This thread on the forums brought up something that is near and dear to my heart: “How do you determine if a GM is worth your time as a player?” The subject is actually a little complicated so I’m going to invert it a bit and instead ask: “How do you as a GM determine […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Gamemastering Wuxia Campaigns
Running a wuxia campaign for GURPS is not exactly hard, but it can be daunting at first. I’ve ran two such campaigns so far: The Middle Kingdom – which was a kind of modern kung fu flick with a Narnia vibe; and Ten Thousand Jade Petals – which is more fantasy with wuxia and xianxia […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Gamemastering Urban Fantasy Campaigns
I’ve been running a urban fantasy campaign for the better part of two decades. The same campaign setting but multiple systems until I finally settled on GURPS just over fourteen years ago. It was one of the first things I created in GURPS and I’ve learned a lot over the iterations. I am of course […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Paid Gamemastering
The topic of gamemastering for pay came up in the GURPS Discord and I just had to jump in. First, I’ve done paid GMing in my past and it can be a great experience if you know what you’re doing. You need to be a good GM, capable of improvisation on the spot, willing to hash […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Gamemastering High Point Totals
In GURPS dealing with high-point total PCs is a matter of finesse, not math. A character’s effectiveness in different situations can be radically different depending on what a given character has purchased with them. . . . . . if you’d like to read more, consider becoming a patron! Note: the link to the actual content […]
Continue readingMelee Academy: Evaluation As a Skill Roll
+Douglas Cole tossed down a gauntlet (as he usually does) while I was ill (I hurt my back about 2 weeks ago and it’s just now that I’ve been able to type or write for extended periods of time). While I was laid up I got to thinking, Evaluate is kind of a “special maneuver” – […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Narrative Focusing
So this post is going to be about how I go about preparing narrative/plots for a story arc. This is different from my writing process or how I take notes, or how I do game prep. But they are related to all of those. I call this process “narrative focusing”. Essentially, narrative focusing is an outline […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: How I Do Game Prep
Game prep is the thing all GMs fear to some degree or another. Whether it’s fear of not having enough time for prep or having no ideas for prep, that fear doesn’t go away as your GMing skills increase it just lessens. There are probably hundreds or even thousands of ways to game prep – […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Learning From Your Mistakes
As a gamemaster you will inevitably make mistakes running your game. It’s just going to happen. Accept it now and be prepared to fix them. But how? Create a strong, but flexible base for your campaign. This way you can change it when you need to and still have a sturdy foundation. What do I […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Different Disadvantages
Some game systems don’t have (or need) personified disadvantages/flaws/etc. – GURPS isn’t one of them. Disadvantages play a huge role in determining how a character might react in a given situation or be forced to react if the player isn’t running his character as his disadvantage(s) dictate. That’s the whole point of having them – you get […]
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