Ravenous Role Playing

A Deeper Understanding of GM Notes

Notes. Notes. Notes. We all take notes during the game. OK. Maybe not all of us, but every good GM should take notes, and I highly recommend that at least one player take notes. With two people taking notes, you’ll get the players’ perspectives in the game as well as the GM’s outlook. Plus there are some things that only the GM knows about the NPCs, world, monsters, treasure, etc. It’s just the natural way of things. DNAPhil has a great write-up on GM notes and how they are used. I highly recommend you go check them out.

More Confessions of a D&D Camp Councilor

I linked to the first post about D&D Camp last week, so I felt obliged to link to the follow-up post. It’s a great read and really gives me hope for the future of my favorite hobby.

Grow The Hobby With Great Game Mastering

Speaking of the future of hobbies, here’s a post from Johnn about running great games that will keep your players coming back, including the newbies!

Unique scrolls in fantasy RPGs

I love unique magic items. In the RPG that I’ve worked on for a while (and hope to get back to this December when a non-compete contract expires) there is no such thing as a “long sword +1″ or any other “+1″ item for that matter. Sure, some items may grant a +1 bonus to attack and/or damage, but there’s so much more to a magical item in my RPG than just that one thing. Every item has a name. Every item has a history. Every item has a future. Most items have a personality as well. It’s just in the nature of magic in the RPG that this has to be the case… plus I was tired of people buying up +1 items like they were candy.

NewbieDM Review: Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide

This is a great review from NewbieDM about the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide. I don’t have a copy of it yet due to some budgetary constraints, but I hope to pick it up soon. There are quite a few Pathfinder titles that are on my “get it soon” list, and this is one of them. NewbieDM’s review just bumped up the book a few notches to place it at or near the top of the wish list. I can’t wait to get my hands on the book. One thing that made me sad about his post is that he states that he doesn’t like Pathfinder as a system. I just feel he’s missing out on some great role playing with the system. However, to each his own. I’m sure there are a few systems out there that he loves that I can’t stand.

I know I usually only post five links, but I’m giving everyone a double dose for this week. It was such a great week in RPG blogging that I had no choice but to include ten links for today. Enjoy!

2E “Remake” in the Works

The post at Grognardia about Realms of Eternal Epic made me very happy. I cut my teeth on the box set D&D RPGs, but I really came into my own as a quality player and game master in 2nd edition AD&D (though 1st edition AD&D is still my favorite flavor of D&D.) Seeing that someone is bringing 2nd edition back around in a new format makes me giddy beyond all counting. I hope they are quite successful in their venture, and I know I’ll be keeping tabs on their progress.

5 Things Driving Across the Country Taught Me About DMing

I would never think that driving across country could inspire so many thoughts about running games. Looks like I was wrong on that account. Go see what Hannah has to say on the matter. There’s some really good stuff in there!

Hot Button: Player Characters Should Never Be Killed

Bah. PCs should die and die lots… ok… Maybe not “lots,” but the threat of death should be ever present. There should be no holds barred on killing people that do stupid things, run into overly dangerous situations or that just have a long string of bad luck that offs them. That’s my two cents on the matter. It looks like Martin over at Gnome Stew disagrees with me quite a bit… or does he?

3 Popular Campaign Types

The folks over at Dungeon Mastering have a great breakdown of the three basic types of campaigns that exist. They can be Epic, Regional or Penny-Ante. I think that’s a great summary of all of the games that I’ve run or playing in. Of course, they go into much more detail than I just did, so go check them out.

What if, when civilization was first forming…

ChicagoWiz has some interesting random thoughts on the start of a world and primitive cultures. There’s not much substance in the post, but the thought lines are deep and should be carefully considered. I like the questions he asks. If you’re making a world for an RPG, then there are some questions in there you should be asking yourself.

Confessions of a D&D Camp Councilor

Where was D&D Camp when I was a kid?!?!? Well… Probably in Lake Geneva, honestly. Somewhere far, far away from the desert plains that I called home when I was a child. I had to link to this post because it’s a great story and very intriguing to me. Maybe my son will get into RPGs and want to go to D&D camp. Maybe I can be a councilor when that time comes? Hrmm….

Dungeons & Dragons Chartistry

Ever wanted to see how various “bloodlines” merged and diverged over the decades when it comes to RPGs and gaming? Well, James has a fantastic “family tree” chart that he put together on how games evolved up until 1991. I wish it carried on to modern times, but the early 90s were insane for the number of RPG systems that were spawned, so I’m not surprised he stopped there.

Seven ways to Spice up Your Treasure
Seven More ways to Spice up Your Treasure

These two go together. I know that I’m going to take all 14 points that they brought up and incorporate them into the way I handle treasure. I was already doing some of these to a good extent and most of them to a minor extent, but the over effect of using all 14 tips will make things much better for my games.

