The most important ingredient in any campaign is a skilled DM who has the time and the energy to carefully design and create his world, and the talent to communicate his setting effectively. The next most important ingredients are willing players who share common goals with the DM. Players interested in hack-and-slash adventures should not be matched a DM interested in careful plot structuring and detailed mystery solving.
Archives for 2010
Review: “Vox” RPG
Vox by Michael Fiegel is a somewhat schizophrenic game. No, literally. You play a character with voices in his or her head. Each player controls a character and may also control a voice in another player’s head. The PCs aren’t necessarily crazy, though. These voices are quite real, and under certain circumstances can take over the PCs’ bodies and control their actions.
March Fo(u)rth for GM’s Day Sale 2010
DriveThruRPG is having its annual March 4th sale, and extending it a few days after that. In case you didn’t get your fill from the Haiti bundle (and really, who could get their fill of RPG books?) there’s plenty of good stuff to be had on sale, whether you’re buying it for your awesome GM who lets you have that radiant weapon you’ve been seeking, or just stocking up for yourself.
Inquisition of the Week: Small World
This week’s inquisition has more to do with a late article by myself. After snowmageddon and snowpocalypse hit the east coast, I found myself playing a great deal of video games. I had a good bit of down time and so did all my friends. We were all stuck in our respective houses and still wanted to hang out with one another. This isn’t exactly a new thing to me but it did get me a bit nostalgic for the times when my friends and I really could hang out all the time and play games of various types for long stretches of time.
Olympic Confessions
For me, the Olympics have always had a different kind of special significance. For whatever reason, the Olympics get me to give a crap about sports, if only for a couple weeks.
Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight
I find it interesting that I made the exploration of failure in RPGs such an intense interest of mine because I’m currently living with the consequences of failure in my own life right now. Don’t worry, nothing major, but important enough that it may affect “The Plan” if I don’t play my cards more carefully from now on.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2010-02-28
Werewolf: How a parlor game became a tech phenomenon http://is.gd/8Xp5m # Warfare for D&D4e http://is.gd/90lbx # RT @mouseferatu: Available *today*, from Spectra: THE CONQUEROR'S SHADOW, my first published non-tie-in novel. http://tinyurl.com/y8lbh6y # RT @wordwill: Announcing RAZED: http://www.pelgranepress.com/?p=823 # PHB3 Spoilers at RPG net http://bit.ly/9ro3oY # RT @Wizards_DnD: Join the discussion on the Dominating Warlord bit.ly/aJg9pj […]
Review: Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect 2: It’s like Breakin’ 2 – Electric Boogaloo, but without all that messy breakdancing. You can’t do that in a vacuum. Turbo and Boogaloo Shrimp would implode. That is, unless Special K can discover her biotic abilities in time.
Ashes to Ashes, Death to Life
Character death. Total Party Kill. These words have long been the bane of DMs and players. DMs face scornful players and upset friends when a beloved character dies, and a possible coup when a TPK comes around. While players see their invested time, work and creation disappear before them with a single roll of the dice. Nobody, DMs and players alike, enjoy the idea of starting again or losing a beloved character within the game. However if death is never an option, if DMs fudge rolls so nobody dies, then the thrill and tension of grand battles can very quickly dissipate and the campaign can grow stale.
Critical Hits Podcast #19: 4e DMing Tips Seminar
Lead by Mike Shea of Sly Flourish, joined by Matt James of Loremaster and Dave The Game (myself), the last seminar from synDCon 2010 was about tips for DMs, primarily for 4e D&D but also some tips for GMs of all RPGs. The first part focuses on how to plan a game (and the creative process in general) and the last part talks about tips for running at the table, including ways to run initiative and track conditions.
Recent Comments