Search Results for: cooperative design

Cooperative Background Design

I guess technically this is part of a series. This week we had a Session 0 for a new campaign, an idea we’ve had brewing for a few years, and the DM and I took no time to screw it … Continue reading

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Cooperative Content Design

The players in my 4E campaign are currently at L10 and a short side-quest away from L11, which means they’re eying paragon paths. We’ve been flipping through a few books to put together some decent candidates, some obvious (the archer … Continue reading

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Cooperative Session Design (or, Everybody Has a Plan Until Players Show up)

Preparing for a session is hard, not least because it’s rarely clear what a DM needs to prepare. If you spend hours mapping out the sewers where bandits are hiding, you can be sure that the players will instead look … Continue reading

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Player Secrets

One of the running themes in my posts is that good games have players who communicate with each other. To quote a previous post: I think the best advice I’ve ever gotten for gaming is the best advice I’ve ever … Continue reading

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#RPGaDAY 2016 Day 31

What is the best piece of advice you were ever given for your game of choice? I don’t really remember what gaming advice I’ve been given, what advice I’ve adapted to gaming from other sources, and what I’ve determined on … Continue reading

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Railroading with Charisma: Grey’s Law

I think a lot of the fear of railroading goes to the stereotype of the antagonistic DM. There’s this archetype in which the DM is the enemy of the players, a vengeful entity who creates fiendish challenges and nail-biting encounters … Continue reading

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Railroading with Charisma: Macro vs. Micro

As we discussed last time, all campaigns have some sort of railroading and all DMs use it. There’s always some sort of “this is the game we’re playing” restriction. It’s so commonplace, it’s hard to see it as railroading until … Continue reading

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The Many Tones of Shade

I’ll admit the name of the last post inspired this one, but its a valid topic besides. I have been fortunate in my DMing career in that I’ve rarely had to deal with players who cannot stand each other. It’s … Continue reading

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Faith: Signature Items

Sometimes I worry what my readers think of me. I know logically that nobody goes over this blog with a fine-toothed comb, looking for contradictions so they can shout “Aha! This person says he/she doesn’t like racial stereotyping, but there’s … Continue reading

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DMing with Constitution

I don’t know how many of you remember November, when I tried to line up guest posts while I focused on National Novel Writing Month. It didn’t work out, but I did get one late in the month and now … Continue reading

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