Some of the abilities in GURPS are priced in uses per session, but not all abilities are priced that way. This can lead to some oddities when creating a character who have abilities that are mixed type. Most abilities are either “always on” (e.g., they are active at all times for the character) or “switchable” […]
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Gamemaster’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 […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Ten Tips for Starting Campaigns With Ritual Path Magic
Ritual Path Magic is arguably one of the most popular magic systems out there. It started as the “on-board” system for GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions and gained such popularity that it got its own book, GURPS Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic. It’s been explored dozens of times over in in Pyramid and has its own […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Avoiding Game Frustration
GMs set the tone of the campaign when they begin its design. This is just fact. Players, on the other hand, set the tone of the campaign after the game has begun. Again, this is just fact. But problems can arise when the former clashes with the latter. Recently, How to Be a GURPS GM: […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Campaign Creation Best Practices
We’ve all been there before. New campaign, who dis? Getting started on a new campaign for your players is easy, but it’s also hard. As the GM, you need to be able to describe to your players exactly what you are trying to do. This summary of what you want to do is where things […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: What Makes a Worthy Character
In my continuing ramblings on what makes something worthy in gaming today I’m talking about one of the things that all RPGs have: characters. This might be a player character or a non-player character, but whatever it is it should have “character.” Here’s what I feel make up a worthy character. A Worthy Character Should […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Coping With Campaign Fails
The job of the gamemaster is at its most core to be a storyteller, but it’s the players job to tell it. That sounds a bit wonky, I know, but bear with me. GMs create the framework for players who then fill in the bits and bobs with their actions within the game. . . […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: What Makes a Worthy Campaign
I’ve talked about what makes a worthy GM and what makes a worthy player . . . but there’s something missing. And that something is . . . what makes a worthy campaign? Normally, a GM comes up with the idea he wants to run and plans the campaign out over days or weeks and […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Being a Worthy Player
I talked about what makes a worthy GM here. Now it’s time to talk about what makes a player worthy. Yes. The GM must be worthy of their players, but so too should the players be worthy of their GM. I’m rarely a player myself (I prefer being a GM), but when I am there […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Being a Worthy GM
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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