Do you remember your first game session? Yeah, I know it’s probably been a while, but I bet you remember how overwhelmed you felt.  You had this sheet plopped down in front of you, covered with numbers and strange acronyms that may as well have been ancient Egyptian for all you understood it. And then there were some of the strangest dice you’ve ever seen. But worst of all, everyone else at the table was shouting out things in a strange garbled tongue.

Remember that feeling? Good. Now hold onto it as you read this next post, the second in my series on introducing new players to roleplaying. Last post, I covered what to do if you’re running an entire group of new players. Today I’m covering how to introduce a new player to a group of experienced roleplayers.

Before Adding a New Player

First and foremost, you need to make sure the rest of your players are okay with the idea of new players. Many experienced groups become very insular and can be unwilling to accept a new player into their ranks, especially if the the player is brand new to roleplaying.

Talk with your group. Ask them how they feel about adding another player. If they’re not comfortable with the idea, you may have to consider other options, if you really want to bring this new player into the hobby and you have the time and energy to run more than one game. You’ve got a couple of options:

• Run a one-on-one game with just her and you
• Try to find more new players to form a beginners’ game

Know Your Limit

For the purpose of this post, I’m assuming that your group is okay with adding a new player. But what about you? You need to make sure you’re okay with the added responsibility of adding a brand-new player to your game. Is your game under control? Can you handle the extra workload?

Every GM has a optimal number of players he feels comfortable running.  This ideal number varies depending on:

• the game system you’re using. Some games work better with smaller or larger groups,
• how familiar you are with the system,
• the current mix of players in your group,
• how high-maintenance you’re current players are.

For example,my optimal group size is around eight players; my games have a lot of PC interactions and politics. Many other GMs prefer smaller groups of four to six players. However, when I run LARPs, my optimal size is around thirty players and when I run FASA’s classic Doctor Who game, I prefer a group size of three.

Think back over other games you’ve run. At what point (in number of PCs) did you feel like you started to lose control of the game? On the other hand, was there a game you felt didn’t really work because you didn’t have enough PCs? Usually having too many PCs is more of a problem than having too few, so if you’re in doubt, don’t add any more players. Especially brand-new players who will require more of your time and energy than an experienced player would.

Preparing the new player to play

Assuming you’re able to handle another player and your group is okay with the idea, you can go ahead and talk to your brand-new player about joining. Let her know that kind of game you’re running. Go beyond naming the system and stay away from describing mechanics. A “near-future variant of the d20 system, only using spell points and increased technology to give it a Shadowrun feel” won’t tell her if she’d be interested in playing.

Describe your game in plain words. A better way to describe the above game would be “a dark, cyberpunk-type game set in an alternate near-future that has slightly more advanced technology than we have now, but also has magic and magical races, such as elves, ogres, and dwarves. If you can, find a movie or TV show you can compare it with. That gives the new player some basis to know if she’d be interested or not.

Try to give her a feeling for the mood and themes of your game. It’s great that it’s a near-future game with magic, but are the PCs a dedicated group of cohorts who can trust each other completely (like Babylon 5) ? Or are you running a game where people’s minds are messed with on a regular basis, the enemy has spies planted inside the group of PCs, who, themselves, may not be who they think they are (like the most recent Battlestar Galactica).

Encourage your prospective player to come watch a session or two of your game (provided the other players are okay with this). That will give her the best of idea of what your game is like. Tell you current players that she’s coming and ask them to make an effort to welcome the her.

Once your potential player tells you she’s interested, let her know what she needs to have. Does she need her own dice and book(s)? If so, let her know in advance of her first play session. Tell her where she can get them and exactly which books she needs to buy. It’s also a good idea to let her know what books she won’t need, if any. Game books aren’t cheap these days and it can be frustrating to pay out $20-50 on something, only to discover you’ll never get a chance to use it.

Consider letting her borrow books and dice for the first few game sessions, until she knows whether or not she likes the game enough to stick with it. Or you can pass the hat and have your current group chip in together to buy her a set of dice and copy of the core rules. Many games have PDF versions of their rules, which are usually much cheaper and allow a player to print out only the section of the rules she needs. If you go the PDF route, give her a range of pages to start with (i.e., “print out the character creation rules–they’re on pages 18-36″).

It’s also helpful to create a “cheat sheet” of the most basic rules a player needs to know. I’m not talking about copying whole sections of the book: just create a one or two page sheet of the most common mechanics. This will give her something to look at during the game section (it would also help to page note this sheet so she can look the rules up in the actual book, if she needs to). That way, she doesn’t need to be flipping page after page to find how to role for initiative in the middle of combat.

Fill her in on any house rules you use, as well as any behavior expectations any “table rules” you may have. For example: “if a die rolls off the table, it must be rerolled” or “once the game starts, I assume everything you say is in character.” Don’t forget to include any group traditions, such as “everyone in the group chips in for pizza.”

It’s also good to give a brand-new player a glossary of common gaming terms. We, as experienced players, tend to forget that not everyone knows what “hit points” are or what “NPC” stands for. We forget that it sounds like a foreign language to someone brand-new, who’s still learning that AC has nothing to do with electricity.

———

Next time, I’ll cover character creation with a brand-new player, as well as tips for bringing that character into your game without ruffling feathers.

[Image by JGNY from Flickr Creative Commons].

Other posts in this series:

• Passing It On: Introducing New Players to RPGs

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Then There Was One: Introducing a New Player to an Established Group is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Explaining roleplaying to a non-gamer is one of the hardest things we’re asked to do. We want to share this hobby we love so much, but we often find ourselves in a catch-22 situation: it’s extremely difficult to explain roleplaying to someone who’s never done it, but once someone’s done it, they no longer need the explanation.

Below are several posts that could help when you’re called on to do the impossible:

• Advice for a First-Time Player
• Explaining Gaming to Non-Gamers (Roleplaying, that is): from xkcd forums
• Explaining Roleplaying: from rpg.net forums
• Explaining the concept of a fantasy role-playing game: from Helium.com
• Explaining What Role-Playing Games Are: from The Journeyman GM
• Newbie’s Guide to Roleplaying: from Star Wars Galaxies forums
• Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games: the hardest thing to explain ever: from Wonderbread
• Please explain the appeal of roleplaying games such as D&D to me: from The Straight Dope forums
• Role-playing: from Wikipedia
• What is roleplaying?: from Ars Imagica
• What is role-playing?: from Negative Space
• What is Roleplaying (and why on earth would I want to do it?): from NoDDSoc

[Image courtesy of pasukaru76 via Flickr Creative Commons]

So How Do You Win? Explaining Roleplaying to Non-Gamers is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

We love this hobby of ours so much, it’s only natural we’d want to spread the word. We do our damndest to get our non-gaming friends to give this “roleplaying thing” a try. This is especially true if we’re far from other gamers and the only way to get a group is to build one ourselves.

But how do you run a game for an entire group of brand-new players? Especially when you’ve been playing so long, you can’t remember what it feels like to be brand-new?

This is the first in a series of posts with ideas to help you introduce new players to our illustrious time sink …er, pastime.

When Your Whole Group is New

Do the planning for them

New players are often overwhelmed by the character sheet alone. Are we expected to know all those numbers? How do we actually use the stuff that’s on there? Give brand-new players pre-generated characters, especially when you’re teaching an entire group of first-time players.

