Are all your players having fun? Roleplaying games can be challenging, frustrating (particularly when the dice go against you), thrilling, exasperating. But they are a social pastime, and everyone should leave most sessions thinking “well, I’m glad I took part.” I recently made a big mistake. I forgot to think about that extra word “all” … Continue reading Are your players having fun?
Role-playing games can be a lot of fun, and a great way to spend a few hours exploring a different life and different experiences. But due to the topics they typically encompass – violence, theft, monsters, demons, devils, spiders, bugs, relationships, different tribes/races/species and their interactions, conflict, Mrs Cake, slood, celery and more – they … Continue reading Safety Tools in RPGs
Have you considered how your characters would cope without their equipment? What would they do? Suddenly both exploration and combat become rather different. Now think about it as a GM - you've set up a scenario where the players' characters have had their equipment taken away. How do you make it feel like an interesting … Continue reading Coping without equipment
It seems to be Kickstarter season. Hardly a day passes without an invitation to invest in yet another Kickstarter. I'd like to highlight another couple of Kickstarters I think really worthwhile. Extraordinary Expeditions Kickstarter page here I have always been keen to run my own campaign with its own storyline - part of the fun … Continue reading Two more Kickstarters
When running a D&D session, you want the essential information to hand in a compact format. I have a spreadsheet which I use for my sessions, which I’m sharing in case you will also find it useful. Contents The pack includes: A4 and US Letter versions of the blank spreadsheet.An example pre-filled spreadsheet based on … Continue reading Session tracker
In the previous few posts, I looked at the history of Skills in BECMI, looked at the different 5e skills in detail, and explored what skills can (and equally importantly can't) do. The last post introduced more complex scenarios where one action isn't enough to resolve the situation, and considered a complex task: crossing a … Continue reading When one action isn’t enough (part 2) – Negotiations
What do you do when your D&D party come across a situation which is too complex to handle with a single action? Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash In the previous few posts, I looked at the history of Skills in BECMI, looked at the different 5e skills in detail, and explored what skills can … Continue reading When one action isn’t enough (part 1) – Complex Tasks
"I'm going to chat up the barmaid. I roll Persuasion - look, it's a natural 20. I get her to come outside with me, and then I kill her and I get a free attack because she's surprised because I rolled that natural 20."Summary of incident at early session run by my son Sound familiar? … Continue reading Skills aren’t magic
In my previous post, I examined the development of skills checks in the Basic Boxed set D&D line, and gave a quick contrast with the 5th edition skills. I never really got the chance to use the skills in earnest in my games - I only invested in the first four gazetteers before I moved … Continue reading A flash of Insight into skills
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