From heather at burningvoid.com Fri Aug 4 09:39:54 2006 From: heather at burningvoid.com (Heather Grove) Date: Fri Aug 4 09:46:57 2006 Subject: [Twilight Time] Using Random Items to Complicate the Plot Message-ID: <021ee856d89f15980171fd9f55096db2@burningvoid.com> August 4, 2006--Using Random Items to Complicate the Plot Volume 7, Issue 1 This is the Twilight Time zine, copyright 2006 by Burning Void http://www.burningvoid.com/ and Heather Grove, except where noted otherwise. You may forward via email, but only in its entirety. Do not repost or reprint by any other means without permission. To subscribe or unsubscribe, change your options, or view the archives: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/twilighttime You can also subscribe/unsubscribe by sending an email with a subject of "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" (without quotes) to: Twilighttime-request at burningvoid.com Good morning! I'm sorry there hasn't been an issue of the Twilight Time since last November (urk!). The reason's pretty simple, actually. We were so busy for a while there that we weren't roleplaying. When we aren't roleplaying, it's hard for me to write much about roleplaying. However, we finally have time to play again. We're continuing our old Stargate SG-1 campaign, and a friend of ours is starting up an AD&D first edition game next month that we're going to be playing in. I've made a number of changes to the site over this time, so forgive me for taking a moment to fill you in. We now have several blogs associated with the site, including one for general musings, chatter, and site updates; one for writers' exercises (many of which roleplayers will find useful as well); and one for book reviews and such: http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/thoughts/ http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/epiphany/ http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/reviews/ We also started up a Cafe Press store for the heck of it, where you can find things like the hardcopy version of our 365 character questions pdf, as well as a bunch of t-shirts, mugs, etc. on themes of roleplaying, writing, and so on: http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid Today's article is inspired by that friend who's starting up the AD&D campaign, and one of the techniques he uses in his games. Best, Heather ========================= Join our announcement list to hear about new articles, updates and reviews. The info page also links to the site updates, in case you want to follow along without subscribing: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/burningvoid-announce ========================= Using Random Items to Complicate the Plot Many game masters (GMs) prefer to stick to a pre-planned storyline, with as little deviation from that as possible. Many others, however, like to find inspiration in all sorts of unlikely places, introducing it at random to complicate the story and make life interesting for the party; this can help to keep the party on their toes and make it difficult for them to anticipate the direction of the plot. One way to do this is to have certain things pre-prepared that you can choose from randomly and drop into the game at will. Courier Letters and Other Missives This is the original idea that I picked up from the aforementioned friend. His campaign world is about 20 years old or so, and as detailed as you might expect after that much time (if not more so). He keeps a box of courier letters and other missives sent between characters that exist in his world, so if you get your hands on such a letter in game he can pull one out at random and give it to you. Some of them he actually wrote up to 20 years ago, so even he doesn't know what they say any more. And given his propensity for weaving potential plot hooks into absolutely everything, this is a great way to introduce something he can turn into the next plot, or a complication of the current plot, depending on circumstances. Mysterious Maps Why not do the same with maps? Draw up mysterious treasure maps, or maps to unexplored areas in your campaign world. Create maps that point the way to the entrances of underground lairs and caverns, hidden enclaves of wizards or cults, etc. Anything in your world that you've hidden away somewhere is fair game for a map. Ask yourself the following questions regarding any such map you create: who drew up this map, why did they draw it up, and how did it end up somewhere where the player characters (PCs) might get their hands on it? Treasure with a History Create treasure items, magical items, devices, etc. that come with histories, curses, odd magical abilities, mysterious engraved messages, and so on. Perhaps someone will come after the party once they acquire a given item, or it will innately attract trouble of one kind or another. Write up these items on index cards and shuffle them into a box or stack, then pull one when you need it and add it to any given trove of loot the characters might find. Questions to ask about treasure or loot: Who else wants it? Why do they want it? What makes an item inherently interesting? How will the party discover the plot aspects of an item? Lore Create and write up interesting tidbits of history, legendry and lore for your campaign world as you go along, and try to work plot hooks into them. Keep these around for times when your characters encounter mysterious inscriptions, arcane libraries, ancient databanks, and so on. Photos and Drawings Photos and drawings (or other pieces of artwork) could be considered subsets of most of the above categories. They can count as messages (coded, perhaps, or the attempt of someone who can't read and write to communicate something). They could be considered