By using pre-generated characters, you make a lot of overwhelming decisions for the players. They don’t have to worry about choosing effective skills, powers, spells or weapons, because you’ve already done that for them. Too many choices become intimidating. Even first-time players realize that some choices would be more effective than others, but which ones?

Limiting choices was part of the success of the original D&D game, IMHO. And I think it’s one of the reasons D&D was wildly more successful than Traveller, another early RPG. Traveller had (and still does) an open-ended character generation system. Sure, you chose a branch of service and rolled randomly for skills, but you still had to create a role in the party.

Being from the Navy didn’t give a new player any ideas on how to actually play his character. It was entirely up to you to define your place in the universe. Great for an experienced player with a strong character concept and goals. But if you’d never played an RPG before, you really didn’t know what kinds of things your character could do. If you’d never played Traveller before, you really didn’t know what kinds of things your character could do.

Original D&D took care of that for you. You had only four classes (well, really six—dwarf and elf were treated like classes), each with a very distinct role in the party. Fighters fought, magic-users cast spells, clerics healed and thieves disarmed traps and opened locks. Each class had a built-in purpose that made them very accessible to brand-new players and this worked really, really well new players.

Choose your game system carefully. When you’re introducing a group brand-new players who’ve never roleplayed at all (as opposed to experienced players learning a new system), you want something that’s simple, without being too simplistic. Pick D&D over Rolemaster, Star Wars over Traveller, and anything over Amber (unless your entire group are die-hard Zelazny fans).

This is not the time for you to run a system for the first time. Pick something you’re very familiar with, so you don’t waste valuable teaching (and playing) time looking things up. Plus, if you’re constantly having to look up things, you make the game seem much complicated than it actually is. When you use a system you’re very comfortable with, you give the impression “See, this isn’t so hard. I don’t even have to look up the rules, it’s that easy.” It makes the system much more accessible.

Limit choices, but make sure you give some

If you’ve ever had toddlers, you know how effective an empowering it is to let them choose something from a limited and predetermined set of options. Do you want to wear the green pants or the new skirt? The same goes for new players. Do you want to use a healing potion or have the cleric use her last spell?

Don’t be afraid to make suggestions during play. Most brand-new players will be grateful for the advice, especially if you explain the reason behind your suggestions. Just remember that the players are free to choose something other than what you suggested. That’s part of the  learning experience.

Don’t make them feel stupid or wrong because they made an ineffective choices, just let the results of their actions catch up to them in-game. If one of their choices doesn’t work, explain afterwards why it didn’t work well and what might have worked better. Never imply it was a stupid or bad decision. Instead, use language like “less effective”.

Take it slow

Plan a short adventure. While you may consider a mission to stop an ogre from carrying off the nearby town’s livestock dull and routine, the players have never done it before. They’re not going to feel cheated because the “dungeon” is nothing more than a three-room abandoned farmhouse and the “treasure” is a masterwork (non-magical) sword and a single healing potion. And if your adventure doesn’t look like it will fill and entire game session, remember that you’ll be stopping frequently to answer questions and give explanations. It’s much better to end too soon than to go too long.

Give out information as the players need it

Don’t try to explain the entire character sheet at the beginning of the adventure. You’ll just confuse the players and they won’t remember the explanation, anyway. Instead, explain each section just before the players need to use it. Explain initiative as they’re getting ready for combat. Explain lock-picking when they encounter that first chest. Because they then immediately use that information, they’ll remember it better the next time they need to use it.

When you explain something, also explain why it’s done that way. Explain that you roll for initiative because you need to know in what order things will happen. Explain that you go around the table in initiative order because faster characters get to act first and because it helps you make sure you haven’t missed anyone. While this will help the players remember what to do next time, you’ll probably still need to remind them of the details the first several times they do something.

Follow their cue

Go through the adventure at they players’ pace. If they’re having trouble with combat, add in a few more easy fights. If they mastered skill use on the first go, make the next set of skill challengers a little bit harder. If they want to spend 40 minutes real-time looking for secret doors, let them, as long as everyone is having fun with it (and, if they look that hard, consider letting them find one, even if it just leads back to a room they’ve already explored). Be prepared to change things to fit the group even more than you would for an experienced group.

Make learning the goal

Don’t get hung up on finishing an adventure in the first game session. Your goal should be on teaching the game, not accomplishing the mission. If you’ve chosen a small enough adventure, this probably won’t come up. If it does, remind yourself that your real goal is to encourage these players to come back for more. Sure, the players will feel great if they save the day, but it’s much more important that they have fun.

————-

This post is a slightly expanded version of a post on the rpgGM.com homepage: Some Tips for Introducing New Players to RPGs. Next time we’ll cover adding a brand-new player to a group of experienced players.

[Image courtesy of tim_and_selena via Flickr Creative Commons]

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Passing it On: Introducing New Players to RPGs is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Image via Wikipedia

Just a quick note this week to tell everyone that Evil Machinations is now available on your Kindle.  Just search the Kindle store for “Evil Machinations” and it should pop right up. And, as usual for Kindle blogs, you get a free 14-day trial subscriptions, after which you pay $0.99 per month.

I’m also looking into the possibility of making it available for the Nook, as well. Can’t say when that will happen, though…

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Now on Kindle is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

I can’t believe the end of the year is on us already. It’s been a good year for me and I hope for you, too.

Here’s the eleven most popular posts this year:

1. Character Questionnaire: Just what the name says–it’s a character questionnaire to help GMs and players alike flesh out important characters. This has been the number one favorite page since Evil Machinations began in 2009.
2. “Where are we again?” Creating Unique Fantasy Cities and Towns: List of on-line resources that can help you create cities and towns for your game world.
3. February Blog Carnival: Worldbuilding: Check out the comments of this post for great links to blog articles about worldbuilding. This was the introductory post for when I hosted the RPG Bloggers blog carnival in February of this year.
4. Building Better NPCs III: Character Webs: What are character webs and how can you use them to help bring your NPCs to life. Also a perennial favorite post.
5. X Marks the Spot: 11 Map Making Tutorials: Another list of on-line resources, this one on making great maps for your game.
6. And *Then* What Happened?: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas: Ever come across an adventure seed you really wanted to use, but you couldn’t figure out how to turn it into a full adventure? This post is the first in a series that can help.
7. Creating the Adventure Outline: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas, pt. 9: Another post in the above series, this one on how to develop you idea into game outline or flowchart to make running that adventure a little easier.
8. Handling Problem Players: A list of web resources with great ideas on how to handle problem players.
9. Finding Events: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas,  pt. 8: How to come up with the encounters and challenges that make up an adventure.
10. Campaign Worksheet: The campaign worksheet I use when creating a new campaign.
11. Beyond ‘Fred’: Russian Names for Characters: A list of Russian names for PCs and NPCs.

There they are: the top eleven posts for 2011. Thanks to all my readers–you’re the reason I’m still here and looking forward to a great 2012.

Top 11 for 2011 is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

In my continuing and irregular series of my favorite blogs, we come to Sea of Stars. This is great site for items and ideas to steal and use for your own games.

