Guest Post by J. Edward Tremlett #1: The Institute (File Under: Aliens; Demons; Fae; Secret Government Projects; Sorcery) Not everyone knows about the Institute, but everyone knows their handiwork. Because everyone knows at least one kid who just changed, seemingly overnight. One day they were super-interested in something – or had a real talent for […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Flying Solo
Guest Post by Scott Rochat Sam Spade. Wonder Woman. Lara Croft. James Bond. What do all these famous fictional heroes have in common? Simple: they’re nearly impossible to play in the typical RPG campaign. Oh, they’re easy enough to build mechanically. But each of them is typically a solo act (Justice League notwithstanding). They star […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: The Plague City
Guest Post by S. A. Fisher Most people fled from cities infected with the bubonic plague. For instance, Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron revolves around the storytelling of survivors who fled Florence, Italy during its plague years. Player characters, however, may have business inside a plague city. How do you handle that? Mashup GURPS Bio-Tech and […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: What I Think a Good Player Is
Because I have such high standards for myself as a gamemaster I also have high standards for my prospective players. I’ve talked about this before but I feel it bears another post to look over what I consider the bare minimum for me to invest in a player as a GM. And I do invest. […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Building History
Most GMs will eventually find themselves in one of two places when running games. Either they create their own settings (i.e., “homebrew”) or they use an established one. (Of course, there are heretics who do both at once, but we must consign them to the shadows where they belong)…. …if you’d like to read more, […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: The Heroic Index
The best games are a mix of gritty and cinematic elements. The player characters (and major NPCs) are cinematic beings with abilities beyond normal men and women. But the world they are in? That world is realistic. It’s the difference between a hero punching a mundane in a comic book and they go flying back […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Simulatin and Shoutin
I’ve been playing role-playing games for a long time (I gamed for the first time with my brother when I was seven) and I’ve been running games for almost as long (I ran my first game when I was 11). I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, mistakes I’d like to prevent newbie […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Compromised Player Characters
One of the hardest things to do when running a game is to GM a compromised PC. (Compromised in this instance is a player character who is mind controlled, possessed, or replaced by a shapeshifter.) Taking over the character’s actions is going to result in the other PCs being suspicious so that won’t work – […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: How I Prepare Adventures
I’ve had a lot of experience running campaigns (both of the GURPS and non-GURPS variety) and have spent the better part of 28 years being a GM to a variety of groups in a variety of ways. After all this time I’ve learned a lot – which means I messed up a lot. No one […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: How I Designed An Adventure
Guest Post by Kalzazz I came up with and ran an adventure last Monday, so here is how it went. Around 6 PM identify that opportunity existed for game, ping potential players. By 630 PM I had identified players were available so I requested characters. By 7 had at least one character chosen, who was […]
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