Defining Importance, Making Sure The Things You Want To Be Remembered About Your Game Are

Add some importance to items, places, things, objects and people in your game using these 5 tips. They’re simple, straightforward and easy to use. Go do it!

Prep Faster, Breathe Easier + City Encounters Contest

I’m all about any tips that can help me prep for my games faster. This includes using anything I can get my hands on as tokens for monsters. This can be paper clips, bottle caps (per the link), wooden chits available at any hobby store, or some good old AD&D Battle System cardboard chits that you can scribble on. I’ve also seen pennies with small stickers on them with quickly drawn profiles of the monsters. Of course, if you have the bank to do it, there are a slew of pre-painted miniatures out there to use as well. There are a few more tips about prepping for games in the link, so go check them out!

How To Run Ripping City Encounters – 3 Tips

I love city-based campaigns. Some of my best campaigns never left the city borders. Sure, sometimes, the party would go under the city, but they still didn’t actually travel outside the borders of the city. There are some special considerations about city encounters since any “bad guys” that escape may very well crop up again. This is usually not a concern with wilderness adventures because by the time the “bad guys” have licked their wounds, the party has moved on to greener pastures. There are some excellent bits of advice in the link to the role playing tips web site, so see what they have to say.

Transportation – Giving The Group A Ride

FTL travel, teleportation, flying mounts, super-sonic jets, high horsepower cars… These are all things that the players might be able to get their hands on and throw a kink in the chain of a story. There are pros and cons to allowing this to happen in your game, and lots of ways to handle it. Personally, I’m not a big fan of allowing “instant travel” unless that is what the game is based around. It just screws up too many things. However, it can be handled. Go see what Mr. Arcadian has to say on the matter.

World Building 101: Using Another World

Ahh… Using pre-published worlds. It’s a boon and a bane. If you have a group of players that are not familiar with the world, you have lots of reading to do to paint the full picture. If your players are familiar with the world, then… well… you have lots of reading ahead of you to get it right. I’ve enjoyed both methods of running the game. With the players being ignorant of the game, it frees me up to make it my own. To add my own flair and style. With the players being knowledgeable, I state up front that I may get some of the details wrong. If those missteps are going to affect how a player runs his or her character, then I let them speak up and correct me. It’s only fair.

D&D is About…

Ambition. It’s what drives most PCs forward in their quests, especially in D&D. There’s a theme to most games. If that theme is missing, then something core is also missing from the game. With D&D, it’s always about the adventure, the desire to overcome seemingly impossible odds, explore the fantastic and drive forward to a greater goal. It’s a PCs ambition to excel that gets them through their adverse times.

Maximize The Use Of PC Histories

I love this list of tips! I especially love the first one, but I take a slight twist on it. I don’t “require” a character background from each player. Instead, I reward those people that create a background with extra XP to start with, slightly boosted stats, extra skill points, a minor magical item or something similar. Once I have a character background, I do everything I can to incorporate something from it into the campaign. It engages the players so much more than just allowing them to play in “my sandbox” and it really amps up the fun.

Appendix N 2.0

This is a listing of many of the “must read” authors of the fantasy realm. Do yourself a favor and check it out… Then hit a local (used) bookstore and find a few of them to read.

Dwarven Forge Buyer’s Guide

A GM of mine has used these in the past, and they made for a great time. It really helped pull us into the world and the dungeon. However, the price on Dwarven Forge stuff is pretty high. It’s on my list of stuff to buy if I ever win it big in the lottery….

AD&D’s Most Enduring Rule

Where did the “3d6 in order” stat rule come from? Nowhere apparently. Wow. Go check out Grognardia’s post on the matter. This is vital history for any role player.

World Building 101: Holy Days, Feasts, Festivals, and Other Excuses to Party Hard

Who needs an excuse to party? Well… Apparently adventurers do. Go see what Brandan has to say on the matter to give you some ideas on how to give your PCs a reason to cut loose and have some fun.

In the past few weeks, I’ve received or bought:

• The Dresden Files RPG that I pre-ordered months ago.
• Mutants and Masterminds and a supplement with a bunch of pregenerated characters.
• Runequest from Mongoose Games
• A variety of items from Free RPG Day.

Now to find the time to go through all of this and start writing some reviews. I’m still not sure what order I’ll be hitting them or when I’ll have a chance to get through all of this new material. I can’t wait to do it, though!

Making tokens for Gametable

This is a great post by NewbieDM on how to make your own chits/tokens/pogs for use on the game table. I’m going to have to look into this for my gaming sessions. I think it’s really cool stuff.

How To Design A Campaign

There’s lots of talk on designing campaign worlds, dungeons, adventures and such, but very little on the campaign itself. Here are some fantastic tips on getting a campaign started on the right foot.

