I'm a big proponent of using everything my players give me, especially when it comes to PC backgrounds: If you put it in there, I assume it's because you want to see it in the game, and I'll do my best to make that happen. But why assume? As a player, I design character backgrounds this way. I include NPCs my PC would love to fight, fuck, or otherwise interact ...

When I run my D&D 4e game I use a random encounter generator. I look at the stats for the various monsters, and I then put those monsters into the game. This might result in a zombie, some lizard people, a classic magical beast, and a handful of human minions being the encounter. If the PCs decide to travel into the woods that evening these monsters are suddenly ...

Many GMs don't think about how their campaigns will end. And for those of us who grew up hearing about epic, decade-long campaigns with rotating casts of characters, why should we? I mean, campaigns aren't supposed to end -- right? Wrong. With the exception of some outliers (who are no doubt having a fantastic time, and more power to them), never-ending campaigns are a myth. Jobs, school, kids, and a host ...

Evernote has changed my life. No, seriously -- I’m not exaggerating. Capturing Ideas I have a spotty memory for some things, particularly random thoughts and ideas that pop into my head -- they tend to disappear quickly if I don’t write them down as soon as possible. And I get a lot of ideas. My mental back burners are running 24-7 -- and I hate losing ideas. I learned a long time ago ...

At the beginning of each prep session, before I put finger to keyboard, I ask myself, “What am I doing here?” In asking this question, I’m not doubting my GMing abilities, or having a ‘senior moment’, or feeling guilty about slacking off on husbandly duties to write game material (OK, so I’m not always feeling guilty about the latter.) I’m asking myself, “How will this ...

Over the years, I've met lots of GMs who've created and lovingly detailed their own campaign settings, most often for D&D. These settings are usually extensively developed, complete with maps, country write-ups, elaborate histories -- the whole nine yards. But as much as enjoy writing setting material, I've never actually done this myself. I've dabbled -- drawn detailed maps for fantasy worlds, written chunks of material for specific cities, ...

My regular gaming group of five includes four GMs, which is fantastic for all sorts of reasons -- but one of the best things about it is that as a GM, I'm constantly exposed to new ideas, new approaches, and new tricks and techniques that I never would've come up with on my own. The background-independent pilot session is one of those techniques. There are lots of ways to kick ...

Reading through the April '09 issue of Wired, I came across this quote from James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron): But the beauty of [adventures] is that they don't have to be logical. They just have to have plausibility. If there's a visceral, cinematic thing happening that [your players like], they don't care if it goes against what's likely. That's more or less how I read it, too -- I ...

Thank you to everyone who commented on the Intro Games for New Players post last month. Jennifer ran her intro game for her group-- and it went extremely well. A number of your tricks really helped people dig into their characters. Highlighting key skills was a nice touch-- making it obvious at a glance which characters were good at which tasks. We made use of a number of ...

A few weeks ago I was in a bit of a pickle (how the heck did that phrase come about?). I was supposed to start a new adventure for my WitchCraft game in an hour and I had nothing prepped for it but the vaguest of outlines (more like a mission statement and a couple of notes). Real life had gotten in the way over the last few ...

The previous session of our campaign was a couple of weeks ago (before Christmas). We left on something of a cliffhanger-- the PCs ambushed and slaughtered the Evil Dwarf King's elite guard, in two back to back battles that were almost a session long apiece. After their victory, I started to skip ahead and sketch out some downtime, but the players had a quick conference and stopped me. ...

This past Saturday night, my group played the final chapter in a year-long, 18-session Mage: The Awakening chronicle. It was one of the best campaigns I've ever run, and, in 20 years or so of GMing it was the first campaign I've ever ended according to plan. Planned for the Very First Time Up until a couple years ago, I'd never even been involved in a non-one-shot that had a ...

I have no idea if this concept has been floated before, but it's new to me -- and it's been enormously helpful over the past couple of weeks. As my Mage game draws to a close, I'm working towards a specific ending scene. I don't know what'll happen in that scene -- more to the point, what the PCs will do -- but I know what I want it ...

Welcome the first in an ongoing series here on the Stew: 100-Word Solutions to GMing Problems! Every 100-Word Solutions post gets its start as a question I email out to the gnomes -- a GMing conundrum of some sort. Here's the first one: "You completely spaced out on game prep -- it's 30 minutes before your players show up for tonight's game -- an ongoing campaign -- and you realize ...

This is the fourth and final article in this series -- the home stretch. My definition of "roleplaying-intensive" is in Part 1, along with tips 1-3; tips 4-6 are in Part 2 and tips 7-9 are in Part 3.) 10. Driftable Mechanics (This topic was suggested by Gnome Stew reader Irda Ranger -- excellent suggestion, IR.) "Drift" just means taking an element -- usually a mechanic -- from one RPG and ...