Good players are golden and as GMs, we need to treat them that way. Here’s a list of ideas to keep your players happy and coming back. Make every player feel like their PC is your favorite character. Focus on each PC in the party for a set period of time: one session, one month, one adventure. The length of time doesn’t matter as much [Read the article]
You hear it all the time: “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” You know it’s good advice; what you may not realize is that it applies to your GMing, as well as to your life. “But I haven’t promised anything!” you protest. Think again. We make promises to our players all the time without realizing it. Do you ask your players to provide a character [Read the article]
By Jade
– The GM wadded up the paper he was just writing on, then tossed it over his shoulder…
You’ve written your adventure and double-checked everything. You carefully planned the traps, lovingly made certain that the monster challenge ratings corresponded with the party’s level. You’ve created encounters tailor-made for each of your PCs and their players. You’ve got fiendish traps, challenging but not overpowering monsters, engaging roleplaying encounters — everything is perfect. Now you’re ready for the moment of truth: actually running it. You’ve [Read the article]
It’s a problem: you give your PCs an objective, a goal, and they spend most of their time pursuing every side distraction they can think of. You need to get them focused on the task at hand, but how to do that? One way to help keep the PCs moving forward is to give them a time constraint—a deadline. If the PCs don’t accomplish their [Read the article]
Adventure writing is often viewed as a free-form creative exercise where the “sky’s the limit”. The fantasy genre, with its emphasis on magic, can especially leave the adventure ideas open to pretty much anything our minds can imagine. Science fiction isn’t as open-ended, since it’s supposed to be at least theoretically scientifically plausible (or at least feel like it is), but even here, the adventure-writer’s [Read the article]
GMs aren’t the only ones with responsibilities. The players are co-creators with the GM and that gives them certain responsibilities. Below are lists of player do’s and don’ts: Game Preparation Be on time. If possible, try to be a little early. That will give you some time to get settled and ready to play. If you can’t be on time or have to miss a [Read the article]
Form Follows Function Often, you don’t need to develop a whole, well-rounded NPC for your games. Most NPCs can get by with a minimal amount of information—just enough to do their job in the campaign. Gauge how much effort you need to put into creating an NPC by estimating how much contact the PCs will have with him. If all you need an NPC to [Read the article]