Note: This is the creation of Hal “Wavefunction” Batty – not my own. Thanks for the contribution, Hal! A Bloodroot is an enormous, tree-like creature. It main body consists of a broad tree trunk with two other trunks attached to the sides forming thick arms, jointed at the elbows, and ending in a mass of […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: A Novel Approach to GMing, Part IV: A Matter of Character
Guest Post by Scott “Rocketman” Rochat “Be sure not to discuss your hero’s state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.” –Anton Chekhov I’m going to start with something basic, but true. Your players can’t see your characters. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock. It’s a problem every author has. […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: Magical Tradecraft
This one was another one of those things that was a blast to write. I mainlined Burn Notice for several days, while taking notes for cool feats of skill or times when magic would have just been insanely useful to have. I then watched a few spy movies, made a few more notes, and then […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: A Song of Many Worlds
Another article that started out a campaign material and then I whipped into shape to become something more publishable. Like most of the articles I pull directly from my campaigns I had very few pieces to cut because it was so concentrated. This was also the article where I fixed what I viewed as a […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: Session Writeups and Criteria
So this is something that +Peter V. Dell’Orto, +Douglas Cole, and others have been talking a lot about lately. (See here, here, here, and here.) So I’ve been thinking about what Peter said here and here’s my feeling on it. Omniscient GM Perspective I like to write from this perspective – so I’m done with this. […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: May the Shadows Guide You
With “May the Shadows Guide You” I began to hit my stride. I’d half a dozen articles under my belt and a hit in Metatronic Generators (which is still fairly popular years later). The meat of this article actually hailed from a defunct fantasy campaign I ran. My significant other wanted to use GURPS Powers: […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: The Wild Hunt
I don’t remember if I asked PK about it or if he asked me, but somehow we got to talking about GURPS Monster Hunters and faerie. I remember when I was playtesting the series originally that I raised this question and he told me he just didn’t have room. I asked if I could work the […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: The Three Ring Circus – The Malefactors
+Peter V. Dell’Orto talks about rules-lawyering here and +Mark Langsdorf talks about it here so I guess I’m going to talk a little bit about it myself. First, let me talk about how I run RPGs. I assume (as does anything I write on my blog or when handing out advice to other games on other platforms) that the […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: Magic Bullets
This rather light article should have been quick to write. It wasn’t. It was like giving birth to a baby that had bone spikes on it. Really, I probably should have skipped writing anything for this issue, but when your broke you’ll do whatever you need to to make some money. All that aside it […]
Continue readingDesigner’s Notes: Purveyors of the Priceless
Purveyors of the Priceless originally started out as “What the heck do I write for Low-Tech III?” I didn’t get involved in the previous Low-Tech issue because I felt it was extremely far out of my comfort zone (which led to issues with Purveyors itself – I felt I needed to come up with some […]
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