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Read “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield
I recently finished reading Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work and it is a fantastic book. He addresses resistance, how we all have it, and how it is resistance that must be overcome in order to realize our hopes and dreams. Only he does not give you some feel good self-help bullshit advice. He gives you a battle plan to overcome resistance with.
If you want to make something happen in your life this is the book
Posted in Good GMing Tagged art, creating, Do the Work, resistance, Steven Pressfield Leave a comment
If I Wanted Boobs I Would Have Bought Porn…
I will not name names, but as I flipped through one of my recent RPG purchases the depictions of scantily clad women were pretty silly. I mean, garter straps and fishnet stockings with a breastplate that exposes nearly the entire breast does not qualify as armor. I do not care that the artwork is for a fantasy, or sci-fi, or freaking horror game. I am tired of publishers using artwork of women as sex objects in the
Experience, Not the XP Kind…
What will a person experience if they play this game? I think that is a question that all GMs should ask themselves before planning a session, adventure, or campaign for an RPG. It helps a GM to focus on a desired effect for the game. Thinking about how you want the players to feel during the game gives you a goal to work towards.
Do not just brush this question off with the standard gamer response of "To have
Posted in Good GMing Tagged adventures, campaigns, experience, fun, intent, sessions Leave a comment
Campaign Planning: Whoa! How Many Sessions is That!?
I am preparing to start a new campaign with the Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0 setting based upon the MicroLite20 system. I am designing the campaign around the progression of the crew’s career starting with their training at Star Fleet Academy and ending with the characters having achieved such prestigious honors as being admirals, ambassadors, and prime ministers of governments. How the characters will st
Posted in RPGs in General Tagged sessions, telanovela versus Lost, Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0 Leave a comment
Blogging: My Three Mistakes
My first mistake is that I have not been posting regularly here, because I thought that I had to post only about my GMing workbook. That project has been progressing nicely, and I was posting portions of my current draft as I completed them.
Yet that meant that I was only posting when I felt that something was “blog ready” or “blog worthy”. A great deal of the current manuscript is not good
Page 7 – The structure & components of a game: Campaign, adventure, session, scene, characters & conflicts.
Here is page 7 of my workbook project. I should note that when I say “page” what I really mean is “this section comes before that one and after that other one”. It is quite possible that the final product will have completely different page numbers.
Not that anyone probably cares about that, but I felt that it had to be said. Now on with the show!
Roleplaying games are first and for
Page 8 – Player Feedback & Character Input – How they shape your game.
Here is page 8 of my latest project. I slowed down a bit as I am recovering from a very minor surgery, but I hope to be back on track starting this week.
A game where every detail has been prepared in advance is much like a video game in that the game is limited to that which the programmer could conceive of within the confines of the past. A fully prepared game turns the role of the GM int
Page 9 – The Four Acts
Here is the next part of my GM’s campaign designer workbook. This section explains the four acts model that is central to my idea of how to plan your campaigns.
This workbook uses a simple four act design that is not only the structure used for the campaign overall, but it is also embedded into each act itself, each session, and even individual scenes.
This formula is used again and again be
Page 5–“Why You Need to Plan Ahead, But Not Prepare Heavily”
I will not be posting daily as I focus on my current project. I will be designing my project in the open though (it will eventually be released under a Creative Commons license, but for now it is my copyrighted material).
So here is Page 5 of the outline, that explains the approach that I am taking with the project. It is a rough draft, so feel free to criticize it.
Many a Game Master (hereby referred to a
