Tag Archives: RPG GMing

What Tabletop RPGs Are Good At

Posted on February 17, 2011 by admin

As I’ve said many, many times, I think tabletop RPGs are particularly good at certain things, and that it’s usually a bad idea to twist the form toward things other media do better. An MMO-like tabletop game play experience is…

Posted in RPG Theory | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

Don’t Be Afraid to Give Up!

Posted on August 4, 2010 by admin

So I was running a supers game. It was okay, but not great. I didn’t like it. I loved worldbuilding with my friends, talking about alt history and fiddling with systems, but I didn’t feel like actually running the…

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Fudging, Fiat and the Regulation of Desire

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Malcolm

Participant fudging and fiat are excellent techniques for all RPGs (and other games, but they’re really great in RPGs). People say a lot of silly things about it for three reasons:

  1. Peer pressure.
  2. An unacknowledged desire to dominate others

…

Posted in RPG Theory | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

You Can’t Do That in RPGs: a History

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Malcolm

The history of RPGs is the history of things you can’t do, and various strategies to veil, deny or accommodate that fact.

Players like to think they can go anywhere and do anything with their characters unless there’s a mechanism in place…

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You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Rules-Wise)

Posted on October 22, 2009 by admin

I recently put my homebrew SF game on hold to get back to our previous Star Wars Saga campaign. Now I like Saga in a lot of respects, but all in all I think it has too many rules, requires…

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GM as God 4 . . . ish: More on the Land of Miracles

Posted on October 18, 2009 by admin

As I said in the last part of this leg of GM as God, settings are bullshit. There are no vampires and elves. Even in grounded settings, real human beings are interested in a whole bunch of ordinary things I…

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GM as God Part 3: Shatner on the Mount

Posted on August 13, 2009 by admin

Oh boy.

This one was inspired by a Youtube video. It’s extremely silly and incredibly nerdy, and I may not be able to communicate my message because of it, but what the hell: at least it’ll be good for a…

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GM as God, Part 2.5: Bang!

Posted on August 6, 2009 by admin

My last post in the GM as God series was a little too abstract so I want to elaborate a little by talking about an example of it succeeding in one of my own games. So:

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GM as God, Part Two: Information and Revelations

Posted on July 27, 2009 by admin

One of the most difficult tasks for any GM is to fully integrate the players’ character portrayals with the world. This can be a deeply hidden problem because groups tend to get right to how everyone gets along instead of…

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GM As God, Part One: Three Ways to Use Your Omniscience

Posted on July 20, 2009 by admin

So, here’s part one of the GM as God series. This article is pragmatic and tip-filled. I’m going to jump around between straightforward business and the Art, though.

Let’s get started.

Though the forceful GM looms large in the…

Posted in RPG Theory | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments