Microsoft Built My GameMaster Notebook
February 13, 2008
When it comes to RPG session prep, there’s a fairly strong inclination among GMs towards free products. Any why not? There are some decent wikis out there, there are some products aimed specifically at RPG campaign management. So, why have I dropped my Wiki-On-a-Stick in favor of Microsoft’s OneNote 2007? Read more
Living Legends
February 6, 2008
Legends aren’t just for long-dead heroes and villans. You can make your world more real to the players and take some of the sting out of a character death by incorporating legends about the characters’ deeds into your current campaign. Read more
Arrivals and Departures: Tracking Moving Monsters
January 29, 2008
The last couple posts discussed a technique I call a “Flight Plan” to plan for your monsters’ retreat. The idea is to figure out ahead of time where your monsters will get going when the going gets tough. That way, you don’t have them blundering about in unbelievable ways.
But planning for fleeing monsters is just the start of your trouble. Once they’ve fled, you have to keep track of them. This post presents a technique for keeping track of the shifting encounter setting that arises when monsters move about in response to the player characters. Read more
Recipe for Retreat
January 25, 2008
The last article suggested a way to record your plans for adversaries that flee an encounter. In this article, I offer some advice on formulating those plans.
Let’s Split Up! - GM’ing the Split Party
January 11, 2008
“We’ll investigate the crypt while the rogue sneaks into the baron’s study.”
Not one of a GMs favorite things to hear. Do your players split up? Mine do–almost perversely often. Sometimes I think they’re just trying to make my life difficult. GMing a split party can be difficult, but thanks to the recent practice provided by my players, I have some thoughts to share.
Wiggly Inspiration
January 1, 2008
Happy New Year! I thought that in keeping with the holiday spirit, I’d talk a bit about using holidays in your campaign world. Holidays are a great
opportunity for you to make your campaign world a little more real to your players. Holidays let you demonstrate that your world isn’t static; time passes, seasons change, and the people of the village don’t exist just to sell beer, swords, and healing to the player characters.
Combat Trackers Part 2: Virtual Tabletops / Face-to-Face Games
December 30, 2007
In my last post, I discussed combat trackers, particularly the GameMastery Combat Pad . In this post, I’ll look at combat tracking for virtual tabletops. I’m not going to be reviewing them, however. As the developer of EpicTable, a virtual tabletop to be released in 2008, there’s a conflict of interest inherent in any review I would do in the area of virtual tabletops. Instead, I’ll focus on the capabilities common to virtual tabletop combat trackers and will discuss the use of these tools in both online and face-to-face situations.
Read more
Less Painful Combat: Combat Trackers, Part 1
December 27, 2007
Recently, I’ve been working on the combat tracking mechanisms for EpicTable, and I’ve been through something of a personal renaissance with respect to combat tracking in my own weekly face-to-face game. I’ve had the opportunity to think about and experiment with a few different mechanisms for tracking initiative in particular. (That’s “who goes first” for you non-d20 folk.)
Read more
Well Met at the Keg ‘n’ Kettle
December 21, 2007
What’s this about kegs and kettles? And why do I sound like I’m LARPing? First of all, let me assure you that there’s nary a not going to be any more of that kind of talk in this blog. This blog, which I’m calling, “Knowledge, Roleplaying”, is going to be all about techniques and technologies for improving your game.
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