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 readingCategory Archives: Gamemaster’s Guidepost
Gamemaster’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 […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Fixing Campaign Mismatch
Finally. You have found a game. The GM is a good match. The players are all equally awesome and you get along. Oh, yeah. It’s all coming together and then . . . then you read what the new campaign is about. It’s…not for you. At all. You may have thought you were playing something […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Fixing Player Immersion
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: For the Sake of the Game/Roleplaying
When you start a campaign there are things that you can do for the sake of roleplaying and there are things that you do for the same of the game. Every decision you make will fall into one of these two groups. When you do something for the sake of roleplaying you are often removing […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Player Immersion in Horror Campaigns
Horror is one of my favorite genres. In fact, I tend to run most games with a measure of it. Horror can go with just about anything even sometimes when you think it shouldn’t or does it. I like high-powered horror – kicking monster butt! – but I like the lower-powered stuff too. There are […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Reducing GM Overhead
Roleplaying games in general can get complicated even if it’s far on the end of narrativism. Simulationist RPGs tend to get a bad rap for overcomplications, rules, etc., but narrativist games can have the same problem with the GM having to interpret on the fly when a circumstance or event happens in game that the […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Fixing GM Immersion
Being a GM is kind of like being a cat herder. Except some of the cats are on fire and the rest are trying to “help” you put out the cats who are on fire and just spreading the fire all over the place anyways. Now it’s not always like that but it’s like that […]
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