Found here. Short version: playtesting your RPG game or campaign beforehand is good. And yes, you still have to say that. Still.
Tag: rpgs
I really need to find out what RPG systems are cool with fan sites.
I know Steve Jackson Games’ rules about amateur work for GURPS and In Nomine fairly well: not surprising, because those two games made up the majority of all the gaming stuff that I was doing in the 1990s. But navigating through the rules for stuff from Pelgrane or Evil Hat or Pagan Publishing or a bunch of others is a project that I keep putting off, and it’s starting to affect content. There are limits to generic game material, honestly. Some of this stuff would be better if it was fueled by rules.
But apparently I don’t wanna do the research, which is why I’m writing this out. Hopefully, it’ll be an antidote for laziness. Or inertia. Or whatever.
My PJ Lifestyle piece on GM ‘gifts’ to players is up.
Found here. Short version: GMs shouldn’t always give gifts with strings attached. But it can be great fun when done properly.
My PJ Lifestyle piece on *other* things to invent in a time-travel RPG.
Found here. Short version: sure, everybody invents gunpowder. But have you ever thought about the advantages of wire-drawn iron nails? Because a steady supply of those will make you popular, really really fast…
My PJ Lifestyles article on campaign cartography.
Found here. Short version: it’s about maps in RPGs, which will of course immediately spark an animated discussion about maps in RPGs, because people who play RPGs love them some maps. Seriously, it’s not quite universal, but the odds are good that any given gamer has, at some point, sat down and drawn a map or two. Or twenty.
It is the way of my people.
My PJ Lifestyle piece on kids in RPGs.
Found here. Short version: you’d expect that you’d see kids more often in tabletop RPGs. I mean, they’re pretty much ubiquitous in real life.
Mr PJ Lifestyle piece on smuggling in RPGs.
Found here. Short version: it’s a great way to complicate your players’ lives. And they don’t have to even be playing bad people in order to be smugglers, either! I mean, look at the Underground Railroad, or those people who smuggled Bibles into Communist nations (still do, when it comes to North Korea).
Hmm. I may need to run a play-by-webcam RPG one-shot.
I’m definitely going to be running a BubbleGUMSHOE game at Washingcon now*; and I’d like to have it blocked out at least a month in advance, because I know me all too well. So if I want to test the adventure out I should probably run it some time in August. I believe that some of my readers would love to video-RPG a session, so maybe we’ll do that.
Moe Lane
*One trick to doing something is to simply make sure to say that you’re going to do it, to the point where you can’t then casually back out of it.
My PJ Lifestyle piece on wars and RPGs.
Found here. Short version: wars can be useful justifications for stuff. Also, complete and total nuisances. Which can also be useful for GMs.
My PJ Lifestyle piece on killing your bard properly.
Found here. Short version: …let’s face it, bards die easily in a lot of RPGs. You might as well get something out of it.