When I write about game shepherds, it comes from a long train of experience; I can think of very few games since I discovered self-motivated characters in which I have neither run one nor PC’d one.
My first attempt at game-shepherding was actually a PC. I’ve alluded to it in my riff on my history as [...]
Categories: Impractical Applications |
Tags: game shepherds, impractical applications | 
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The first arc of game I ran wasn’t without its faults; it was my first time, it required a lot of back-pedaling and improvisation, and it regularly showed that I was still getting the hang of the game world. On the other hand, it managed to work as a serviceable overarching plot, lasting about a [...]
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Tags: impractical applications, loose threads, overarching plots, river arc | No Comments »
When I was doing this week’s perfect locations riffs, one of my primary inspirations was a rather odd spot I worked with about five years back. Odd, partly because I used the changes to it as a mood-enhancer twice, both with different versions of the place, and because one of those was for a piece [...]
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Tags: impractical applications, perfect locations | 2 Comments »
As the 2011 Christmas season came up, one of my friends offered to run us a holiday-themed short-shot, FATE-based, in which the PCs were vaguely Christmas-related characters (though amusingly enough, most of us only made it in on a technicality—along with my character, the party included a brownie and one of Odin’s ravens, now demoted [...]
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Tags: Christmas short-shot, impractical applications, silent characters, The Ghost | No Comments »
I talked this week about qualities that make a fantastic location, well, fantastic. (I love RPG Blog Carnival topics like this; they get me weeks of material! Thank you, Mr. Davies!) I’ve done location a lot; writing atmosphere is fun, and it’s easier for me to provide a place my group wants to poke around [...]
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Tags: impractical applications, loose threads, the corpse crawl | No Comments »
Originally posted on April 18, 2009. I’d been considering writing a fresh Imprac for this week, but some problems with our internet service provider pulled the decision right out of my hands. Posting might be spotty over the next few days while we get the issue worked out.
I’d been going to write about different [...]
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Tags: fight scenes, impractical applications, loose threads | No Comments »
Pre-article note: Due to various complications including the holidays and grad school applications, all posts for the rest of the year will be reprints of earlier posts.
I spent most of this last week talking about heroes for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival. I’ve done a few characters who have come close: Aisling would get between [...]
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Tags: heroes, impractical applications, RPG Blog Carnival, Tuyet | No Comments »
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about antagonists with Grand Plans, how to keep these plans from seeming too dependent on creating victory conditions at the last minute, and moreso how to come up with their plans. I’d talk about my current efforts—Solace is a grandmaster of the Master Plan, even if trying [...]
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Tags: impractical applications, Jalil, loose threads, plans | 1 Comment »
Earlier this week, I talked about characters getting an idea that’s technically impossible to carry off, and doing ridiculously well anyway; as promised, here’s the inspiration.
The game: My weekly Exalted game, as usual.
The group: shuttling their Friendly Neighborhood Necromancer around inside a miles-long walking corpse to find the anchors of the necromancies animating it and [...]
Categories: Impractical Applications |
Tags: impossible successes, impractical applications, loose threads | 2 Comments »
This wasn’t a particularly good week for writing things that would play well in game (being on three deadlines did not help matters). On the other hand, this was a week in which I pulled something that for the longest time I hadn’t thought I’d do.
I killed off two NPCs who were usually pretty good [...]
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Tags: impractical applications, loose threads | 3 Comments »