Because Gaming is More Than the Rules
Posted in Character interaction, Characters, Conflict, Dungeon Mastering, Roleplay, storytelling, world building on Apr 26th, 2011
With the country up in arms over gay rights and many states acknowledging the civil rights of homosexuals I felt it was important to post on the issue of gay tolerance in the roleplay community and playing LGBT characters in RPG campaigns. In my youth, I found that a sizable contingent of gamers suffered from [...]
Posted in Dungeon Mastering, Roleplay, storytelling on Apr 20th, 2011
Comedy can be a very difficult aspect to include in a tabletop game, especially as a DM. Players will generally find ways of injecting humorous interludes into your campaign by themselves but every so often it can be fun to purposely insert something quirky into the game as a DM. Generally speaking you shouldn’t try [...]
Posted in Character interaction, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Roleplay, storytelling, world building on Apr 19th, 2011
D&D is really cool, though it has been rad in the past. New cars are hot, bad cars are lemons and old cars are clunkers. A bummed cigarette is a loosie, a canned beer is a cold one and coke is coke but so is coke. Slang is part of our world and our daily [...]
Posted in Conflict, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, Houserules, Pathfinder, storytelling on Apr 12th, 2011
In many warrior based societies the duel is the standard way of resolving conflicts which cannot be smoothed over with diplomacy. If two nobles claim to tell the truth, if one deeply insults the other, or if a crime is committed the duel is used as judge, jury, and executioner. This is due to the [...]
Posted in Dungeon Mastering, storytelling, world building, zombies on Apr 5th, 2011
Sometimes in the course of a game’s events, things happen that cannot be easily repaired. A king may fall, a country may be invaded, an ancient scourge may return to trouble the green and peaceful land. What happens when several of these events occur in the same campaign? How many catastrophes can occur before civilization begins [...]
Posted in Character interaction, Characters, Conflict, Roleplay, storytelling on Mar 22nd, 2011
While reading through the brilliant DM of the Rings comic at Twenty Sided I came across a blog post in which Shamus discusses the simple fact that wherever there are barmaids, princesses and female PC/NPCs at least one male player will want to have sex with them. Which got me thinking, in most of the [...]
Posted in Conflict, Hero System, Superheroes, storytelling, world building on Mar 15th, 2011
Government heroes like Captain America and Captain Atom have existed for decades and the military experiment backstory is common in superhero universes. The positives and negatives of these heroes has been explored by many major publishers and the idea of government only superheroes was the subject matter of Marvel Civil War. Personally I have always [...]
Posted in Characters, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Houserules, Pathfinder, Roleplay, Urbana Arcana, items, storytelling on Mar 11th, 2011
So your party just saved a town from a dragon, the mayor renamed the town after the party leader and all the ladies want to get down with the rogue. What is that worth in game terms? Can the party get magic items and aid from powerful NPCs because of their actions? when does the [...]
Posted in Characters, Conflict, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, Hero System, Houserules, Pathfinder, RPG, Roleplay, Skill checks, Star Wars, backstories, city building, storytelling, world building on Mar 10th, 2011
Time to get personal. I have several permanent injuries. I tore a groin muscle several years ago. I’ve had both ankles surgically reconstructed. I also have a bad back from being rear-ended 3 times in one year. Over the years, I have learned to compensate for these injuries. I still enjoy quite a few athletic [...]
Posted in Characters, Conflict, Roleplay, Star Wars, Tropes, storytelling on Mar 8th, 2011
Everyone who has seen the original Star Wars trilogy remembers that classic scene where Han and Luke dress up as storm troopers and take Chewie up to the detention level. The scene is finished off with Leia famously saying that Luke was too short to be a stormtrooper. Thinking on this scene I realized that [...]
