Earlier this week, I discussed retcons. They’re a touchy subject among GMs, in my experience, and among players: there’s a lot of dignity tied up in them, and a lot of weight. But I’ve seen a number of them that were verging on necessary, and that managed to work, both in my game and in [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, Impractical Applications |
Tags: impractical applications, retcons | 
2 Comments »
A couple months ago, Trask on LivingDice, comparing games to well-known TV series, wrote a post about why a GM should write the ending of the campaign first. While I agree completely with the advice when it comes to writing a story (most of my efforts didn’t have the ending pre-planned, and rather suffered for [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: personal opinion, planned endings, qualms, roleplaying | 1 Comment »
It’s not that rare that we get really, really stuck. Gamers, writers, you name it—the block happens to everyone. It’s what we do about it that varies. There are a lot of things we can do about it, but one of the most counterintuitive I’ve found is just finding someone who isn’t completely familiar with [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Inspiration, Technique |
Tags: block, explanations, Inspiration, roleplaying, writing | 1 Comment »
Lone heroes happen in stories, but they’re not the world’s most common creatures, and games almost invariably involve a group, either homogeneously PC or a combination of PC and NPC (or a parallel all-NPC group if the GM is feeling like a challenge). This, of course, means we have people. People working together, fighting alongside [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, Exercises, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Player Advice |
Tags: character dynamics, characterization exercises, connections, qualities, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
To retcon or not to retcon? It’s a harder choice than you might think. The nice thing about a retcon is that it gives you, if not a blank slate, then at least one without as many marks that could get in your way, or if nothing else without that one mistake you really wish [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: choice, retcon, roleplaying, techniques, writing | No Comments »
It’s hard for the creator of a long-running work to remember everything, and harder still to get everything right on the first try. As often as not, whether you’re a gamer or a writer, you find something that you would absolutely love to implement—it would be awesome, thematic, whatever the appropriate adjective is—but you’ve already [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Technique |
Tags: overview, retcon, roleplaying, techniques, writing | 6 Comments »
I recently stumbled across a question: What is it that makes us villains, in particular? Why are we the bad guys? Yeah, it’s a little more philosophical than our usual, but it’s worth asking, and even more worth throwing your conclusions in the hero’s face. Just don’t spend so much time contemplating it that you [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, defining villainy, Generic Villain, philosophy | 1 Comment »
Last week, I talked about a fight scene I was running, in terms of the difficulty of figuring out what sort of yardstick the primary characters were going to be. I’m going to go on a bit more, about some of the other factors of the fight itself.
The first was just the sides. In most [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, Impractical Applications |
Tags: fight scene, impractical applications, Kestrel, Kiara, Kiriko, tactile magic | No Comments »
Yesterday, I talked about the creation of a feeling of intense achievement beyond expectation (or “gamebuzz”), and why and how its effect on the players in an RPG can be utilized. But what sorts of factors aid or hinder gamebuzz?
In my opinion, the most important factor is an apparent absence of pre-planning. That doesn’t mean [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Player Advice, Technique |
Tags: gamebuzz, mood, planning, roleplaying, Technique | No Comments »
Overwhelming emotion is the hallmark of the good storyteller, regardless of medium. Catch up the audience in the moment, throw them around a bit, and immerse them completely in the emotion, and the payback will be worth the effort. Most people seem to prefer the negative emotions—fear, rage, maybe sorrow, you get the idea—since they’re [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Mood, Motivation, Player Advice, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: emotions, gamebuzz, metagame rewards, moods, roleplaying | 1 Comment »