Ravenous Role Playing

Laptops At The Gaming Table

Technology has become so invasive in our lives that even a “pencil and paper” game has become touched by laptops, PDAs and smart phones. I gamed with a group for a while that used a laptop, custom software and a projector to track all basic combat stats for the party. It was really slick and I liked it quite a bit. I was using Wizard’s D&D character creator at the time and found a mistake on my character right as the game started. I fired up my laptop and fixed the character, dropped it to a PDF and used the PDF on my screen for the rest of the night. It was pretty slick. However, as a player, I prefer to lose all of the distractions that a laptop provides and concentrate on the game. As a GM, I have so many notes, maps, wikis and digital references on my laptop that I can scarcely live without it. I try not to let it become my main focus, though.

Book of Dead Characters to Celebrate Your Gaming

I wish I had thought of this back when I was 10 years old and my first character death occurred. I would love to have a binder with all of my dead in it. Damn good idea. Too bad I didn’t do it. I’m sure there are lots of memories that I have lost from my head that I would recall just by glancing at my roll of the dead. Ah well…

Why Everyone Should Have 3d6 For Stats

When a player meets a keystone NPC, I usually have them prepped before hand and know all of their vital details. If they meet a transient and unimportant NPC that suddenly becomes important somehow, I roll a few dice to determine their basics and run with what the dice tell me unless the dice go against what I’ve already determined in my head the character is. If I know the innkeeper is slow-witted, and I roll high for his intelligence, then I’ll ignore the roll and go with a lower amount. By knowing (and recording for later use) the basic stats of people that are encountered, it makes for a richer gaming experience.

GM’s Guide To Adventure Writing

Every GM, at some point, should step away from the pre-built modules that are published for use and run with their own module. It really heightens the attachment to the world and the sense of adventure for the players and the GM alike. Not sure where to start or how to do it? Follow the link and read some more at Role Playing Tips.

First Time GM: Job Description

Along the same lines of the previous link, if a person has never run a game before (and I still assert that all true gamers should run at least one campaign) then Gnome Stew has some hints and tips for a first-timer in the guise of a job description for GMs. If you’re an experienced GM, head on over to Gnome Stew and see what you agree with and what you don’t.

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble – Poisons

Poisons are a fantastic tool of any good GM. Instead of upping a monster’s combat stats to make it a nasty fight, just give it a poison (or disease) that it imparts upon anyone it hits. It’s a great leveler of the fighting grounds, and if the players know about the poisonous capabilities of your nasty critter, they will be hesitate to charge forth like a fool. Fore more details on poisons and how they can be used, check out Krystal’s words.

When Players Kill the Campaign

In most games I’ve been it it’s been a GM goof (or purposeful action) that kills the campaign. However, players can kill a campaign all on their own as well. This usually occurs in sandbox-style games, but can happen in a localized world of playstyle as well. Go see what Ameron has to say about the players derailing the GM’s carefully laid plans.

GMing Gods, Demons And Immortals

As a mortal creature, I can’t fathom having great powers or near-infinite time to plan out plots and ruses. I usually have to get my stuff together and get a project done in hours or days, not even weeks, months or years. I couldn’t imagine having decades, centuries or millennium to finish a task. Perhaps that tips over at roleplayingtips.com will help you out where I can’t.

Getting Out Of The Ditch

Even the best laid mysteries with all of the hints and clues placed before the PCs can stall out. It could be some thick-headedness on the players’ parts, or just some bad dice rolls. Whatever throws you in that ditch, there are ways out of it. Go see what DNAPhil has to say on the matter. It’s good stuff.

Ask The GMs: How to GM solo PCs (especially in combat)

I’ve ran a very few solo RPGs in the past because I’ve usually been blessed with good groups to game with. However, there are times when I’ve done it and it can be tricky. There just one character there to do everything necessary to move the plot forward and not to die against the Bad Things you throw at them. Johnn and Mike have some great advice on how to go about running a solo campaign. Go check them out.