If your the kind of GM that gets inspiration by reading campaign logs of other people’s games, Sea of Stars has several for you to choose from. From Pathfinder to Legend of the Five Rings to Shadowrun, there’s a wide variety of genres and systems to look at.

Sea of Stars also has several good articles on game theory and gaming advice. For some solid advice on playing evil characters, check out Moral Dilemmas: Playing Evil (and I’m not just recommending it because he links it back to this blog ). Genre Resources is just what it says it is: a list of resources for various gaming genres.

But where this blog really shines is its collections of things–magic items, monsters, people–that you can use in your own games. I like to check the blog for it’s Tuesday Magic Items. The site’s owner, Sean Holland has described over 100 different magic items, from books, to rings, to wands, weapons…even a box of servants.

Sean’s also creating the Sea of Stars game setting and is a fellow member of the Gamer Lifestyle program. You can check out the progress of that here: Sea of Stars RPG

So if you’re needing some item to round out a monster’s hoard or a new monster to challenge your players (complete with 3.x/Pathfinder stats), this is a site to check out.

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• Tuesday Magic Item – Gouqua’s Bamboo Spear (seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com)
• Review – Comicworld Germany from Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal (seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com)
• Tuesday Magic Item – the Luck of Rognan Gosh (seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com)

Need Ideas? Check Out Sea of Stars is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

In The Adventure Creation Handbook, I talk about using adventure archetypes as a way to help you develop plot details. Below are 18 adventure archetypes, along with the plot elements each one generally needs to be successful.

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18 Adventure Archetypes is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Everyone has trouble coming up with character names, at least occasionally. Especially GMs, who frequently have to come up with names on the spur of the moment. That’s what this series, “Beyond ‘Fred’” is all about: providing lists of names from other times and cultures so you can find a name that feels right for the time and place of your game.

In this series, I’m more interested in finding names that capture the feel of various game settings. Historical accuracy is not a factor here. In the spirit of my new Castle Falkenstein campaign, here’s a list of names common in Victorian England and America:

Male Names

• Aaron
• Alonzo
• Ambrose
• Barnabas
• Bartholomew
• Bernard
• Byron
• Cecil
• Cyril
• Clarence
• Clement (Clem)
• Clinton (Clint)
• David
• Edward (Ned)
• Edwin
• Eldon
• Ernest
• Ezra
• Francis
• Franklin
• Fredrick
• Gabriel
• Garrett
• Harland
• Harrison
• Henry
• Horace
• Isaac
• James
• John
• Jasper
• Julian
• Lawrence
• Leander
• Louis
• Maurice
• Maxwell
• Merriweather
• Micajah
• Morris
• Nathaniel (Nate, Nathan, Nat)
• Nimrod
• Oral
• Orville
• Patrick
• Perry
• Peter
• Reuben
• Richard (Dick, Rich)
• Samuel
• Simeon
• Thaddeus
• Thomas (Tom)
• Victor
• Walter
• Wilfred

Female Names

• Abigail (Abby)
• Agnes
• Beatrice
• Charity
• Charlotte
• Chastity
• Constance
• Dorothy (Dot)
• Elizabeth (Bess, Betsy, Bessie, Eliza, Liza, Lizzie)
• Eudora
• Eva
• Fern
• Fidelia
• Frances
• Flora
• Geneve
• Genevieve
• Grace
• Hattie
• Helene
• Hester
• Irene
• Ivy
• Jessamine
• Josephine
• Judith
• Katherine
• Lenora
• Letitia
• Lily
• Lottie
• Margaret
• Maude
• Mercy
• Minerva
• Molly
• Nellie
• Patsy
• Parthena
• Permelia
• Phoebe
• Rowena
• Rufina
• Sarah
• Sarah Anne (Sarah Elizabeth)
• Sophronia
• Theodosia
• Victoria
• Winnifred (Winnie)

Biblical names were very popular in the Victorian Era, as were virtues (such as Chastity or Hope), and flowers (primarily for women). Both boys and girls were also given “nature” names, such as Forrest, Fern

Sources

• Victorian Baby Names
• Victorian Baby Names – Girl – WikiParenting
• Victorian Era Names, A Writer’s Guide
• Victorian Names

Other “Beyond ‘Fred’” posts:

• Beyond ‘Fred’: Ancient Egyptian Names
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Anglo-Saxon Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: More Anglo-Saxon Names
• Beyond ‘Fred’: German Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Italian Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Roman Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Russian Names

Beyond ‘Fred’: Names for Victorian Games is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

I know–it’s been over a month since a posted. Blame that on a computer that decided to completely up and die at the beginning of October, which took nearly three weeks to get fixed and rest of the time catching up from being off-line. But it did give me some time to think about games — the ones I’ve run and the one’s I still want to.

I think every GM has a “bucket list” — the games you want to play before you “kick the bucket”. I’ve had to chance to try many of the RPG systems out there, at least for a single game session, but there are still a wide number of games I’ve been wanting to try my hand at. In no particular order:

1. Call of Cthulhu: I’ve played a couple of sessions of this at conventions, but haven’t yet had the opportunity run it.
2. Werewolf: the Apocalypse (2nd ed.): I’ve run Vampire and Mage games and I’ve run garou in cross-over games, but I haven’t yet had a chance to run a pure Werewolf game.
3. Skyrealms of Jorune: An amazing game, with an incredibly rich game world, but one that requires a major time investment for the players as they learn an entirely new world from scratch–something neither I nor my players have been able to give right now. Oh, well, maybe after everyone retires…
4. Shadowrun: I have run this, briefly, but would really like to give it another go. I just haven’t had the time to make over the cumbersome mechanics. I don’t know if the newest edition is better, since I haven’t had a chance to pick it up. Hmm, I wonder how much time it would take to convert to Savage Worlds…..
5. Qin: This is also on my Amazon Wish List. I have an interest in ancient China and would love to get my hands on this one, I just haven’t felt like I could justify the cover price right now.
6. In Nomine: One of my absolutely favorite games. I’ve played it extensively at conventions and the occasional one-shot here and there, but have never had the opportunity to run an actual campaign of it.
7. Aberrent and Trinity: I did run a Trinity game for awhile, but I wasn’t at my GMing best during that time and would love to give it another go around with a campaign that ties both together.
8. Ars Magica: Another personal favorite. I really like the historical basis of this game, as well as the flexibility of its magic system. This is on the “to do soon” short-list.
9. Over the Edge: As you can probably guess from the rest of this list, I’ve got a thing for dark, occult conspiracy.
10. Mark Miller’s Traveller: While I would enjoy running it, this is one I’d rather play than GM. Liked the first, black box, version of the game and was impressed by this edition when I skimmed through it.

But I am getting to cross one game off my list. This coming Saturday I’m sitting down with my group to create characters for a Castle Falkenstein game. It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to actually run a game (I’ve been playing D&D 3.5) and I’m really excited. So unless you tell me stop, you’re likely to get regaled with game session reports.

How about you? What are the games you’ve always hoped to play or run? What’s been sitting on your shelf for months or years, enticing you, that you’ve never had a chance to actually play?

[Image courtesy of donjd2 via Flickr Creative Commons]

My RPG Bucket List is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

You can’t have a character without a name. Yet, sometimes, creating the name is the hardest thing about making a character. “Beyond ‘Fred’” is a series that lists names from history and other cultures to help you find that perfect character name.

