Eight Tips For Using Real World Locations In Your Games
By Jesse C Cohoon You probably know your hometown well. Its streets, landmarks, people. So why not use it as an adventure location? It’s easy drawing from memory and picturing the details to make descriptions vivid and mapping easy. And there’s a lot of inspiration there to draw from based on your experiences and stories […]
Continue readingReader Tip Request: Fantasy Chase Scenes
RPT Reader Devon Creamer asks: I was wondering how I could do a chase scene in one of my campaigns. My dilemma is that chase scenes are supposed to be fast and action packed, no dull parts or slow parts. But with Pathfinder’s usual movement rules, it’s too boring and my players lose interest. Thanks […]
Continue reading5 Effective Combat Tactics For Assassins
To give you a taste of Assassin’s Amulet, my upcoming new book for game masters, here is a very brief excerpt from the GM Advice chapter. Many GMs struggle with running killer NPCs. One big goal of the book is to arm you with enough actionable advice that you’ll scare the crap out of your […]
Continue readingAdventure Design Tip: How Do You use Chekhov’s Gun in Gaming?
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 […]
Continue readingHot Pursuit Tips
From Mark of the Pixie How you GM a pursuit depends a little on what sort of pursuit it is. Hot pursuit The enemy is always within sight, and you need to try every trick you can to get away. This includes cinematic chases with shooting and dodging, but can also include the more subtle […]
Continue readingTurn Terrain Into A Monster
From Mark of the Pixie Sometimes I will stat up a terrain (i.e. the swamp of nightmare) as a monster to make travel interesting. Over the hours, days or weeks it will harass the PCs with its attacks (swarms of insects, thorns) and use its special abilities against them (bog pits, gas fires, nightmares, paranoia). […]
Continue readingScott’s Index Cards
Here’s a tip from a reader that’s been sitting on my hard drive for awhile. Now that I have this shiny blog I can finally post it! Index cards for running encounters From Scott Here are some examples of my index cards. I write them in Word then print them out onto cards. I would […]
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