Sorry for the lack of posting during the week. Things have changed in life, and this blog has fallen to the bottom of the barrel on my priority list. That might change in the future, but don’t hold your breath. I still have time for a Friday Five, though!

Former PCs as NPCs

I love this concept! I’ve used it quite a bit in the past, and I’m about to do it again in a campaign that starts this weekend. I’m taking PCs from a past campaign, turning them into NPCs for this game and running with them. I can’t wait to do it to see how it goes. The PCs were from a very long running campaign, so I know them well. This should help add more life to the game.

Death and Resurrection

How does the possibility of resurrection change death? Quite a bit, it turns out. If new life can be gained with a large diamond and a simple spell, then what’s to stop people from being horribly stupid in the face of vast dangers? Not much, really. For a full dissertation on the matter, follow the link and see what Bauxtehude has to say on the matter.

Bring Out Your Dead

If you can’t resurrect your dead, how do you bury them? Different cultures have different means of disposing of corpses in an honorable way. Adding these details about death to your game can really bring out its life!

World Building 101 – Avoiding “Filler”

Speaking of adding details to a campaign, there’s a right way and a wrong way. It’s great for a GM to know every last minutiae about his or her world, but it’s another thing to cram it down the players’ throats. Avoid useless filler and life will go better for your campaign.

With An Evil Gleam: Giving Treasure a Personality

Speaking of my new game that I’ll be starting this weekend, I feel very close to this post. Treasure should be more than a count of gold and a list of magic items. It should be tailored to the creature(s) slain and to the group. I’m not talking about fulfilling wish list items the players have put together, but more along the lines of making the treasure important to the campaign as a whole. Mike over at Campaign Mastery has a whole long list of items that can be included in treasure to give it that special something.

I must apologize for the blog going dark over the past couple of weeks. School, life, my novel and general other things caught up to me and I rarely had a chance to watch my RSS feeds for good stuff, let alone write about them. I’m throwing in a bonus link today as a minor apology for my lack of posting.

A Question of Character

Ahh… Character backgrounds. I love writing them, most players don’t. I guess it’s just the writer in me that loves creating a beautifully crafted piece of prose to illustrate who my character is, what his goals are, and why he ticks the way he does. Need a springboard to launch your next character background? Go check out what NewbieDM has to say on the matter.

Who Owned Your Magic Sword Before You Did?

This post is a great one! In my own RPG that I’ve created there is no such thing as a “long sword +1.” Yes, there are magical weapons, but they are all unique unto themselves and act almost like characters do, even if they’re not intelligent, per se. This post really brought home to me the fact that someone else most likely owned/used/cherished the item before the player’s came along, slaughtered the monster and took the loot. This is a great chance for some excellent role playing.

3 Ways Game Masters Show, Don’t Tell

Show. Don’t Tell. I hate those three words. I hear them rarely from my critique group, but I get it often enough that it rankles my nerves. I have being told that I’ve missed the mark… even when I have. This is a great article on how GM’s can really spice up the environment the players are in.

Reality Shift – Part 1

As a creator of an RPG that has gone through many iterations over the past decade, I hope that I’ve finally hit the nail on the head with a balance between realism and game play. It’s a tough rope to walk, and Bill over at Dungeon Mastering has a great post on the topic.

The Plot Kill

TPK usually stands for “total party kill,” but in this case a single character must die to move the plot forward. It’s a rough thing to do, and I’ve seen it happen a few times. As a player, I love being the one that dies because my death has meaning and purpose other than falling to that random encounter that was tougher than the GM thought it was going to be. If a character must die for the plot to move forward, I can totally handle it. I think it’s a great idea, but it has to be done just right or the whole thing falls flat and turns into the loss of yet another character… and possibly another player.

How To Introduce A New PC

Last night at the Pathfinder table, we lost 3 of the 5 party members in a nasty fight with some demon dogs. Damn. It happens, though and we move on with new characters. How do these new characters get integrated into an existing plot and party structure? It’s kind of rough at times. Fortunately the survivors made it back to town where they’ll have a chance to meet the new characters in a neutral or friendly setting. Go see what Wimwick has to say on the matter. It’s a great post!

