From Ben Scerri The literary principal of Chekhov’s Gun has been around since the late 19th century and has influenced every aspect of storytelling culture. However, in my experience, it has failed to fully affect gaming and the stories game masters tell. This might be due to the reactive essence of good gaming (i.e. the [...]
Tag Archives: Design
How to Add Conspiracy Theories to Your Game
The most interesting thing about conspiracy theories is they could be true. Supporters will find evidence to support them, while the government will disprove them. The rest of the world doesn’t know or doesn’t care. That’s why many theorists keep ideas within sympathetic groups and only go public when they have enough proof. Create a [...]
Free Heists Deck Helps You Run Awesome Heists
In RPT#512, Robert Corrina offered us a tip about using a special heists deck. to add more fun to heist adventures. The idea was to offer additional inspiration for story twists and turns in your game using a deck of cards. Well, Robert now offers us his deck of cards you can use for any [...]
How Do You GM Great Droids?
In RPT #512 RND(axe) asked for help on running interesting droids in his Star Wars game. I received the following two great responses: Keep Droids Tools From Mark of the Pixie When I run droids, I stay focused on their purpose. Droids are tools, not characters (helps stop them outshining PCs). It colours their outlook [...]
5 Non-Epic Prophecies
By Hannah Lipsky Mystery, magic, the swirling of smoke above the oracular fire. Everyone loves prophecies, so why not throw a few into your games? They can be anything from a bit of local color to the focal point of a story arc. And it’s this former function most people forget – not every word [...]
Design: Start With Your Most Limited Resource
If you GM with props and aids that represent in-game content, then start with your most restricted design element and grow your design around that. For example, if you like to have NPC portraits or graphics, then instead of designing the NPC first and questing everywhere for the perfect picture, start with the picture and [...]