treasure or loot. They could communicate aspects of lore. They could also act as more direct plot hooks and clues if a non-player character (NPC) was taking photos or making drawings of something important and interesting. Who took the photo or created the artwork? Why did she feel the need to make a record of this thing? How can the party realize there's more to the piece of artwork than meets the eye and follow its trail? Non-Player Characters In a sense, GMs can also use NPCs as randomized plot complications. Write up a bunch of interesting minor characters on index cards. Make sure each one comes with the following: basic stats and equipment, one or two colorful personality quirks, an interesting description, a name (obviously), and at least one interesting plot hook. Shuffle the cards and keep them in a box or deck. Now and then, toss one into a plot, setting, or situation and see what happens. Plant one among the prisoners the party rescues from the bad guys. Have one fall in love with a party member (or idolize him, or vilify him). Have one move in next door to a PC. Biasing Your Results (Categorizing and Coding) In many cases randomization is the key--just as writers often use random word combination and/or association combined with free-writing in order to spur creative thoughts they might not otherwise come up with, it's the combination of random factors with your pre-existing party and plot that sparks new directions and ideas. However, not all random ideas will fit into all plots and situations. If you have ideas that you know won't suit all of the potential places you might insert them, then find ways to categorize your random factors. For example: Place sticky-notes on your sealed missives with keywords or the names of the sender and recipient. If you know only certain types of missive will suit your current plot, then double-check the post-it before using the first missive you pick up, and if necessary exchange it for something else. Use colored index cards to color-code NPCs, items, etc. For instance, NPCs intended to be party henchmen might be on blue index cards while NPCs intended to oppose the party appear on yellow. If you use a color-coding system like this, you probably want to keep your players from seeing the color of the cards, of course. If you create plot hooks that don't need to be pounced on immediately, then you can give yourself a little time to work them into your current plot and come up with any additional details you need. If you enjoy coming up with things on the spur of the moment to force yourself to get creative, then leave these plot hooks as open-ended as possible in order to mesh them with your current campaign and adventure. If you have difficulty putting yourself on the spot, then do one of two things. Either make notes as to how you might integrate the plot hook into any given adventure (or use it to start off the next adventure) when you create the plot hook, or be sure to pull out your random cards *before* the evening's gaming begins, and make notes then. Really this is just another tool to get those creative juices flowing, surprise your players, and shake things up a bit. Some parts work best for GMs with an extensive, pre-existing campaign world (such as the missives), but others (such as the NPCs) can easily be made generic enough that they can suit even a brand-new world. =============================== RATINGS: You can give the Twilight Time Zine a rating on the RPG Gateway to let us (and everyone else) know how we're doing: http://www.rpggateway.com/cgi-bin/wyrm/rate.cgi?ID=5288 The same goes for the Burning Void RPG resources page: http://www.rpggateway.com/cgi-bin/wyrm/rate.cgi?ID=1392 =============================== Privacy Policy: We do not sell or give out your information. We will never hand out your email addresses (or any other information that we somehow end up with), barring a legal requirement to do so. Missing Issues: If you have subscribed to the zine and do not receive an issue, please check two things. First, make sure any spam filter you may be using has been told that the zine is not spam. Second, make sure there's room in your account for the email--every month we get bounces from accounts that are over-quota. If your account bounces we reserve the right to unsubscribe you from the list. Unsubscribe: The Burning Void Roleplaying Resources Newsletter is entirely voluntary and opt-in ONLY. If you are receiving this directly from us and you did not sign up for this newsletter then please use the unsubscribe instructions at the top of this email. If that does not work, let us know right away at . From heather at burningvoid.com Tue Sep 26 02:39:46 2006 From: heather at burningvoid.com (Heather Grove) Date: Tue Sep 26 02:45:36 2006 Subject: [Twilight Time] Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games Message-ID: September 26, 2006: Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games Volume 7, Issue 2 This is the Twilight Time zine, copyright 2006 by Burning Void http://www.burningvoid.com/ and Heather Grove, except where noted otherwise. You may forward via email, but only in its entirety. Do not repost or reprint by any other means without permission. To subscribe or unsubscribe, change your options, or view the archives: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/twilighttime ***You can also subscribe/unsubscribe by sending an email with a subject of "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" (without quotes) to: Twilighttime-request at burningvoid.com Good morning! Yes, believe it or not, there's another issue within 2 months of the last one. A miracle must have occurred, right? Actually, it's that we're finally roleplaying semi-regularly again. We spent yesterday in Virginia at