Tag: GM techniques

February 12, 2012

Pushing your Luck

Let’s revisit a topic that I brought up five years ago. I’ve never liked that luck tends to be handled in RPGs by a reroll. The other day, while driving into Baltimore, I think I realized why: a reroll is a test of skill. This is largely system-agnostic, but I’ll describe it in d20ish terms. Let’s say my character is...

August 6, 2010

Investigation in RPGs

Right now, the two games that I’m most actively playing in are primarily investigation-based, and this has gotten me to start thinking about the challenges of running an investigation-based RPG. The trick to running an investigation-based game, I think, is to not make the investigation itself the hard part. The Dresden Files game I’m playing in is a bit guilty...

October 1, 2009

Shadowrunning the Dungeon

I’ve only played Shadowrun a few times. Most of them have been with the same group of people. Our playstyle focused upon extensive recon and planning, and – while that style of game might annoy some people – I enjoyed it quite a bit. Yesterday, I got to thinking about how that playstyle could be merged with a dungeon crawl....

June 18, 2009

D&D 3.5: All About The Future?

A friend of mine who I game with regularly recently made an observation about why he prefers 4e to 3.5. Third edition, he noted, was all about the next level. When people build 3.5 PCs, it is often with an eye toward a particular prestige class or feat combination that the PC won’t have for some time. Some people, when...

April 1, 2009

Today’s Lesson:

Believe nothing. As a GM, do you try to trick your players? If so, do you prefer to set up circumstances to deliberately mislead player or to you use NPCs who try to trick the PCs? While I have done the former, I’m definitely in the latter camp. I prefer to be honest and up front with my players (which...

March 17, 2009

The Perils of Dual GMing

Angela and I have been running our Woodstock game together. In some ways, it is very nice to have two GMs, but it can also be tricky. Here are some problems we’ve run into: Lack of flexibility – You know how sometimes, as a GM, you just sort of wing it? With two GMs, that’s tricky. You don’t want to...

January 29, 2009

Co-GMing

As I’ve mentioned, Angela and I are planning on jointly running a game. We’ve both been part of GM teams in LARPs, but neither of us has done this in a tabletop setting. In some ways, I expect this will be easier. Communication should be simple, since we’ll both be around the same table. That said, I’m wary of pitfalls...

January 20, 2009

All good campaigns must come to an end. . .

On Sunday, Angela’s campaign came to a conclusion. I didn’t really expect it. Neither did she. I knew we were coming close, but I thought we’d have another 2-3 sessions. Fortunately, the ending was a good one. Here’s why: It involved major antagonists. Our last combat was actually against Malik, the wizard who cursed the PCs in the first session,...

January 16, 2009

How to start a secret invasion-thing

I saw a bit of John Carpenter’s The Thing last night. My favorite parts of the movie are the tensions that build up around people not knowing if their companions are impostors or not. I thought (because I’m a geek) about how to accomplish this in a RPG. It would be tricky. My best suggestion (which wouldn’t work with certain...

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...