I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now while I thought on it. But here we go. Here are my 10 Commandants of gaming when you’re the GM. 1. Thou Shalt Be the Law You’re the GM. Your word is law. The game session is a ship, the players are its crew, and you are […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Cutting Down Skill Rolls
Playing an RPG doesn’t mean the dice need to be rolled for every action. The old adage of “Role-playing not Roll-playing” rings particularly true to me. Here are a few things I try to do when I run a game: “Yeah, But Does It Affect The Outcome?” Seriously. If it doesn’t affect the outcome do not roll. […]
Continue readingBoil and Bubble: Quick and Dirty Travel Spells for DFRPG
Guest Post by Kalzazz The Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game has some rather elaborate rules for overland travel, including uses for Survival, Navigation, Weather Sense, and many other skills, oh my. It does not however include particularly convenient rules for the use of spells during said travel, despite including spells such as Quick March, Create Food, and […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: What I Look For In Players as a GM, Part II
As I talked about before, I have criteria for picking players. Avoiding bad players can be just as challenging as finding good player. As discussed in my previous post, I have criteria for finding good players. The reverse of that is also true – I flat out avoid those with certain traits. Spotlight Hog: One of […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: The Soul and Your Game
Guest Post by Emily “Bruno” Smirle When designing a game setting with supernatural or mystical elements, it may be necessary to create a firm definition of the “soul” – what is it, who has it, what does it do for (or to) you? Theologists and philosophers have debated the subject endlessly throughout human history; the […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: When to Follow, Make, Ignore, Bend, or Break Rules
GURPS is one of those games where if you try to use every rule for every circumstance you’re going to create an unusable pile of crap. It’s like sticking a bunch of magnets on a refrigerator and then expecting to see what color the fridge is. You can do it – but it’s barely recognizable. So how do […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: Dungeon Fantasy Boss Battles I
Today I’m going to talk about designing boss battles in Dungeon Fantasy, but to do that let’s chat about what a boss is. Dungeon Fantasy breaks monsters down into three groups and I usually add two more (those familiar with my article “It’s a Threat!” already know about these additional two types but I’ve added them here for ease […]
Continue readingCarpe Blogiem: What I Look For In Players as a GM, Part I
Finding a player for a game you wish to run is hard – finding the right player is even harder. I’ve been pretty lucky for the most part and with my current player pool of 15 or so I’ve been even luckier. That said, I personally have a few criteria that I look for in players: […]
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Gamemaster’s Guidepost: How Much Lore Is Hidden?
When building a campaign setting or starting a new campaign one of the things that you must decide as a GM is what skills are important, what skills exist, and what skills don’t exist. For campaigns with magic, psionics, and other “paranormal powers” one of the key jobs a GM has is to decide what […]
Continue readingGamemaster’s Guidepost: Organizing Your Gaming Notes
Any gamemaster (or writer) worth his salt always has more ideas than he has time. These ideas may be half-baked, over-cooked, or perfect and fully formed like Athena on paper from your Zeus-like noggin. It’s just a hazard of the mindset – too much stuff floating in our heads and too much “what if” thinking […]
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