a friend's house playing D&D first edition. It's a ton of fun! We've even finally picked up D&D 3.5 to catch up with the latest stuff, and my husband's starting work on a new campaign. He's also playing around with doing some programming work on a few GM tools, for which he'd welcome any feedback folks might have; his blog post on the issue is at the following URL, and anyone is welcome to leave a comment: http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/thoughts/2006/09/project_proposal.html Just so you know, you do need a typekey (or is it typepad? I can never remember) account to log in, but those are free and extremely easy to register for. If you have Javascript turned on you'll find a link at the bottom of the page to log in/get an account. You can use this account on any Movable Type blog, so it's handy to have. Also, the blog is moderated, so it might take a short time for your comments to go up. In other news, we've done a ton of work on the Cafepress.com store since the last issue. If you enjoy mmorpgs at all, or like cats, writing, books, etc., you might enjoy some of the designs we have available on clothing, mugs, prints, buttons, etc.: http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid Some of them have become surprisingly popular, in particular the "out of mana" and "elixir of coffee" designs! Without further ado, on to the actual article. Have a great day! Heather ========================= Join our announcement list to hear about new articles, updates and reviews. The info page also links to the site updates, in case you want to follow along without subscribing: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/burningvoid-announce ========================= Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games Recently I read and reviewed a fantastic book by Jessica Page Morrell called "Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writing": http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/ reviews/2006/09/between_the_lines_master_the_s.html One of the (many) things it discussed was how to create and increase tension in your fiction, and of course it occurred to me that some of these techniques could be adapted to roleplaying games. As always, you need to remember that RPGs have different needs than fiction (such as the need to allow for and adapt to the free choices of the players and characters, and the need to remember that the GM doesn't dictate every detail). However, many methods used in creating good novels and stories can be mined for ideas when working on roleplaying adventures. I highly recommend that book in its entirety to anyone interested in adapting fiction methods to gaming, or to anyone interested in writing fiction. Here I'm just going to address a few of its tension-building techniques in the context of roleplaying. "Tension is part curiosity, part unease, and part dread." --Jessica Page Morrell, "Between the Lines," page 246. Ms. Morrell submits that tension and suspense are different things. Suspense creates tension, but does not equal it. Suspense "is created by withholding information and prolonging outcomes." Tension is "a sense of disquiet" that "lurks beneath the surface of the story, eating at the reader's nerves." It increases when your players don't know the outcome of the current scene and want to succeed at their goals. While you don't want to make every moment of your game a tense one lest your players become worn out or numbed to the effect, a certain amount of tension keeps things exciting. It keeps the pace fast. It makes your game memorable and makes your players care about the outcome of the plot. Tension is something you vary from scene to scene to keep things interesting and keep your players and their characters emotionally involved with the story. Openings Ms. Morrell believes that part of introducing tension into a story is introducing a "story question" in the opening scenes. It should naturally make your players curious and draw them into wondering how the question will be answered or resolved. She also believes that the opening needs to threaten the status quo of the protagonist, or, in this case, the party of characters. How do you apply this to an RPG adventure? In many cases game masters (GMs) start the adventure before the point at which a savvy writer would start a story, taking the time to draw the characters together or introduce them to a new location. If you have a pre-existing campaign and your players have already been drawn into caring about the world, you might not need to immediately start off a new adventure with an exciting first scene in order to draw them in. However, you should probably construct some sort of event that you think of as the "opening" of the new plot that will create the worry, threat, and tension that Ms. Morrell speaks of. If you're starting a new campaign with new players, or with players that you know sometimes have difficulty settling down and concentrating on the game, then take advantage of her advice on openings. Either use this tension-inducing story opening to throw your party of characters together, or use a brief prelude to throw them together (don't allow them to dawdle through this--gloss over any boring parts) and then dive into the opening scene. A quick note on story questions: When you come up with a plot for a campaign, always find a way to phrase it as a question. "Can the party stop the evil wizard from causing these two kingdoms to destroy each other in a war?" "Can the party rescue the nobleman's daughter from the warlord who kidnapped her?" Then make sure that events and scenes along the way cause the players to doubt the answer to this question. Maintaining Tension Authors often have difficulty maintaining tension in a story (it's