Yesterday, in response to the RPG Blog Carnival on making loot part of the plot, I talked about the kinds of plots that a piece of loot could be used to create, whether it’s in the hand, or still out there in the bush somewhere. But the thing about item-based plots, particularly if the plot [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: loot, motivation, roleplaying, RPG Blog Carnival | 
2 Comments »
Yesterday, I talked about the discussion of social norms and market norms in Predictably Irrational, then expanded them to apply to the peculiar meta-dynamics of the game table. As I pointed out, you need to know what categories these norms fit into to take advantage of them, but, then, how do you utilize the norms [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: analysis, behavior, books, meta, Predictably Irrational, real world, roleplaying | No Comments »
I have to admit it: I’m addicted to books about how the mind works. I almost always learn something new (I’ve read more than half a dozen this year alone, and not a single one has failed to show me something I hadn’t seen before), they’ve got a lot of cross-discipline uses, and I’ve always [...]
Categories: Concepts, For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Player Advice, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: analysis, behavior, books, meta, Predictably Irrational, real world, roleplaying | 3 Comments »
Not long ago, I found myself listening to the audiobook version of How We Decide, a book about how the brain makes its choices. There was one point within it in which it pointed out that while it’s been assumed throughout history that eliminating feelings and leaving a person as a purely rational entity should [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, Motivation |
Tags: emotions, Player Advice, roleplaying | 1 Comment »
I’ve fought some interesting things in my time tabletopping, many of them probably technically too large for my characters to fight. Sometimes, things that the setting tells you with this character shouldn’t be possible at all. And I’ve seen groups do the same—or refuse to do the same.
Which got me thinking: what does it take [...]
Categories: For Roleplayers, GM Advice, Motivation, Tactics, Technique |
Tags: GM Advice, motivation, Powerful Things, roleplaying, tactics | 2 Comments »
I talked yesterday about hidden benefits of convention-going—the ways that watching the other people there, or even looking introspectively at your own reactions to whatever goes on, can help you learn a lot that can be slipped into characterization, world-building, or player motivation later. But what good is all that without some solid examples?
The first [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Technique |
Tags: admiration, groupie moments, motivation, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
This was inspired by (and, in fact, supposed to be a comment to, before it turned post-length on me) the recent Hathor Legacy article “Pride and Possession”. In it, Gena responds to seeing a debate on whether or not Mother Gothel might not have been so bad after all (I’ll admit, this concept rather scares [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Character image, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Reviews and technique, Secondary characters, Symbolism, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: antagonists, Beauty and the Beast, Characterization, redeemable, responses, roleplaying, Tangled, writing | 2 Comments »
You hear a lot about the importance of time management in the real world; you might even use it to make sure that your prep doesn’t take too long, or that your other tasks don’t interfere too much with your creation time. But did you know that time management and motivation can actually help you [...]
Categories: Cross-discipline, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Plot, Technique, The Real World |
Tags: Cross-discipline, motivation, real world, role-playing, time management, writing | 1 Comment »
There’s one in every world, isn’t there? Somewhere in history, there was a civilization. It was advanced, or at least looked advanced, probably in the areas of magic or technology. At least one society is descended from it, one way or another (or so they claim). And it’s not here now.
Ancient civilizations are ubiquitous because [...]
Categories: Cultures, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, History, Motivation, Technique, World-building |
Tags: ancient civilizations, roleplaying, World-building, writing | 6 Comments »
One of the advantages I’ve always found of tabletop RPGs as compared to console RPGs is the ability to talk to one’s enemies, whether it’s face to face, by distant proxy, even (perhaps especially) in the middle of a battle. In fact, battle banter is one of the few situations in which I will almost [...]
Categories: Character archetypes, Character dynamics, Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Secondary characters, Technique |
Tags: antagonists, conflict, roleplaying, willingness to talk, writing | 3 Comments »