Merry Christmas to all of our readers out there. We wrote this poem for you:

Christmas is upon us.  It is a time of celebration and family.  It is also a good time to take a vacation.

Starting today, and through the end of the year, our update schedule will be scaled back.  Most days we won’t have a new update for you, but please check back on the following days:

• Friday, December 24th for our holiday special.
• Monday, December 27th for Savage Mondays.
• Friday, December 31st for our year end retrospective of the RPG industry.

We will return on January 3rd, and big things are in store very, very soon.

It’s a Savage World out there, and Apathy Games provides the tools to survive it. This is the news for the week of December 20, 2010.

Each week we answer a question from our loyal audience. Our question for this week is:

Dear Apathy,

When I have time to plan, I’ve a very descriptive GM. Sometimes to the point where I bore my players. Other times I forget to describe something, and the game sort of becomes a board game. I guess what I’m asking is, how much detail is right, and how do I prep for that?

–Running Mouth, Bismark, ND

The most useful tool you can create for yourself is a name list. You’ll regularly have to name things, either on the fly, or during game preparation. As such, having a detailed list of names for all the various cultures in your game is a must have tool.

You want your players to feel like their playing in a real, existing world. With the right tools, your players will never know otherwise.

Each week we answer a question from our loyal audience. Our question for this week is:

Dear Apathy,

I’m running a sandbox games, and my players each want to go a different direction. How do I nail them to a single train? I don’t want to railroad them, but I want them to pick a direction.

–77IM, The Internet

Each week we answer a question from our loyal audience. Our question for this week is:

Dear Apathy,

My style is to have a very detailed setting, but not to develop an overarching storyline. I like to plant a few seeds and see where the characters go with them. This approach is exciting when players run with it, but they often do not.

So I actually want the players to hijack the story. That is when I have the most fun, because everything becomes unpredictable.

–David, The Internet

We’ve made it a year. Five days a week, never missing a day, though there were a couple 11:58 p.m. posts. Even so, it’s a feat we’re rather proud of.

Each week we answer a question from our loyal audience. Our question for this week is:

Dear Apathy,

My players have just hijacked a ship because they could. They seem to be thinking, “Save the world? F That! I want a boat!” After I’m done head-desking, what do I do?

–Jay Becker, Seattle, WA