something of a truism that the middle book in a trilogy is usually the slowest). GMs have a natural advantage in that the use of combat encounters tends to create tension all on its own. However, it does help to consider how you can maintain the plot-related tension as well. Partly you can do this by varying the suspense and tension levels over time; contrary to what you might think, maintaining a consistently high tension level can often backfire as your players become accustomed to it. Including moments of amusement, relaxation, and seeming safety can make the rest of your tense scenes all the more effective. You can also accomplish this partially by relating some of your combats to the storyline. Not all "random" encounters need be truly random; find a way to work some of them into the plotline. Make sure that the middle of your story is used to advance and reveal aspects of the plot. The player characters (PCs) should continue to make discoveries relevant to the story to help them maintain interest in its outcome. They should continue to learn more about their adversaries and themselves. Avoiding an Anti-Climax Tension, of course, is one of the keys to keeping your campaign from ending on an anti-climax. The ending should be sufficiently tense to make the players feel that the journey has been worth it. The outcome of the plot should be in doubt; the PCs should worry over how things will work out. This doesn't have to mean earth-shattering final battles or epic struggles, as long as the PCs care about what happens and the amount of worry and tension is proportional to what has come before it. One of Ms. Morrell's guidelines is that the protagonist (PCs) should be forced to act in ways that the reader (players) would be afraid to. The PCs must make choices or take actions that are difficult or frightening; these choices probably have dire personal, emotional, or physical consequences. Because an ongoing campaign tends to include many adventures, you can't constantly use the transformation of major player characters as a source of tension in the way novelists often do. However, you can still take some cues from novelists' techniques. Other characters the PCs care about can change and be threatened. If the group of PCs gels well, you can threaten and induce transformation in one in order to involve all. You can also use small changes and revelations as well as large ones, which allows you to use more of them without getting ridiculous. Concentrate on making your story questions interesting and worth caring about. Most of these techniques rely on players who are willing to emotionally involve themselves (or at least their characters) in the game world. Some players just want to relax with a bit of hack-and-slash when they play, and they might not be the best folks to try this with. But if you have players who are willing to invest a little energy in the world, you can use the techniques from "Between the Lines" to repay that investment and then some. For many more examples, techniques, and guidelines regarding creating tension in your stories, read Jessica Page Morrell's "Between the Lines". It includes an entire chapter on tension that can be adapted to roleplaying games, and the rest of the book contains invaluable advice as well that GMs of all kinds could use. =============================== Privacy Policy: We do not sell or give out your information. We will never hand out your email addresses (or any other information that we somehow end up with), barring a legal requirement to do so. Missing Issues: If you have subscribed to the zine and do not receive an issue, please check two things. First, make sure any spam filter you may be using has been told that the zine is not spam. Second, make sure there's room in your account for the email--every month we get bounces from accounts that are over-quota. If your account bounces we reserve the right to unsubscribe you from the list. Unsubscribe: The Burning Void Roleplaying Resources Newsletter is entirely voluntary and opt-in ONLY. If you are receiving this directly from us and you did not sign up for this newsletter then please use the unsubscribe instructions at the top of this email. If that does not work, let us know right away at From heather at burningvoid.com Sun Oct 15 14:34:38 2006 From: heather at burningvoid.com (Heather Grove) Date: Sun Oct 15 14:39:40 2006 Subject: [Twilight Time] World-Building Considerations Message-ID: October 15, 2006: World-Building Considerations Volume 7, Issue 3 This is the Twilight Time zine, copyright 2006 by Burning Void http://www.burningvoid.com/ and Heather Grove/Jeffrey Howard, except where noted otherwise. You may forward via email, but only in its entirety. Do not repost or reprint by any other means without permission. To subscribe or unsubscribe, change your options, or view the archives: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/twilighttime ***You can also subscribe/unsubscribe by sending an email with a subject of "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" (without quotes) to: Twilighttime-request at burningvoid.com Good morning! Now we're down to less than a month between this issue and the last. Talk about miracles. :) I've been reviewing a ton of writers' books, and those often give me ideas for GMs writing campaigns and designing campaign worlds. Not to mention that D&D first ed campaign I'm in is a total blast. I have several other ideas sitting on a back burner for future issues already. This may sound rather odd, but this particular article owes its inspiration to a section in Alison Kent's "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance" (I get some interesting books for review at times...). Because genre romance books have taken off recently, she