Getting the Most Out of Your Gaming

I just finished reading two excellent posts by fellow RPG bloggers Chris Chinn and John Harper, and I’d like to tie them back into some of the things that I’ve been talking about here on TT, both recently and not-so-recently.

The common theme is making the most of your gaming time — which is one of this blog’s primary goals.

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Worldbuilding Questions

Patricia Wrede’s list of fantasy worldbuilding questions — from “How do most people make a living here?” to “Is there a numerical limit to the number of wizards in the world?” — is a great way to get your creative juices flowing. (I found this years ago — it’s from 1996! — and stumbled across it again recently.)

Write Your Own Naughty List

List your own faults as a GM. That probably doesn’t sound like very good advice. Heck, it probably doesn’t even sound like a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon — which it’s not.

But it is good advice.

Maybe not fun, but good advice. Here’s why.

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Hundreds of Non-Gaming Sites for Gamers

A true gem from the EN World archive: 1000 non-RPG websites for RPG ideas.

Two years worth of links to everything from Civil War love letters to making crop circles. (The list actually only made it to #645 — still very impressive!)

Do You Use a GM’s Screen?

In my experience, the decision whether or not to use a GM’s screen seems to be based on 5 factors (listed here in order of importance):

How about you: Do you use a screen? Why or why not? And what are your screen quirks?

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Robin Laws’s Gimme Rule

In his December 2004 ‘See P. XX’ column, Robin suggests using “gimmes” — automatic successes — in situations where most RPGs would call for a roll.

This should speed up play (along the lines of More Fun, Less Work) and generate a more story-like game. What do you think of this idea?

Steel Sqwire Templates

Steel Sqwire’s area of effect templates are a cool idea for miniatures combat on square grids (like d20): You can drop them on the battle map without disturbing any of your minis or counters. (They’re a bit pricey, though.)

The 4 Ways to Choose Your Next Game

When your group is ready to start a new game, there are a numbers of ways to handle deciding what to play. By far the most common approach I’ve seen is this one: The GM says, “I’m going to run this game,” and the rest of the group says, “Okay” (or sometimes, “No thanks, we’re going to go play World of Warcraft”).

There are some obvious downsides to this approach, though — so let’s look at the 4 ways to choose your next game (and there really are only 4 ways!), and then ask an open question: How does your group tackle this?

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