Tag Archives: GM’ing

19
May

How to Write and Reveal Story Secrets

Stories of discovery revolve around uncovering secrets. If you’re having trouble building secrets for your tales of adventure, follow this checklist:

  1. What is the secret?
  2. Why is this information a secret?
  3. Hook: How do the Players get pulled into the investigation?
  4. Who knows the secret and what are they willing to do to keep it?
  5. How are you teasing the secret?
  6. What do the Players think is going on?
  7. Reveal: How will they find out the truth and how is this dangerous?
  8. Reaction: How might the Players and others react to the revelation?
  9. How does the revelation change people and the rest of the story?
  10. Re-Write: What do you need to edit to make the reveal even better?

17
Dec

Group Beta #51 — Half Fork

3
Dec

Don’t Wait — Just Play

How many games have we skipped because we had a couple of players missing? How many first sessions of a campaign have we delayed due to absence or scheduling snafu? If you’ve been playing tabletop games for more than a few weeks, you’ve almost certainly run into this annoying truth – real life gets in the way of RPG’s. And it never gets easier to get a group together.

So, here’s my advice: Life is short. Don’t wait. Just start playing.

 

5
Nov

Sight Cones and Sound Spheres

I have a plate mail problem. And no, it’s not chafing and yes, I know about the baby powder trick. It’s noise. Or rather, it’s a false perception that my players have – they have got it in their heads that if even one party-member is wearing shiny, clanky plate mail or hasn’t super-specialized in stealth stats that they will make so much noise while moving that every sentry in the castle will instantly see and hear them and rush from their post to commit murder. They have made an assumption that avoiding sight and quiet movement is impossible unless you’re a fully trained ninja and infiltration tactics are off the table before the mission-planning even starts. So, how do I re-educate them on the soundness of soundless-and-sightless strategies? A visual aid from the world of video games is the answer!

29
Oct

TwitteRPG Challenge

Social media posting presents an interesting challenge – how do you capture a reader’s attention and convey sufficient information to get the point across in a limited space? And can you use these limitations to make interesting play-by-post games? There is certainly a bit of a magic formula to make it work, but the rapid-fire nature of the short report fits perfectly in certain kinds of RPG’s. It may even hone your descriptive skills for other roleplaying games!

19
Oct

Group Beta #47 — Yggdrasil

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