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...
During my Vaesen RPG game last week, I attempted to focus on Theater of the Mind (TotM). To put it simply, it was a fiasco. What made my efforts go down in flames? Perhaps my greatest mistake was that I neglected the visual. Humans are visual beings. And our ability for spatial understanding varies...
In a convention game, time is limited. How do I help each player have a chance to be in the spotlight? John Barth explained that everyone is the hero of their own story. Your players want their character to be a hero too. You can make that happen by giving their character the spotlight....
I have just connected with my local gaming convention, and I want to try my hand at gamemastering there. Now as I stare at the registration form, I am asking myself which game should I run. The online consensus seems to be that a convention roleplaying game needs to be either simple or familiar....