includes a fair amount of information about genre concerns such as world-building, much of which is wholly applicable to creating a campaign world as well. If you're interested in her (quite fascinating and useful) book, here's the information you'll need to find it: Alison Kent "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance" Alpha Books ISBN 1-59257-546-3 A review will be going up in the reviews blog soon; I just need to finish reading the book. And now, on to the article itself! Best wishes, Heather ========================= Join our announcement list to hear about new articles, updates and reviews: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/burningvoid-announce If you enjoy mmorpgs or like cats, writing, books, etc., you might enjoy the designs we have available on clothing, mugs, prints, buttons, etc. at Cafepress. We just added calendars for the holidays: http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid For more regular ramblings on all sorts of topics, we also have a blog: http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/thoughts/ ========================= World-Building Considerations for Roleplaying Games by Heather Grove & Jeffrey Howard There are enough world-building concerns for campaign worlds that whole books of material can and have been written on the subject. Of our own articles on the matter, one of our old favorites is our series of articles on creating a world that will specifically fit the needs of a roleplaying game; you can find it here: http://www.burningvoid.com/rpg/rpwworlds.php In this issue we'll just go into a few basic things you'll need to remember to take into account, based on Alison Kent's listing in "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance". Mythology Mythology, folklore and legends often get overlooked or given short shrift in home-brewed worlds. What do the common folk whisper about around the campfires in your world? What magical beasties are said to exist just beyond the reach of humanity? What are the creation myths of your people? Now go a step beyond this. What variations of these myths exist? In our own world, although there are many similarities between the myths of various cultures there are also many differences (flood myths tend to be common across cultures, for example, but the specifics of those flood myths vary). What are those similarities and differences in your world? How do they affect the everyday lives of your people? One thing I've noticed is that non-human races in games populated with humans often find their mythologies lumped together as though all the members of a given race believe in the same thing (which I imagine is possible, but will not universally be true). For example, take a look in the D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook. It lists a handful of deities, but among them you'll find a god for the Elves, a god for the Dwarves, and so on. In most cases it would make more sense for each of these races to have their own pantheons and mythologies, just as the different countries and civilizations in our world have their own pantheons and mythologies. Politics, Religion, and Morality In D&D morality is largely pre-defined by alignment, but that shouldn't stop you from defining your societies' morality on your own. Morality is a complex thing, particularly when inextricably intertwined with religion and politics--just look at today's arguments on such issues as war, the death penalty, divorce, adultery, and so on. Morality should affect the actions of all of your NPCs (non-player characters), not to mention, if they're good roleplayers, the actions of your PCs (player characters) (and at the very least, the ways in which the NPCs react to the party members). If you want to stick strictly to the alignment definition of "morality", this still leaves room for you to create societal codes of morality that lie somewhere along the various alignment axes. If you don't care about sticking to the alignment definitions, or play a game that doesn't involve alignment, you have a great deal more freedom to play with just about any sort of simple or complex moral code and interplay between politics, religion, and morality that you'd like. Some areas to think about when considering morality and its related areas: * Marriage, sex, and having/raising children * Assault and murder * Theft and burglary * "Softer" topics such as freedom of speech and/or religion, the right to bear arms, and other such concerns * Slavery * Devotion, honor, "cheating" of various types There are certainly more. What ideas can you come up with that you might want to address? How conservative or liberal are your races, kingdoms, and societies? What specific unusual mores might they have come up with due to past events? For example, the issue of slavery in the United States has a huge history behind it involving laws, demonstrations, riots, and even a civil war--what similar interesting things can you work into your world? Traditions and Customs What are the holidays on your world, and what do people do on those holidays? What traditions do the people follow? What are the customs of courtship, marriage, death and mourning, birth, coming of age, leaving home, and so on? This is one of the areas in which you can lend an incredible wealth of color and personality to a world with just a few details. Again, remember to vary the customs (a little or a lot) from region to region, country to country, and race to race. Some customs and rituals might be familiar and well-understood--for example, Christian marriage vows are fairly easy to understand and make sense of. Other rituals and customs might be so old and shrouded in mystery that no one remembers their purpose--the May Day May Pole tradition, for