Posts Tagged by tools
| March 14, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
Luke Crane, the creator of the Burning Wheel RPG and one of the best GMs I’ve ever gamed with, often does something very clever for convention games: He runs replayable scenarios. “Replayable” as in, even if you’ve played the exact same event before, it will be dramatically different — but just as fun — every time. That sounds like a pretty handy thing for a GM to have on hand, doesn’t it? What makes a scenario replayable? You can find several excellent replayable Burning Wheel…
| February 7, 2011 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
My planning cycles for my current game are, for me, pretty short — usually one week. That’s actually a good thing, because it forces me to focus on the important stuff and helps me avoid getting bogged down in crap that won’t hit the table, but it does mean that I’ll take all the help I can get. One thing I find helpful is having a list of adventure types (not plots) to choose from, and that’s the focus of this article. Below is a…
| July 14, 2010 | Posted by Matthew J. Neagley |
The post-combat treasure handout can be the most electric and exciting moment in a lot of RPGs, especially traditional dungeon crawl oriented campaigns, but it has one fatal flaw: the nature of the treasure itself. All too often, treasure is codified and organized in a way that destroys a GMs carefully crafted sense of wonder and immersion. Instead, players are given a laundry list of coins and items as if they were neatly packaged and stacked like cordwood. “5 short swords, 6 suits of chainmail,…
| November 4, 2009 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
One of the best ways to convey the theme of your campaign, the tone of your game, and the flavor of the game world is to use reinforcement — specifically, reinforcement of small things. This technique is based on two principles: Choose elements that represent what you want to convey, and repeat them. As part of your game prep, consciously choose a few things you can reinforce. They don’t all need to get crammed into one session, and they should come up organically — but…
| October 30, 2009 | Posted by John Arcadian |
With Halloween being tomorrow, I figured I would lay down a few ideas for horror/monster themed games that I’m not going to have time to run. My regular game will take the party into a city where necromancy is legal. My party plans for Saturday night will have me carrying along a block tower and characters so that I can co-opt whoever is awake at 3 in the am into a game of Dread. So I’m covered for horror themed games this Halloween. How about…
| October 7, 2009 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
There are many ways to build a good character, but one aspect that often gets overlooked — or conversely, over-worked — is motivations. If you know what motivates a character — PC or NPC — you can extrapolate a lot of other things on the fly. The trick is not to make your motivators too broad or too focused. Too broad, and they’re meaningless (“She’s motivated by a desire to do the right thing”); too narrow, and they either dominate the campaign or never come…
| August 11, 2009 | Posted by Patrick Benson |
On May 13th, 2009 (I suggest that you read that article first if you have not already) I posted a review of the EpicWords web site and service. I gave the site a solid “C”, and I mentioned that the site was constantly improving. Well I believe that it has improved in enough ways for me to revisit my original review and to add this follow-up. Hey! The Wiki, um, Wikis! My number one complaint about EpicWords was that “The wiki not having an easy…
