Every campaign has them, the bar scenes. The characters are sitting at the bar recovering from their latest adventure when the GM decides to describe the house specials in overly complex detail. The players may try to pay attention, but most will have trouble remembering the detailed descriptions of five different drinks. This can easily [...]

Yesterday we explored how what your players see and hear can be modified to raise your sessions to the next level. Today we will explore the senses of taste, smell and touch. Touch This is the hard one. The first way to address touch ties directly in with sight. Recovering all your seating with identical, [...]

If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time you have detected a certain enviable snobbishness evident in our writing and general discourse. Dazzled by the possibilities you have decided to follow our model and add some class to your game. Great! While we have given general advice you may have some questions [...]

Many of the paper cuts we collected revolved around not having something you need when you need it. Maybe it’s pencils. Maybe it’s a new character sheet for a NPC created on the spot. Or maybe you simply have a new player over and don’t have dice for them. Fortunately, the solution to all of these problems is the same: proper preparation.

To be perfectly honest with you, I collect gaming crap. I try out lots of little tools to try and make the experience better, but in the end I just have a bunch of clutter. And so, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a more elegant solution for my gaming needs. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve finally settled on the three ring binder as the centerpiece.

Sadly the Roleplaying Tools category of our blog tends to be woefully under utilized category in our blog.  Mostly because I’m long winded and can come up with way to many GM/player advice posts that don’t really fit in the “tools” category.  Fortunately for you, I found more tools to fill it with. Thinking Outside [...]

While at PAX: Prime this year I had the pleasure of watching the Acquisitions Inc. panel; Acquisitions Inc. is a D&D game played by the Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade, Scott Kurtz of PVP and Wil Wheaton of general geek fame. While the group is immensely fun the watch, the most fun I’ve had [...]

Rule 2 of encounter building is: Make every encounter unique. Nothing does this better than building an interesting and dynamic environment. A dynamic environment is one that changes. One that provides opportunities and pitfalls for enemies and allies alike. Choosing an Environment The very first thing I do when designing an encounter is to come [...]

Encounter design is what separates a great game from a good one. While encounters can take many different forms, and have even more influences, the basics for making them fun and memorable are actually pretty simple, and can be summed up with the following three rules:

So you’ve decided to change the rules. Hold up a minute. Who do you think you are? The rules were designed by people who got paid to do it, probably comply with an underlying structure, and, hopefully, were extensively playtested. In many cases you may be implementing the rule wrong or are missing another rule [...]