I’ve talked before about the importance of creating a character that is distinctly different from yourself (here), so now let’s tackle one of the biggest differences of all: gender. Roleplaying the opposite gender, or cross-playing, is often one of the most difficult things for even an experienced player to pull off consistently. Adding to the difficulty is the [...]
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Posted in Character interaction, Conflict, D&D 4th, Deities, Dungeon Mastering, Information control, Magic, Uncategorized, storytelling, world building on Nov 16th, 2010
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, [...]
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When you run a campaign you are writing a story with 3-5 other people, a novel even. The players are the protagonists and you the storyteller get to role-play the antagonist(s). Often in my own games and in the games of others weakness in the story is a symptom of a weak villain or *gasp* [...]
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Last week I talked about character friendships and how to create them, so now let’s talk about a much trickier character relationship: the rivalry or animosity. I say tricky because this type of relationship can be a fun, valuable, and often hilarious addition to your campaign when done correctly. And when done incorrectly, you can [...]
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Posted in Characters, Roleplay, Uncategorized on Nov 5th, 2010
In modern fantasy RPGs one of the forces bringing gaming into the mainstream is the advent of anime fandom in the United States. Anime is fantastic in ways that puts even some of the highest western fantasy to shame. Also anime has a lot variety as a medium and tends to have something for everyone. [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 1st, 2010
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my favorite part of any heroic tale is the friendships that form between these epic characters. Firefly has Mal and Zoe, Star Wars has Luke and Han, Lord of the Rings takes it to another level with Frodo and Samwise. The legendary things that happen to [...]
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Fantasy campaign settings are and always have been influenced by fantasy novels. To say that 1st edition D&D was not inspired by Lord of the Rings or to deny the link between the fantasy novel industry and gaming would just be silly. Some popular fantasy novels are directly linked to fantasy gaming, such as Dragonlance [...]
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Gaming is a great activity, or at least we all seem to think so. It’s fun, social, and can be a great way to unwind. Of course, gaming is also a time commitment, since most groups meet for a set time period on some kind of regular basis. Sooner or later, no matter how dedicated [...]
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Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 30th, 2010
When creating a character for a game you need to be sure your optimization doesn’t lead to an arms race between you and the storyteller. Allow me to explain what I mean when I say arms race. Let’s say you are an experienced player and you know the character creation rules. You know the combination [...]
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In America, generally the question “So what do you do?” is answered with your type of employment – your career and how you make money. In many European countries, however, it means “What are you passionate about? What are your interests, your hobbies?” The European question takes into account a very important fact, both in [...]
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