GM advice Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Neitherworld Stories

January 7, 2009

RPG minigames

As I’ve mentioned, I have been playing Fallout 3 a lot lately. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that I really like one of the minigames in it. For those who don’t know, in videogames a minigame is a small, relatively simple game contained within a larger one. It usually focuses on a subsystem within the game, and is often...

January 6, 2009

Evolution and creationism in fantasy

Where do monsters come from? Many people won’t care. Monsters are. Perhaps they should not be (and the PCs are dedicated to fixing the situation). If you are running a particular sort of game – or designing your own setting – asking where the diversity of monsters comes from can be useful. Popular debates in our own world give us...

November 4, 2008

Fallout 3 – intro and character generation

As I mentioned yesterday, I just picked up Fallout 3. I haven’t had much time to play, but i like what I’ve seen so far. Good games often give me ideas about how to improve other games, so I may be commenting here from time to time on possible applications to tabletop RPGs. This wouldn’t be too weird. The SPECIAL...

October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween

Some random thoughts in honor of Halloween: What looks scary in a fantasy world? We typically think of twisted, non-human visages as scary, but would they be in a world in which goblins, zombies, and such are commonplace? One tool in creating fear is solitariness. When you are alone in a dangerous situation, it tends to be much scarier than...

October 27, 2008

Playing with taboos

Roughly speaking, a taboo is a cultural prohibition. Modern societies have a ton of taboos. They range from prohibitions on cannibalism, slavery, and incest to prohibitions on eating meat, using certain words, and engaging in arguably harmless sexual activities. Some taboos have a religious origin, but it isn’t necessary. When you want to present a different culture in an RPG...

October 15, 2008

Disjoining language and culture

A quick tip to help you quickly generate flavorful cultures: Language and culture are deeply embedded in each other, so much so that when we appropriate one for a new race or people in an RPG, we almost automatically grab them both. Take, for example, White Wolf’s original Werewolf game – the nature-mysticism that the werewolves adhered to seemed to...

October 13, 2008

Consequences

As a GM, I don’t particularly like killing players. As a player, I don’t like the idea that my PC could die in a random or meaningless way. When news about 4e was coming out, I found the rumored removal of save or die effects to be heartening. I know this upset many people, but I didn’t really understand why...

October 10, 2008

RPG Carnival: Superhero Tropes for Non-Superhero Gaming

Superhero comics have a ton of useful tropes that could easily be adapted to other genres. Naming conventions Want your players to know when an NPC is important? Give that NPC an alliterative name. Bonus: It will be easier for everyone (including you) to remember it. As far as PC names go, Superhero code-names are usually nicknames or titles of...

October 1, 2008

Goofy Gaming

Gaming is entertainment. I think that much is uncontroversial. How silly any given game should be is somewhat less so. Example the First: Nobilis The Nobilis game that I’ve been playing is has been mostly serious, despite the fact that our Imperator (a not-totally-sane angel) is sort of goofy. He often appears distracted and wears robes with t-shirt-style slogans on...

September 29, 2008

Hack Game Design

Sometimes I read non-rpg-related blogs on gaming and game design (for boardgames or video games). Sometimes they help me come at rpg gaming from a different perspective. Video game level design, for example, can tell you a lot about rpg adventure design – and not just about dungeon adventures either. Today, I ran across this post: 10 Ways to Know...

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