Posts Tagged by players
| January 23, 2013 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest author is Jonathon Narvey, who blogs about RPG stuff over at Savage Games. Jonathon is a GM (and occasional player), copywriter and political propagandist. He is also the author of a Cthulhu-themed sci-fi novel with lots of tentacles in it, as well as a novel about Yiddish-spouting gangsters fighting for survival in the Middle Eastside. He drinks six cups of coffee a day, minimum. Thanks, Jonathon! Deadlines concentrate the mind. Giving your players the sense that if they don’t do something fast, “something…
| January 10, 2013 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Social contracts. It’s hard to pick a topic more fundamental to a good roleplaying experience–or more dry to discuss. This time you can blame Roleplay DNA, particularly their podcast episode 15, Contact Negotiations. I had some “right on,” head nodding moments during the podcast and agreed with almost everything that was brought up. The truest–and most intimidating line–comes from Vern near the end of the podcast, where she mentions that all of the problems addressed in the previous podcasts were social contract problems. When she…
| December 26, 2012 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest article was written by Erik Tiernan, who posts on the Stew as Razjah. If (like me) you can’t pitch a game to your players worth a damn, this article’s for you — simple rules based on practical experience. Thanks, Erik! This article started when I commented (as Razjah) on Martin’s article How Do You Pitch a New Game to Your Players? with seven rules for making the pitch. These rules are based on my experience at college as the president of the Role…
| October 17, 2012 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
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…
| October 3, 2012 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
I was recently offered a free review copy of The GM’s Field Guide to Players, by Cherie “Jade” Arbuckle of Evil Machinations, and it immediately piqued my interest. There need to be more system-neutral GMing books out there, and I like to spread the word about books like this on the Stew, so I was more than happy to review the Field Guide. Format The Field Guide is a 60-page PDF available directly from Evil Machinations for $7 ($6 until October 31, 2012), as well…
| May 8, 2012 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest article was written by Adam Meyers, president of Drop Dead Studios. DDS will shortly be coming out with a Pathfinder supplement called Rogue Glory. Adam’s previous guest article here was D&D, Social Skills, and the Zen of Roleplaying Games. Thanks, Adam! For the most part, players love options. As RPGs have advanced, there are some that do their best to give players every possible option for creating their characters. So many, in fact, that some options are hardly ever used. I’m a D&D…
| January 23, 2012 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
This article was written for the first annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2012 NYNG challenge. This past weekend I wrapped up a 16-month Star Trek campaign, and ending it (always a tricky affair) made me think about how I started it — which in turn seemed like a pretty good topic to cover for NYNG. I’m going to talk specifics because this stuff all worked for me, and for this particular game, but the trick…
