by Heather Grove

When you create your own campaign there’s so much you could spend your time on. Should you write up non-player characters (NPCs) with rich backgrounds? What about scenes you expect will take place in game, and speeches spoken by NPCs? Should you detail the background of a plot, or the things you think should happen next? What about designing puzzles and contests, or even maps? Are you better off creating rough notes or intricate details?

There are two rough axes involved here. One is level of detail, and the other is type of material. Let us start with type of material, because level of detail tends to be wrapped up in the type of material you write.

Non-Player Characters

NPCs are the backbone of many good adventures. If you’re big into role-playing rather than hack-and-slash, NPCs are probably the most important part of your preparation. Even if you prefer the hack-and-slash they can provide many a quest or adventure idea. As long as you have a well-detailed character you can adapt him to any situation. If you know your character’s motivations, he can be a part of long conversations that require little preparation at all.

When creating NPCs who are meant to be more than combat-antagonists, the following are useful details to think about. Whether you write a sentence on each or entire paragraphs, you’ll find your effort more than repaid in plot ideas and conversational material during game.

Start with the character’s family. Who are his parents, his brothers and sisters, his spouse, his children? Too many characters in roleplaying games seem to spring fully formed from the head of the game master (GM), with no family and no childhood. The more layers your NPCs have, the more interesting they will seem to your players.

The character’s history. How did he get to where he is today? The more you know about his motivations and ambitions, the events that shaped his life, the easier it will be to figure out what he should do in the context of your game.

The character’s abilities. What is he good at? What is he bad at? How, where, and from whom did he learn such things?

Mundane details of the character’s life. What job does he have? Where does he live? You don’t need lots of detail here; just a few things to work with. Characters seem much more “real” when they have these sorts of details. It also becomes easier for your players to attempt actions related to an NPC if you know where he’s likely to hang out and what he’ll be up to.

The character’s plans for the future. Almost everyone has at least some idea of where he’s heading and what he wants out of life. If he’s a scientist, what projects does he work on? If he’s a sorcerer, what magic’s does he seek? What research does he work on? What personal goals motivate him?

The character’s blind spots. Everyone has them, and few GMs think to detail them. Does your NPC trust a certain type of person implicitly? Does he believe himself invincible, even though he isn’t? This may provide the foundation for how your players can blackmail or defeat an NPC.

The character’s personality. How does he act? How will he react when treated in different ways? This is one way to make each of your characters stand out from the others.

What does the character look like? A person’s appearance can convey a great deal about him.

You might think all of your plot ideas will come from the “plans for the future” and “history” sections, but you’d be surprised. The most amazing inspirations come from family, mundane details, personality, abilities, and even appearance.

Scenes and Speeches

Scenes and speeches can be useful at times, but they’re of limited value. For one thing, it’s very easy to obsolete them. If your players make a single choice or ask a single question that you don’t expect it can invalidate an entire scene or speech.

Under certain circumstances they’re useful. For example, if you know that a certain character will have a certain dream, and that he will observe it passively, then it’s probably safe to write it up. If the characters will hear a public speech that they have no reason to interfere with, then there’s a decent chance it will go off as planned.

Instead, you might be better off loosely sketching out scenes and speeches. It takes much less time to outline a scene briefly than to write out every detail. Make a note or two about the physical details of the scene to give you a place to start from when describing things. Note who is likely to be in attendance, and what their attitudes and likely actions will be. Write a sentence about what purpose the scene is meant to serve, so that if it goes wrong you can try to save the purpose if not the details. Then you might note the expected beginning point, the expected end point, and any major events that should take place. If you think of things that might not go the way you want, make a note or two about how you’d handle them.

In the case of a speech, you might loosely outline the points to be covered, and write down any choice turns of phrase that occur to you. Know everything you can about the speaker – his motivations, what he’s trying to achieve with his speech, and his attitude toward the player characters (PCs). That way you can adapt the speech to any events that you didn’t expect. And if the players’ actions have eliminated the scene or speech you had planned, you won’t lose nearly as much prep work.

Writing out a list of possible scenes with a few helpful details for each can give you an entire evening’s worth of material that you can adapt to player action as necessary. It also means that you won’t feel pressured to make sure that your scenes run as planned. If you believe that your scenes must happen in a certain way, then you may railroad the players into playing the game your way – and this tends to frustrate players.

Plot Background

The background of a plot consists of a number of details. Take, for example, a seemingly simple quest in which the PCs must retrieve a holy relic from a derelict church. Who has asked them to perform this quest? What is it that she wants the relic for – or what does she really want, if not the relic? Who is she and what is she up to? Who will the PCs encounter along the way, and will they seek to help or hinder the PCs? Why? Where do the PCs need to go? What do they need to do? How may they fail or succeed?

A line or two on each may be all that you need. Or you may deeply detail each person and possibility. You may also want to make notes based on this background as to what might happen during game (see the notes on “Scenes and Speeches,” above). The longer you expect a plot to take, and the more intricate it will be the more prep work you’ll want to do. Also, if you expect the NPCs from the plot to stick around in-game afterward, then it pays to detail them up front (this keeps them consistent).

As long as you have this background, then you have material to work with. Whether you extrapolate from it before game starts or as you go along, you know where you’re coming from.

Puzzles and Contests

Puzzles and contests come in all sizes, complexities, and flavors. Whether you’ve planned a simple trial by combat or a complex puzzle with clues hidden throughout an entire civilization, you’ll need to plan ahead. Small, simple puzzles are usually pretty straightforward. Intricate ones may consist of entire webs of clues and payoffs.

You may expect me to say that keeping track of your clues, where the PCs can pick them up, and what they lead to is the reason to plan these things out ahead of time. In fact, there’s another reason entirely. You can’t ever be certain in advance which clues will work out, which ones will make no sense to your players, and which will be sidestepped altogether. After all, no GM can anticipate everything her players will think and do. You’ll want to be able to fix things on the go. If you plan ahead of time, you can double-stack each clue or piece of information, hiding it in two places, providing two means to get to it, or at least giving yourself a back-up plan in case anything goes strange.

Maps and Props

If you have to give players props like maps, make them as enigmatic as possible. The more details you put in writing, the less you can change in order to keep up with your players. Also, keep in mind that a map of places the PCs haven’t gone yet doesn’t have to be entirely accurate -so even if you do mark everything up, that shouldn’t stop you from changing things.

If your players are the sorts of folk who will really enjoy the feel of an authentic-looking scroll with real hieroglyphics on it, then you may wish to spend the time to create one. If they’ll look at it once and then never pull it out again, you’re probably better off making a five-minute knock-off.

When considering how much effort to put in on something, always think about what the payoff will be. It can be frustrating to spend an hour lovingly crafting a prop, only to have it ignored. Similarly, it can be embarrassing to put five minutes in on it, only to have the players minutely study every detail.

Flexibility

When it comes down to it, the preparation of material should be all about flexibility. You can never predict everything your players will do, so you need to be ready for the unexpected. The more flexible the material you’ve prepared the more ready you’ll be. Background material is infinitely changeable, and provides a great deal of inspiration for in-game events while retaining its flexibility; thus, you can detail it to your heart’s content. You are limited only by your free time. In-game material is easily rendered obsolete, and thus you’re usually better off roughly sketching such material and leaving yourself as much wiggle-room as possible. You’ll need your rough notes in order to keep track of where things should be going, but the more detailed they are, the less flexible they become.

Flexibility benefits both you and your players. For you, it means you’re less likely to throw out hours of work. For your players, it means that you’re less likely to feel it necessary to railroad them into your preferred course of play. Everyone wins.

Now I’m going to tell you a secret. If you’re a GM without a lot of experience, the idea of improvising from rough notes probably makes you nervous. You think the players will notice that you seem unprepared. Believe it or not, GMs tend to come across as more unprepared when they detail everything that’s supposed to happen in-game.

Why? Because more often than not they get caught with their pants down when the PCs do something unexpected, and then they have no idea what to do. GMs who improvise tend to feel as though they’re disorganized, and that it must show horribly. But the players rarely notice.

I’ve heard lots of players comment on how well-detailed and gorgeous any given campaign or chronicle was, only to see the GM’s eyes widen. He then makes some comment about how he was really doing everything by the seat of his pants, and felt terribly disorganized.

Yet this comes across as more prepared to the players rather than less, because the GM makes things suit the PCs’ actions. It’s the GM who sits there staring at his intricate scene details and then tries to find a way to shoehorn the PCs into them who comes across as unprepared.

By Gareth Hodges

The Aaargh factor

Technically, a bureaucracy is designed to help a government or large group deliver services in a timely, efficient and effective manner. Traditionally however, they are viewed as mockeries that frustrate, delay and ultimately fail to produce results. The first step in creating a bureaucratic system for your gaming world is what I term the “Aaargh!” factor…if you’ve ever stood in line at lunchtime in a government office, you’ll know what I mean. In game terms, how well do you want the system to actually do what it is “designed” to do?

In a roleplaying game, especially futuristic ones, it is possible to create a system with little or no Aaargh. Instantaneous communication, automated systems and well trained, well placed and friendly staff or efficient AIs could mean that your waiting time is negligible. This doesn’t lead to very much opportunity unless it goes wrong, in which case it can rocket up the Aaargh scale and lead to all sorts of fun.

Moderate Aaargh is probably what people encounter in their daily lives in developed nations. Not every person is appropriate for their job, not all the rules make sense to the people enforcing them, there is either too much or too little redundancy in the system, blurry lines of responsibility, low accountability for individuals, and a less than adequate consumer focus. Somehow, things still get done, they may not be perfect, but it’s still a step forward.

High Aaargh can be bewildering, complex and downright infuriating. Perhaps you have to bribe your way through each level of authority to get things done…the concept of “baksheesh” (or socially accepted palm-greasing) is still in force in Turkey today. People who work in the system might look out for themselves, do the least work possible, and not care about results. The legislation they work with could be highly misinterpret able, contradictory or out-of-date (such as inIndia, which had the most complex and bewildering legal system ever known). Things can happen without people knowing why; blunders can change or even end lives and none of makes any sense to anyone…

This can be a lot of fun to role-play through; if your PCs are prepared for a lot of frustration…they didn’t have a Dragon Slaying License? “Section 354 (f) of the Greater Reptile, Snake and Associated Large Scale Cold-Blooded Organisms Act of 1376 clearly states…”

Headless, Hydraic or Cyclopic Bureaucracies

This way of looking at an organizational structure can give you lots of ideas for campaign background and story hooks.

The Headless bureaucracy

The Headless bureaucracy goes nicely with high Aaargh…no-one knows who is ultimately in charge because the lines of communication are so tangled. Orders come in and are followed just because that’s what happens, and the results are no-ones fault because there is nowhere to point the finger. A version of this is the Decapitated bureaucracy…a formerly ordered system which has failed for some reason, and now procedures are followed out of habit.

The Hydraic bureaucracy

The Hydraic bureaucracy is what most of us are familiar with…there are a lot of heads waving around, responsible for different things. They can get tangled, but there are several defined points of authority that are ultimately responsible. They can do a lot of different things at once, and if they all pull together they are a force to be reckoned with…more often they’ll be pulling in opposite directions, which creates the tension you can use in games.

Perhaps one group of the system is doing something that overlaps/impinges on/contradicts another’s area of responsibility and the PCs are sent in to find out what is going on…be prepared for a lot of hard-talking! Typical example is in the jurisdictional disputes we see in law enforcement. To use the American example, having “The Feds” called in to take over an investigation can lead to a lot of story hooks.

The Cyclopic Bureaucracy

The Cyclopic bureaucracy is one that has a single vision, a single purpose, and is going to get there, regardless… Dictatorships, or other bodies with a single individual or group at the helm can come under this category, if the whole bureaucracy is geared toward a specific outcome…i.e. placing an economy on a war footing changes every level of governance relating to the economy.

In a highly religious system, the whole flavor of it, and all the laws, guidelines and codes can be oriented toward furthering or promoting the religion. For a good modern example, just read a bit about the Taliban inAfghanistan.

Bureaucracies can also be Chameleons…they may look Headless, Hydraic or Cyclopic, but are they really? Only those behind the scenes can tell you.

“How can I help you?” or “How do the PCs interact with the bureaucracy?

The most important aspect to consider is the interaction with the game. You don’t need to detail all the areas of a monolithic bureaucracy if the party will rarely encounter it. Are there offices in every major population centre for people to make inquiries, get relevant documents and complain? Are their traveling “auditors”, inspectors or enforcers of the rules of the bureaucracy? Is the blacksmiths shop your PC just opened going to get a visit from the local Smithing Guild inspectors, or do they just apply for a permit? What standards are expected when dealing with the bureaucracy and what would they ignore? How far can you step over the line before you are warned, closed down or charged?

