Travis Miller's Blog About Sword & Sorcery Fiction and Classic Fantasy Adventure Gaming
Engaging non-player characters are one the most powerful tools in my game mastering kit. The greater the NPC's importance to the events of the game, the more interesting and emotionally engaging I want to make the character. Adversaries are especially important. Everyone loves a good villain. It makes or breaks the quality of the experience …
Continue reading How Do I Create Important Non Player Characters?
Most old school DM's and players, in my experience, have not been a part of games with high level characters. The lethality of old school play can keep you from getting a character much over 6th or 7th level. A lot of campaigns fizzle out before characters hit 9th or 10th level. Often this is …
Continue reading How To Run High Level, Old School, Dungeons and Dragons.
A phrase frequently stated by writing teachers is, "Show. Don't Tell." This applies equally to game masters. If you want to get your players on the edge of their seats, your location descriptions need to "show" the players what their characters see. Do not "tell" them what to think or how they should feel about …
Inference is one of the greatest mental tools that evolution has given humans. You see the hoof print of a deer in the snow. The snow is fresh, it stopped snowing just before dawn, a few hours ago. The print is clear and clean. Readers and players of RPG's make inferences all the time. A …
For a variety of different reasons, you have decided you want to bring a new person into your RPG group. Finding players is easier today than it used to be. Finding players who will be interested in playing your game and will fit in with an established group is as hard as ever. One thing …
I have picked up a somewhat abstract way to think about how to go about game mastering, game design and writing. I think I originally learned it from Seth Godin but have seen it in other places. The concept is this, people don't want the thing you make. What they want is how the thing …
A common NPC in RPG's, table top and video game both, is the "quest giver." There's that old platitude of, "If you want something done right, do it yourself." So why is the quest giver not just taking care of this problem themselves? I use this question as a prompt for creating adventures and world …
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