example, is one that confuses many people: http://ask.yahoo.com/20000504.html Law As Ms. Kent notes in her book, it's easy to see our fascination with law and order--just turn the television on any night of the week. In a roleplaying game, the rule of law is particularly important. Many plots and adventures tend to revolve around such things as (depending on the nature of your particular characters and game): * Carrying out missions for the legal authorities * Rebelling against the legal authorities * Running afoul of criminals trying to get away with their crimes * Running afoul of despots and tyrants who rule with an iron fist * Attempting to escape the notice of the legal authorities And so on. Even if your plots don't involve the rule of law quite so directly, it's likely to be felt around the edges. The legal system and those who enforce it can also be used to shape the course of your game if you're careful about it. They can be used to define the limits of "acceptable" behavior on the PCs' part, to force them to make hard choices in some cases, to throw complications into plots, and to provide consequences when the occasional difficult player attempts to run amuck. Science and Nature The ecology and level of scientific progress of your world lend an incredible amount of flavor and authenticity to your world--or, used poorly, they can break the willing suspension of disbelief. The presence of magic in a fantasy campaign can often explain otherwise inexplicable situations, which is handy to a GM, while science fiction demands a firm grasp on the laws by which your universe operate. Either way, however, your world should operate by the laws of logic. Things that happen should make sense from what has come before. If the players catch you at a mistake in the science or ecology, do one of two things: gracefully correct the mistake, or come up with an interesting plot that explains the apparent incongruity (the latter is often more satisfying and fun, but if you have any doubt as to your ability to do this smoothly, then the former option might be better). Education Education is another detail that often seems to get left out of world-building. Who attends school in your world? What does it cost them? What do they get out of it? For how long do they go and what do they learn there? How does it affect their lives from then on? What are some of the major educational institutions of your world? How will all of this likely affect your stalwart adventurers? You can create things like this from scratch, or take your inspiration from just about anywhere. Maybe your educational system is taken from a fantasy novel you read once, while your system of law comes from the reading you did for an anthropology course you took years ago. One interesting way to get material is to take basic ideas from the real world, mix them up a bit, and see where they take you. Whatever you do, make sure you examine the consequences of the material you've established. When taking major steps in your world, try setting a timer for ten minutes and free-writing about those steps, allowing your thoughts about them to pour out onto paper unchecked. This can be a great way to brainstorm about where those ideas might logically (or illogically) lead. This often points out flaws in your ideas, gives you new material to work with, and even provides fuel for some unusual developments and surprises you can work into your world. =============================== Privacy Policy: We do not sell or give out your information. We will never hand out your email addresses (or any other information that we somehow end up with), barring a legal requirement to do so. Missing Issues: If you have subscribed to the zine and do not receive an issue, please check two things. First, make sure any spam filter you may be using has been told that the zine is not spam. Second, make sure there's room in your account for the email--every month we get bounces from accounts that are over-quota. If your account bounces we reserve the right to unsubscribe you from the list. Unsubscribe: The Burning Void Roleplaying Resources Newsletter is entirely voluntary and opt-in ONLY. If you are receiving this directly from us and you did not sign up for this newsletter then please use the unsubscribe instructions at the top of this email. If that does not work, let us know right away at From heather at burningvoid.com Mon Nov 27 13:30:02 2006 From: heather at burningvoid.com (Heather Grove) Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:30:02 -0500 Subject: [Twilight Time] GM Dabbling Message-ID: <53034de63b0263c5e809d9f22e2e3200@burningvoid.com> November 27, 2006: GM Dabbling Volume 7, Issue 4 This is the Twilight Time zine, copyright 2006 by Burning Void http://www.burningvoid.com/ and Heather Grove, except where noted otherwise. You may forward via email, but only in its entirety. Do not repost or reprint by any other means without permission. To subscribe or unsubscribe, change your options, or view the archives: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/twilighttime ***You can also subscribe/unsubscribe by sending an email with a subject of "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" (without quotes) to: Twilighttime-request at burningvoid.com Good day! Just a quick update on the cafepress shop; I hope you'll forgive the plug as we have a few developments for the holiday season! We've split the gaming stuff into one area, and added in a ton of tabletop designs, in particular a whole line of "Adventurers' Last Words" and the first of our holiday designs, "I'm on Santa's Ignore List": http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid We've split the rest of our material into a new store, Caffeinated Chicanery, including