Category Archives: Good GMing

Treat Your Players Like Peers, Not Students

By Patrick Benson | Published: August 22, 2011

I have had this happen months ago in a game in which I was playing a cleric in a D&D 4th Edition game. The GM had arranged a story where two good goddesses were at odds with each other, and my character being a cleric of one of the two good goddesses had to deal [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

They’ll Blame You, So Just Suck It Up!

By Patrick Benson | Published: July 12, 2011

My family and I have been without power for the last 38+hours. The power company expects power to be restored within the next 5 hours. If it was not for a fully charged laptop battery and a wireless hotspot smartphone I would not be able to post this. You might expect me to be upset [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fire Your Inner Micromanager

By Patrick Benson | Published: July 6, 2011

I recently watched an episode of the Food Network series Restaurant Impossible, and I really enjoyed it. The episode focused on a restaurant called Dodge City where the problems seemed to stem mainly from the owner’s reluctance to let anyone else do their job without his micromanaging every detail. By refusing to allow his team [...]

Also posted in Advice | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Good GM Move? Declaring Yourself Removed From Player vs. Player Shenanigans

By Patrick Benson | Published: June 20, 2011

Saturday June 18th was Free RPG Day and I ran a game at my local game shop of Icons by Adamant Entertainment, which is a an easy to run Superheroes RPG that is heavily influenced by Fate and Fudge. The premise of my one-shot session was that the heroes of the city have been wiped out, [...]

Also posted in Updates | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Why “Game of Thrones” Would Suck As An RPG

By Patrick Benson | Published: June 13, 2011

The HBO series Game of Thrones has aired eight episodes so far. No matter what people may feel about the series I am sure that many gamers out there are considering running a GoT campaign because they are inspired by the series. What a horrible idea. GoT has a very complex and intricate plot. There [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Expectations, Garage Sales, and Playing RPGs

By Patrick Benson | Published: June 10, 2011

Today I got pulled into the neighborhood garage sale, because my wife signed up to be a part of it and this results in my having to be a part of it. Now my wife will say/has said “You do not have to help if you do not want to be a part of it. [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Challenge the Players and Happiness Will Follow

By Patrick Benson | Published: June 9, 2011

As a GM it is easy to become obsessed with keeping the players happy. Not challenged, but happy. The PCs will succeed, because that will make the players happy. Yet the PCs will not succeed easily, because this will not make the players happy. So the PCs will succeed no matter what, and the players [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Some Great Sites For Fudge Game Masters

By Patrick Benson | Published: May 25, 2011

These are just a few of my favorite sites to visit when I need inspiration for a game session, decide to run a game on the spot, or I just want to mess around on the web with some RPG related stuff. Donjon Random Generators Need a dungeon? Check. Need a star system? Check. Need [...]

Also posted in Tools | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Never Script A Combat Encounter

By Patrick Benson | Published: May 23, 2011

Some game masters have very intricate plans for when a combat encounter occurs. The bad guys will start a chase, the orcs will drive the PCs towards the cliff’s edge, the aliens will detonate a neutronic cluster bomb, and so on, and so on. It makes sense, right? After all, role playing games are stories [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Game Masters Helping Game Masters

By Patrick Benson | Published: May 18, 2011

It occurred to me that I never had a post where I focused on my other web site You Meet In A Tavern. You Meet In A Tavern is a forum spawned off of the forums hosted at TreasureTables.org which was Martin Ralya’s blog before he started Gnome Stew. The purpose of You Meet In [...]

Posted in Good GMing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

  • Login

  • OGL Content

    Any posts in the OGL Content category is covered by the Open Game License v1.0a.

    If you are a gamer or GM who uses Wikipedia to do research for your character or game please consider making a donation to keep the Wikipedia site running. Click on the button below to learn more about how you can help.

    Wikipedia Affiliate Button

Switch to our mobile site