Singular Moments In Adventuring

Those Notes are Important

2010-09-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

Only recently have I started passing notes in my games. From a humble start, notes have transformed the way I share information with the players, empowering them to role-play their characters as they see fit. Note passing was something that I started as an experiment in my games. At first, the notes only contained information about treasure such as armor, weapons, or gold. Most players

Meeting Expectations

2010-07-15T13:15:00.002-04:00

After completing a task, there is always the expectation of a reward by the players. Even though material rewards are common in most situations, meeting the players expectation is all that is needed to reward them for their adventures. For example: The party goes adventuring in a very poor area of the country, full of dangers but very poor in spoils. While they may be fighting a lot, there

Starting with Zombies

2010-06-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

Zombies are an incredible means to start off a campaign. My current campaign uses them to define the antagonists and to incorporate other monster's types into the game. The demands associated with having a medium size zombie army helped define the antagonists in my current campaign. No single person could come up with that many monsters on his own. Therefore, the main villain in the story

Share, Share, Share

2010-06-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

Too many times, I was forced to guess the likes and dislikes of my fellow gaming buddies. Constant guessing would lead to several problems, some of which could easily anger or disappoint those at the table. An open communication was all that was needed to ensure an enjoyable time during play. Are you interested in high fantasy games only? Do not withhold that information from the group, but

GMing Style

2010-05-31T09:00:00.001-04:00

The stories on my campaigns are a mixture of dark and heroic fantasy genres. That's my personal GMing style. If you sit down at one of my games, that's probably the type of adventure I will run. The main plots on my stories are remarkably similar. I have switched settings three times and systems twice, and I still find myself running basically the same type of game. The party gets hired for

Group Dynamics

2010-05-15T09:00:00.003-04:00

An often overlooked component of a tabletop role-playing game is the group dynamics. While having a good game system, a cool campaign setting, and an awesome storyline are all important, the game will only be enjoyable if the attendees share a similar play style and etiquette. Conventional tabletop role-playing games are about the interactive story that gets created by the GM and players.

Random Encounters

2010-04-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

Random encounters have always been an integral part of my campaigns. Those type of encounters add 3 qualities that greatly enhance game play. They exemplify the description of a locale, allow the PC's the chance to follow a non-linear style of play, and give life to the ancillary parts of a campaign setting. As the PC's venture in the campaign world, each new locale is described to them in

Maps Section

2010-04-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

To speedup play in my games, I usually sketch, on either the GIMP or Autorealm, tactical maps for the players. After many campaigns, I have accumulated a large number of sketches. I have created a new section called Maps in which I have uploaded my collection in the hopes that someone else may find them useful. My aim with these maps was to provide the players with the basic shapes of the

Dreams: Worms

2010-03-31T09:00:00.004-04:00

I have had several aspects of my campaigns based on my dreams. These dreams varied wildly in subject matter but in all cases, I found that they were very useful in adding some mystical value to the story. Below is an example of such a dream. There is just enough information to make it interesting, and yet it's missing several parts that could easily be filled in with the setting and system

Accepting Failure

2010-03-15T09:00:00.003-04:00

Most of my games feature the PC's as centerpieces to everything that is happening in the story. As centerpieces, the characters are a little different than most other regular folks in the game. They are heroes. The ones that can do - the ones that will risk it - the ones that will inspire both young and old to acts of greatness. They are what most people wish they could be. One of the

Controlling Your Own Character

2010-02-28T09:00:00.006-05:00

I once played a barbarian character that was adventuring in a big city. He was a nomad that chose to leave his tribe after a painful experience. His tribe was mostly composed of hunters and gatherers. While he was noble at heart, he had very little experience with the outside world. At a local tavern, however, he got in a argument with some really large, really strong fighters. That

Breaking Out of the Ordinary

2010-02-15T09:00:00.013-05:00

Monty Python's Flying Circus is a show that broke out of the ordinary. As I read about the artists that integrated their troupe, commonly known as the Pythons, I noticed a lot of similarities between their goals for the show and mine for my campaigns. The Pythons had a goal in mind for the show. It wasn't to create a name for themselves, generate wealth, or further some political agenda.

