Link: Your Expectations Lose to Player Participation
by sagotsky on Nov.03, 2009, under GM, links and articles
Your expectations lose to player participation is one of the best GMing articles I’ve even read, even if the title is questionable. Well, maybe it’s not one of the best, but it’s one of the ones I can learn the most from. The article reminds us that in a table top game the GM is as much the lead writer as the PCs are. Tabletop gaming is an interactive media for collaborative storytelling. If I repeatedly make any mistake as GM it’s that I broadcast too much of my own story instead of letting the PCs tell theirs.
As a sidenote, all my links thus far have bene to Gnome Stew articles. I really enjoy their blog, but sometimes I feel like I pimp them too much. Any other good GMing sites worth of linking?
Online Roleplaying
by sagotsky on Oct.09, 2009, under Uncategorized
Google Wave has potential to be an awesome platform for online roleplaying. You heard it here first.
Toning down casters without changing the game
by sagotsky on Sep.16, 2009, under dnd
Holy crap, I’ve had this blog for more than a year. Weirder still is that I still enjoy posting in it.
Anyway, today I wanted to discuss an idea I’ve had for a while but never actually played with. I’m very fond of this idea because it does something that a lot of 3rd ed D&D players request, but it hardly touches the game rules. Spellcasters, especially wizards, are criticized for being too powerful. Some fixes alter or remove spells. Others change the levels or numbers of spells casters recieve. I propose using a mechanic already present, but often ignored – spell components.
I like my games with a side of fudge.
by sagotsky on Jul.30, 2009, under game theory
One of the more controversial topics in table top RPG gaming is the fudging of dice. Some GMs feel it necessary to adjust dice results. Other players would leave the table if they found out the GM even thought such a practice could ever be acceptable. There’s no right answer to this debate and it seems like almost everyone has an opinion, so here’s mine…
I got bored and made a mapping tool
by sagotsky on Jul.22, 2009, under organization
Two games ago I decided I would never again attempt to run a game off my laptop. Ostensibly this was to keep me off the computer for a few more hours each week in a belated attempt to save my carpal tunnels. In actuality it’s because the computer was too damn useful and I kept finding new ways to make use of it when I should have been writing game.
Well, I’m between games now (that sounds a lot more depressing than it really is) and figured I could invest some time into coding up my own RPG tools.
Here we go again
by sagotsky on Jul.07, 2009, under self improvement
I’m conisdering starting up another game. Ostensibly it’s because I’m sick of being a PC, but really it’s because I miss writing posts here.
The problem is that my last game ended pretty recently and I haven’t recovered from GM fatigue yet. Published campaigns are looking more and more attractive. If only I hadn’t already attempted one and utterly hated it. The other option is to run a standard game instead of my usual type of game. The sort of thing that’s stereotypical D&D where dungeons can be stupidly complex because you don’t ask “who would ever build this thing?”
Or if anyone else has suggestions for how to deal with GM fatigue I’m glad to hear them.
Link: Mayhem Squared Circle Style
by sagotsky on May.29, 2009, under writing
If I haven’t been posting lately it’s for two reasons. Firstly, I’m not actively GMing right now. The other reason is that I’ve been reading Gnome Stew and that has satisfied my need for GM blogging. I’d like to draw your attention to today’s Gnome Stew article, Mayhem, Squared Circle Style. (As noted in the GS comments) for years I’ve been claiming that everything I know about GMing I learned from pro wrestling. I’ve been trying to sum this up in a post here, but it never goes right and I scrap the post. Gnome Stew made the post for me so now I don’t have to.
So that’s why hardcore roleplayers don’t think D&D is serious business.
by sagotsky on Apr.23, 2009, under dnd, writing
I’ve always defended D&D as a platform for roleplaying. Sure it focuses on combat by providing an abundance of interesting combat rules, but that doesn’t prevent you from roleplaying in it. I’ve run entire d20 sessions without even looking at dice. A character is a character and as long as a system supports a setting appropriate for your character, you can roleplay in that system, right?
Well, I’m not going to talk about that right now. I’ve been playing 4th edition lately and will be running a pre-written 4th ed module this weekend. I wasn’t able to get through a full reading of the mod without finally understanding why people take exception to using D&D for role play. This post is an airing of grievances (in full Festivus spirit) I had while reading through a single D&D adventure. I’ll bitch and moan and maybe, if we’re lucky, figure out a thing or two about writing good RP by examining the bad.
Why didn’t I think of that?
by sagotsky on Apr.17, 2009, under organization, player management
Alright, so Game of Thrones is finished. It was a good game but had some flaws. One of the biggest flaws wasn’t entirely my fault. We had a player who had trouble remembering what was going on. That player happened to be a spy. When he got caught and was explaining himself, he fabricated some pretty wild lies. The problem was that I couldn’t tell if the character was lying or if the player simply couldn’t remember.
Now, I’d done my homework and kept a pretty detailed log on our group wiki. The information was there, if the players cared to read it. There was actually a lot of content there, but it was by and large ignored. With the exception of our “rotating DM” game, I’ve never seen a game’s website get any real use or serve any purpose other than to frustrate the GM. Long story short, I’ve been discussing this online and somebody posted a very simple, elegant way to get your players to use forums.
Post experience and loot there. Even if your players aren’t loot whores, nobody wants to miss out on some good magic gear. Level ups even less so. Use the loot to get your players into your forum or wiki, and once there they may actually use it. I think the best part of this idea isn’t even that the players will use the forums, but that division of loot will happen outside of game time.
:)
by sagotsky on Mar.19, 2009, under dnd
Sign my game is going well: added a new player last night and then had another player deal with backstory colliding with in game events for 90+ minutes. New player was content watching backstory emerge. I think this means I’ve done my job when it comes to making the story engaging. Best of all, backstory came to light and nothing has been resolved.