How To Be A Confident GM, Part 2

Part 2 of the series on how to be a confident GM. I’ve linked to part one last week, so here’s part 2 if you were waiting for it.

5 Errors I’ve Made as DM

We all mistakes. It’s just a fact of life. However, it’s always better to learn from someone else’s mistakes before you have a chance to run off and perform them yourself. Check out this post on some of Ameron’s mistakes and how to recover from them.

Top Secret

I’m linking to this post by Monte Cook because I love Top Secret. It’s one of my favorite systems of all times. This post really brought back some great high school memories (and there aren’t many!) for me. It’s given me the itch to run the system for my current group, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. Like with Monte, there’s not much interest in running spies these days.

DM Advice: Contention At The Table

We all get together to role play to enjoy the gamin and camaraderie involved, but there are times when things get heated around the table. There are ways to deal with this heat, up to and including taking time to cool off. Mike Shea over at Sly Flourish has some great advice on how to bring the heat down to a simmer.

How To Be A Confident GM, Part 1

Confidence is one of the key factors in running a good game. If you don’t have confidence in your abilities to be a GM, then neither will your players and the quality of the game will suffer for it. Go see what Johnn has to say on the matter, and it just may help you improve your GMing skills.

Fear and Loathing in the Forgotten Realms

Even the mightiest adventuring warrior fears something. It’s just a matter of finding the right stimuli and having the player go with it. Role playing fear is hard when the player is sitting in a comfortable chair, eating a hamburger, drinking Mt. Dew and hanging out with his best friends. Here’s some advice on how to turn up the fear in a game and have your players still enjoy it.

Avoiding The Total Party Kill

Whether you are a GM or a player, there are ways to avoid the dreaded TPK. There are different approaches between the two sides of the screen, but they are equally important. Go see what Wimwick has to say on the matter.

“Inns” and Outs

Ahh… The inns of a town seem to be the refuge of all adventuring parties. Since they spend so much time in them, liven them up and make them a place worth remembering. You need more than just a slick name and a menu to set the atmosphere, though.

I just heard that Mike Cook pulled up a chair to the great D&D table in the sky on June 7th. He was an executive and a driving force at TSR during the 80s. He will be sorely missed.

More information can be found here, here and here.

Be at peace, Mike. You’ll be missed here on the prime material plane.

The day is rolling close (and I’m sorry for such short notice to those of you that are unaware of this event) as Saturday the 19th of June is Free RPG Day this year! I plan on visiting my FLGS to pick up whatever freebies are available. As I did last year, I’ll be posting reviews of all of the material that I receive. I hope to get my hands on one copy of everything, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m itching to try out new systems, new environments, new settings and new looks on old ideas. I always get jazzed about role playing this time of year because of Free RPG Day goodness.

Check out their web site (see link above) and see if there is a FLGS near you that is offering the goodies. If you do manage to find one, be nice and buy something while you’re in the store. I always do.

As promised, here is the Sunday Seven.

4 Best Ways To Handle Town Guards

Town guards are (or in most civilized areas should be) everywhere, but how to handle them? Follow the link to find out!

Running A Minimal Prep Game

I’m the type of person that runs one of two games. I either have every last detail prepped, noted, memorized and planned out… or I run by the seat of my pants. I’ll admit that the improv game is more fun for me than any planned game. What happens if you’re somewhere in between, though?

Google Calendar As Awesome Campaign Calendar

I had never thought of using Google Calendar to do an in-game calendar. That’s an awesome idea. I just wonder how I can import my current calendar generator software and it’s moon phases and such into Google Calendar? I wonder if there’s an API I could call? If you’re not going that far into it, using Google to track in-game events sounds like a grand idea!

The Cost of Grit in your Game

I just love critical hit/miss charts and all of the fun that goes into them. It adds so much more flavor to the game. Unnatural 20 has one for you that’ll knock your socks off if you’re into that type of things.

A couple of more neat finds…

Here’s some link salad from Newbie DM that tastes great and is good for your RPG waistline. Go check them out!

The DM Should Utilize Help From Peasants

This article from Krystal says up front that the GM should recruit the other players to help the game run more smoothly. I’m 100% in favor of this and already leverage this to its greatest when I can. The GM already has so much to do, that any little bit that can be farmed out to the players is beneficial.

World Building 101 – Choices and Player Agency

I love it when players contribute to my world-building efforts. Yes, my world is very detailed and well fleshed out already, but there’s no way I can think of everything on my own. While I did add a couple of minotaur-ruled nations to the world, one of my players came up with the concept that all of the rulers suffer from albinism and he wanted to be part of that ruling class. The idea was so cool, I let him do it. When possible, don’t just limit your players to helping you out when it comes to the crunch (like tracking initiative) but also with the fluff (like adding details to your world.)