I have family visiting at the moment, so I’m sneaking a few minutes away from them to make this post. Just the links this time around since I don’t have time to comment.

Fighting an Opponent You Can’t Beat
Rethinking Kobolds
Character Creation: The Importance Of Planning Ahead
Play Boldly
World Building 101: Campaign Styles – Part One

I’m 3 days late on this one since I’ve just crawled out of my NyQuil-induced haze from a nasty head cold. The cold is better and my consciousness has returned. Time to resume blogging!

Mailbag 1 – Character Contortion

I love this post by Chris because it illustrates the dangers of a race+class+feats=character formula of thinking. It locks people into certain stereotypes that they have a hard time getting out of. This is why I’m a huge fan of skill-based, classless systems like Hero and GURPS. My own system that I’ve created is a classless system, though I do have a section on “templates” that helps give a creative compass to those people that really need a class to define their character around. In the end, if you’re stuck in a class-based system and you want to play a thief with druidic powers, then by all means write “druid” down in the class slot, and then steal everything in sight that you can. There’s nothing stopping you from doing this… except your own imagination.

How to Protect Your Elite Villains

There are as many ways to protect a villain from exposure to the nastiness that a well prepared group of PCs can bring as there are villains out there. While this post is mainly D&D 4e centric, it can apply to any system in any genre. The trick for the GM is to find the power-points of the PCs and neutralize them for a short time, or for the duration of the fight against the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG.) It’s not hard to do, and I think that many players that wish to march their characters into a challenge will find the end result more rewarding for having overcome the larger obstacles.

Become Emotional

We all care more about things that we are emotional about. This is why debates about deeply touching ideas are always the most heated. By giving your characters a greater emotional attachment to their goals, the players will become more involved. This is something the GM can foster, but in the end, this is something for the players to really do to improve the game. I really hadn’t thought to much about the topic, and I’m grateful to Chris for posting this. I think it will help me become a better gamer in the future.

Time in D&D

Ahh… The great quandary of role playing. The rapid advancement of PCs over a short period of time can really mess things up for a GM’s world at large. Where the mighty emperor was once the greatest wizard in the lands, now he plays second fiddle to someone that just started out in adult life just a few scant months (or weeks!) ago. How very strange this can be. This is why I’m a fan of social promotion in addition to level advancement. Not only must the players increase in their power base through leveling, they must also share their exploits with civilization and increase their social status at the same time. I’m not too sure I’m a big fan of “no XP for you until you train” because then the players will do illogical things like leave half a goblin clan alive, so that they can “cash in” on the XP at a later date when it will really benefit them. I think a good balance to this one would be to allow the steady accumulation of experience points, but not of levels until a certain amount of money and time have been spent training and practicing the new skills they’ve learned in the field.

The Cultured GM: Clothes in Gaming

I think the saying goes, “Clothes make the man.” Next time you walk past a meeting at your office and you look through the window into the conference room, look at how people are dressed. If everyone is in T-shirts and jeans, except the one guy in the suit, you know that one guy is having a job interview with some engineers. If a GM includes these types of details in their world, then it will create that much more flavor and “buy in” from the players. This, in turn, will increase the players’ willingness to suspend their disbelief and pull them deeper into the setting the GM is trying to create. It’s something I’m going to try in my next game… we’ll see how it goes.

Ways You Can Help Your Players

There are many ways a DM can help their players without railroading them. Sometimes they get stuck going down the wrong path, or are just plain stuck without direction as to what to do next. Some DMs will just outright tell their players which direction to go, but the better ones will adopt new uses for old stand-by abilities and hint to the players at the alternate uses of their skills. NewbieDM has some great uses for some standard D&D 4e skills.

Make Your Character More Than Just Numbers

Have a player that is having a hard time breaking out of roll playing and you want them to do some role playing instead? Point them to this article and it’ll surely help the player come up with something outside the bounds of the numbers representing their character on the sheet.

