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 first installment is about using Standard Operating Procedures to speed up play and avoid the...
Oh good, you didn’t see “wrestling” in the title and the image of two sweaty near-naked men and think today’s blog wasn’t for you. Yes, wrestling is however you feel about it and this blog post is not going...
What separates a roleplaying game from an improv game is how the line between in-character and out of character is handled. In Pathfinder, sometimes you are speaking as a player in a game, declaring actions and asking to understand...
Deus Ex Machina, Generic Cleric, or a Gentle Nudge? To some players and groups the mere mention of GM PC causes them to hiss like cheesy vampires at sunlight and wooden crosses. Some are completely baffled by the concept,...
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famously said that “no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force,” or, colloquially, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” It’s popular for Game...
I recently saw Ready Player One, which I enjoyed despite a small but significant choice made early on by director Steven Spielberg (no idea if the issue starts in the book). This is not a spoiler for plot but...
Will the real blue dragon, please stand up? Adjudicating illusions is often a tricky affair, and I don’t see a new edition changing that. In many cases, the aftermath of an illusion-based encounter is often a bit of a...
You players scrutinize everything you say and do as their GM. If a player says they’re sensing motive on an NPC and you say “oh, sure” instead of just “sure,” that “oh” betrays that there’s no reason to suspect...
Listener Andrew M mentioned in Know Direction’s Discord chat recently that he’s never gotten a good handle on the pro-setting neutral stance. I went into one of the reasons I take issue with fusing the setting into the core rules...
When an adventurer’s tools are obsolete, generally they sell their old gear to lighten their load and increase their wealth. Otherwise, as the Core Rulebook tells us, that leads to encumbrance. There are workarounds but even bags of holding...