This time, we’re covering Anglo-Saxon names again, they’re just that cool.  I’m doing something I haven’t done before in this series, and that’s giving some pronunciation guides, along with the name’s meaning. That’s because Anglo-Saxon names have meanings that are so perfect for fantasy games. My pronunciations may not be exactly perfect, but they’ll work for fantasy games.

Because of that, I’ve repeated some of my favorite names from the first Anglo-Saxon names post, so that you have an idea of how to pronounce them. Of course, if it’s fantasy, you can pronounce these any way you want to .

As always, I am more concerned with “flavor” than historical accuracy. So, without further ado….

Male Names

Æðelbald (A-thel-bald): nobly bright
Ælfhere (Alf-he-re. These are short “e”s, as in “red”): elf warrior
Ælfred (Alf-red): elf counsel
Ælfwine (Alf-win-e): elf friend
Æthelwulf (A-thel-wülf): noble wolf
Arlys (AR-loos): honorable
Baldric (Bald-ric): bold power
Banan (BAN-an): slayer
Baylor (BAA-oo-lore): horse trainer
Beorhtraed (BE-ore-tread. Short “e”, like “bed”): bright counsel
Betlic (BET-lick): Splendid
Boden (BO-den. With a short “o”, like “pot”): messenger
Cædmon (CAD-mon. With a short “o”, like “pot”): poet
Cæna (CHAIN-a): brave, fierce, keen, warlike
Canute (KA-noot-e): knot
Cedric (CHED-rick): renown leader
Dægal (DA-gall): dweller by the dark stream
Deogol (DE-o-gol): secret
Deorwine (DE-or-win-e): dear friend
Drefan (DRE-van): trouble
Eadmar (E-ad-mar): happy and illustrious
Earh (E-are): coward
Edwyn (ED-woon): valued
Faran (FAR-ann): advances
Firman (FIR-man): traveler
Frithuric (FRI-thu-rick): peace ruler
Fyren (FOO-ren): wicked
Galan (Gaa-laan): sing
Gar (GAAR): spear
Gifre (GIF-re. Short “i”, like “gift”):  greedy
Gim (GIM. Short “i”, like “gift”): gem
Godwine (GOD-win-e): God’s friend
Grindan (GRIN-dan): sharp
Halwende (HALL-wen-de): lonely
Hengist (HEN-yist): stallion
Ida (ID-a): rich
Irwyn (IRR-woon): sea lover
Kenric (KEN-rick): fearless leader
Landry (LAN-dree): ruler
Leodgar (LE-odd-gar): people’s spear
Lufian (LUV-ee-an): love
Magan (MA-gan): competent
Merwyn (MER-woon): good friend
Nyle (NOO-le): desire
Osbeorn (OS-beh-arn): divine bear
Rædan (RAW-dan): advisor
Raynar (RA-oo-nar): warrior of judgement
Raulf (RA-ulf): house wolf
Rowe (Rah-we): red-haired
Sar (SAR): pain
Scead (SKE-ad): shade
Scur (SKOOR): storm
Seleferth (SELL-e-ferrth): hall life
Selwyn (SEL-woon): fitting friend
Sherard (SER-ard): glorious valor. I’m guessing this is actually “Serard”, since I’ve never seen an “sh” sound in true Anglo-Saxon. It’s usually a modern interpretation
Sigefried (SIG-e-fri-ed): conquering peace
Temman (TEM-man): tame
Þunor (THOO-nar): thunder
Thurgis (THOOR-yis): Thor’s hostage
Wassa (WAS-sa): satyr(?)–uncertain about the exact meaning of this
Wilfrith (WIL-frith): resolute peace (my actual guess would be “stern friend”)
Winfrith (WIN-frith): friend of peace
Wulfric (WÜL-frick): wolf ruler

Female Names

Æðelþryð (A-thel-throoth):  noble threatener
Ælfgifu (ALF-gi-voo): elf gift
Ælflæd (ALF-lad): elf beauty
Æryn (AR-oon): elf-like
Ardith (AR-dith): good war
Bemia (BEH-mih-a): battle maiden
Bysen (BOO-sen): unique
Cate (KA-te): innocent
Cendra (KEN-dra): knowledgeable, understands
Cwen (KE-wen): queen
Cyneburga (KOO-ne-burr-ga): pledge of kindred
Darel (DAR-el): little beloved
Eadhild (E-ad-hild. The first “e” is a short e): rich battle maid
Eadlin (E-ad-lin): princess
Edita (E-dit-a): joyful
Eldrita (ELD-rit-a): prudent advisor
Erna (ER-na): reserved, shy
Faina (FA-in-a): joyful
Frithuswith (FRI-thoos-with. Both “i”s are short): peace strength
Gisa (GI-sa): hostage
Hreða (HRE-tha. The “hr” is an unvoiced r. Say ‘H’, then ‘r’ very quickly): an Anglo-Saxon goddess
Hrothwyn (HROTH-woon. The “hr” is an unvoiced r. Say ‘H’, then ‘r’ very quickly): famous joy
Leola (LE-ola. The “o” is short, like in “pot”): deer, swift (as a deer)
Maéda (Ma-ee-da):  maiden
Mildryth (MILLED-rooth): mild pledge
Muriel (Muh-ri-el): myrrh, perfumed
Ora (AH-rah): money
Orfa (AH-fah): courageous
Rowena (RAW-en-a): white skirt
Synne (SOON-ne): gift of the sun
Wilona (WILL-ahn-a): hoped for
Ymma (OOM-ma): work

[Image courtesy of micronova via Flickr Creative Commons]

Sources

• Anglo-Saxon Baby Names & Anglo-Saxon Names
• Female Anglo-Saxon Names
• Guide to Pronouncing Anglo-Saxon, A
• Male Anglo-Saxon Names
• Regia Anglorum: Authentic Names

Other “Beyond Fred” Posts

• Beyond ‘Fred’: Ancient Egyptian Names
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Anglo-Saxon Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: German Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Italian Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Roman Names for Characters
• Beyond ‘Fred’: Russian Names

Beyond “Fred”: More Anglo-Saxon Names is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

I’m currently writing a book about dealing with players. To that end, I’ve set up a survey to find out your concerns about working with players. Please take a few minutes to answer it:

I’ll post the collective results of the survey in a separate post (don’t worry–it’s completely anonymous so you don’t have to worry about your players finding out what you’ve said about them ).

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Quick Survey about Dealing with Players is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Those familiar with the Amber universe know one thing–everyone carries a deck of cards with them wherever they go. Granted, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill 52-card standard playing card decks. But gambling is a universal activity and card games are so wide-spread, I can’t image that the ultra-competitive Amber court wouldn’t develop ways to gamble with those ever-present decks.

To that end, my heart-sister and college roommate Romilly Mueller got together and created a set of scoring rules that allowed us to play poker in character during our Amber Diceless games. Poker is such a common game, I won’t go over the basic rules here (especially since the best way to learn poker is from someone else who already knows it). This scoring can be used with any of the multitude of poker variants out there. My group tended to play seven card stud.

