Posts Tagged by suggestion pot article
| February 21, 2012 | Posted by Walt Ciechanowski |
A couple years ago I wrote an article about how, while I consider myself a Gnome-worthy Game Master, I never managed to finish most of my campaigns. Sometimes I couldn’t do anything about it; circumstances ended the campaign. At other times, I was lucky enough to have some time to wrap things up. Gnome Stew Reader Jason recently asked: A campaign I am running needs to wind down early. The players want closure on the threads hanging in the story. Do I get them together…
| January 20, 2012 | Posted by Scott Martin |
IcebergTitanic had a question that will hopefully end more successfully than his handle’s history. Similar to the questions on Metagaming, I would like to see an article on how a GM can give hints and clues for a story without the players immediately leaping upon it. You know, the old “if the GM mentioned it, it must be important!” Example: The PC’s are meeting an important dignitary for dinner, and the noble goes, “Ouch!” as he apparently gets a nasty splinter from his chair. The…
| October 26, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Dipping a ladle into our suggestion pot, I see that NinjaBait had a question about setting details: I’ve been a DM/GM for several years now. I’ve never had any complaints about my stories or settings, but I’ve never felt very comfortable with describing what I’m seeing in my head. “The pungent stench of mildew emanates from the wet dungeons walls as stagnant water sloshes around your feet” becomes “you’re in a sewer and standing in about a foot of water”. How can I improve my…
| September 29, 2011 | Posted by Kurt "Telas" Schneider |
Over at the Suggestion Pot, Gnome Stew reader and high-level Cleric BishopOfBattle cast Divination (or maybe it was Find the Path; I’ve taken too many negative levels in d20 to be an expert). Anyway, he asked: How do the Gnomes go about getting better player feedback? Often articles mention "Ask your players" but I often have difficulty getting useful (or sometimes any) feedback from my players. In a beautiful example of irony, this picture is from “stock.xchng” This is not an uncommon topic. I’ve seen…
| September 22, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Caring about characters is a tricky thing. Many GMs struggle just to get players to like their own character–to treat their character as a person, with coherent thoughts and feelings, instead of viewing their character as an attractive array of powers and stats. Once you do reach that lofty pinnacle of caring about your character, there’s a further step awaiting. Now that your character is becoming vivid and real to you… what about all of those other characters at the table? Unwinder’s question touches on…
| August 18, 2011 | Posted by Scott Martin |
Pixedragon asked (in the suggestion pot) about several things that often tangle together into a big knot: mysteries, clues, and the GM’s spotlight versus the player’s flashlights.
One thing that a good railroaded adventure (or module) has going for it is coherence. Because the players don’t have many options, the GM can spend a lot of effort working on the scenes that they know will happen. Even in a less structured game, the GM is still (usually) the arbiter of scene setting. There are at least two paths a GM can take when the game starts grinding gears.
| January 3, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Back in January, I wrote about using PC backgrounds as a campaign roadmap, and I’ve been putting a version of that concept into practice in my current Star Trek game. It’s been fun and it’s saved me time, so I thought it might be useful to you. Specifically, I used a version of the Three Things approach created by the Stew’s own Don Mappin: I asked my players for three things they want to see or do in the game, plus three NPCs I can…