When a PC needs something official attended to, how long will it take? How many hands does it pass through to get where it needs to, and how many of those people actually know what they’re doing? Do the PCs just walk into an office and speak to an attendant at a counter, or do they need to petition to see a hard-to-reach official?

Rather than the old bar brawl, maybe the group meets in a stifling waiting room at the local government offices, or a long line of weary applicants for a certain permit.

Also remember that PC’s may not be able to circumvent certain levels of bureaucracy…how difficult would it be for you or me to get to see the President of theUSA, the Queen of England or the Pope? Besides, the real power may not rest with the obvious head anyway.

All of these issues, of course, require people to interact with. A single chain of command in an organization can provide a huge variety of NPC’s for the group to deal with, and they don’t have to be cardboard clones. If you work in an office, you have a whole range of personalities that you already know well just waiting to be used!

Red Tape

Why not present the PCs with a form or three to be filled out…applications for gun licenses, hunting licenses, border passes and passports, car registration, certification as a professional in their field, birth, marriage and death certificates, and so on…if you have the right form you can make the most mundane thing an exploration of bureaucracy…and if your PCs haven’t filled in the right forms, then they could be in a lot of trouble…see what happens when you are caught with an unregistered semi-automatic in Australia.

Then there are the positives; letters of Marque, Citations, Awards of Achievement and the range of other accolades officials can shower on you. Have the PCs done some civic-minded things? Have the Mayor hold a celebration in their honor. Bureaucrats and politicians are notorious for their interest in public ceremony. And what can you do with the keys to the city?

In essence, if it needs a signature, stamp or seal, it can be a plot hook. What happens when the local Merchant Guild master has his official seal stolen?? How grateful would he be to get it back? And what kind of mess can that seal cause in the wrong hands?

Making the World Go Round

Ultimately, your bureaucracy will at least be paying lip service to achieving something. The more people are involved in creating a bureaucracy, the more you have the opportunity for plot ideas as the system tries or fail to deliver. Anything from an overworked, overstressed official hiring the group to ensure his confidential documents reach the head office, to carrying out some bizarre and cryptic order handed down from on high, to traveling around troubleshooting various problems within the organization, to hostage negotiation when a maddened worker goes “postal”. From the outside, a bureaucracy can make your PCs lives hell, or grease their way to easy street, if they learn how to deal with it.

We all interact with bureaucracy at some point in our lives…look around you, make a few adjustments, and you have the basis for a fun, challenging and different game.

by Rana Loreus

How many times has Murphy visited your gaming session and hurls a few Missiles of Murphy or Power Word: Murphy’s Law at you? GMing is a mind-boggling task – there are NPC’s to keep track off, secret dice rolls to make, complex rules to remember and the power-hungry, partially-insane munchkin power-gamer to keep in line. The potential for committing grave mistakes are great.

Right up I will not say, “Don’t worry, read this article and all will be fine!” Rather, basing on my own personal experiences, I have gathered here a miscellaneous collection of things which may go wrong. Forewarned is forearmed.

But first, a friendly disclaimer. Every GM is a totally different, unique individual with his own style of GMing and their own skill-sets. Hence, depending on who you are, some of the items below may more likely inspire a chorus of “Dohs” than gasps of joy and delight due to the discovery of some awesome insights.

1.      An Ounce of Preparation is worth more than a Pound of Agitation

How many times have you heard this? “What’s with all the time-consuming planning? I am the type of GM who flows with the Muse – I will be like a flowing river, able to adapt to any situations the players throw at me.” Without proper preparation, however, it is very likely he will flow as a pool of dark, stagnant water.

A game session requires tones of preparation. Beside the scenario itself, there are character sheets to be printed, dice to be sought, people to be called, and a number of myriad details, depending on what game you are playing and whether miniatures are gracing your gaming table or not. Getting all the logistical details done properly is good for a GM’s emotional health and confidence. Ever got the sinking feeling that you are suppose to bring something all-vital and important, but had forgotten about it? Too much of that could be potentially stressful.

Beside the hard, physical details of the game, there are also the “soft” aspects – the adventure itself. I am the type of GM who loves to details thing out in advance – some GMs I know prefer to leave the details to their spontaneous creativity processes. I am not against GMs who want to “be like flowing river and gliding clouds”, but I believe that preparation is still important for both extremes.

By preparation of the scenario, I don’t mean brain-storming all the possible actions that the players may take, or consulting a psychic hotline to foresee what may happen. What I meant is to gain a general understanding and hone your knowledge about your scenario. Let take your typical defacto dungeon crawl as an example. Say the dungeon is built into an active volcano. Isn’t it a good idea to read up on volcano, the temperature of lava, and the properties of volcanic soil and so on? Let say you plan to have a volcanic eruption during a dramatic battle of epic proportions; will you be hard-pressed to describe what comes out from the volcano beside “fire and lava”?

Isn’t a good idea to brush up on your geography of the area the game is set in? You never know where the players will want to go next, and unless you want to impose your omnipotent wills on them, it’s quite hard to confine players to one small, specific region. There’s no need to remember the specific names of towns or villages, but it helps to understand the geography of the area. For example, say your party decides to head into a coastal region where a famous port is situated, and they wish to find a village inn to rest their feet. Now if you have some idea of what the port is, the general situation of the region (is it filled with bandits?) Is travel safe? Are there any power-mad sorcerers stalking the land?) and so on, you can come up with an imaginary village which fits well into the game world.

Let say that your game takes place in a pseudo-Roman Empire, where culture and events run parallel along the greatRoman Empireof our world. Being prepared would mean reading up on Roman history, understanding their culture, finding out what are common names during those era and so forth, so when you are called to aid-lib you can come up with something convincing and near authentic.

Such research can help you to deal with unexpected actions, and provides juicy materials if you shall decide to wing anything (be it a plot twist, or a NPC, or just some details) on the spur of the moment.

2.      Plot Hooks shall always flows into the Main Plot

Let suppose you are one of those enlightened GMs who has given up beginning a new adventure with the equivalent of the tavern scene… Now, you are faced with the difficulty of drawing your players into your adventure. How? One of the time-honored and tested ways is through plot hooks, and they work fine, but like all things, they can be over done.

One of the most terrible things with plot hooks is that players may take the lure – plot, hook and line – in all one terrible gulp and refuses to let go. The plot hook, which you have so cunningly conceived to draw the player into the main quest, has become the main quest for the player in question. He sees the tree for the forest, and pay scant attention to the main, glorious storyline which you have labored on for so long in secrecy.

Here is how I shot myself in the foot. In order to draw two of my PCs to an area where the adventure takes place, I set one after an errant Sorcerer who has razed her home village, and give an objective for another PC to assassinate. The main plot of the adventure is a mysterious plague which is running unchecked. Unfortunately, the two PCs ignore the plague, and go about seeking their own personal objectives. Undeniably, their own personal agenda is more interesting than the plague.

This also has the side-effects of the PCs going solo, and not working together, for both of them has radically two different goals. One player is obsessed with finding the sorcerer, while the other can only think of ways to assassinate the objective. Of course, with some flexibility, the two plot-lines can be reconciled with the main one, but the main thing is this – the plot hooks work too well.

Hence, when using plot hooks, make sure that the plot hooks do not steal the thunder from the main plot, and shall not be too distinct from the main plot-line. Or be prepared to put the “main plot” on the side-line for a while. For my case, a close friend who has been infected with the plague and is asking a PC to help him is a more subtle and appropriate plot-hook.

If you like to give players side-missions to accomplish, then do make sure that the main plot-line grabs their attention as soon as the game starts.

3.      Don’t Read from the Text (and don’t rely on the Text alone)

No, no, I am not advocating the memorization of the entire module text. Rather, I am encouraging you not to be bound to whatever text the adventure is based on. Here are some justifications.

First, players know when you are reading and when you are talking. When you read, it is hard to maintain eye contact with the players, and your voice may take on a “droning feeling”. Unless you are a professional newsreader, it is difficult to make read text sounds dynamic and interesting.

Second, when you are reading from the module text, it is easy to be bound by the text description. For example, say that a particular scene takes place in the day, but your players are strange fellows – and when the scene finally happens, it is now night. If you read straight from the text, you have to mentally adjust the text to the situation. What if you come across an incompatible description half-way through the text?

This happens to me. A group of soldiers were beating up on an old man, and so one of the PC cast a Darkness spell to confuse the group. When the soldiers have left, I began reading from the description however how villagers with lanterns went to help the old man, before remembering that there was a magical darkness in the area.

Third, the module text is mixed with stuff that you needs when GMing, and extras which you ought to have read and understand beforehand. Back in schools, when we learnt about doing presentations (such as to introduce a new product, or a topic of any sort), it is a bad idea to bring the entire textbook or script out to the front. One reason is because it is unwieldy. In the case of the book, the information which you need may be buried within a dense block of paragraphs. In the case of the script, you may be tempted to read from it.

The same reasons apply to GMing too. The module text may be filled with information which you don’t need at the moment. The description of the room may be intermixed with the information on how the secret door behind the painting of the skeletal Mona Lisa could be opened, which you do not need at the moment.

All right, so if we abolish the use of module text, what then? Do we expect GMs to remember everything? No, but I am suggesting that GMs shall keep a list of key-points before him. So instead of a whole description of a room, the GM list down the most eye-catching and important features in point-form, with short snippets of descriptive text, and link them together on the spur of the moment. This helps the GM to, at a glance, decide which details to keep and which to omit. A summary can be scanned and processed by the mind faster than a page full of text and irrelevant information.

Of course, this calls for more work, on the GM’s part. But it helps to keep the presentation smooth, and free you from the tyranny of the module text.

4.      Be fluent with the use of any extra accessories

With the advent of technology, laptops and PDAs have found their niche among the world of table top role-playing. Accessories need not to be high-tech too. A CD player hooked up to a set of speakers can provide atmospheric music which is excellent in setting the mood of the game.

Whatever extra “accessory” you employ in your game, it is important to remember that the game is about the game, not the cool gadget. You shall not draw too much attention to the gadget. Oh, I do not mean that you cannot say, “Oh, behold the cool stuff which I have set up for our gaming pleasure!” I am meaning that whatever cool gadget you are using, it must not distract the players. There are two likely situations when this could happen.

The first is when the gadget is not working at all. If you panic and flutter, making a scene out of it, it may upset the players and make them nervous, especially if you have no back-up plans. Losing your cool is not good for your composure too, especially since GMing can kill quite a lot of your brain cells in just one day. Or even worse, some aspects of the game may depend on the gadget. For example, if you decide to eschew the sheer joy of rolling dice physically and opt for an electronic number generator instead, your game will be severely crippled if the generator doesn’t work at all. In such cases, always think of a back-up plan. Are you using Microsoft PowerPoint to simulate a “Mission Impossible” style briefing? Great, but prepare some paper hand-outs too increase the power is down for the day and your laptop has not power supply left.

The second is when the gadget is working, but you are not experienced with its use. You may end up with errors, pointless delays when you try to get to the right menu or to choose the correct setting. All this could lead to long stretches of waiting which may cast doubts on the validity of the cool, expensive gadget. When this happens, you are drawing the player’s attention away from the game to the gadget which now dominates your attention and which is now the cause of many hiccups. Worse, you may even lose your temper at your cool gadget and this may cause unnecessary tension among the group. (After all, if the GM is god, and the GM is angry, how would the players fare?)

When a cool gadget works, it shall blend seamlessly into the gaming experience. Hence, when deploying a gadget, make sure you are prepared for it. Let take the example of the simple and humble CD-Player. Do you know what tracks you wish to play? Can you locate the PAUSE or FORWARD button in a pitch? Have you found the optimal volume for the music?

Of course, when trying out something new with your gaming group, it is good idea to hold a few trials first, to see if it really meshes with your gaming style. Some players I knew took an affront to the dice-rolling program on my PDA – they rather see me rolling the dice than to tap the screen with my stylus.

5.      Spend as little time on dice as possible

Pareto’s Law basically states that in a process, 80% of the delay is due to 20% of the factors. When it comes to gaming, one of the main causes of delay could be the dice.

Dice are our one of the most time-honored tools of our trade. With it we decide life and death, destiny and fate, black and white. This handy little device, however, could be capacious at times, but can be tamed with little efforts.

What are the problems with the dice? Well, they can slip off the table and roll wildly about. It takes some time to generate a random number with the dice. How can we smoothen the process of using dice?