Scoring Hands

Here are the scoring hands of Trump Poker, from lowest score to highest:

1. Highest Card: When none of the players has any valid combinations of cards, the player holding the highest value card wins the hand. Aces are high and beat all other cards except trumps (see Scoring Trumps, below).
2. Highest Pair: Two cards of the same value. This is a very common hand, since all trumps are wild. If two or more players have a single pair, the highest value pair wins.  If all players have pairs containing trumps, the pair containing the highest pip card wins. If all players have the same pip card or the pairs are all comprised of two trumps, the highest trump card (or card combination) wins. Hands of two trump cards lose against a “natural” pair (a pair made without wild cards).
3. Two Pairs: Player with the highest pair wins. If the highest pair is tied, then the highest of the second pair wins. If that pair is also tied, the player with highest single remaining card wins.
4. Blaze: Five court cards. If more than one person has a blaze, the highest pair in the blaze wins.
5. Three of a Kind: The highest three of a kind wins. Again, “natural” hands beat those made with wild cards.
6. Royal Blaze: This is unique to Trump Poker. A hand of only trumps, or four trumps and the Ace of Coins. If two or more players both have a royal blaze, then the hand containing the Ace of Coins wins. If no one has the Ace of Coins, then the hand with the highest trump or trump combination wins.
7. Straight: Five cards in numerical order. Aces can be high or low, but scoring doesn’t “wrap.” That is, page, knight, queen, king, ace counts, as does ace, two, three, four, five. But queen, king, ace, two, three doesn’t.
8. Flush: All five cards of the same suit, not in numerical order. If more than one player has a flush, the flush containing the highest card wins. If the highest cards tie, count the next highest cards and so on. In the event all cards tie, the highest suit wins (see Scoring Suits, below) Natural hands beat those made with wild cards. Note: the trumps aren’t considered a suit and any hand containing all trumps is considered a “blaze” and scores lower than a three of a kind.
9. Full House: Three of a kind + a pair. If more than one player has a full house, the highest three of a kind wins. If three of a kinds tie, the highest remaining pair wins.
10. Four of a Kind: Four cards of the same rank, plus any other card. If more than one player calls a four of a kind, the highest one wins.  Note: it’s possible, given the high numbers of wild cards in this variant to have a “Five of a Kind”. This is considered a four of a kind and scored accordingly, remembering that a natural four of a kind beats a “five of a kind.”
11. Straight Flush: Five cards of the same suit in numerical order. If there are multiple straight flushes, the straight flush containing the highest value card wins. This is the first of three hands that has to be made of natural cards. If the hand contains a wild card, it’s scored as a flush.
12. Royal Flush: Ace, king, queen, knight, page, all of the same suit. This is the second of the three hands that must be natural to score. In the unlikely event of multiple royal flushes, the highest suit wins.
13. Royal Hand: The final natural hand, this one is also unique to trump poker. This hand consists  of Oberon, Eric, Corwin, Random, and the Ace of Coins. (All the people who have ever worn the crown of Amber, plus the Jewel of Judgement).

Scoring Suits

Unlike normal poker where all suits are equal, each suit in trump poker has a ranking (from lowest to highest scoring): coins (pentacles), cups, rods (staves/wands), and swords.

Scoring Trumps

When combined with other cards, all trumps are wild and take on the value of whatever hand contains them. When compared against each other, they have the ranks given below. Combinations of trump cards score higher than single trump cards.

On PC trumps: Usually only the trumps of the Elder Amberites (Corwin, Random, Oberon, Fiona, Dworkin, etc.) are used; all other trumps are discarded from the deck before play. Sometimes they “younger” trumps are left in, but score like the jokers in a regular playing card deck: they’re purely wild cards and have a rank of zero when compared to other trumps.

Single Trump ranking

From lowest scoring to highest: [Ryalle]*, Sand, Delwin, Random, Florimel, Gerard, Julian, Llewella, Caine, Brand, Bleys, Fiona,  Deirdre, Corwin, Eric, Benedict, Finndo, Osric,  Oberon, and Dworkin.

This ranking is based on birth order (with the exception of Ryalle), from youngest to oldest, as I determined it for my game. Change the order as you see fit for your own game.

*[Ryalle is the full sister of Benedict, Osric, and Finndo in my game and is one of the "dead or missing" siblings Corwin mentions in Nine Princes in Amber. She's last in the rankings because she was exiled from Amber for supporting Osric and Finndo's ambitions. ]

Trump Combinations Ranking

Combinations are a set of trumps combined with each other or with other cards in the deck. The Ace of Coins represents the Jewel of Judgement when combined with trumps, thus its presence in the highest-scoring combinations.

Here are the combination rankings (from lowest scoring to highest):

• Osric, Finndo, and Ryalle
• Osric and Finndo
• Julian and Fiona
• Corwin and Deirdre
• Florimel and any cup card (governing love and emotions)
• Eric and Florimel (Eric’s spy)
• Caine, Gerard, and Julian (called the “Dark Trio”)
• Fiona, Bleys, and Brand (the Cabal)
• Fiona and any rod (which represents sorcery)
• Benedict and any sword
• Brand and the Ace of Coins
• Corwin and the Ace of Coins
• Caine and any ace
• Benedict and the Ace of Swords
• Random and the Ace of Coins
• Dworkin and Oberon
• Oberon and the Ace of Coins
• Dworkin and the Ace of Coins
• Dworkin, Oberon and the Ace of Coins

Final note: Any hand, no matter what the other cards in the hand are (even if it’s a royal flush), that contains both Corwin and Eric is automatically a losing hand. The only exception to this is the “royal hand”, which beats everything.

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One for the Amber Crowd: Trump Poker is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Want to add a little spice to your old-school game? How about something unusual that won’t contribute too much to a character’s power base? Here’s an idea: link two magic items of the same type to a shared pool of charges.

I’ve recently been going through some of my old game files from way back and I thought I’d share some of the ideas from my days of running 1st edition AD&D. This is a magic item, or rather pair of magic items, that allowed me to add a twist to my campaign.

How twinned items work

The twinned magic consists of two magic items of the same type (both rings or rods, etc.). Each item of the pair can perform a separate type of magic–for example, you could link a wand of fire and a wand of lightening, but you couldn’t link a ring of protection and a wand of enemy detection.  Take the number of charges each item has separately and add them together. That’s the total number of charges the two items have to share.

For example, if the wand of fire had 50 charges and the wand of enemy detection had 65 charges, both items would share a pool of a 115 charges.  They could draw from the pool equally until the total number of charges ran out. That means the wand of fire could potentially be fired 115 times, as long as the wand of enemy detection was never used.

Of course, the fun comes when a PC possesses one of the linked items. Most commonly, a party would find one item in a treasure hoard, not realizing it was linked to another magic item elsewhere in the game world. In this situation, the pool of charges linked to the item in the PCs’ possession will have randomly lost 0-5 charges (1d6-1) since the last time they used it. (Not that the players will necessarily know this).

If both items are used simultaneously, one of the them will not work. If the PCs have only one item, give their item a 15% chance of not working because its linked twin is also being used. If this is the case, nothing happens and no charges are deducted from the shared pool.

Frequently, a party won’t realize that there’s anything unusual about their wand (other than, possibly, intermittent “glitches”) until they try to recharge it.  They will be unable to recharge it without its twinned item also present. You can make it difficult for the PCs to determine the reason by requiring the use of some type of divination spell. And even if they discover the nature of the their item, it should require a quest of some sort to find the twinned item.

