Anthony Li has been pretending to be someone or something else for about as long as he can remember, which some people might consider a problem. He cut his teeth on 2nd Edition AD&D when he was 14 years old and his only regret is that he didn’t start rolling dice sooner. Due to an unhealthy addiction to Magic: the Gathering he missed the entire cultural phenomenon that was the 3.X era of D&D. After a brief stint with 4E, he was dragged kicking and screaming into the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game where he has since acclimated, adapted, and thrived. Most of his roleplaying experience has been behind in the GM screen where he has trained his dice to confirm crits on command. He always roots for the bad guys.
Hello! I’m back! Things have been busy for me. Between figuring how to make good radio to freelance work, to my own home group games I haven’t had time to sit down and write for myself for a while....
Now that we’re back after a holiday hiatus, I’d like to continue our discussion on GMing styles. Today I’m going to cover what I call Laissez-faire GMing. But unlike the economic theory of the same name, I can actually...
Today I’d like to start a discussion about GMing styles, particularly when it comes to narrative focus. This article is partially inspired by a conversation between Ryan and Perram during banter segment on the “Can We FLGS” episode of...
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Mixing sci-fi technology with sword and sorcery in RPGs seems like an incredibly polarizing topic. In my experience it’s either “Yeah! I want robots with my wizards and dragons with my...
If you’ve GM’d long enough eventually you get into a situation where the type of game you want to run isn’t necessarily the type of game your players want to play. There’s an old adage that goes, “Treat others...
Cheating is widely regarded as a social taboo. In the context of an RPG, cheating can range from lying about dice rolls to fudging inventory on a character sheet to reading the spoilers of an adventure the GM is...
In all the years that I’ve GM’d, I’ve come to learn one valuable and undeniable truth. Players will always surprise you. It doesn’t matter how much reading you’ve done, how many contingencies you’ve come up with, or how long...
Are you a new GM or a veteran looking for ways to improve your GMing skills? Take a peek Behind the Screens, a twice-monthly advice column dedicated to making you a better GM. A seasoned gamer and GM, Anthony...
Are you a new GM or a veteran looking for ways to improve your GMing skills? Take a peek Behind the Screens, a twice-monthly advice column dedicated to making you a better GM. A seasoned gamer and GM, Anthony...
Are you a new GM or a veteran looking for ways to improve your GMing skills? Take a peek Behind the Screens, a twice-monthly advice column dedicated to making you a better GM. A seasoned gamer and GM, Anthony...