Four Tips for Helping the Inexperienced Combatant
I talk a lot about people who aren’t comfortable with combat situations—since I am one, and since I’m currently in the process of running another one (and let me tell you: there’s nothing quite like...
View ArticleMusings of a Terrier PC
Game today included an Incident. I’ll grant, Incidents are pretty common in this particular game. We are, after all, the kind of people who will infiltrate a black market weapons convention, as...
View ArticleThe Joys of Rumors
Whether they like them in the real world or not, when it comes to their own worlds, plot creators—writers, GMs, you name it—tend to love rumors. Why? Rumors are everywhere. You don’t have to worry...
View ArticleAll Rumors Are What?
I talked a lot yesterday about how useful rumors as a narrative device can be, but they often run afoul of dubious execution. In particular, I find one treatment of rumors that, unless the whole point...
View ArticleDissecting a Rumor
I’ll be honest—when I first started writing this post, I’d been going to spell out steps for devising a single rumor. Then I realized it isn’t necessarily sequential; I, for one, start with the subject...
View ArticleCondensing the Rumor Cloud
When you’re trying not to make your hints too obvious, or you want to give people a cross-section of what’s going on in a location, sometimes just one rumor isn’t going to do the job. Instead, you’ll...
View ArticleWorking Around “What Am I Doing Here?”
One of the perennial problems of playing in an RPG is the risk that you’re going to end up with That Character. The one who was a really cool concept originally, or who fits your style perfectly, or...
View ArticleHonest Manipulators
Most of the manipulative characters in both fiction and RPGs are absurdly good liars—you know, the type who could sell shoes to snakes or convince a person that the sky was red while standing outdoors...
View ArticleRavyn’s Rules of Mind Control
Into every game, a little mind-controlling the PCs seems to fall. And why not? It ensures they’re fighting one of the scariest things on the field, it forces them to change their tactics, and it gets...
View ArticleRunning for Smart PCs
It’s pretty easy for a GM to manage a group whose idea of ideal characters to emulate are your standard sword and sorcery hero. Provide plenty of things for them to pound/spellcast at/otherwise beat to...
View ArticleDealing with Setting Discontent
A setting can make or break a story. Sadly, the setting is a lot more rigid than the character; characters are expected to arc on a regular basis, and can usually do so with relatively minimal...
View ArticleThe Art of Talking To Yourself
Running a scene, or even part of a scene, in which the only ones talking are one or more NPCs is a vexed issue among tabletoppers. On the one hand, the PCs are expected to be the focus on the action;...
View ArticleHow Not to Talk to Yourself
Yesterday I talked about things a GM can do when running a scene in which it makes sense for the focus to be NPCs talking to each other. Enough positivity; let’s look at what not to do. Don’t make it...
View ArticleBattlemap? What Battlemap?
When I looked over the prompts for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival (Location, Location, Location, hosted at Campaign Mastery), one of the first that stood out to me was “How do you represent a location...
View ArticleWeaponized Weaknesses
I’ve talked a lot about the kinds of things a character can turn into weapons—but then there’s one of my favorite ways, one that backfires easily, but that works spectacularly. What happens when a...
View ArticleChallenge vs. Slog, Part 1: Mechanical Factors
There is nothing many game groups like more than a challenging fight. But somewhere in every battle is a point where it goes from a brilliant challenge they’ll be talking about several plot arcs down...
View ArticleChallenge vs. Slog, Part 2: Contextual Slogging
Yesterday, I talked about mechanical factors that could turn a challenging battle into a boring slog. Today, I’m going to talk about contextual factors; reasons why what’s going on in the game could...
View ArticleJust Because It’s Not Your Scene…
Into every game, a couple scenes that not everyone’s enjoying seem to fall. (Heck, even the enjoyment varies. Some people have characters who are into it but are dead bored themselves, or are enjoying...
View ArticleRecurrences, Plot and Catch-22
We all know about recurring villains. They’re fun, they save you chargen, they exist as reasons for the PCs to get better and as targets for them to go strike at when they might be otherwise...
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