Creating twinned items

Linked items give magic-users an advantage, in that they’re quicker to create than two completely independent items.  Creating a set of twinned items takes less time than it would take to create each item independently. If you chose, you could also discount the materials cost.

Use the creation method described in the  1st ed. AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (pp. 87-88) with the following changes:

The items to be enchanted are obtained and prepared normally, as if you were creating two completely separate items, following the instructions given on p. 87, Finding the Right Materials and Preparing the Materials. Once the MU has prepared the items to receive magic, he can begin the process of enchanting them. He needs to touch both items, simultaneously and continuously, during the entire enchanting step and while casting the link spell (described below). The casting time for the enchant an item spell on both items is 24 hours plus 8d8 additional hours.

Immediately after casting the enchant an item spell, the magic -use must cast a link spell. Again, he must touch both items simultaneously and continuously during this stage of the process, which takes 8 + 2d8 hours. This step creates the pool of charges the two items will share.

Only after casting the link spell, does the MU place the desired individual magics in each of the items, as described in the DMG. The desired magics are cast on each item individually, as if the he were creating two separate items. The number of charges in the shared pool equals the total number placed in each item, added together.

For example, Elsa the Enchanter creates two linked items: a wand of frost and a wand of magic detection.  She places 20 charges in the wand of frost and 13 in the wand of magic detection,  creating a total combined pool of 33 charges which can be used by either wand.

Recharging Twinned Items

To recharge a linked pair, the magic-user must have both items within 1′ of her during the entire recharging process, even if she only wants to recharge one of them. Any attempt to recharge an item without its twin present will cause the the process to fail  and any time and/or material components used are lost.  Otherwise, recharging proceeds as outlined in the DMG, p. 88.

The MU can cast cast the recharge on only one of the items, but both items must make the required saving throw individually. If either one  of the items fails its saving throws during recharging both items crumble to dust.

Spell description

Link (Enchantment/ Alteration)

Type: Magic-User
Level: 6
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Special
Area of Effect: 2 items
Saving Throw: neg.

This spell links two items with a common pool of shared charges. After successfully casting enchant an item on the items, the magic-user casts a link spell. Both items to be linked must be touched simultaneously by the caster. This touch must be constant and continuous during the casting time, which is 8 + 2d8 hours.

Once the spell is finished, the magic-user can cast the desired spell on the items, one at a time. The total number of charges available to both items is equal to the number of charges cast on each item, added together. Note that this link doesn’t allow the items to share powers, only charges.

The material components for this spell are two items to be enchanted. These items are not consumed in the course of the spell.

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• On Magic Item Creation, Problems from Hack & Slash (hackslashmaster.blogspot.com)

Twinned Magic Items is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

You want to be a better GM, right? You know you need to get better at things like improvising during a game session, creating more believable NPCs, and be better prepared for your game sessions. But how exactly do you do that?

Check out the Campaign Mastery blog, written by Johnn Four (of Roleplaying Tips and Gamer Lifestyle) and Mike Bourke. This blog is chock full of useful advice. If you’ve noticed in the “Article Zemanta Thinks May be Related” section at the bottom of my posts, you’ll find I often link to Campaign Mastery. That’s because I find so much useful information at this particular blog, I have to share it with y’all.

No matter what kind of advice you’re looking for, Campaign Mastery’s got a post on it somewhere. Need information about improvising adventures? Check out By The Seat Of Your Pants: Six Foundations Of Adventure. Want some information about how to handling things when the PCs do something totally unexpected? Try A potpourri of quick solutions: Eight Lifeboats for GM Emergencies. How about tips on using spells to develop areas of your game world? Look at How To Cast A Spell On Your Campaign And Polish Till It Gleams.

One of the best things about this blog (in addition to the incredibly useful information) is their “Print Friendly” button at the end of every post. It allows you print out the post without printing all the gagillion bits you don’t need to pring, like all the sidebar information. (This is something I’ve just added to both this blog and product excerpts in the main section of the rpgGM site. Check out the row of buttons at the bottom of each post–when you mouse-over, they expand and the “Print Friendly” button is in the middle of the second row).

And I didn’t write this just because Johnn likes my stuff.

[Image courtesy of Tom T via Flickr Creative Commons.]

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• Need RPG News? Check Out Game Knight Reviews

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• Taming The Time Bandits: Some time-saving combat techniques (campaignmastery.com)
• GM’s Toolbox – Introduction (campaignmastery.com)
• World Building Part I: Geography and Landmarks (campaignmastery.com)
• When Good Dice Turn Bad: A Lesson In The Improbable (campaignmastery.com)

Campaign Mastery is Exactly What It Says is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Hussars in dashing uniforms, swords always ready to duel over an affaire d’honneur; dainty noblewomen in proper décolletage with tiny pistols hidden in their petticoats; enchanting faerie lords seeking the excitement of love among mortal passions; stalwart dwarven craftsmen seeking that great masterwork that will earn them their second name; willowy tall, cat-eyed dragon lords, resplendent in silk robes from far Cathay…

These are staples of R. Talsorian‘s Castle Falkenstein, an RPG set in a Gilded Age that never was.  Here you can step back into an alternate version of the Victorian age where magick works side-by-side steam technology and faerie lords rub shoulders with both real and fictional characters from that era. What other game could see your character having High Tea with both Dr. Jules Verne (France’s Science Minister) and Captain Nemo? Or solve mysteries with a still little-known Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Steampunk only begins to describe the setting of this game.

The first almost three-quarters of the full-color rulebook immerses you in the world of Castle Falkenstein, via a story narrated by Tom Olam, a computer game artist who finds himself spellnapped into an alternate history version of Victorian Europe, called New Europa. The story is entertaining and makes a good introduction to all things Falkenstein. In addition to describing the politics, history and geography of New Europa (which differ fair amount from our own European history), he gives you an introduction to important NPCs, magick and techology, as well as glimpses of society and the rules that govern it. And does it in a way that makes it very accessible and far more entertaining than most settings rather dry description of details.

Character Creation

In Castle Falkenstein you create a Dramatic Character, which can be anything that would fit into a Victorian setting, and then some. You can play anyone from an anarchist, to a nobleman, adventuress, explorer,  scientist, or writer. You’ll want to be careful to create a character that has a reason for exploring the unknown and participating in Great Adventures, though, because it would be to create a character extremely appropriate to the setting, but who has no reason to venture beyond his or her drawing room. If a more exotic character is to your taste, with your Host’s (the game’s term for GM) permission, you could play a member of one of the fey courts, a dwarf, a sorcerer, or even a dragon.

No need to track down fancy character sheets here; your Dramatic Character is described in words, rather than numbers.  The game suggests you write your character’s backstory before you worry about mechanics. You’re expected to keep a character Diary, a “logbook of the Character’s lives and times in the world of the Steam Age, a storybook in which he or she is the Main Character,” (pg. 154). This can be daunting to players without a writing bent, but the book tries to make it easier by giving you a list of questions to answer in your Diary. By the time you’ve worked your way through the list, you should have pretty good handle on your character concept.

