Game Mastery

Ok.  I was on a roll with new posts talking about my system.  I’m still enthusiastic to do so, but the last post was a month ago.  I’m not holding out on anyone, there’s been no legit progress on the system since that last post.  And yet I’m still enthused.  So what happened?

I fell into one of my usual traps.  I hit a tangent and spent so much time on it that I ignored the core focus of what I’m doing.

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Apparently Stack Exchange is branching out.  They now have an RPG section. I’ve been a) curious about how SE style forums would work outside of a technical context and b) pining for a new RPG community that wasn’t a traditional forum for quite a while now. Looks like this will fit the bill. So far it’s a little heavy on system mechanics questions, particular of the 4e variety, for my taste. We’ll see how it develops.

Gnome Stew linked to this post on showing detail rather than telling it.  I quite liked it, especially the part on figuring out which details to show.   Well, I agree that you don’t need to show every detail.   I thought it left a little to be desired on how to figure out which details are worth expanding.  Thankfully I’m opinionated and you’re reading, so here are my thoughts on showing detail.
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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?

Haven’t posted in a while.  Sorry about that.  Work has been busy and I’m trying to give my carpal tunnels a rest when I’m at home.

I stumbled upon this article which discusses the idea of rolling dice only to resolve conflict.  It’s kind of a back to the basics thing.  Anyway, I liked it because of its consistence with my first post on this blog regarding a diceless system that uses bid based mechanics for resolving conflicts between characters.  Basically the idea is that your ability to climb a tree has no effect on the story and should not result in a die roll.  Your ability to punch a attacker in the face does change the story and you should break out the dice.

One of my friends also happens to have set up a game related site.  Where I go into lengths about the answers I’ve found to coming GMing problems, he asks all the questsions a good GM should ask himself.  Check it out.

gonegaming.today.com

Never expected to link to a slashdot review here, but this seems pretty damn relevant: Quests, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives.

Basically this outlines how quests in games have degenerated from being meaningful to just being filler.  I pretty much agree with everything mentioned in the review and am linking to it so I don’t have to type it up myself later.

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