Teasers for movies are short hints at how a movie will feel. They’re sometimes mocked as commercials for commercials, but they play an important role in setting expectations. Audiences like going into a movie with an idea of what...
Hero Points were formally introduced into Pathfinder as an optional rule in the Advanced Player’s Guide (obligatory shout out to the APG and all Pathfinder’s success as a system owes to it). On top of being codified as an...
Bear with me, Game Masters, today’s lesson came from playing Gameloft’s My Little Pony app game (add me if you’re playing! Friend code: ff3619e). It’s a task manager game where there is no cost to assigning a worker a...
Ever seen an encounter with a flying creature or underwater and wish it just wasn’t there? Ever wonder why? A lot of it has to do with the shift from abstract rules to codified rules. ABSTRACT vs CODIFIED Pathfinder...
One of our jobs as GMs is to get and keep our players engaged in the adventure. Some GMs will argue that it’s as much on the players to come ready to engage as it is on the GM...
GMing can be a thankless job, especially when done right. We are the producers and directors of this game we play and this play we game. We are the supporting actors. Even when we run published adventures, we add...
There are two types of ability scores in Pathfinder: those you aren’t expected to act out at the table and those you might be expected to act out at the table. My patent-pending fitness program where players get bonuses...
Anyone who listened to the first episode of Doomsplay, Know Direction’s Actual Play podcast of the Pathfinder Second Edition Playtest module Doomsday Dawn knows that things were running smoothly until Alex’s paladin was reduced to 0 hp. The new...
This week I’ll be filling in for Ryan and talking about some of the GM techniques I use to enhance the tension and in-game drama at the table. This is one of the places I still use my BFA...
GM like a PM is a new, three-part series that introduces Project Management concepts to RPGs to facilitate our job as Game Masters. The second installment is about reviewing sessions to verify that player and Game Master goals are...