After that, you go on describe your character, both in looks and in abilities. You also need to chose a Grand Passion ( something your character would pursue above all things), a Nemesis (something (s)he  battles, such as a sworn enemy), and a Goal (something (s)he strives for). Finally, you choose three goals: one Social, one Professional, one Avocational.

The actual mechanics of character creation take up less than half a page and involve picking abilities that your character is Great, Good, and Poor at (these are official game terms). Any other ability you haven’t named is considered to be Average, the default level. The abilities are divided into groups that correspond to playing card suits. And that leads us to the…

Mechanics

Because no respectable Victorian Age person would ever play at dice, the game uses playing cards to resolve combat and skill challenges. You’ll need two complete decks (including Jokers) of regular playing cards. One is the Fortune Deck, the other is the Sorcery Deck, so the two should be easy to tell apart.

Each player begins the game with a Fortune Hand of four cards. Players play cards to increase their chances of succeeding at any particular action (called “Feats” within the game). The process goes like this:

1. The player describes what her character is trying to do. The more vivid the description, the better the Host can resolve the Feat.
2. Next the player decides what ability she’ll need to use to perform the Feat (with Host’s approval). If the Feat calls for an ability her character doesn’t have, she uses that ability at Average level, with some exceptions. For example, if the PC is trying to fly a airship, the Host may decide that she can’t fly it without some kind of Piloting ability.
3. Every ability level has a point value from 2 (Poor) to 12 (Extraordinary), with Average being 4. The player then chooses one or more cards who’s total is added to the ability score. But there’s a catch: if the card used is of the same suit as the ability, the card is worth its face value. If it’s of a different suit, it’s only worth one point. Jacks, Queens, and Kings are worth 11, 12, and 13, respectively.
4. The Host decides the Ability Level needed for the character to succeed at that Feat, plus he can play cards from his own hand to represent situational modifiers. This creates basically a difficulty level that the player has to beat.
5. If the PC’s total is less than half the Feat’s total, it results in a Fumble. If it’s less than the Feat total, but more than half of it, the Feat simply Fails. If the PC’s total is equal to or greater than the Feat’s total, it’s a Partial Success. And if it’s equal or greater to half again the total, it’s a Full Success. Finally, if the total is equal to or greater than twice the Feat’s total, it’s a High Success and the Host describes what happens in each case.

The cards of a Fortune Hand can’t be discarded–they have to be used in a Feat to get rid of them.  Once cards are used, they’re immediately shuffled back into the Fortune Deck and the Host deals the player new cards to replace those used.This system allows for some strategy when it comes to resolving Feats, which is great for players with really bad dice luck.

The combat system is basically a series of contested Feats and I won’t go into it or the Sorcery mechanics here. The mechanics may feel a little weird at first, but are easy to catch onto once you’ve been through them a couple of times.

Where to Get It

As far as I can tell, the core book is out of print, as are most of it’s supplements. Used copies are going for $50 on Amazon, but you can get PDF versions of the core rules and all six of it’s supplements from DriveThru RPG at $16 for the core rules and $8.50-$10.00 each for the supplements.

Other From the Basement Posts

• From the Basement: In Nomine
• From the Basement: Everway
• From the Basement: Tales from the Floating Vagabond

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• Comme Il Faut: RPG Supplements I Like from Age of Ravens (ageofravens.blogspot.com)
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From the Basement: Castle Falkenstein is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

The Rules Lawyer

This sub-class of the Mechanic finds great joy in being the “go-to” guy. He’s probably memorized half (if not all) the books the group uses, and then some. While some Rules Lawyers have a strong emotional stake in being right all the time, many more of them just like being helpful. They often see themselves as much a game resource as the books they’ve memorized. Why should the GM have to spend 20 minutes page-flipping to find the special-case rule? Just ask the local Rules Lawyer: he’ll have the answer for you in less than a minute. If he doesn’t know the answer off the top of his head, he knows exactly where to find it.

Virtues

This player is walking rulebook. Use that information to your advantage. Don’t be afraid to ask the Rules-Lawyer about a rule you may be unsure of. Like all of us, Rules Lawyers need to feel needed. They also make great mentors to players trying to learn the ins-and-outs of a new system.

Flaws

The rulebook is the law of the land to a Rules Lawyer. He will argue incessantly with the GM over a rule change. A GM who has a Rules-Lawyer in the group will need to make it clear that she, not the rulebooks, is the ultimate authority of her game. If the GM views the rules as guidelines, rather than holy commandments, she needs to make that clear to the rules-Lawyer before the first game session (and often repeatedly throughout the campaign).

Rules Lawyers can also get bogged down in obscure modifiers and rare special cases. They may need reminding that you don’t need to use everything in the system, just because it’s printed in the book. (Unless you want to, in which case you’ll find the Rules Lawyer an even more valuable resource).

Ways a Rules-Lawyer can be useful

Out of Character:

• As a researcher: if you know you’re going to need some section of the rules you don’t normally use, ask your resident Rules Lawyer to research them for you and make a cheat-sheet you to use at the next game session.
• As a mentor: pair the Rules Lawyer up with a player who’s new to this game system. That player will get a good grounding in the system’s mechanics–which is always helpful, even if the new person is a Character Actor. Just keep an eye on things and remind the mentor to keep to the basics of the system and not overwhelm his new student with too much detail and crunch.
• As a devil’s advocate: if another player suggests a rules addition or modification, have her run it by the Rules Lawyer for analysis. He can give you a break down of the advantages or disadvantages of the suggestion and a thorough description of the effect it’s likely to have on the rest of the game’s mechanics.
• As a creation assistant: Because Rules Lawyers  know the mechanics of character creation extremely well, you can give a character description to a Rules Lawyer and let them work out the mechanics of it. Just make him aware that you’ll be making some changes to his work, so that he doesn’t know everything about that NPC’s powers and abilities.

(I did this frequently with a player in one campaign I ran. I’d write out in words what I wanted the character to be like, pass her to my resident Mechanic and he’d figure out all her stats, powers, and special abilities. I’d then make some changes to what he did to keep mystery involved. Balancing mechanics isn’t my strong suit, so I sought out players who are. It saved me a lot of time and I ended up with more mechanically-sound NPCs than I would’ve if I’d done it all myself.)

In Character:

Rules Lawyers tend to have a difficult time with the concept of in-character/out-of-character. Like the Power Gamer, most characters create by Rules Lawyers tend to be primarily collections of stats and powers, rather than a fully-developed personae. Just accept that you’re dealing with a vicarious player and don’t try to force them to develop acting ability.

(This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The GM’s Field Guide to Players. The book goes into much more detail about a variety of player types and suggestions on how to work with them during a game. It’s tentatively scheduled for release in late November of this year).

[Image courtesy of shawnzrossi via Flickr Creative Commons]

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Rules-Lawyers: Dealing with the guy who has all the answers is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

GMing can be an all-consuming task. Players outnumber GMs, so we often get put in a situation where our group will say “We want to play [fill in new game here]. Will you run it?” But sometimes, even if you primarily GM, you’ll get a chance to actually sit in the player’s chair for a change.

Sitting the player’s chair can be a challenge for someone who primarily GMs. We’re so used to having the final say in game matters, that we tend to (usually unintentionally) act as if we’re in charge of this game. This tends to lead to bad feelings with rest of the group and the newly-minted player returns to her GM screen, vowing to never set foot out from it again.

