Game Mastery

So this isn’t a problem I’ve ever had to handle as a GM, but it’s one that comes up regularly and I’m sick of retyping my answers.  I’m also a programmer, so I find the optimization of repeated tasks to be interesting.
At any rate, here are some tips for speeding up a game with too many players.  I expect to add to this post as I find more solutions.

(continue reading…)

Last post about 4e PDFs.  For realsies.

I wrote a script that adds margins to the PDFs produced by Character Builder.  It’s available as a website.  Just upload your PDF and download a new one with margins.  At some point I’ll add an option to control the margin size.

http://files.sagotsky.com/pymargins/index.py

I always knew that the little things counted.  And I always knew that as a GM I sucked at giving out those little things.  One of my difficulties as a GM is that I don’t like to hear myself talk (and yet I never have that problem as a blogger – maybe I should run a game in WordPress).  In my new game, which has struggled to get off the ground, I’ve been forcing myself to mention more of the little details.  What I didn’t realize was that while the little things always count, if used wrong they’d count as negative.

(continue reading…)

For some odd reason the 4e character builder fails at making PDFs.  The margins aren’t right so when you print you lose a bit of data.   Here’s a workaround:

1. (continue reading…)

I made a couple tools to help with my 4e game.  They’re of limited appeal and they’re still works in progress, but someone out there might find them interesting.

If you haven’t heard of vim or LaTeX (the typesetting system, not the material) this post doesn’t concern you and should be ignored unless you’re having a really boring day.

(continue reading…)

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.

(continue reading…)

A couple months back I read about a new way to play D&D that was intriguing and simple.  It’s called 6e or level 6 epic.  The idea is that once you reach level 6 your character is considered epic level.  None of that level 7-20 business (obviously a game could be run with a different epic value, the idea remains the same).  Instead of leveling, characters gain feats.  They grow in power, but remain pretty much mortal.

But I get bored of feats.  You get too many of them this way.  Instead, what I suggest doing is repeating levels.

(continue reading…)