Tag Archives: GM’ing
Soundtrack Smorgasbord
You want to add a little musical magic to your games in the form of background tunes, but you don’t know where to start? Stay a while, and listen! The Obsidian Portal Research Department (one guy who spends way too much time online) has you covered! Below are all the basics to boost your Lo-Fi games into immersive experiences, in stereo.
What’s In a Market?
Usually, a trip into town during a roleplaying session means downtime, scouring the books for the next item to buy, and maybe a quick snack-break before the next leg of the adventure. But what happens when you or one of your players wants to explore the bazaar before battling on? A little primer into such a profitable precinct is in order!
Rates of Ruin
Ruins factor prominently in tales of adventure – they are exotic locations that tell a story of fate and inevitability – they have elements of familiarity, failure, and abandonment. The mood is set by such a setting. But modern world-builders have little experience with ruination outside of the occasional un-mowed lawn, urban blight, ramshackle shed, or museum visit. The main question is: how fast does decay happen?
Your Battlemap is Too Small and Boring and You Should Feel Bad
Do you find that your combats feel claustrophobic? Do your encounters seem eternally enclosed – a dull series of clashes where warriors quickly close the distance and smash each other until a winner is decided by who rolled the most dice? It may be because your battlemap is too small (and boring… and you should feel bad!). But don’t worry. It’s an easy fix.
Making Mounts More Momentous
The Overlooked Advantages of the Riding Animal
Most game systems relegate mounts into a kind of travel buff – treating them essentially like vehicles that boost overland speed. Other mechanics grant combat stats and carrying capacities, but mounts can be more than that. A clever GM can make it worthwhile to drop some hard-earned cash at the stable and add some interest into any scene that includes such pragmatic pets.
Randomizer Retrofit
Every GM has the occasional need of a random table for something – the contents of a treasure chest, the files on a Megacorporate server, or the embarrassing medical condition that you give to a character whose player keeps skipping game. But what happens when you find a great set of tables, but they don’t fit your genre? For a good tool kit, we retrofit!