One thing which I do is to set a cardboard box, or a bowl, in the centre of the table and insists the players to roll their dice into the container. This way, we eliminate the problem of dice falling off the table. Another way, albeit more drastic, is to switch to a gaming system which uses only one type of dice (a d10, in our case). Having to pick out a d8 takes some time when it is mixed around with a whole mess of d12 and d10, unless you have been role-playing for years.

Depending on your game, you can also combine some dice rolls. For example, in D20, you can roll your combat roll and damage dice together, instead of rolling to see if you hit your opponent, and then rolling the damage dice to determine the amount of damage done. It helps if you have dice of different-color, so you can specify which dice is for the to-hit, and which is for the damage.

Another idea is to eliminate dice with pre-rolled dice charts. With those charts, you can grab a random number out from the thin air anytime and any when. Of course, some players may take affront to this as well, so be sure to consult your players. What I would suggest is to pre-roll random numbers for situations which call for numerous dice rolls. For example, in D20, say you are pitting five NPC’s against the players, so you would have to make 5 Initiative Rolls. You can streamline the process by pre-rolling the five Initiative Rolls first.

If an aspect of the rules calls for a roll of many dice (consider the “Overpowered Death Spell 101″ which does 100d4 points of damage), change the rules to streamline the dice-rolling. Instead of rolling one hundred D4, change it to a roll of 1d10 x 1d10 x d4. Now, a rules lawyer may point out the probability chart for 100d4 and d10 x d10 x d4 is different -yes, that’s true, but the time needed to roll 100d4 is also vastly different from the alternative.

6.      Be sure to provide enough information to keep the game going

Open-ended gaming has many merits – it has the potential of crafting creative, unexpected storylines and providing a most satisfying gaming experience, as opposed to a “railroad” game. However, it can also be a recipe for boredom of an epic proportion.

In an open-ended game, the PCs have more freedom than in a game where the plot is fixed and railroaded. Hence, you must be prepared to give the PCs enough information to give a sense of purpose, regardless of their actions. Without a sense of purpose, the PCs may wander about in circles, being bored to tears.

Have you ever play a computer role-playing game when suddenly the plot abruptly cuts off, leaving you scratching your head in bewilderment? You have no direction where to go next or what to do, and so you started visiting all the towns in the game, hoping to trigger off the next scripted sequence which will propel the plot forward. This could happen in a pen and paper game too.

As the PCs have freedom as to where they want to go, and to whom they wish to speak to, they may at times miss out on some terribly important events which you have masterfully scripted, or bypass a clue which you have so brilliantly planted. They may ignore crucial NPC’s helpful to their cause or choose a fork in the road which brings them somewhere less interesting. That’s the price of freedom and that where your flexibility have to make up for. Ensure wherever the PCs go, the PCs have enough information to carry on the game, lest they end up just wandering about, just waiting for something to happen.

One such example could be a typical dungeon crawl. Say within theTempleofCertain Doomthere is a locked door which behind it lays a vital artifact to the quest. You have devised a fiendish puzzle to ward the door, and the PCs, for all their worth and mettle, could not solve it.

Now imagine, what if, due to the amount of freedom in the game, they have missed an all-important clue which states that the artifact could be found behind the door. Your PCs may spend a few minutes on the door, then give up, and proceed to spend the rest of the day combing the dungeon for the artifact.

(Some GMs, at this point, may snicker at the worthless party of hapless adventurers, thinking that they are getting what they deserved. True, the party may not be the brightest sparks around and if you feel its fun to gloat at them, go ahead. However, the players will not find this fun, or funny.)

If the PCs know, or realize, that the artifact lies behind the door, then they may seek ways to open the door. But what if, due to the freedom you have given to them, they have overlooked an important clue in solving the puzzle? They may wander all over the place, trying to look for something which can help them, but not being sure what it is actually.

There are two ways the above problems could be solved. One relies on the GM’s ingenuity, the other on the GM’s planning. If the players have freedom, likewise so do the GM. To preserve the flow of the game, you may have to change details on the moment. So the players can’t solve the Fiendish Locked Door Puzzle? Hell, open a new route which test some other skills beside their defective intelligent. Or perhaps drop in a clue the next time they search another spot. Being flexible is a prerequisite for open-ended games.

The other depends on the GM’s planning skill – make sure there are plenty of clues scattered about, and indications as to where help could be found. For the case of the Fiendishly Locked Door Puzzle, you could maybe leave a plaque which says “This Puzzle is Courtesy of the Great Wizard Merlin”. Hence, the players, knowing that Merlin the Wizard is the one who crafted the Locked Door Puzzle, can then start looking for more information regarding Merlin, hoping that they may unearth something which helps.

There is a vast difference between wandering clueless about and following a lead. The latter gives a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, while the former is likely to inspire agitation and frustration.

The examples may be contrived, but they apply in lot of other cases. Throughout the game, always evaluate the amount of information which you have given to the players. Are those enough to give the PCs an idea of what to do next? If not, step in and drop a lead so the plot may continue.

7.      Avoid extended, gratuitous sequences of character introduction

It is evident that you have expended time and effort in your NPC development. Each of them features a portrait, a bio several pages long and a detailed write-up about their personality, their family tree and how many times they bath each day. However detailed your NPC may be, do not have too many scenes which purpose is just to introduce NPC’s.

There are some characters that could just go by generic labels, such as “The old innkeeper”, “the young barmaid” and “the scruffy captain of the guards”. Yes, we shall prepare details for those NPC’s, but it doesn’t mean that we shall dump that information on the hapless players all at once, especially if they are not interested in those minor characters. No matter how excited you are about this “cool NPC” which you have labor on, it is the players in the end who chose who they will interact with. and how much they want to know about the NPC.

Try to spread out important NPC’s across the game, if possible. Having too many of them appearing at the same time confuses the players – they have to remember names, who they are, what happened when they were around and what they want. If possible, include them, but do not spend too much time on introducing them.

It so happened once that I spent an hour to introduce about five NPC’s in succession and at the game of the session, a player remarks that it was like watching an episode of a Soap Opera series. Perhaps he had “Days of our Dungeons” in mind.

8.      Don’t say “No” too quickly

How easy it is to tell the players, “No, you can’t do that” or “This course of action is unacceptable. Try something else.” Definitely, there are times when players wish to try out some hare-brained schemes, but most of the time, saying “No” too quickly can kill the potential of neat role-playing moments.

There are two cases when GMs would say “No” to a PC. One is when the PC is trying to achieve something impossible. For example, a PC may be trying to lift a lever which is, to the GM’s knowledge, stuck and impervious to all force. The GM could just dismiss the PC’s attempt by saying, “No, the lever is stuck”. But wouldn’t it be better if the GM takes the opportunity to introduce more role-playing moments? Instead of saying “No” straight away, the GM could ask the PC to attempt a dice roll. That may even encourages the PCs to work together, devising a method to pull the lever and at the same time giving the idea that the PCs have the ability to influence events and objects around them. You can, of course, state how difficult the action could be. “The Orc Warlock is too far away for your longbow, but you can still try if you wish to” sounds much better than a “No, you are out of range”.

Even if you are not going to let the PC succeeds at the task, you can take the opportunity to add details to the environment. For example, instead of a flat “The lever is stuck”, you could have the PC to roll the dice, and on a success, have the PC to rip off the lever, revealing the pivot which has been long rusted and rotted away. This is vastly superior to a direct rejection.

Of course, if the PCs put in much sweat and effort in trying to achieve the impossible, you may want to consider rewarding the PCs for their persistence and creativity. You must also be prepared for unexpected moments. When if the PC rolls a critical success while shooting at the Warlock who is supposed to be out of range? What if someone comes up with an ingenious solution which you never thought off?

The second case when a GM will say “No” is to preserve the plot which he has in mind. For example, it may be the GM’s intention for the PCs to be ensnared by a net, and hence are captured, so that the next scripted sequence could begin. But PCs, being the ingenious lots which they are, may come up with various creative ways to escape from the net. So the GM rejects any attempts to escape, railroading the PCs.

While that is a valid course of action, it could be more fun to play along with the players, and subdue them in ways which they truly defeated, not just merely led along by a scripted sequence.

A personal example is during a game, a Sorcerer pretended to be a harmless old man. Along the way, he suffered a fall, and a kind NPC offered to help him back. One of the PCs, who is a healer, attempted to follow the Old Man back. But fearful that the PC may discover the Old Man for whom he really is (it is still too early for the Dramatic Confrontation,), I refused blatantly.

Now looking back, it might be better if I let the PC followed the Old Man back, and developed an interesting encounter which leaves the PC guessing and wondering, instead of just rejecting his action outright.

Usually, GMs who say “No” in such cases have a highly-structured plot and planned script in mind. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for those who prefer running a more open-ended, spontaneous game, consider twice before you say “No”. Instead, think, how could you turn the PC’s sudden and unexpected action to your advantage?

9.      Always have a Map for the Players

In the days of yore, players are expected to bring their own graph paper and draw their own maps. Not that it is a bad practice – it’s always good to keep track of where you are when you are exploring uninhabited tombs or dragon caves. However, maps do exists for a reasonable number of locations, and it may not be a good to demand players to map those locations too.

Take for example, a teeming, thriving port-city. Maps for such places are likely to exist, and so naturally the PCs would want to get their hand on one. Or perhaps the PCs find themselves in a remote village, and asks a local villager to sketch a primitive, but effective, map of the surroundings.

Since PCs are always asking for maps, isn’t it much better to prepare it for them before they ask for it? Maps which are reasonable to give to PCs include maps of settlements, of the region and the country. They don’t have to be vastly detailed – just to give the PCs a rough idea of where things are in relative to each other.

Maps are also usefully to give PCs a sense of direction. Imagine, at the beginning of a city-based adventure, the PCs have no clue what to go next. With a single glance at the map, the PCs can find out what are the prominent locations in town and whether those places would hold clues for the PCs or not.

10. Use the “Show, don’t tell” rule judiciously

Of the top ten tips for beginning writers, one of the most often stated is “Show, don’t tell”. It is an excellent guideline to live by, and helps to promote the atmosphere of the game, but there’s a minor problem.

In the game, the GM transmits information by speech, and at times it is hard for players to remember so many details. For a written material where the reader can back-track to re-read sentences, “show and don’t tell” is a good rule to abide by. However, role-playing games use the medium of speech to communicate, and hence keep it as simple as possible.

Don’t use “Show, don’t tell” on everything – use it for important, significant NPC’s or events. Beware of information overload! At times, sparse descriptions could invoke a vivid atmosphere as well.

Also, when using “Show, don’t tell”, consider breaking the descriptions into various segments, so that players can digest them easier and faster. Each description shall allow the players to draw one set of conclusions about the NPC, or the area.

A relative of tip #10 is this — Consider “Show and Tell” from times to times. Let say you have the players have a run in with a raiding party of “short humanoids with pale, green diseased skin, their fang-like teeth gleaming in the torchlight, with curved scimitars and barbed clubs in their hands”. Would the PCs know what those are?

It is unlikely that the players are not able to recognized goblins, but for good measure (and since goblins are so easily recognizable) you might as well tell the PCs what they are. Just keep in mind that for all your detailed descriptions, the PCs may just be unable to catch just what on heck you are describing, so be prepared to tell them as well.

Part One: The Birth Of A Club And Some Bumps Along The Way

I’m a Middle School teacher who is a long-time gamer. So when some of my 7th grade students discovered my hobby “Hey – is that an R.A. Salvatore book on her desk? She plays D&D! No way! Cool!” it was a natural step to set up a game for those boys as an after-school activity.

I didn’t realize what I was starting the day I sat down behind my desk to GM those four 7th grade students. Today, five years later, our RPG Club has three faculty advisors, and both Middle and High School students playing. Students carrying dice bags and Player’s Handbooks have become a normal sight in the hallways. We average between 30-40 members each year, have our own website, mini-library of gaming materials, and a page in the yearbook. One parent GM gleefully put it this way: “We’re bigger than the basketball team!”

Along the way I’ve learned a few lessons about setting up not just one gaming group, but an entire club, with 4 or more different campaigns going on at once. Johnn has also helped me out with some of the club’s start-up problems with some sage advice. I’m going to try to cram all this information into a set of tips for anyone out there interested in setting up a gaming club. My tips will focus on advice for setting up a group for younger players, since our members’ age range is 12-18. But I’m sure some of these ideas can be tweaked for working with adults as well.