DM’s Guide to Dealing With Treasure

I’m in the camp of random treasure is the best kind of treasure. It can sometimes point a game in new directions or give the players abilities outside their strengths, which will make them stronger characters. Having the players give a wish list to the GM for what they want to find just seems wrong to me. I realize that with D&D 4e this is almost a requirement because of the stated book rule that an item can only be sold for 20% of its full value. Instead of tossing out items that the players want the most as “treasure”, I’d rather see the 20% rule tossed and go back to the traditional 50% market value rule. Jonathan over at d20 Source has some other alternate systems that can be put into place to replace the “wish list syndrome” that drives me batty.

The Short Epic Tale

Not all games have to be multi-year epic tales. Honestly, most are not. It’s rare for a game to last long enough without some or most of the players losing interest. Sure, you may drop a game with the intention of “coming back to it later”, but how often do you really come back to a dropped game? Probably rarely, if ever. ChattyDM has some ideas and thoughts on the matter on how to more smoothly transition from one game to another and he writes about the problems of starting over with a new campaign and how to alleviate some of those issues.

Realms and Remembrance

I just found Jeff Grubb’s blog this week. I haven’t made my way through his archives yet, but his most recent post really made me smile… lots. Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a Forgotten Realms whore. If TSR/Wizards ever published a book entitled, “This is the crappiest book ever, but it mentions FR”, I would be one of the first people to buy it. No. Seriously. I would. Jeff’s post about the insider information of the development and growth of FR really pleased me. It was like pulling back the curtain and looking at the wizard pulling the levers and pushing the buttons. Good stuff there.

Normally, I have some comments of my own about each link to give you my thoughts on the matter or some kind of enticement to get you to follow the link. No such thing this week. Sorry. I’m pressed for time and about to board my plane bound for home.

I promise to pick up the slack next week. Have a good weekend!

Laban Movement Types

Handling Small Gaming Groups

Tracking the players

The Tragic Imprint: Cursed Items in 4e

Always Have a Graceful Out

While I may miss my other posts during the week, I rarely miss out on a Friday Five post. I’m out of town on vacation this week (thus the lack of posts.) I have been keeping up on my RPG feeds, and have a list of 5 items compiled. I’ll be posted the links to them tomorrow just before my flight home.

See you all in the AM!

Beyond the Module

As a GM, I love running modules. It frees my creative juices up from plot, story and making encounters and allows me to concentrate on the interactions between the NPCs, PCs, environment and areas. However, there are times when the goals of the PCs do not coincide with the current adventure, or they take a left turn out of the module and things go wonky. Go check and see what Krystal has to say on the topic. Her writings echo my sentiments on the matter.

Ask The GMs: Penetrating the veil of mystery

Ever read a well written mystery and think it would be a great role playing session? Think again. It’s hard to do a mystery when there are 4-6 other people sitting around the table helping you mold the story. There are some tips and tricks to pulling it off, though. Go see what the GMs Mike and Johnn have to say on the matter.

Johnny’s Five – Five Tips For Tweaking Your Gaming Space (Plus one frigging awesome link)
Two years later…

Double-link goodness! Having a good gaming environment is crucial to keeping a session flowing smoothly. It has to be well lit, comfortable, have lots of table space, provide good seating and other factors. John, over at Gnome Stew, has five great tips on setting up a gaming environment. He also included a link (the second one above) to a forum posting with lots of images of what has to be, without argument, the best role playing environment ever. If you don’t have time for the Gnome Stew article, at least do yourself a favor and check out the images of the game room.

Savage Accessories

If you’re ever going to run Savage Worlds (or are currently running an SW game) then do yourself a favor and see what Telas over at Gnome Stew has to say on the prep, the play and the aftermath of a Savage Worlds game.

Beginner’s Guide To Homebrewing

This caught my eye because I do two types of homebrewing. The first is the beer kind, and I love it as a hobby. The second is the role playing kind, and I love creating my own systems, worlds, environments, maps, NPCs, organizations, cities, countries, etc. etc. etc. Scott has some great advice that I highly recommend for anyone attempting to start their own world instead of using a pre-published setting.