Game Masters
The ability of players to affect events in a game is one of the crucial components that makes an RPG what it is. It's also one of the aspects of GMing that's easiest to mess up. I'll talk about why player choice is so important in RPGs and offer a few suggestions for how to uphold it in your games.
As the GM you can't wipe out the party or your campaign is over, right? What if I offered you a way to kill them all and get away without them lynching you? Intrigued? Read on.
Want to spice up your game a bit? Tired of players just shooting someone or hitting an opponent without any description? Bored? Try adding Stunts to your game and see what happens...
Aaaaand... we're back. This time, I'm joined by my now 12 year old daughter in our discussion of mixing versions of D&D to get a more interesting game. Yes I know, we just committed heresy. Here we are, on the eve on a brand, spanking new edition of D&D (4th, for those of you keeping track) and we're talking about mixing 1st, 2nd & 3rd all into one big game. I've had people ask me how I do that and as "Newbie" (as my daughter has decided to be called) thinks this is completely normal, it makes sense for us to walk you through how we do this and why.
With today's release of D&D 4th Edition, Wizards has been updating their website in regards to D&D Insider, Dragon, and Dungeon. While there's nothing really new in the Insider section (save the utter lack of the project's health - nothing about the open beta, nothing about the lack of client applications for months, nothing about costs, etc.), we do have tables of content for their two magazines, and Dragon reveals Wizards promise of revisiting previous campaign worlds.
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a Lovecraftian game of academic satire, designed for a single session of play. Players take on the role of professors at Pemberton University, a New England institute of higher education, in the year 1919. These professors, like those at any other university, jockey with one another for prestige and tenure. The catch? An ancient Sumerian roach-god with telepathic powers is running about, crawling inside heads and using you to wreak chaos and destruction upon the human race.
The Gamer Dome reports from the GAMA Trade Show: "Forgotten Realms 4e is three books, period, done, end of line: Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Player's Guide to FR, and DM's Guide to FR. All settings will be done like that, one per year, until they run out of settings. They mentioned Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Spelljammer as settings on their list!"
The first of a short stream of articles concerning TV shows I've watched and liked, why I liked them, and what I learned from them gaming wise. This one addresses Carnivale, one of my favorite shows, and one that I've raved about previously on this site. Now you get to see why.
Another look at character creation and the process of fleshing out characters and making them as real as possible. In this article, we discuss both building a good character sheet and using that character sheet to the max of your abilities.
Why aren't there sports in roleplaying games? Sports have such a huge impact on us culturally and have been played for thousands of years. So why aren't they mentioned in roleplaying games?