Before you begin: Get permission. This might sound stupid, but it helps to ensure that your group lasts longer than just one year. Make sure anyone whose facilities you might be using knows that you’re planning the group and that they support you. When I started the RPG club, I went to my principal with the Core Rulebooks and a set of dice, explained the game and got her permission to set up the club.

Before they begin: Get permission. Have your players sign permission slips. In some families, role-playing, especially Dungeons and Dragons, has a very bad name. (Ah, the joys of urban legends.) Having signed permission slips from each player helps protect the club – and you.

Yes, charge them! We ask for a small amount of dues for a yearly membership. It’s about $10. But if we had to rent our own space, that amount would be much higher. That money goes for club supplies (dice, books, pencils, munchies for all-day conventions, prizes when necessary). Also, it helps cut down on absenteeism…if someone’s a paid member, they’re more likely to take it seriously and keep showing up.

Location, location, location. Finding a good place to play is important. We started out in classrooms, but as the club grew, we needed more room. The RPG club now meets in the cafeteria. Everyone is in one space, we wheel the books and supplies in on a cart (saved from the AV discard pile) and snacks and drinks are close at hand from the nearby vending machines.

Everyone playing in the same location is crucial. It helps the students feel like they are part of the larger club, not just their own gaming group. Kids often eavesdrop on other campaigns when they have a few minutes. A powerful, intense battle in one group can draw spectators from around the room. And nothing raises the hairs on the back of your neck (and makes you breathe a sigh of relief) like hearing “Doooooooom!” ring out fromsomebody else’s GM.

A side benefit of playing in a very public space is that the club has become well-known and accepted at school. Parents, teachers and students often pass through the cafeteria and see the group at work. Sometimes people drop in and watch for a while. That’s great advertising – and it helps keep the club’s reputation positive.

Club expectations are important! Make sure everyone involved knows what the rules of the club are. This can be simple stuff like showing up on time, or letting your GM know if you are going to miss a session. But it also involves those more nebulous rules like not hogging the spotlight or willfully messing up your GM’s plans. Our group actually uses the 5 Do’s and Don’ts from Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies (Bill Slavicsek & Richard W. Baker, 2005) as a guideline. And we have the students sign a contract before they get started. That way nobody can use the excuse “But I didn’t know I couldn’t do that!”

Players helping players. Once your group gains a little size, you can start using experienced players as question answerer, character builders, and eventually Game Masters for other groups. We use a tiered system. Only High School students with more than 1 year of experience are allowed to GM. The GMs help with training up new players and have access to their own, private, section of the website where they can ask each other questions and share tips and ideas. We would like to set up a system in which the GMs receive more rewards for the hard work they do, but we aren’t there yet.

By the way, a great way to encourage players to take a leadership role in the group is to link up with anyone at your organization who sets up community service programs. Some of our GMs are fulfilling high school community service graduation requirements by Game Mastering a group each week!

What about newbies? Our biggest problem was the massive influx of newbies at the beginning of each school year. The GMs were so frustrated with the typical newbie stunts – attacking NPC’s, trying to hoard all the loot for themselves, and rules lawyering (or not learning the rules at all, then arguing about the GM’s decisions.) Worst of all, by the time the GMs had gotten their players in line, the school year was nearly over – and a new school year brought in a whole new set of newbies, starting the process all over again.

I emailed Johnn with this problem and asked for his advice. He suggested that we start out the year with a mini-convention in which the new players were mixed in with different GMs and experienced players. This was a great suggestion, and the convention plan we developed has helped us teach good role-playing — fast. (I’ll explain more about setting up a “Learn-to-Play” convention in the second half of this article.)

Other things that have helped with newbies: handing out prizes for great role-playing, strategy and teamwork; giving them pre-made characters until they are able to create their own; putting them in groups with two or more experienced players who can model good role-playing; and having a club library where players can borrow gaming books like the Hero Builder’s Guidebook, Dungeon Master for Dummies, and other great books that help new players get a grip on good role-playing habits.

How do you set up the groups? I wrestled with this one for a long time. After all, the point of the club is to give kids a chance to hang out with their friends and role-play, right? But allowing the kids complete freedom in choosing their own groups kept leading to problems. Sometimes friends aren’t the best match as players. Also, groups kept breaking up and re-forming…which frustrated the GMs as well.

Now we (the “über-GMs”, as we have become known) choose the groups. We ask each player to fill in a survey form at the end of the Learn-to-Play convention and on the basis of these forms (plus the input of the GMs), we set up the groups. We try to put friends together but also keep a good balance of different ages, experienced players + new players, and matching players’ styles with GMs campaign styles. We allow massive switching once during the year, just after the winter holiday break. Often the holiday break comes, and no one wants to switch groups! Now our games are much more consistent and both the GMs and players are having more fun.

XP as more than just an in-game benefit. As the club grew, it became more and more difficult for me to keep close tabs on the adventures of all the groups. With adults, that’s not such a big deal…but because students need to be kept on a bit of a shorter leash, it was more important. One of our new faculty advisors set up a website for the club usinghttp://www.euromoodle.org which only club members have access to. Then, we started using bribes. No, really! Any player who posts a recap of the session’s events can earn a small amount of XP. We also award small XP bonuses for any players who post their character’s history. The result = regular reports of group activity, plus lots of fun for all club members, as they get to read about their friends’ successes and show off their own amazing moments.

Get help! Once the club really took off, it was soon clear that I couldn’t do everything myself. I was lucky enough to find two fellow teachers who are also gamers. Now the three of us share responsibilities for the group pretty equally, GMing, keeping the website up and running, keeping tabs on finances, membership lists and paperwork, and the library. We also keep our classrooms open at lunch for kids to come in, hang out, work on characters or brag about last week’s session. It’s great for me to have that kind of support for the club…and great for the students too, to see that different teachers have role-playing as a hobby.

The bottom line. What started out 5 years ago as a favor for a few students has turned into a full-fledged after-school activity for dozens of kids! Even though it takes a lot of energy and organization, it’s definitely worth it. It’s been amazing to see how much the kids enjoy the club and fun for me to watch the next generation of role-players develop. It’s also cool that there is a place at our school now for those fantasy-loving kids who don’t always fit into the traditional after-school activities like sports or drama.

My advice: if you’re in the position to set up a similar club, don’t be afraid and take the plunge. It’s great fun!

Part II: Setting Up A Learn-To-Play Convention

Here are some tips for setting up a learn-to-play convention.

Advertising. Get the word out. We use posters, ads in the school newspapers and website, as well as just telling people who we feel are interested. Make sure prospective players know they can come with no experience and still have a good time!

Fees. You may want to charge a minimal fee to cover the cost of prizes. We ask for about 5 bucks. That takes care of prizes and lunch. If you need to rent a space, you’ll have to ask more.

Displays. Give the players something to look at when they’re not playing. We laid out a table full of different gaming books, character sheets, dice, and other gaming supplies.

Encounters & PCs. These are the backbone of the day. Each GM is responsible for creating a 1-hour encounter. We set ours up so that each encounter showcased a different kind of game style or hazard: dungeon crawl, tactics, hack-and-slash, negotiation, magic use…etc. Each GM creates 6 PCs for their adventure. We advise them to use a simplified character sheet and/or to highlight important numbers (like HP, AC and Attack Bonuses.)

Figure 4 players to a GM when you calculate the amount of encounters you need. Even if you have more encounters than game sessions, that’s okay. Not every player needs to experience every encounter.

Plants. Match experienced players with GMs. We “planted” experienced players with the GMs to model good role-playing and help newbies along if they got stuck. You can also allow experienced players to rotate too…then you work without the “plants”.

Schedule. Start with an introduction explaining the day and get right down to playing. Each new player rotates to a different group every session. Between sessions, the GMs fill in their cards. Remember to schedule something for lunch! The afternoon is two more sessions, and then a few minutes break (or club explanation) while the winners are being calculated. View sample schedule (Word doc).

Materials. This might be a no-brainer, but make sure there are enough dice, pencils and scrap paper at each table.

GM Cards. The GMs fill out quick cards at the end of each encounter, grading each player on teamwork, strategy and role-playing. View example GM card (Word doc).

Prizes. We handed out dice sets for best teamwork, best role-playing and best strategy. The highest scorer in all three areas got a Player’s Handbook. The highest scorer for the returning players gets a free club membership!

Survey. It’s a good idea to have the new players fill out a survey of the day, with preferences for their ideal group and GM. We use these surveys to review the conference and set up the club’s groups for the year. View sample survey (Word doc).

Future Sessions. Make sure the players leave with all the information they need to join the club or otherwise continue gaming. We handed out permission slips and club information letters.

These mini-conventions have been a raging success. The students love them, the GMs love getting a glimpse of their players to come, and best of all, by the end of the day, most of the new players have a good idea of what RPGs are about, and what good role-playing is – and isn’t!

Track your entire world, your whole campaign, and every adventure with MyInfo Software

I’ve been using MyInfo as my dungeon master tool for notes and GM organization for years. I’ve tried other methods and other software, but MyInfo helps me run my games best.

A new version was recently released, and MyInfo 6 offers even more features to manage your campaign efficiently.

Created by Milenix Software, MyInfo offers much more than a place to store your notes. It’s a massive Bag of Holding that allows you to manage every detail of your game dynamically.

It lets you make connect notes in such a way that your information becomes a living, breathing  Tome of Knowledge for your game this truly is almost magical.

Why I Use MyInfo For GMing

MyInfo is not cheap. The Standard Edition is $49.95 and the Pro Edition is $99.95. However, it’s a one-time expense that, for me, has paid for itself many times over.

I used GM binders for years. Then I switched to index cards. But going digital meant search! I was tired of flipping through pages of notes over and over. A digital campaign organizer gives me unlimited notes and a way to find and sort them fast.

So, in the mid-2000s, I tried a ton of applications out. I tried plain text files, wikis, OneNote, NoteTab, Evernote, WeatherMaster, Hero Lab, MasterPlan, a database and even some free software that offers similar functionality to MyInfo.

ENWorld had a massive thread of GM software. So did the WotC forums. I clicked all the links. I installed all that software, too.

But, after a ton of experimentation, I returned to MyInfo. It offers features and support I can’t get elsewhere. And it’s made my GMing better and more fun because I’m so organized.

But the deal maker for me is always how easy it is to get organized and stay organized with MyInfo. You can spend a whole weekend organizing your binder, cards, OneNote files or whatever system you use. But soon the system breaks down again, right? Stuff gets harder to find as Entropy sinks its claws into your information.

That’s why I’ve stuck with MyInfo for so many years. And each new version keeps offering me new features to help me stay on top of my game.

I’m going to now list all the features I use that makes MyInfo my killer GM app. You decide for yourself whether this software and its investment is worth it for you.

A Quick Disclosure

But first, I want to disclose the fact that if you purchase MyInfo using the link below, Roleplaying Tips will earn a small commission from that.

I’ve been a customer of Petko’s, the owner of Milenix Software, for years. I’ve submitted a lot of feature requests to him to make MyInfo more useful to me as a GM. I use MyInfo for personal and business use as well, which is another reason this software is so valuable.

And Petko has accommodated many of my requests to tweak MyInfo so game masters can get a little extra juice out of it.

He has also supplied many copies of MyInfo to Roleplaying Tips readers as prizes over the years, and I appreciate that a lot. (Thanks again, Petko!)

When Petko emailed and asked if I wanted to be a sales representative of MyInfo, I jumped at the chance. It’s great software. I use it daily. It has my full recommendation because I use the product and get so much value out of it, especially for GMing.

MyInfo Features For Game Masters

Ok, so why is MyInfo a critical hit for GM organization and information management?

Let’s cover the main reasons:

Reason 1: Multiple “Topic” files

Take an app like Evernote. All the meta data – the tags and such – are shared by all the “books” you create. Each book represents a completely separate bucket of information.

For example, you might have one for work, one for home, and one for each campaign.

But all the books share the same meta data! My NPC tag gets mixed up with Weekly Monday Marketing Meeting Notes tag. Work, home and RPG get all mixed up.

Bleh.

MyInfo creates a separate “space” for each topic. So my RPG peanut butter never gets mixed with my work chocolate. Further, my Riddleport campaign peanut butter never gets mixed with my Planescape campaign chocolate.

Yet, you can still search, link and reference between topics. You get the best of both worlds.

For example, I create a topic called “PFRPG Rules” to hold frequent rules my group uses. I also add house rules and house amendments and our interpretations to official rules. When creating an NPC in my Riddleport Topic, I can link to a rule in the PFRPG Rules topic as needed. It’s perfect.

