Posts Tagged by tv
| March 6, 2012 | Posted by Guest Author |
Today’s guest article was written by reader Todd Cash. It’s an in-depth look at how you can use the concept of TV pilot episodes to establish whether a campaign is worth your time. Thanks, Todd! Sometimes a game master gets an idea they aren’t fully sure how to nurture. Questions pop up that elicit concern for the campaign. How many sessions could this game last? Will my gaming group’s schedule ever let this work? For whatever reason, the GM isn’t sure they want to devote…
| October 18, 2010 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
My group is three sessions into a Star Trek series with me in the GM’s chair, and last night’s episode cemented one of the things I like most about running this game: the episodic structure. I’ve played episodic games before (notably Stargate) and enjoyed them, but until now I’d never run one. There are different ways to approach them (and the Decipher Star Trek RPG Narrator’s Guide offers excellent advice on that topic, whether you’re running a Trek game or not — great book), but…
| February 15, 2010 | Posted by Kurt "Telas" Schneider |
Reading fellow Gnome Scott Martin’s article on “Setting vs. Cast” made me realize that I generally don’t enjoy RPG settings borrowed from books, movies, or television. (For the sake of this article, let’s call them literary settings.) Asking “Why not?” led to this article, which includes advice for using literary settings. I recognize the popularity of literary settings; entire systems are written for them. But they also have some shortcomings, at least in my experience. Removing the cast changes the dynamic of the setting. In…
| March 23, 2009 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
This is the second TV case study. Previously we reviewed Lost . This week we leave the Island and head to LA, to look at a Life. We will look at a few elements that make this police drama stand out from its peers, and we will talk about how you can use those same elements in your own games. Synopsis Detective Charlie Crews has spent years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now Crews must face the world that he left behind…
| March 12, 2009 | Posted by Phil Vecchione |
Hello, and welcome to the first TV Case Study. In this new series of articles, I will focus on a single TV show and pick out some elements that are key parts of the TV show, and show you how you can apply them to your campaigns. Our first case study will be on the show Lost. Synopsis After a mysterious and bloody airplane crash, 48 survivors are left stranded on a Pacific Island… miles off course. It soon becomes apparent that they will not…
| June 5, 2008 | Posted by Martin Ralya |
When you’re watching an episodic TV show (think Lost), who does everything happen to? The main cast. And who drives the action when things aren’t happening to them? The main cast. The same should be true in your campaign (which, in a lot of cases, resembles an episodic TV show more than most other types of media): Whenever something worth playing out at the table happens, it should happen to your main cast — the player characters. Here’s the important part: It doesn’t really matter…
