Remember that red-and-green hourglass from Rodizio Grill? Turns out, it might be the best DM tool you’ve never used. We’ve all been there. Your D&D players fought the monsters and interacted with the NPCs. Or maybe it was the other way around. Now the wizard is out of spells and encourages the others to...
Stephen drummed his fingers on the table, waiting. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for—some clue, some revelation, some progress. The game was cool, sure. The hospital scenes had been immersive, Kathmandu felt real, but… he still wasn’t a wizard. And that was the problem. Scott, the game master, could argue that a...
My friends and I recently came up with a new world in which to play. The characters Knights Natalis, who protect the North Pole and the world from primeval terrors. Ideas for characters and organizations danced in our heads like sugar plum fairies. As we came up with this polar world, I grew excited...
I love using music in my RPGs. One of my earliest campaigns as a teenager in the 1980s featured the Led Zeppelin song, Kashmir. Their lyrics informed the idea of the adventure: Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face And stars fill my dream I’m a traveler of both time and space...
When role-playing, you and your players can enter into a thousand different fantastical worlds and inhabit the lives of a million different people. This variety opens role-playing games to a diverse group of people. Yet, how do you address the different player types and play styles of such a motley group? As a game...
As player characters wind their way through your imaginary world, you (the game master) seek to keep them on the edge of their seat. You want to introduce intense encounters and heart-pounding battles. But how do you create that tension in your game, and what does it have to do with a rubber band?...
Okay, so you have gathered your friends together to sit down and play an RPG, like Dungeons and Dragons or Call of Cthulhu. You have a comfortable space and everyone has their characters, dice, and snacks. The curtains of your imagination will soon open and the game will begin. But how do you start...
What is a GM Notebook? It would be so much easier to Game Master if we could just keep everything in our heads. But the world of a GM is constantly moving and that makes it hard to always remember every little thing. We gamers are fond of butchering a statement made by Helmuth...
In looking at the methods that Game Masters use to keep themselves organized, I was intrigued by what types of things they were recording. Their records could be broken up into two groups: 1) current adventure plans and preparation and 2) a collection of ideas for future adventures. Focusing on the idea side, I...
For the lucky ones where life and budget permit, the question probably shouldn’t be either or but why not go to both Gen Con AND Origins seeing that they are two great game cons in their own right. However, for many of us who want to attend a large gaming convention, the question comes...
