by
timedr

When I think back over 20-plus years as a gamer, only a few gaming products have ever felt truly magical to me. Two, to be precise. Oh, there have been LOTS of standouts — awesome products that have given me years of enjoyment and shaped how I game, and, by extension, that have played a role in making some of my best memories with friends. Which is a pretty fucking high bar for quality, when you think about it. So what’s the difference between that…

9
Hot Button: To Meta Or Not To Meta?
November 12, 2010 Posted by

If you happen to do a search on the tag meta here on the stew, you’ll find that I tend to dominate use of the tag. That could be because I’m the only one who uses it, but it is also because the metagame is a key component in a lot of my Game Mastering philosophy. Looking it up on Dictionary.com, meta is defined as: meta- 1.a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” “behind,” and productive in…

Read Older Articles »