In first edition Pathfinder, I really liked the design space occupied by traits particularly the campaign traits. In second edition this design space is most similar to the new Background mechanics and I’m excited by the options I can...
We attended GenCon pretty much as usual this year but we decided to do a few things a little differently. We volunteered less which freed us to walk the dealer’s hall more frequently and do things we’d have had...
For a cooperative hobby we’re still a pretty competitive bunch whether it’s old school tournament modules scoring a party’s progress through an adventure, the American Idol styled RPG Superstar (and its successors) helping the industry find new designers or...
GenCon is fast approaching and with it Pathfinder’s second edition rules. It seems like an ideal time to revisit the weird prompt concept, after all, we’re all going need adventure ideas either for pickup games at the con or...
Continuing along with the focused GM tricks of the past few posts I thought I’d talk about posing questions. I know I talk a lot about lines of communication between the players and the GM. I’m not talking about...
Keeping with the plan from two weeks ago I thought I’d hit and expand on the next short piece of advice from my bullet point list: Spotlight the PCs. Your player’s characters should reside at the center of your...
This week I thought I’d survey a few short tips for GMs to use in their games. But as I began writing my first entry about splitting the party I discovered I had a lot more to say than...
Stories can be told in a wide variety of ways using flash-backs, flash-forwards, skipping to the side to tell a part of the narrative from a different character’s point of view but in RPGs we often only tell stories...
One of my personal complaints with fantasy RPGs is that sometimes magical treasure loses its wonder. Take Pathfinder for example. Some magical treasures are almost required to meet the game’s balance expectations. Even within the context of the world...
On this network’s flagship podcast, Ryan and Perram had a lively discussion about backgrounds. Their conversation touched on things I’ve been thinking about lately as well so I figured why not examine a few of those things as a...