We start the second half of February with an interview from Mike, a Gm of 25 years, who has lots of creativity, and adores llamas. Please introduce yourself. Ya hey der. My name Mike Lindstrom and I am the proud webmaster of the creative role playing resource site Strolen’s Citadel. I first GM’ed probably around [...]
Archive | February, 2011
How to Use Body Language For Better Storytelling
By Scott J. Compton Body language helps tell the story. It paints the picture in your mind’s eye about the non-verbals occurring in a scene alongside the five senses. Good storytellers often talk about an event with a grimace on their face, the raising of an eyebrow or a cold stare. These theatrics sell the [...]
Darkest of Winters Adventure Synopsis #9
By Silveressa “Finally! Someone other then me gets covered in nasty crap!” –Jessy, relieved at avoiding being covered in dog puke. “At least until you have to clean your nephew up anyway.” –Heather, reminding him of the unpleasantly obvious. Adventure #9 Thinking quickly Renee ran in a zig zag crouch toward the parked plane, yelling at [...]
Design: Start With Your Most Limited Resource
If you GM with props and aids that represent in-game content, then start with your most restricted design element and grow your design around that. For example, if you like to have NPC portraits or graphics, then instead of designing the NPC first and questing everywhere for the perfect picture, start with the picture and [...]
Hangings can be Fun
by Mark Kibbe I recently had the pleasure of being hanged and I must say it’s a great feeling. I spent the next few days after the experience talking about the incident with my friends (and fellow players) and reliving the events leading up to the hanging. We discussed the information we had gathered and the [...]
Plot Management for Those Who Like Storytelling: Nine Events to Configure
By Michael Garcia Today we have a request for help from Gm Micheal Garcia, who is seeking advice on how to make his campaign reach a truly memorable climax. We played D&D Friday night again. Our campaign is really picking up speed. It’s starting to hit the point of critical mass, which I enjoy a [...]
GM Interview: Jared
Today we speak with Jared, a GM with a unique style of game mastering, who prefers to be as surprised as his players by what happens next. Please introduce yourself. My name is Jared Mihalich, though I go by Pieh in my online circles, and I’ve been GMing since around the Summer of 2000. I typically [...]
An Experiment, Hero Lab, 7 Nations Session #2 – Brief Word From Johnn
An Experiment As part of my goal to offer optional HTML and mobile friendly versions of the newsletter this year, I’m experimenting with the first stage, which is posting the newsletter in chunks on this blog before mailout. This offers a number of advantages: Your feedback on tips before they go into the newsletter You [...]
Darkest of Winters Adventure Synopsis #8
by Silveressa “I can’t imagine anything more disgusting then throwing up in a gas mask”. –Riley Setson, commenting on the fate of an unlucky pilot. “Really? How about crapping yer drawers in a hazmat suit” –Jessy Hannaford, proving yet again things can always be worse. The rest of the journey towards the air field proceeded [...]
Tips for GM’s, From a Player’s Perspective
By Paul Robertson Be prepared I list this first because it is the most important. I played in this adventure and for a few sessions the GM had done extremely little to no prep work. They flew by the seat of their pants for those sessions. This can usually be pulled off by more experienced [...]