Because Gaming is More Than the Rules
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 Indie Games, RPG, Reviews, Roleplay on Mar 9th, 2011
Over the last couple years I’ve become increasingly a fan of games by designer D. Vincent Baker. Thanks to some friends of mine I’ve recently gotten a chance to play Dogs in the Vineyard after the end of our Apocalypse World game(also designed by Baker). We had our first session last week and I was [...]
Posted in Characters, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, Pathfinder, RPG, Roleplay, city building, storytelling, world building on Mar 3rd, 2011
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the cantina scene in the “Special Edition” of Star Wars always irritated me. Han shot Greedo under the table. Greedo never got to pull the trigger. That was how the scene was originally scripted and that’s how it happened as far as I’m concerned. When playing [...]
Posted in Conflict, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, Pathfinder, RPG, Roleplay, city building, storytelling, world building on Feb 24th, 2011
I have talked a number of times about my DM “notebook”. In actuality, it’s a series of text files, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets that I use to save favorite creatures, story notes, and caveats for myself to never use something again. Today, I’ve decided to share with you one of my favorite low-level encounters. I [...]
Posted in Character interaction, Characters, RPG, Urbana Arcana, storytelling on Feb 21st, 2011
Please enjoy a look into my gaming table with this adventure log from my Urban Arcana campaign. Today’s post was brought to you by my friend Kelli AKA Tanya Nyx. August 18 – 2011 My day at work started out normally. I did some business around the club: signed for a couple delivery orders, made [...]
Posted in Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, RPG, Roleplay, backstories, city building, storytelling, world building on Feb 17th, 2011
Before the hippies in the audience get up in arms, I’m talking about campaign materials. (Also, I work mostly from my laptop when DM’ing so I don’t waste paper.) I’ve got an opportunity to run a campaign again and I’m going to be doing it in a new system. I’m running my first Pathfinder game. I [...]
Posted in Character interaction, Characters, D&D 4th, Inter-player conflict, RPG, Roleplay on Feb 14th, 2011
In most of my posts, I’ve talked about creating a solid character and role-playing well, but I realized that I’ve left one glaring oversight that is perhaps the hardest feat in immersive roleplaying – being the first in your group to do it. It’s human nature to adjust your behavior to match the group you’re [...]
Posted in Characters, Conflict, D&D 4th, Dungeon Mastering, Dungeons and dragons, Hero System, RPG, Roleplay, Tropes, backstories, storytelling, world building on Feb 3rd, 2011
Amnesiac heroes are one of the most poorly used tropes out there. The worst example I can cite is Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Cloud was a tool. I’m still convinced to this day that they gave him amnesia because they were never sure how his character was supposed to develop. He’s not the [...]
Posted in Character interaction, Characters, Dungeon Mastering, Houserules, Inter-player conflict, RPG, Roleplay, Star Wars, storytelling, world building on Jan 27th, 2011
How do you know when a character has crossed over to the dark side? Star Wars: Saga Edition has dark side points: a numeric representation of how far towards the darkness a character has traveled. When a character has reached a number of dark side points greater than his/her wisdom score, that character can no [...]
