On last Friday’s GM Advice post, I discussed how using a character map for your NPCs empowers you as the GM to better channel your characters during the course of the story. This week’s #worldbuildingMonday post is an extension of that topic and drills down into the specifics of the character map and how best…
This week’s #GMAdvice is about role of a character map in the important job of channeling your NPCs’ personas as a GM. Admittedly, being a GM is a tough job. You’re juggling a lot: your worldbuilding, the players, their characters, your NPCs…everything, oftentimes simultaneously. Bringing a story to life in real time with the players…
Continuing from the last Isaiah the Gray #TBTRPG chapter, “What a waste.” Isaiah mutters as he exits the Catalyst room, brimming with even more extraordinary power and Force potential. At the end of the hall, at the base of the Gigantic Sarlacc pit, Isaiah comes across Jimmy who is hunched over, exhausted from the sheer…
This week’s #ifthiswereaTTRPG is about Odo’s choice in the Deep Space Nine Season Three Episode “The Search: Part II.” As always, spoilers ahead! A main character on DS9, Chief of Security Odo is a shapeshifter who has never met another one of his kind. He grew up in a laboratory on Major, no knowing where…
This week’s #GMAdvice post is all about how GMs should be balancing player character creation with what they (the GM/DM) “know is coming” in the story. Risking repeating the obvious, character creation is process of translating/transcribing a player character from an idea to their statistics/abilities/backstory on paper. Each tabletop RPG system is different, and there…
This week’s #ifthiswereaTTRPG post is about the Stranger Things Season 3 climatic finale: The Battle of Starcourt. As always on #ifthiswereaTTRPG, spoilers ahead! There’s a fascinating meta-narrative about Stranger Things that says the plot of the show is actually a group of people playing a home-brewed version of Dungeons and Dragons and we, the viewer,…
Last week, we talked about how new players can best jump right into playing tabletop RPGs. This week’s #newbieTuesday post digs deeper into one of those main points of emphasis: making choices. Like we’ve said in this space numerous times in weeks’ past, making choices is the core part of playing stories. And everyone, no…
Continuing from the last Isaiah the Gray #TBTRPG chapter, Isaiah decides to instead let the voices play out in his head, as if he’s simply listening to a track of music. And slowly, he begins to understand: “Welcome, Isaiah, to the Light. Come join us.” “Who is “us?” replies Isaiah, to no one in particular.…
This week’s #ifthiswereaTTRPG post is all about the Kessel Run in Solo, A Star Wars Story. According to the film, the Kessel Run is an 20 parsec long (65.2 Light Years) Jules Verne-esque smugglers’ route which took hyperspace fuel called ‘coaxium’ from the mines at Kessel past the Imperial blockades. In Solo, Han Solo and…
A big topic among folks who are interested in playing stories is how best to “jump right in.” So this week’s #newbieTuesday post will offer some advice and set the table for new players on how to get started playing role playing games in no time. What is a Character? Making Choices Prioritize Fun What…