designs related to writing, reading, and random twisted stuff. We're still moving some of those designs over from the old shop: http://www.cafepress.com/chicanery We've discounted all the level 60 designs (for you warcraft players) in the gaming store since we're introducing the 70s. We've also discounted our best-selling "I'm not lazy, I'm just out of mana" dark t-shirt through 12/24: http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid.87210139 I think that's everything, so I'll get out of the way and get on to the article. If I don't get around to sending out another issue before then, happy holidays to you all! Best wishes, Heather ========================= Join our announcement list to hear about new articles, updates and reviews: http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/burningvoid-announce For more regular ramblings on all sorts of topics, we also have a blog: http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/thoughts/ ========================= Game Master Dabbling Sometimes it seems like people are looking for "the" answer to a given gamemastering (GMing) question. What is THE way to do X or Y? Like the GMs & writers on some of the other sites I love to visit, I prefer a more dabbling-oriented approach. You try different methods, see which one works best for you, and stick with that. Or maybe you find that different methods work for you for different campaigns, so you change them around now and then. A Brief Case Study My husband and I are working on campaigns in parallel, but we have totally different approaches to world-building. He takes something of a top-down approach, drawing a world map and creating a pantheon first, then working his way down from there in successive layers of detail. It's a bit like looking at a high-altitude satellite map, then selecting an area and zooming in, repeating the process again and again until you're working at a level that provides enough detail for day-to-day campaigning. At some point I hope to kick him into writing up his process since he takes some nifty approaches with it. You could also think of it like the jigsaw puzzle player who builds the frame first and then works inward. I, on the other hand, work in an almost entirely opposite manner. I believe the first thing I decided was, "it takes place on a largely desert continent." The next thing I created was an NPC. I take a very haphazard and fine-detail approach, like a jigsaw puzzle player who builds random pieces of the puzzle as he sees details he recognizes and then fits them together later. I'll be sitting around reading a book and out of nowhere turn to my husband and say, "oh, by the way, the city you live in is built into the sides of a deep gorge." Both methods work. Both methods produce a viable campaign world. It could be argued that my husband's method is more likely to result in a consistent and highly-detailed world, and it could also be argued that my method is more likely to result in a campaign that's ready to run quickly because you don't have to work all the way from the top down to the bottom before you're ready to go. But what's really important is that these methods suit us as GMs. If I were to try my husband's method I'd never run a game, because my thought process simply isn't that organized and linear, whereas he'd probably go nuts if he didn't finish one thing before moving onto the next, logical thing. His campaign will probably be more beautifully detailed than mine, with absorbing arc-plots and the like, whereas I'll be able to put together an adventure for mine very quickly because it will be easy to get random inspiration from, say, a dungeon generator and toss it into a blank spot in my world with just a handful of modifications. From the outside, both games will likely seem relatively similar, however, in their execution. One of the best ways to figure out what suits you, or to find a solution to a particular problem you're having, is to look around at other GMs' methods of solving things. In this I've found a couple of resources to be unusually valuable. Just in case you haven't seen them yourselves, or haven't visited them recently, here's a pointer. Roleplaying Tips Naturally one of the long-time leaders in this set of resources is Johnn Four's "Roleplaying Tips" email newsletter: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/ He's presented his loyal readers with more than 330 issues of tips, methods, tools, and more. In turn he's passed along hundreds of tips from his readers adding to his own articles, suggesting additional or alternate things for GMs to try. You could spend hours at his site without ever getting bored. Treasure Tables Treasure Tables is a blog, wiki, and forum setup that allows GMs to communicate about their problems and share solutions and ideas. However, unlike many of the communities that have gone before, it's a friendly, creative, active environment that constantly turns up new fodder for GMs: http://www.treasuretables.org/ It's constantly updated with new material, provides great resources on quandaries large and small, and is enjoyable to read. And with that, since those two sites will provide you with more than enough material to keep you busy for a while, I'm going to cut things short this month. Have a good one! =============================== Privacy Policy: We do not sell or give out your information. We will never hand out your email addresses (or any other information that we somehow end up with), barring a legal requirement to do so. Missing Issues: If you have subscribed to the zine and do not receive an issue, please check two things. First, make sure any spam filter you may be using has been told that the zine is not spam. 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