Role-playing

I’ve been working on a major role-playing project for the past few months. It’s called the City of Talon, a small book that describes a busy portside fantasy city, suitable for any fantasy role-playing game. It can even be raided for ideas for short stories and novels. It’s a grand experiment. I love the creative … Continue reading »

A few months ago, I published my first RPG adventure, War in the Deep, a D&D 4th Edition adventure for Heroic Tier players. Here’s what I learned in writing it. Artwork turns a bland adventure document into an exciting one. I searched Flickr for photos licensed under the Creative Commons for commercial use, and I … Continue reading »

I’m confused. I see a lot of articles on the RPG Bloggers Network providing game prep advice. What to think about before a session. What to write down. What to roll up. Do GMs really have that much trouble preparing for a session? Seriously. Do we not know how to prep? When I started GMing, … Continue reading »

Imagine having 100 to 200 role-playing miniatures, in color. Some of them fantasy characters, some of them sci-fi characters, some horror; whatever. And imagine if they cost about 5 cents each, and you could keep them all in a box the size of a hardback book. I came across these at the D.C. Game Day … Continue reading »

I’m working on a role-playing campaign setting — a whole city, ripe for adventure. I plan to publish it as one big document, complete with maps, locations, characters, etc. I decided this setting would benefit from a few appendices that list statistics for the major antagonists, according to several popular role-playing systems. That would mean … Continue reading »

  I’ve noticed something. Of those wonderful people who think up horrifying monsters for players to encounter during a tabletop role-playing session, many of them struggle with originality. They strive to create thoughtful histories and almost complete ecologies for their creatures, in the attempt to create a monster that’s not just another vicious humanoid. I’d … Continue reading »

I believe that speed is essential to good role-playing. Think of a good action movie or an engrossing book; the story rockets from revelation to revelation, leaving you breathless. Not that a GM should rush from one plot point to the next, but there’s no point in taking a plot slowly. Unfortunately, many of the … Continue reading »

All right, I admit it: I play Dungeons & Dragons. This may horrify some of my evangelical friends, but trust me: there’s nothing wrong with it. You may ask, why play D&D when it has so many negative connotations? Why not use one of the hundreds of other role-playing systems out there, like FUDGE or … Continue reading »

Before I published War in the Deep, I wanted to be sure I was publishing a good-looking, professional adventure. So I bought a few. D&D adventures are of startlingly high quality, even those made by individuals. Of course, the official, published, $30 adventures look fantastic, though I knew I wouldn’t achieve that level of quality … Continue reading »

New players are a fact of life for GMs. They may have never played a tabletop RPG before, or only using vastly different systems. How do you introduce yourself? How do you lay the ground rules? I’m still figuring it out, but I do have a few things I make sure to go through. I … Continue reading »