Here’s a screenshot of some of my Topics, which are arranged like handy tabs. I can switch topics just by clicking a tab. For example, if I’m playing my Castle Amber game, I click that Topic and all my notes are there, ready to use.

And if I want to borrow an NPC from Castle Amber to use in my Riddleport campaign, linking back and forth between topics is silly-easy.

Reason 2: Multiple “Documents” per Topic

Each topic offers unlimited Documents. Consider a Document to be like a single Word file or web page.

Documents are placed in a tree structure. That makes it very easy to find, hide and group related documents together.

If you have not worked with a document tree before, you are missing out!

For example, for NPCs I often have two or three Documents nested under a single Document:

• Overview, current status and location and interaction log with PCs
• Personality
• Game Stats

Above, my write-up for the NPC, Durin the Scowler, includes one Document with a picture and fluff, and another Document nested underneath with his stat block.

This means Durin’s crunch is not in my face when I want to roleplay him. And when I’m in combat, all his crunch is in one handy document for easy reference.

Here’s another example:

For my Tsojcanth adventure in my Riddleport campaign, I have three main Documents:

1. Hazards
2. Level 1
3. Level 2

I click the + or – icon beside a Document name to hide or reveal all the sub-Documents.

Here’s what Tsojcanth looks like when all the adventure sections have been collapsed:

And here’s what Tsojcanth looks like when the main Document for it has been minimized:

But I still have all the encounters and adventure sections available to me at all times. They’re just hiding behind the clickable + sign!

Reason 3: Tags and Filters

A few other software titles offer this powerful tree-based type of navigation.

But MyInfo takes it further by adding Tags and Filters.

But first, a quick note to show that you can sort all your Documents in an entire Topic with a single click. Just choose Sort Documents from the Tools menu. Do that with paper and index cards, hah!

A Tag is what you’d expect it to be: a word or short phrase that lets you later see all the Documents tagged as such.

This creates very fast look-ups on related information, which is powerful for fast GM reference.

For example, in this screenshot I’ve got a bunch of Documents for my Riddleport campaign:

See the Tags column on the left?

• NPCs get tagged as NPC
• Factions get tagged with their faction name
• Events get tagged as Event
• Items get tagged as – you guessed it – Item

When I click on a Tag, all the related Documents come up in a list:

You know what this actually is? A cast of NPCs!

That’s right. Instantly I have all my NPCs at my beck and call. It’s brilliant.

Same with locations, events, items. All there, available in a cool list, with a click.

This is also called filtering. You can create custom filters too, which extends this whole tagging and instant look-up things to a crazy level. But that’s for advanced users and we should move on.

Oh, you might be wondering what an event is. It’s an untriggered encounter. In RPG, there’s really just a small number of things you need to track to become an organized GM:

• People
• Places
• Things
• Events

Track those and you’re set. And with events just being planned encounters, you can generate an instant list of encounters to run!

By the way, if you are itching to see the Filter editor, here’s a screenshot:

I’ve added arrows to point out some of the ways you can customize your filters.

For example, you want to look up all Documents that are NPCs and have been tagged with the Riddleport location? Create a filter with three clicks, save it, and you forevermore have an instant cast list of all that city’s citizens.

To sum all this up, you can sort, store, find, and form information exactly how you think as a person and as a GM.

Into combat more? Great, use MyInfo as a crunch and rules database.

Into adventure planning? Oh man, I have not even talked about the Templates you can create to make that process a whole lot faster.

You can create a Template of how you’d like your information structured. I call these Stat Blocks, because they that’s what they are. Another word might be form, like a form you’d fill out.

Create Templates for yourself so you can build adventures and encounters fast.

Reason 4: Fast Linking & Auto-Fill

Sorry, I have to move on. If you have questions about Templates, just give me a shout.

Ok, so the killer reasons why MyInfo rules as a GM information manager we’ve discussed so far are:

• Topics with unlimited Documents so you can create and organize your buckets of information fast and easy, and you buckets do not bleed or contaminate each other
• Tags and Filters so you can look things up fast, as per how your brain works and your GMing style. The software conforms to how YOU think.

The last thing I want to tell you about is the linking feature.

You can link to all sorts of things like Documents, Topics, Tags and Filters.

Below, I’m updating the NPC Butan. Turns out he’s in cahoots with Callius. So I want a link in Butan’s info to Callius. That way I’m only a click away while reading Butan to learn who Callius is.

And here’s the link when it’s complete:

Reason 5: Cloning For Simultaneous Edit

Holy cow. I forgot another must-use feature of MyInfo that’s critical to incredible control over your campaign information.

Cloning.

You can create a duplicate of any Document and place it in the tree area anywhere you want, including under any other Document.

When you modify the cloned Document, you modify all its clones too!

What this really means is your information can be in multiple places at once, but it never gets duplicated or out of synch.

For example, in my Castle Amber adventure I’ve prepped, I’ve got all the NPCs stored under one Document:

At a glance, I can see all the Ambers and click on any to view their NPC write-ups.

However, I also cloned the NPC Documents and placed the clones in the locations where the PCs will meet each NPC.

Here’s how it looks in MyInfo:

Now, let’s say I’m GMing encounter #25. Buried Alive. I have Madeline’s stats right there.

And if I change Madeline’s information, then that change also simultaneously happens to all clones of Madeline Amber.

So if I look her up under the Amber Document from before, all the changes I made appear under that entry, too.

No more duplicated details that get trumped by some other note somewhere. It’s all real time, in one place, updatable anywhere.

Cloning means we GMs can create something once and use it in multiple ways within the context of our task (i.e. our world gazetteer, our campaign plans, our adventure notes, and standalone entries, just as an example).

You no longer have to hunt for information, and have your notes scattered all over.

MyInfo Has All The Features I Want

There are a lot more features you will use as a GM once you dive into MyInfo.

You can export your notes into a full website! (Pro version only.) Just click export, tweak settings how you want, and then export. You get a full-fledged website you can upload or use locally on your computer.

When you change or update your campaign information, just re-export to update your website.

I use this so I can take advantage of all the Firefox features and plugins during sessions while browsing my campaign as a website saved to my hard drive. Easy and awesome.

Search is fast. You can search across Topics as well as deep dive into Documents. Search results appear in a sidebar, so you can keep working. Results are also grouped by locations, for better contextual reference.

You can slurp web pages into MyInfo. Use the browser plugin, or just copy and paste. Or just enter the URL and MyInfo will snag it all for you within the program.

Bookmarks. Reminders. Calendar. Tasks and Sub-Tasks. Reminders.

I use Search & Replace a lot to correct misspellings. For example, when an NPC name mysteriously morphs into something else, I do a quick correction so it’s the same everywhere.

You can customize styles, choose fonts and layout configuration, create tables, link like crazy, and all the usual stuff you’d expect.

The license lets you install MyInfo on every computer you own.

You can also create custom fields. This becomes a new attribute for your Documents. For example, you could create a field called Coordinates. In that goes the map grid cords for all your locations. You can display these in Document tree for fast reference, or just view them on at the Document level. Now you can search, sort and filter by map coordinates!

By Katrina Middelburg-Creswell

There seem to be two sides to questions about role-playing games and kids. The first one is more about parents – how do you convince them that RPGs are a fun, engaging hobby rather than a life-sucking obsession?

The second point is a technical one, really. How can you run the game itself in such a way that your sessions stay appropriate for the age group you are playing with?

Here I’ve included a series of tips that address both questions. Most of these ideas come from my experiences dealing with gamers, ages 12-18, (and their parents), at the Role-Playing Games Club I run at my school. I hope they are helpful to you!

Dealing With Concerned Parents

Get Permission First

Parents will be much more comfortable about having kids involved in playing RPGs if the group/club has the official support of an organization like a school or library. Parents will also be happier with a group that has documentation of club rules and expectations, especially if they are asked to sign a permission slip. Anything you can do to set the group up professionally will help to assuage parent nervousness. If you’re going to be running a game for your own kids and a few of their friends, you may not need to be so formal about it. But make sure you talk to the other children’s parents so that they know what you’re planning, where you’ll be meeting, and what it’s all about before you get started.

Keep it Open

The best advice I can give for reassuring concerned parents is this: invite them to come and watch a session! Most people fear what they don’t understand, and let’s face it, trying to explain exactly what an RPG is or how it works tends to get even the brightest of us tongue-tied. Letting parents see the game in action, and most importantly, how much fun the kids are having while they play, makes parents’ worries melt like snow.

The second part of “keeping it open” is this: if you want to make sure parents stay comfortable with RPGs, you have to make sure that everything about the game is always open. Play in a public place. Invite guests to stop by regularly. Anybody wants to see your books? Character sheets? Your answer is always yes. You and your group have absolutely nothing to hide. So don’t worry about it. And who knows – you might even end up recruiting some new gamers!

Choose Games Wisely

Sometimes, the type of game you’re playing can make all the difference. If people in your surroundings are resistant to Dungeons and Dragons (and it happens, unfortunately) you can try introducing the Lord of the Rings RPG, or the Star Wars d20 system. Also, superhero games (like the Marvel Comics RPG) can be more successful with parents initially.

Social vs. Solitary

One of the main selling points of table-top role playing to parents is that it is a social activity. Often, kids who would be interested in pencil-and-paper RPGs are already playing RPGs at home, alone, on the computer. When parents compare 4 hours around a gaming table with friends to 4 hours alone behind a computer screen, many of them become converts rather quickly.

Ask Questions

Before you start defending RPGs, make sure you understand what the parent’s concerns actually are. Sometimes you can make things worse by jumping the gun. Try open-ended statements like, “So you’re not sure this is a good idea for your child…” Or, “Can you tell me what it is about RPGs that is concerning you?” You might be surprised to find out that the conflict is actually Johnny’s tennis lessons, which are at the same time as your game sessions! Once you have figured out exactly what the parent is worried about, you can address that issue.

Know Your Facts

Did you know that both Vin Diesel and Terry Pratchett have talked about their role-playing past? Or that role-playing clubs in Sweden can get government funding? Do you know the source of the most persistent urban legends that have given Dungeons and Dragons (especially) a bad name?

Do a little research and make sure you know your facts; become well-versed in positive information about RPGs, but know where the great “myths” about the games have sprung from as well, so that you can answer questions about them seriously and correctly. One excellent website I’ve found to help with this is www.theescapist.com. This site has a comprehensive FAQ answering many questions worried parents might approach you with. They also have a great flier/pamphlet available which might be useful when you’re dealing with non-gamers: “Facts and Fictions about RPGs.”

Why have this kind of information on file? So that if someone does approach you with questions like, “But aren’t role-players usually antisocial criminals?” you will kindly and gently be able to produce evidence that this is not, in fact, the case.

Don’t Dismiss

Dealing with these apparently biased, uninformed fears can sometimes be frustrating. But here’s a word of advice: remember that no matter how ridiculous it may seem, the parent talking to you about this topic is truly concerned. Take them seriously, treat their fears with respect, and give them the facts to combat their worries. Dealing with them in this way is the most effective way I’ve found for turning parents into RPG allies!

The Mechanics of Keeping RPG Sessions Appropriate for Kids

 Kids GMing Kids

When younger kids are playing RPGs on their own in a home setting, you have to face up to the fact that it’s impossible to exercise any direct control over the content of the games, unless you sit with the kids as they play for every second of game time. And since part of the appeal of RPGs for kids is the idea: “You can do anything you can imagine!” I wouldn’t suggest trying to put that kind of control on gaming sessions.

You can, of course, give kids a simple ground rule to help them keep game content on-the-level…. I like the “An adult could walk in at any minute” litmus test, which runs like this: “Remember that while you’re playing, Mom or I can walk in at any minute to pick up your dirty laundry. As long as that won’t change your gaming at all, you’re playing appropriately. Anytime you’d stop talking or want to keep the game a secret until we leave the room again, you’re probably heading into the area of gaming we’d prefer you not go.”

To be honest, however, my experience with student-run games is that they tend to regulate themselves, when all the players are about the same age, and that you don’t even need to be that specific about what the guidelines are. Kids on their own are much more likely to say to each other, “Hey, knock that off, you’re just being stupid/gross/annoying,” if someone does something that they feel goes too far. If you’re really concerned, and don’t feel the “adult could walk in” test is going to be enough control, use food bribery to keep the game in a public area: set up a great gaming center at the kitchen table, fill the counter with snacks, and hang around for a session or two to see how things go. Just try not to be offended by the large amount of situations involving extended flatulence or other bodily functions.

That said, I’d like to add a few tips for adults trying to run a fun and appropriate game for kids.