Game Balance

2010-01-30T09:00:00.001-05:00

Having less options can sometimes make the gaming experience more enjoyable and decrease the complexity of a game system. To that end, I usually do two things: Look for campaign settings and supplements that stay very close to the core rules of their chosen system and shy away from changing rules during game play without careful consideration. I have seen a lot of campaign books and

Nethack

2010-01-15T09:00:00.001-05:00

Out of the many computer games that I have played, Nethack is one of my favorites. It's simple design, random generated content, and deadly play have greatly influenced my RPG campaigns. Nethack is a dungeon crawl computer game first developed in 1987. Due to it's age and choice of platform, the game focused on it's content, leaving the players to imagine the various monsters by giving them

Deadlands Reloaded

2009-12-26T15:51:00.004-05:00

After countless fantasy campaigns, I decided to branch out to other settings. To that end, I started reading Deadlands Reloaded. Deadlands Reloaded is set on what is commonly referred to as "the weird west", it uses the Savage Worlds system, and is published by Pinnacle Entertainment. At first, I was excited to try something that was a little different than my regular fantasy settings. I

Generate Random Names With NameSpawner

2009-11-02T13:06:00.004-05:00

In this post, I will talk about NameSpawner, a random name generation utility. How do you come up with names for all your important NPC's? Using my laptop, the best solution was using a desktop program to come up with the names. As I searched for such a tool, I came across NameSpawner. NameSpawner is a utility written in Java that generates many types of names. From Angels to Wizard, there

Notetaking with Basket Note Pads

2009-10-29T10:48:00.010-04:00

In this post, I will talk about a notetaking tool that I employ during my gaming sessions. The name of it is Basket Note Pads and it is available on Ubuntu Linux as an easy to install program from their application repositories. When I first started GMing, I saw how important it was to keep notes for my campaigns. The players' interactions with the various denizens of the campaign world

It's Only Just A Game: The Jackass

2009-07-27T17:38:00.009-04:00

Choosing the right person for a gaming group can be a challenge. A good guy, now, can easily turn into a jackass, later. In this post, I will detail my experiences with one individual that fit that description and the lessons learned from the incident. After going through a revolving door of players, I decided to screen possible candidates before adding them to the group. The screening was

Officer Greener

2009-07-07T14:21:00.004-04:00

Officer Greener is my character in a World of Darkness Campaign. His greed, religious views, and crazy ideas make him a very interesting character to play. Officer Greener has a very inventive set of morals. These morals have been refined over many years of service in his local police department and were mixed in with some religious doctrine acquired at the Long Night Church. As a Police

Rat Men

2009-05-12T13:17:00.003-04:00

In my newest campaign, I allowed my imagination to go wild with the Rat Men species found on the Savage Worlds Fantasy Bestiary Toolkit. It's many possibilities and my own experience with rodents led me to add a few notes to the description already found in the toolkit. The description found on the toolkit stated the Rat Men is a cross between Humans and Rats. It specified the Rat Men could

It's Only Just A Game: GM Experience

2009-03-20T13:16:00.006-04:00

This is part 1.1 of the series It's only just a game. In this installment, I will talk about the practical experience a GM must have to run a fun and memorable game. When a person decides to try out a Tabletop Roleplaying Game (Tabletop RPG), he first tries to understand it through known similar game types. Usually the types are Wargaming and Computer RPGs (CRPGs). Both Wargaming and CRPGs

Angelino Cornicen, The Bard

2009-01-24T13:23:00.007-05:00

This is the background story of another one of my player characters. This time around, I tried listening to the criticism from my group and created someone that was different from my previous characters. For one thing, this character is happy and willing to cooperate with others. It was easy to notice that Angelino was a sheltered person. From the clothes he wore, his haircut, or even his

Leo, The Cleric

2008-12-12T10:56:00.004-05:00

This post contains the background information for one of my playing characters. This character is part of the dark hunters campaign based on Sherrilyn Kenyon's books. Leo started his studies as a cleric at a young age in the Guastalla monastery. Since most of his time was spent studying, he had very little worldly experience. That lack of experience led him to ardently believe in the

Kofi Atta Annan

2008-11-26T15:31:00.005-05:00

I have recently written a short background story for one of my playing characters. The background was partially based on the life of former UN Secretary General Kofi Atta Annan. Kofi Atta Annan Kofi Atta Annan was the Kumasi chieftain's eldest son. Kofi was a person that valued life and order above anything else. His love for life led him to work towards the creation of the United Tribes

Providing Relief From Stress

2008-11-12T02:30:00.004-05:00

Sometimes it is up to the GM to provide relief from stress created by another group member. The easiest way to deal with it is to allow the other members to talk about it. That talk can save the group from breaking apart, and at the same time build some camaraderie. That talk is also important so the group can figure out a way to stop or at least mitigate the effects of the stressful behavior.