GM Help – Creating Story to Entertain

I’m writing this coming off of a very rough session in my Prime campaign (Session 20). It was a session that I knew was not going to be easy on the players. Where combat was 50/50 the whole way through, one wrong move would lead to failure. When the players failed, it hit them hard. Perhaps because this is the first time the failure was their own fault; and they could have prevented it by remembering just one or two things. They were down a party member, in the heat of combat most of the night, and just kept on their toes. The pressure was too much as we ventured into our first post level 10 session of 5^th edition. It was awesome, heartbreaking, and frustrating. My players trust me enough as a GM that they still look forward to the next session; where things will likely come full circle in a way they never expected. All of session 20 came from just one paragraph on a paper I did earlier that day; as does most of my session planning. This isn’t an article to help you write concisely though, I want to help you create interesting and entertaining stories.

Player Help – Power Gaming

By the sheer force of having fun and accidentally making strong characters. I’ve become quite the power gamer, when I do get the chance to sit down and play. I don’t do it on purpose, I simply want to have fun. I don’t specifically look for the best and most broken options for the characters I make. In those rare times I got to play, I discovered something. My characters are strong! It just stems from the thought that I focus on my character’s strengths when designing them and picking their abilities and options. I put myself into my character’s shoes and go from there. With all of that said, my game masters never complained. If you find yourself making strong characters time and time again, you might be a power gamer too. A lot of people dislike these sorts of players because they can zap the fun out of a campaign. I hope this guide will help you find a comfortable seat at your gaming table (virtual or not)!

GM Help – How I GM

With a growing audience on the twitch stream, and new followers across all of my sites; I often get the question “I love your style, how can I do things like you?” Well, I do like to wing things and not fully prep my games. It makes things feel more fluid, but I think it’s less on emphasizing that; and more on how I choose to handle the bulk of rules regardless of what system I use to GM for.

Player Help – Dungeon Delving

There are plenty of how to guides on combat strategy, but not so much when it comes to the art of dungeoneering. Look no further, for this guide should get you back on track and hammering through the depths, ruins, caves, crypts, and sewers in no time!

Preventing a Stale Campaign

I’m currently fifteen weeks into my latest campaign. To give you an idea, it is an epic fantasy campaign where tarrasques can breed and are commonplace. The characters have hit level nine, and eagerly look forward to every new session. I’ve learned a few tricks, and picked up on a few things, that help me make sure that the players are always looking forward to the next session. I do my best to make sure that each session has something for everyone. I hope this guide helps keep your campaign fresh and exciting for your players!

Building a New Campaign “Rise” – Part 5 – Things EVERYWHERE!

I look before me and try to figure out where to go next with my campaign preparation. Scattered about my desk is the aftermath of a storm which has left a flurry of small memo pad pages, sticky notes, legal pad pages, and things I don’t even remember doing. My computer desktop is riddled with inspirational images, sketches, doodles, map ideas, and the past four articles’ worth of information. “Well, things are a little cluttered.” I tell myself. I lost control of the beast that is my next project, and it’s time to get back on track, fine tune, and revise.

Building a New Campaign “Rise” – Part 4 – 1st Session & Beyond

One thing I like to do before finishing the heavy detailing of my campaigns and campaign worlds, is get the first adventure planned, and the events shortly after fleshed out. I typically do a prequel session. A session where everyone has a chance to get used to things and learn what their lives were like before the campaign gets underway. I did this great effect in my Prime campaigns where the first session was simply letting the players live out their everyday lives as level zero characters. So, technically the adventure I am planning for an example is not the first session, but the second. I just want to avoid potential spoilers!

Building a New Campaign “Rise” – Part 1 – The first questions.

I’m getting ready for the next adventure, que epic music. It is never an easy thing. I can’t imagine how it is for new game masters to attempt to do the same, but I was there once. I love building my worlds from scratch, but I would highly recommend running your first campaign with a published world. Eberron holds an extremely special place in my heart. I’ve run four campaigns in it, one D&D 3.5, two Pathfinder, and one D&D 5e. But, if you’re really itching to create your own world, I’m here to help you. This guide is meant for all editions and role playing systems, as good world building doesn’t rely on stats and numbers. Having some experience with game mastering is highly recommended, but if you’ve got a story or great idea, then that’s all you need.

Speeding Things Up (PC & GM Help)

Player & GM Help – Speeding Things Up

It’s easy to let game night slip away into discussion time and going off on tangents. This article should help give you some good ideas on how to speed things up and get the most out of your session. It’s not rules specific so you should be able to put it to use for any system. This article is specifically tailored to speeding things up. Two can play at this game, so be sure to share this with your whole group. Since it is for players and game masters.

GM Help – Going off course.

A GM’s guide on how to prevent your players from shutting your game down.

I spend a lot of time reading in my spare time, mostly getting ideas for my own adventures and articles. I’m a pretty big fan of Table Titans and love that they have players and game masters constantly giving them experiences to post. As I read over these I’ve seen several “bad” experiences. Experiences that were fun at the moment to the players, but the GM clearly felt undermined or unhappy. I have this happen to me, and have had it happen to fellow game masters on a consistent basis. So, what do you do when your players “one shot” your plans, or derail an adventure, even if it was completely within the rules and alignments?