Choose the Right Games

Make sure the games you are choosing are appropriate for kids. D&D, for example, will give you little trouble. Running a child-appropriate adventure in a horror game or even a cyberpunk world, on the other hand, is going to be very, very difficult. Make it easy on yourself, and stick with traditional fantasy, science fiction, or superhero scenarios.

Lay Down the Ground Rules

Before you even begin to run a game, you need to make sure that everyone understands what the expectations are. In our club, one of the house rules is that no one may play an evil character. Period. No matter how awesome those Dark Jedi powers are.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with agreeing as a group that you are going to keep your game “PG” rated. You could even agree as a group to use a catchphrase, like “PG”, which anyone in the group could call out when things are getting out of hand.

When a player responds with, “But that’s taking all the fun out of the game,” (which they will, especially if they are between the ages of 12 and 18) don’t even get into the argument. Simply say, “These are the rules of our group. We want to make sure everyone’s having fun and is comfortable. So…are you playing, or not?”

Stay in Control

Once the game starts, make sure you’re upholding your end of the bargain. Give players fulfilling, fun playing choices without dipping into the seedy end of the barrel. (Example: Good student-appropriate adventure seed: Rescue the princess and return the stolen sword to the king. Bad student-appropriate adventure seed: Commit a series of assassinations to start a guild war.)

Then, go with the old “feeder-bar” system of behavior modification. Reward appropriate role-playing (with compliments, laughter, in-game rewards like cool weapons or spells and the best gaming motivation of all, XP!) and punish inappropriate role-playing (most effectively handled with out-of-game comments.) If you continue to react consistently to your players, it will only take a few sessions before you’ve ironed out the “appropriateness” problem completely.

If you have a player who can’t take the hints you’re dropping, and even your group’s agreements like using the catchphrase aren’t making a dent in their inappropriate behavior, take them apart from the group, warn them seriously, and then eject them from the game if they continue. Our players sign a contract that states that they can be asked to leave the club if their behavior prevents other members from having fun.

The bottom line is: You are the boss. If players can’t agree with your rules, then they don’t play in your group. There is no discussion.

Fight Monsters, Not People

This might seem like an odd one, but (especially from a parent’s point of view) there is a big difference between having characters chase and kill a beholder or a group of marauding orcs than getting them involved in any situation where they must fight and kill people. Give your players lots of creepy crawlies to battle, and when they come into contact with other people, give them other options instead of battle – information trades, etc.

Look, sometimes the evil wizard is a human, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with your players battling him, as one of a series of encounters. But getting a group of young players involved in a palace intrigue situation with assassins and Machiavellian factions working on wiping each other off the face of the earth is going to make it very difficult for you to keep your game appropriate. Go for the gelatinous cubes instead.

Colorful Descriptions Doesn’t Mean Gore

Every game master’s guide has the tip that you should spice up your combat by describing the scene vividly for your players. I completely agree, and it’s very possible to do that in an appropriate-for-children game session. Just remember that the only color in your description doesn’t have to be red. In other words, feel free to describe combat in exciting ways – but leave out the spouting blood, spattering innards, and other oh-so-graphic moments you might find in a really intense bout of Mortal Kombat. Feel like this can’t work? Go watch an animated movie. (A great example is Shrek.) These movies are full of suspenseful chase scenes, fights, and competitions…and are able to do it in ways that raise the excitement without raising the brutal damage quotient.

An orc, pin wheeling his arms on the edge of a deep chasm and finally going over because of a well-aimed crossbow bolt is a colorful, exciting, appropriate combat image. And don’t forget the use of humor to add fun to a combat session. Armor getting stuck at unhelpful moments, fellow players dangling upside down from the tentacles of an otyugh as all their possessions drop out of their pouches and pockets, or the result of a very effective “lightning bolt” spell being that all combatants are now suffering from super-static hair that is standing up on end; just a few examples of using humor to make combat memorable without crossing the “PG” boundary.

Help! My Players Have Hit Puberty!

There is one other way in which a role-playing session can go careening off the path of appropriate-for-kids gaming, and that is when one of the players decides that their character is Casanova, and goes around hitting on every female NPC that comes along. (Feel free to exchange genders in this example, as the female Casanova is a distinct possibility as well – I’ll focus on the male “offender” in my discussion, however, since chances are good that your players will mostly be male.)

In essence, this situation is no different than a player displaying any sort of inappropriate role-playing, and I’d suggest dealing with it in-game, by using the same reward and punishment system I described above. Characters getting knocked on the head by insulted NPC’s will quickly mend their ways, especially when said NPC turns out to be the Captain of the City Guard. Any players not getting the message can be dealt with out-of-game. Remember, the group goal is fun and comfort for all. Anyone ruining that for the others shouldn’t be there.

(While on the topic, if this issue keeps cropping up in your campaign, remember that the way you portray women in your world will have an affect on how the PCs behave with and towards them. And I’m not just talking about making sure your female NPC descriptions don’t include phrases like “buxom” or “scantily-clad.” If your PCs are regularly meeting and interacting with NPC’s who are helpful, interesting, good at what they do, and oh yeah, also happen to be female, they’re going to be much more likely to skip the entire barmaid-as-opportunity-for-embarrassing-repartee scenes and start focusing on barmaid-as-possible-source-of-useful-adventure-information scenes. Think Arwen and Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings movie, or Buffy andWillowfrom Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if you need a hint about what kind of female characters could people your adventure.)

The Sum of All Parts

Role-playing is a great hobby that kids love and enjoy. I started playing when I was 13 years old, and the first thing I did was teach my (then 10 and 7 year old) brothers how to play so we could game at home. If your kids are running games for each other or their friends, don’t worry…chances are, they’re much more concerned about how they can maximize their characters’ abilities than about playing games adults would consider really inappropriate. Encouraging them to play in a public place and letting them know that you will be in the background while they’re playing are both effective ways of keeping closer tabs on things.

If you are running games for kids, laying down a few basic ground rules and choosing smart game worlds and adventure seeds will help you keep your games fun and appropriate. And remember, setting up your group as professionally and openly as possible will go a long way toward convincing parents that role-playing is a legitimate hobby that helps kids develop critical thinking, social and problem-solving skills.

Not to mention – it’s just so much fun!

By Darren Blair

Let’s face it. No matter how hard we try there comes a point where reality bogs us down. Last-minute errands, phone tag, burn-out at work or school, and other issues make it harder for GMs to plan and run the game, and it saps player energy and brainpower.

So, what’s a good GM to do when life starts to do to the party what Krandor the Barbarian Overlord couldn’t?

Get creative. Listed below are methods that, with a little time and effort, will make your life as a GM easier.

1. Use Technology to Your Advantage, Not Your Annoyance.

Depending upon who you talk to, modern technology is only serving to make us all depressed, helpless, and frustrated as we surrender our lives to machines and computers. I say, make the bloody things do our work for us. Below are two such examples of what I mean.

E-Mail: We all know e-mail can be a good tool for coordinating sessions and seeing who is and isn’t coming, right? Well, if you do it right, you can use e-mail to avoid a perpetual annoyance for parties: juggling XP. Just make it a point to have the party share e-mail addresses with you, and you’re set. In this day and age, a number of companies and colleges provide e-mail addresses to their employees and staffers, making it theoretically possible for a person to have an e-mail address without even having a computer!

In my Battletech / Mechwarrior campaign, sessions normally run right up to the maximum amount of time we have each evening we game; there’s just that much ground to cover. Unless we somehow end early, none of us can afford to take ten or twenty minutes of session time to compute the XP right in front of everyone and wait while people figure out what new skills or traits they wish to purchase.

Instead, we use e-mail. I take the character sheets home with me at the end of the session, run the XP numbers on my own time, and fire off e-mails to each member of the party telling them what their XP totals presently are and asking what they’d like me to cash their points in towards. The party members can take their time deciding, and with my typing speed it’s a simple matter to dash off a paragraph or two from the rule books if a question arises; anyone who has had to handle such a discussion by way of ye olde telephone will realize that it’s an easier proposition. By the time the next session rolls around, everything has been taken care of; I don’t have to bring up XP unless someone has a large quantity of XP they need to cash in.

Word Processors: Tired of always having to run to the library to make copies of character sheets? Having trouble reading your players’ handwriting when they try to cram everything in the margins of notebook paper? A word processor can solve this problem for you.

Figure out what the core items each character will need are, such as stats, traits / feats, skills, gear, and personal info. Use a word processor to draw yourself up a template you can use as a character sheet. Print blank character sheets as needed, or e-mail the file to your players and have them fill in the info for their own character so there’s a digital back-up in case their sheet goes missing. This will take a little bit of an investment of time on your part, but it’ll be well worth it in the aggravation it’ll save you.

“You Know, I’ve Been Thinking…”

GMs, I’ll put it bluntly: it pays to be perceptive. You can spot problems before they become serious, inject a bit of novelty into your campaign, or maybe even help improve the group attitude if you’d just simply pay closer attention to things.

“…It’s such a nice day; how about playing outside?” This one is as simple as it sounds. People sometimes tire of seeing the same four walls, be it their own bedroom or the game room. As such, sometimes you the GM need to vary things up a touch.

The simplest answer is to game in a slightly different location as conditions permit. Not a lot of room at the table to lay out your maps? Use that as an excuse to play out on the floor in the living room if no one else is using it. Is it a nice day outside and no one has allergies? See if you can commandeer the patio set and play outside. It’ll change things up a little, and maybe even bring a slightly different perspective to the way you all play.

“…Abe, Bob, and Chuck aren’t going to be here; how about a movie night?” I’ve instituted a policy among my gaming group: if a minimum number of players aren’t going to be available, then instead of gaming I’ll bring down some movies.

Why do something like this, you may ask? If we’re short so many players that it would affect the game play and result in us spending a lot of time explaining what transpired, there’s no real point in playing. On the other hand, it’s still an excuse for those who could show up to just sit back and have a little fun for a few hours. With my group, all I’ve got to do is throw on a disk and in a few minutes we’ve got our own version of Mystery Science Theatre going; it was a big hoot the night I brought over Blue Thunder.

Movie night can serve another purpose as well: giving players new ideas and concepts they may wish to test out in the game. Perhaps they picked up a stunt or a line of dialogue that fits their character’s personality. Maybe they’ll have an idea for how to solve a challenge you’ve thrown at them. Going back to Blue Thunder, between the action sequences and Roy Schneider’s acting two of my players discovered a new-found respect for the use of assault helicopters in combat; this led to me creating a helicopter pilot as an NPC, a decision that pulled the party’s bacon out of the fire during at least one battle.

“So maybe I’m more ‘spud’ than ‘stud’…”

A few years back, a Roleplaying Tips contributor brought up the idea of tapping TV shows and movies for possible plot hooks and full-on adventures. I’m here to tell you that you can take it one step further. The more you content are familiar with, the more ideas you can tap. Not only can you see how things are done, you can see what types of issues might come up and what steps might be taken to get around them. Just get yourself comfy, grab a notepad and pencil, then get to it.

For starters, consider the villain for your game. Do you want a villain who’s over-the-top with his ego and methods? Try sitting down with a few episodes of G.I. Joe and take notes whenever the Cobra Commander is on screen. Would you prefer a villain who is a little more subtle with how he does things? There’s always Superman’s foe Lex Luthor or Batman’s Penguin. Need a villain who is cold and psychotic? Grab Jack Nicholson’s rendition of the Joker or screen the Hannibal Lecter trilogy; they’re just a DVD away.

Likewise, you’ve also got a few different options in regards to plots. Do you want your party to be big darn heroes who always pull it off at the last minute? See how the A-Team does things. Looking to see how a stealthy group should function? TryMission: Impossible. Is your party a group of space-faring do-gooders out to keep the peace? Take your pick of Star Trek series.

This can also count as research. There’s a number of specialty channels available for people to view, thereby allowing you to gain real-world information about what happens or what once took place. You just have to be patient and check the listings often. Got your party stormingNormandy? See if there’s a TV network focused on history or the military and check what they’re airing. Are they hot on the trail of a serial killer? See if there are any channels dedicated to true crime; if not, then the forensics of crime-fighting may make it to a science or other informational network. What about traipsing merrily through theSahara? National Geographic Channel (or its regional equivalent) all the way. Mad scientists in your midst? You have Mythbusters and Brainiac.

So here it is, folks. Three ways you can be a better GM and spice up your campaign, all of which require little more than your time to perform. And yet the rewards you’ll reap in the form of better game play and increased enthusiasm should be more than worth it.

By Scott Sylvester

With busy schedules these days there seems to be precious little time for the more mature and adult gamers to indulge in their teenage passions of gaming. Once upon a time, there were countless hours in the day that could be carelessly frittered away around the gaming table listening to your favorite GM spin a tale of adventure and mystery.