That’s a shame, because GMs can offer a lot to a game when they play. They often have great ideas for overcoming obstacles (after all, they’re used to setting them), and can be a source of great help to the current GM, especially if he’s new to that side of the table. Plus, it’s good for a GM to remember what it feels like to be a player, from time to time.

Below are some guidelines on how to behave when it’s someone else’s turn in the GM chair:

1. Never give GMing advice unless specifically asked. GMing has a steep learning curve. It takes months (do I dare say “years”?) to learn to manage all the tasks required to run a good game; this can only come with practice. While it’s hard to watch someone struggle through learning to GM, it’s necessary. He has to learn, just like you did. Giving unsolicited advice just upsets the other GM and is often interpreted as a vote of no confidence in his GMing ability.
2. If you find yourself saying “In my game…,” stop talking. Unless it’s during a break and you’re relating a story about something funny that happened in your game, these are fighting words. Remember, this is not your game. Every GM is entitled to run her game her own way; just because it’s different from yours doesn’t make it bad. Acknowledge (to yourself) that it’s going to feel strange for a little while, but reserve judgment for several game sessions. If she’s doing something you just can’t stand, use the standard player solution—talk to her, or find a different game.
3. If you must talk to the GM about the way he runs, remember you’re the player. Don’t tell him how you’d do it differently (unless he asks). Just say something along the lines of “I’m having a real difficulty with the way [thing that bothers you] is handled. Is there a particular reason for it being that way, or can we maybe try something else?” Focus on the specific thing that bothers you, not on his whole GMing approach.
4. Try to keep GM information out of play. It’s going to be tough; when you’ve been GMing for any length of time, you know things that even experienced players don’t. So before you exploit the weakness of that monster’s special attack, ask yourself if your character would even know about the weakness in the first place. Be honest. If the answer is “No,” then use only what your character would know.
5. Don’t overwhelm your GM. When you’re used to spending hours in preparation for a game, it can seem like you’re slacking off when you’re only a player. Many GMs I know (including me) then to still put in that time, often without realizing it. Since you’ve only got one small section of the game to work on—your character—you tend to over develop that section. Unless you clear it with your GM first, it’s not fair to dump a 25 page character history on her and expect her to read it all before the next game session. Remember, she’s got more than just your character to deal with.
6. Don’t assume that just because you like something, that your GM will too. And visa versa, if you hate something, don’t assume your GM will also hate it. Some GMs love getting 20 pages of blue-booking between game sessions, others will barely have time to skim the first page. Find out your GM’s likes and dislikes.
7. Take time to learn this group’s culture. Every game group has their own rituals and rules of behavior. If you’re coming into an established group, take time learn their traditions and standards of behavior. If everyone chips in to buy the GM pizza, by the third session, you should be ready to drop your share in the pot.
8. Cut yourself some slack. It takes time to get used to being a player again. Treat yourself like you’d treat any brand-new player you’d have in your game. In many ways, that’s exactly what you are, especially if you haven’t played in years.
9. Be the kind of player you’d want to have in your game. That’s basically what this all comes down to. If you’re supportive, helpful in a player sort of way, polite, and respectful, the rest of your group should be willing to overlook any gaffs on your part.

(This is an excerpt from my upcoming book: The GM’s Field Guide to Players, tentatively scheduled to come out in November.)

[photo courtesy of JDHancock courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons]

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When it’s Your Turn to Play: How to go from being a GM to a player is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Now that I’ve gotten my adventure creation book out, I’m starting to look into the next project. One way I do that is to look back over my blog and see which posts are the most popular. One that seems to get a lot of hits is my Handling Problem Players post. Every GM has had at least one player that’s made her GMing life difficult.

But the problem can go both ways. Every player that’s been playing for awhile can find at least one horror story about a bad GM. So, players, what five things would you like your GM to know about either players in general or you as a player specifically? What things should GMs do differently than you’re currently experiencing? If I were to write a book for GMs about players, what five things should be included? Please let me know in the comments section below.

[Photo courtesy of SMercury98 via Flickr Creative Commons 2.0]

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Players: What Do You Want Your GM to Know About You? is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

This is the first of a new post series where talk about my favorite RPG blogs and sites. There’s no particular significance to the order I review things — it’s more of a “who’s on my mind right now”. And these aren’t intended to be reviews, per se–I’m not going to critique the sites. It’s much more like the old Pyramid Magazine’s “Gee, we wish we’d done that” column, for those of you who’ve been gaming long enough to remember Pyramid when it was available in print.

Today’s site is Game Knight Reviews. As you can guess by the name, this site focuses on reviews of game products. From print to e-books to game-related services, if you’re wondering about a specific product, you can probably find a review of it at GKR. If it’s not up yet, it will be sometime. In addition to game reviews, though, they have interviews with prominent members of the RPG community and (my favorite bits) news from the RPG world. It’s really nice to have game news gathered into a single source, since I simply don’t have time to read tons of the wonderful blogs out there, much as I’d like to.

Oh, and did I mention they’ve got some pretty cool art on their header graphic? [Hopefully Fitz won't mind that I also stole his logo for this post...]

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Need RPG News? Check Out Game Knight Reviews is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle

Want to write your own adventures?

You can learn to write good adventures and The Adventure Creation Handbook will show you how. Maybe you’re searching for an original idea. Or maybe you’ve just looking for a way to take that exciting climatic battle you see in your head and put it into a form your players will enjoy. Wherever you are in the adventure creation process, this  book will guide you step-by-step through the process of creating an adventure for any genre, any game system.

Overcome creativity blocks and dry spells. The Adventure Creation Handbook describes several methods of coming up with adventure ideas your players and you will enjoy.

Customize plots for your group and your game. By using your players and their wants as a starting point, this method allows you make adventures your players will want to play.

Integrate adventures into your campaign. This method integrates the adventures into your game system and campaign world from the very beginning. No trying to shoe-horn or retrofit ideas that don’t really fit.

“If you ever opt for an affiliate program, I’d be proud to represent your book.”
Johnn Four
http://www.roleplayingtips.com
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What’s included:

• A step-by-step method for creation adventures that covers
  • Generating the original idea
  • Translating that idea into a series of events by asking and answering questions
  • Putting the events in a meaningful order that’s flexible enough to take player whim into account
  • Developing incentives to entice your players to go on the adventure
  • Getting it all down on paper (or in the computer) so you don’t forget anything important
• Suggestions for running your newly written adventure
• A worksheet to help you put your ideas in order
• A checklist so you don’t miss any steps
• Printer-friendly black & white design. No heavily colored pages to eat toner.

In addition, when you purchase The Adventure Creation Handbook, you receive these free bonuses:

1. Life time updates. You’ll receive a free copy of this book every time it’s updated or revised. No need to go searching for errata or buying the next version, just to have up-to-date information.
2. An example of adventure creation using this method, illustrating each step.
3. A booklet of GMing tips from my blog Evil Machinations.
4. 90-day unconditional money-back guarantee.  No questions asked.

What’s it cost? $7 for the next 30 days. That’s a special launch price. After August 15, 2011, the price will go up to $10.

Adventure Creation Handbook Now Available is a post from: Evil Machinations
©2008-2011 by Cherie Arbuckle