Suddenly however, you found yourself all grown up. There were college classes to attend, bills to pay, and wife and kids to make time for. Sacrifices had to be made. Now your weekly gaming group struggles to meet monthly, and even then, conflicting work schedules often prevent those meetings. If you are like me, you long for the opportunity to pick up your laser rifle, raise your sword over your head, and charge back into battle once again. Thankfully, modern technology has afforded many of us that opportunity again.

Play-By-Post (PBP), or Play-By-Email (PBEM) is not a new forum for gaming, but it has recently garnered new interest among working professionals. Even with my erratic work schedule I get the opportunity to carry on my passion. We all check email almost daily, and it only takes a few minutes to respond to an email with the actions of your character based on the description you have been given in the email by your GM.

Play by Email is not a new invention, and I am certainly not one of its founders. I always imagined the origins go way back to the ASCII days of basic programming. As soon as one guy found out how to send a message to another computer the idea was born. Wherever it began, it has certainly evolved into a new form of fun and entertainment.

To give you a basic idea of how a PBP or PBEM works, I will cover it from the GM and the player perspectives. I will talk about my experiences and the programs I use that have made my games a success. By the end I hope to encourage many more of you to start your own games online via email, posts, or bulletin boards.

Getting Started

Wow, gaming without a table…what a great idea! Now, where do I begin? Ironically, you start the same way you would for a tabletop game. As a GM, you need to have your basic plot outline and have an idea of how many characters you want in your game. If you like to make maps and sketches of the areas your PCs will be playing in, get them prepared too. Once you have all your preliminary work done, you need to find a table top to put it on, an “online” table.

For my games I use Yahoo Groups. The best part about them is they are free. Free fits into the average gamer’s budget quite well. All email addresses are public and the information on the group sites is readily accessible to the public, so I strongly caution you about posting personal information.

To get your own Yahoo Group you simply go to http://groups.yahoo.com. Click on Start A New Group and fill out the required information. Once your Group name is selected the Group will be activated.

The Yahoo Group automatically comes with a pair of email addresses for the Group Moderator (you the GM) to use. The first email address is the Group Email; the second is a public but direct email for the GM to use. All messages sent to the Group Email address will be automatically posted on the Group site. This is important later when your players respond to the emails and posts the GM sends out. The second email is for use by the GM. Both email addresses have the same prefix, so they are easy to remember. For example, it will read something like: Groupname@yahoogroups.com and Groupname@yahoo.com. The former being the group and posting address, the latter is for the GM use. One thing I like to do is just use first names on the site. I never put someone’s full name; it’s just not a good idea, especially in the days of high tech crime and identity theft.

Using a group site is great because it offers several different options to you as a GM. On the left column there are various headings that will aid you in establishing and customizing your group. The ones you will use most often are the Files Section, and the Photo Section.

Files Section: The Files section is where I post all pertinent game related info. You can create folders and sub folders to help keep things organized. Some of the folders in my games are for things like, Characters, GM Info, and Experience Log. As your players create their characters it is a good idea to have them post them on the Group Site so you the GM can see it and have a record. Other players can also look over each other’s skills, equipment, etc. Plus, if the character sheets are posted, it keeps the PCs honest. I do not want to accuse any player of cheating, but I have seen “Modifications” made to character sheets when the GM wasn’t looking.

In my GM info folder I keep a list of NPC’s that the party comes in contact with, a list of equipment that is available to the group, and even a list of House Rules. In every game there seems to be situations that arise that the rules don’t cover. So, as the GM, you make the call and create a rule for that situation in case it happens again. I highly recommend that you keep a list of all the house rules you create on the group site. It is just fair, and open, and prevents problems when various situations recur.

Photo Section: I use this section for tons of things, as do my players. I like to put up maps of the area or draw pictures of the locations of my players versus the bad guys. It helps with the visual part of the game immensely, and replaces the use of miniatures. Maps are excellent things to post there as well.

One time, a friend of mine was running a game in thedesertofTexas. He took a picture of the red dirt, mesa, and scrub brush and posted it in the photo section so we players were able to understand what kind of terrain obstacles we might encounter. It gave a flat online game a great visual aspect. I did something similar when running a Rifts game set on the Coalition’s Brown Water Navy using theMississippi River. I searched under Yahoo Photos and found two or thee good pictures of theMississippiand put them in the Photo Section of my Group site.

Those are the main ones that I use. Yahoo Groups offer a Polling section on the Group Site. My players often like to create polls about the situations in the game or ask general gaming questions. In another game I play in I am a member of a Mercenary Group. The GM asked us for suggestions to name the group. Using the Poll area on the Group site the GM put up all the prospective names and then we players voted for the one we like best.

The Nitty Gritty

So now the group site is ready to go, what do I do? Well, as the GM it is up to you to find players. Advertise your game via bulletin boards, forums, or word of mouth among your friends. For the Palladium games I run, I went to the Palladium Books web site and accessed their Forums. In the Palladium Forums they have a topic for Gamers seeking Gamers. The other place that got me good results was the now defunct RPG Think Tank (now the wonderful Nexus Nine Forums).

Whatever system of game you want to play, seek out other Yahoo Groups and ask the moderator of that group if you can advertise on their site and recruit players, or go to the game manufacturer’s or printer’s web site and see if they have a forum or BB you can post on. When advertising make sure to include the following:

• The RPG System you will be using to play the game
• How many players you are looking for
• Any restrictions regarding the types of characters you want to be in your game, including experience levels
• An estimated start time for your game (1 week, 1 month)
• The Group Site address or a link to the Groups site
• Your own email contact information

This is also a good time to write a short (1 paragraph or so) description of your game’s theme or plot.

Recruiting is a slow process because not everyone is into PBEM games. I have had players join my game and then drop out because the game moves too slowly. I have had other people contact me and show interest and then disappear. I have had people send me completed character sheets and then disappear. Why people drop out or want to play is a mystery, but the key to a successful game is finding players that will join for the long haul. PBEM/PBP games are very slow moving. A round of combat can take a month to get through. When the GM is tied up with personal issues the games can sometimes stop for a week or more at a time. Your game may hinge on the actions of a single player, and until he posts a response you could be stalled. Players need to be patient and understand that it will take years to resolve a campaign. But that in itself is part of the fun because, no matter how busy life gets, all you have to do to be involved is check your email.

Once we have all our players organized it is time to get the game started. As a GM I recommend you print out a copy of the PCs’ sheets in your group and keep them in a folder somewhere handy. During game play, as you read and respond to the player’s posts, it will help you quickly reference the particular PCs’ abilities and skills, etc. If you lose paperwork easily then use the Group Site. Right-click and open the files section in another window. Put the PC data and post side by side and type on. Technology makes it so easy.

The game begins with the GM’s first post. For Yahoo Groups, you are allowed to give a title to your post. I use the title area to keep track of rounds/actions as well as to delineate what part of the story the players are in. For example, in the Rifts Atlantis game I am running I divide the story into Chapters. The heading of the post would read: Chapter 4: Uncertain Futures – Turn 2. By adding the turn, the round or the action number to the end of the chapter or heading it also helps players keep track of when new posts are put up, and it will help you as a GM later when you have to go back to look up something in the messages section of the Group Site. There is nothing worse than going back to previous posts looking for some bit of info when all the post titles are the same.

The actual post itself is where you, the GM, tell the story. When running a Play-By-Post or Play-By-Email game you need to be somewhat literate in the English language (or whatever language you are running the game in) and not have a hard time describing things in detail. The more details you give about the setting, the NPC’s, and the actions the enemies are taking, the better your game will be. Nothing bogs down a PBEM or PBP more than having the players’ post a ton of questions they need answered just so they can respond to your first post.

Try to think ahead when you write. What bits of information do the characters need to respond to the situation? For example, if I were going to write a battle scene where a line of troops are ambushing a column of vehicles, I would write the following:

• The speed the vehicle is going
• The amount of armor the vehicle has
• The number of people in the vehicle
• What kinds of weapons the victims have
• How many victims will be caught in the ambush
• Where the attackers are hiding in relationship to the incoming vehicle
• Are the attackers behind cover or are they merely concealed behind bushes?
• What kind of armor do the attackers have
• What kinds of weapons do they carry?

It sounds like a lot of details to include, but if you take the time to write it up well, your players will appreciate it and respond to your posts faster. To answer the above questions you do not have to break it down into a Q&A session. Make it part of the story. For example:

The lightly armored APC was moving at a crawl toward the hedgerow. Little did the four unarmed occupants know that the hedgerow contained a dozen of the king’s best soldiers, all of them armed with the king’s standard-issue laser rifles, and heavy body armor bearing the king’s seal. All of the soldiers lay in a line across the roadway poised and ready to fire when the APC reached the intersection. The heroes spotted the soldiers in time but there was no way to warn the travelers. They could only hope the armor on the APC would hold till they could get there to save them …

You get the idea. Just a simple paragraph and all the questions were answered. You can write more if you feel it is necessary or if you have time. You could describe the color of the APC, what type of laser rifles the soldiers carried, the weather outside, or additional factors that might dictate the accuracy and timing of the attack. This is where you decide what is best for your story. Whatever you write, remember that adjectives are your friends. The more descriptive you are, the more your players will look forward to your next post, and the longer they will stay interested.

There is no set length that any post should be; you can say a lot in just a couple of paragraphs. Don’t feel inadequate if your post is short. The length is inconsequential as long as you cover all the info necessary to advance the game.

There will also come a time when an NPC and PC may have to conduct some dialogue. The best way I find is to have the players post their list of questions for the NPC’s in their response posts, and you, as the GM summarize and rewrite them in your next storyline post. As each character speaks you should start a new line and new &quote; &quote; quotation marks. It will ease the confusion. For example, look at the two conversations and tell me which is easier to understand.

“Hello,” The elf said. “Hello,” the dragon responded. “I am Niallo of Rivercourse. I am seeking the silver orb of healing. I was told you might be able to help me.” “What makes you think I will help you?” “You have a reputation for compassion Sir Dragon.”

Or:

“Hello,” the elf said.

“Hello,” the dragon responded.

“I am Niallo of Rivercourse. I am seeking the silver orb of healing. I was told you might be able to help me.”

“What makes you think I will help you?”

“You have a reputation for compassion, Sir Dragon.”

To me, the second is easier to understand. It looks less like a run-on sentence, and more like a conversation. Each new line denotes a new speaker and will help your players along.

Another great online tool I use is Yahoo Instant Messenger. I have a buddy list for my gaming friends that are in the group. If I need to role-play a situation for a player or just need to answer a few game related questions for a player, we can IM one another. For off-camera RP sessions you just role-play the situation, cut and paste it into a story, and then post it for the group to see. If the GM or player is offline, the message will be saved until the person logs in again. It’s a simple system and it also helps develop long-term friendships with your players. I can’t tell you how many good gamers I’ve met that I now consider friends, and how knowing them has led me into other great gaming opportunities.

One advisement: secret, under-the-table gaming is a necessary evil sometimes, but be careful with it. Just like in table-top groups, the more up front you are with the group, the more credibility you have with the players.

At the end of every post is the key to a successful game. The end of the story line post should end in a cliffhanger. Write what you need to get the characters filled in on what is occurring, and then leave it all open ended. The open ending encourages players to post because it is human nature to fill a void. Think of your favorite TV show or book. Surely you have noticed that every episode or chapter ends with just enough info to make you want to keep reading, or to tune in for next week’s episode. That void at the end of the story is where your characters jump in and finish the story. When your story ends your players should be dying to fill in their part, which will progress the game for you, and enable you to set them up for the next cliffhanger.

Rolling the Dice

Well, the game is on and the first combat round or skill check is imminent. Now what? How do we roll for the messages in our inbox? Here are a couple of options.

As a GM I like to do all the rolling for my games. Not that I don’t trust my players to give me honest results, but sometimes I like to be able to “influence” the outcome of a roll. For dramatic effect I can alter the dice roll to fit the situation to create tension or to make that heroic moment come alive for a player. This is not something I do for every roll; I’m a huge advocate of letting the dice fall where they may. Dice are what gives games their realistic feel. Without that random element in the game, your players would get bored rapidly. In real life you don’t succeed 100% of the time, so why should you be allowed to in a game?

The main reason I like to do the rolling myself is if I control the dice I can advance the game faster. It’s faster for me to have the players’ post their actions, and then I can roll everything at once and put it all together in a story post. I would go crazy if I had to wait for each player to roll and then send me their results. If a player chose to be dishonest (it hasn’t happened to me yet) then this is their opportunity. It’s up to you, but I feel it adds continuity to the story if I do all the rolling all at the same time with the same set of dice.

You can have your players roll and post their rolls with their actions or response posts. The honor system works quite well actually, but if you have several players in a combat round and everyone sends you their response except for one player then the game stalls, waiting for his roll of the dice. This can be frustrating, but again, its up to you, it’s your game; you try it your way.

Lastly, and perhaps the best way, is to find an online dice roller. There are a few good programs out there that will roll any number of dice with any number of sides and will email results to you and the player(s). I love these little software programs; I hope the people who wrote them make a million dollars and go into the RP hall of fame. These programs keep everyone honest all the time. If you have an integrity issue in your game then I highly recommend a rolling program.

Da Playerz!

As a player, your job is simple: to react. When the GM posts the next part of the story and the group site automatically emails it to everyone in the game, you read the story post and then figure out what your character would do in that situation. Below is something I wrote for a player in my game that had a hard time writing more than two sentences when he posted. After using my system below his responses became much clearer and added a lot of insight into his character. Mind you, this is not a complete list, and you may not need to respond to every question on the list every time, but it will help you as a player when you sit to write. Feel free to amend this as necessary.

• What does the PC see from his perspective? Be descriptive; use lots of adjectives.
• What does the PC think about what he is seeing at that moment? Will it affect him in the near future? Will it have long term effects?
• What is your PC going to do about what s/he sees? Talk? Run? Fight? Miscellaneous Action?
• Who is standing near the PC and how will this affect them?
• Does having someone else nearby make your PC think or act differently versus if he was alone?
• What does your PC feel inside? Does this make him happy, sad, angry, and murderous?
• What does your PC say to the people around him? His friends? The bad guy? To God? To whoever else is around?
• When you say that, what reaction should the PC expect? Are his words going to be friendly in tone, defensive, hostile?
• What equipment does your PC have at his disposal that will help him in this situation? How is he going to use that weapon or object and what does he hope to achieve? Is he proficient with that weapon? Is it the best weapon to use or the best piece of equipment for the job? Why or why not?
• Finally, what does your PC do? Before he acts write what the PC is thinking at that moment so we know what is motivating the PC to do that particular action.

PBP

Like a Play by Email game there is also its twin sister the Play by Post. This is the same type of game with a couple of exceptions. Instead of a group that emails for you, you run it from a bulletin board or forum service. First, make sure you have permission from the person that owns the BB or Forum before you start running a game there. I don’t think RP.net would happy if a bunch of people started their own thread and began a full game—I could be wrong, but permission is better than forgiveness.

Once you have a BB service the GM starts a new thread and posts the first part of the story there. The players then post their responses to that part of the story under the same thread. The GM can continue under the same thread or start a new one for the next part of the story. I recommend starting a new thread every time you advanced the story. It just makes it easier for the players to keep track and saves them from having to scroll through a long list of crap to get to the new story.

It’s essentially the same except it is harder to post maps, pictures, and PC sheets for quick reference. There are some BBs and Forums that allow pictures and stuff that will round out your game; check with the BB owner and see what their policies are.

Tempo

Lastly, I want to address the tempo of PBEM and PBP games. When you write a story post you need to wait and allow your characters time to react to what is written. I usually post once or twice a week at the most in the games I run or play in. The GM needs to have patience and allow the players time to sit and read their emails or posts and then to reply. It can take 2 weeks and sometimes longer. It can make a game drag, but remember PBEM and PBP games are made for busy working geeks—you gotta have patience.

One real horror story is a PBP I got into. I had a great PC and a great GM and a great story. The problem I had was trying to keep up. I don’t have internet access at work and can only respond at night when I get home. The GM would put up a post and everyone would reply and then he’d advanced the story again, and the group would reply. By the time I got home at night I was three actions behind everyone else. One week was exceptionally busy and I missed a week of posts. When I logged in I was three pages behind on the story and the group had already moved into a city, engaged the Coalition Forces, killed them and moved on. I hadn’t posted at all during that exchange; the game moved on and left me as a player out of it. I quit. I had to; the GM moved the group too fast. After another week I was another 4 pages behind. It was too much.

A fast game is not a bad thing; some players have time to post a lot. But as a GM you need to get all the players’ input. It makes them feel included and makes their actions and their character an important part of the whole. When you are three pages ahead of a player, that player will feel left out like I did, and then feel like the group doesn’t need his PC to execute the mission (or whatever).

Anyway, just remember, move at the speed of your players. If a player has gone AWOL then resort to option two.

Option Two is what you might have to do when a player takes an extended leave of absence or is unavailable for a long time: replace the player. In my Atlantis game I had a key character who was active initially drop out totally. The player went through a move, a job change, etc., and just couldn’t find time for posting. In some cases you might need to replace a player in a game with another. Usually you will see this happening and will have time to adjust your story to plan (usually). When you need a new player it’s back to advertising (see above section).

What if the player still wants to be in the game but hasn’t posted in a few weeks? I have another friend in my game that has taken a second job and has a bustling social life. He can’t post that often because he is trying to make ends meet. He doesn’t want to drop out, but he can’t be in the story full time. As a PBP PBEM GM you might need to NPC that character till the player has time again. Move them to a lesser part of the plot for now and you can revisit their plotline or quest later. Be flexible, it will happen to you. It doesn’t hurt to send the player an email once a while or, if you have instant messaging, you can check up on them. Just a “Hey, how’s it going, miss having you in the game!” kinda thing can be a big boost and gain their interest again. Whatever you do, don’t be harsh towards them or goad them into posting. We are role-playing to have fun. Trust me; they feel bad enough for slowing your game already; don’t rub it in.

For those of you who would like to get back into role-playing or run a game yourself, but don’t have players in your area code or can’t find the time to meet, and then give PBEM or PBP a try. It is a lot of fun and an easy way to get a game in without interrupting your hectic schedule.

Details game worlds - how do you track all the details?

O Wise Sage of the Northern Hemisphere,

I come to you with an all-consuming question and have emptied my cup and am eager to learn.

There’s a world that’s been created and lovingly populated with all manner of things.

There are continents with plate tectonics and zones of subduction and hotspots and rift valleys.

There are ocean currents and trade winds, and mesothermal climate zones and arctic wastes. If you look closely you’ll even find fossils.

There are gods and people, with culturally diverse practices and dimly recollected histories. And there are monstrous creatures of bewildering kinds (although there are no monks ’cause the Creator doesn’t believe in monks [of any edition]). There are clans and aristocracies, with socio-economic statuses, chivalric codes, complicated guild statutes and unbelievingly confusing calendrical systems.

There are constellations and planets and lunar phases, and there are philosophical thought systems and diverse magical practices.

There are herbs with names and functions, and mysterious ley lines that nobody knows about. There are kingdoms with subsistence systems, power centres, rulers and outlaws, secret societies, hamlets and cities, road networks, maritime activities, ecclesiastical policies, and crystal-like beings that shoot lasers from their eyes.

There are people with names and jobs and titles and political affiliations and personality profiles and motivational idiosyncrasies.

And the Creator looked at all of this and saw it was pretty OK.

And sitting in the wings, with historically consistent backstories filled with trauma and triumph, are impatient and sceptical PCs.

The world is poised to explode in a flurry of action and dice rolls, politicking and attacks of opportunity, social climbing and critical hits.

There’s a horse-loving swordsmith about to set up a shop in Cam-for; a rogue who pretends to be a marquis who pretends to be a minstrel and who dreams of owning an air ship; a handsome mage who is a pencil-pusher in the family apportation business; and a bald blue-eyed mystic who is out to slay the gods. And there’s an insane Aranite high priest who wants to kill them all. All, I tell ‘ya.

However, it’s all dead. Or rather, it’s all static. And I have no idea how to un-pause it.

It’s all good and well to know that in Kalderesh, in the spring of 4719 AC, old King Jeffry of Kalder dies, peacefully in bed. And in the summer of the same year, a calamity strikes Barban in the form of an anomalous magical event. These things are fated to happen. After all, its 4650 AC now, and I can tell you what will happen in the winter of 4805 AC (= 933 MC = 1277 G).

So that’s my problem. I’ve got a world with a history made-by-fiat. It’s rationally constructed so there appears to be a sensible dynamic explaining what such-and-such did or how whats-it came to be.

Last winter, Lord Hocequin the Wise of Coldbridge was at odds with the skrags and was going to annihilate them. Did that happen? Is he dead and Coldbridge is now a sink of iniquity? Or are the skrags on the run and Hocequin is now a true member of the peerage? Did the Agopean navy manage to find a passage to the Galentene Empire? And what of the Ursinican rebels?

How does a poor DM keep track of who is going to do what to whom, and when, and what the outcome will be?

It’s driving me nuts! I’m terribly happy to ad-lib and off-the-cuff and impromptu and thumb-suck. I’ll even throw in a sleight-of-hand or two. BUT there has to be a way to keep track [on some scale] of the dynamics of a world.

“Make the world a happenin’ place” was an article written by Rick Underwood ages ago. I’d love to read the follow-up: “What’s happenin and how to track it”

Any advice?

Yours sincerely,
Beleaguered in South Africa

(Picture courtesy of mrbill.)

by Bill  Mahmet

Below is some advice that ALL GMs can use, though “workaholic” GMs should especially benefit from the contents of this article.

The problems the below listed tips are meant to solve often occur for GMs who are not as good at coordinating people as they are at writing and running adventures. Don’t be afraid to put your foot down! You are the glue that holds the group together. Give those hangers-on a sense of responsibility and watch their performance skyrocket.

Being a GM can be a lot of work. When the game is in session and you are doing all of the work and having none of the fun, try delegating some simple tasks. This will prevent burn out and improve the game for everyone involved. Whenever I GM a group, especially one composed of less experienced or unfamiliar players, I always make sure to delegate tasks to the players.

The Note Takers

When GMing a group try to have: one player taking notes; one sketching player copies of maps (where appropriate); another keeping track of participation in encounters and a running tally of experience points and treasures earned (usually players will do this without asking); and also one keeping track of frequently changing information or combat stats, such as initiative, hp, and unusual status. I’ll even make sure to tell them when something is important for them to record, although of course, I am careful not to give away anything that should be kept secret.

PC Summaries

In addition to getting their personal character sheets, I ask all players to keep me supplied with updated summaries of their PCs. These summaries should contain any information either I or they feel is necessary for the GM: i.e. spells, AC, attack bonus, skill modifiers, commonly used weapons, obscure or confusing character specific rules, etc. If these summaries are to be useful, they should be as brief, and yet also as complete as possible.

If a player wants to make any significant changes to their summary, they must be made either between or before (or maybe just after, time permitting) game sessions. These changes must be given suitable justification and the GM, as well as the other players, must also be made fully aware of them. Any changes which involve something that is either new or complicated must be sufficiently explained to everyone in the group. Anything not conforming to the above prerequisites can be disallowed at the GM’s discretion.

NPC Tracking

When an NPC joins the group as a fellow adventurer, one player should be put in charge of said NPC. This player will be responsible for the NPC?s character sheet as well as for any changes to the sheet that take place over the course of adventuring. The GM, however, will still run the NPC as usual and, obviously, keep any pertinent information or secrets to himself. The upside of this is: instead of doing the bookkeeping and note taking for one NPC who will constantly be involved in the action, the GM can instead focus on the NPC’s that require more of his attention.

All of the above will drastically cut down on interruptions during the game, and also improve the suspense of disbelief.

Rule Assistance

Another time saver is to have the entire group, not just the GM, be responsible for looking up rules. This ensures that the flow of the game can continue uninterrupted. Keeping this in mind, I always try to preempt rules queries by having a player look something up as soon as it appears it may become relevant, not after we have come to a sticking point. It is very important to make sure that the players in question will know the right answers from the wrong ones! If they don’t, it defeats almost the entire point of this task. Putting players into groups with specific roles can often make this process more accurate and efficient. Have one group be in charge of the core rules, another in charge of supplemental materials, etc. Feel free to use any other setups that better suits your game.

Less Work Equals More Fun

Being a GM can be a lot of work, so don’t take on jobs that aren’t even yours to begin with. Always let the players help out. It keeps everyone involved during all parts of the session (no more dice stacking), and it can free up time. Time to do the things that really matter. Things like designing adventures, creating believable NPC’s, and running smooth combat encounters. Those are the things that make a good GM, not bookkeeping and pencil pushing. So remember, when everyone is involved in every part of the game, every part of the game becomes fun for everyone, including the GM.