…And Then James Bond Spends a Month in the Hospital

TV shows and movies make great inspiration for your game, and there are also plenty of RPGs based directly on visual media: Stargate SG-1, the various incarnations of Star Trek, James Bond, Star Wars and so on.

Have you ever run (or played in) a game based on a movie or TV show? If so, chances are you probably encountered at least a few spots where it just didn’t feel like the show.

If you want to run RPGs based on movies and TV that are true to the spirit of their source material, you have to tackle things a bit differently.

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Gaming Environments, Computer Aids and Group Size

Our GMing Q&A Forum has crossed the 10 day mark — and is growing every day — and I’d like to share a few highlights from last week’s threads: proxemics, computer aids and the ideal group size.

• Glendower is looking for info on your gaming room setup in Proxemics and gaming environments. “Proxemics” is defined as follows:

Spatial relationships and territorial boundaries directly influence our daily encounters. Maintaining control over such space is a key factor in personal satisfaction; observing spatial interactions in everyday life is a key to personal awareness.

• masterzora’s thread on computer aids for GMs has been generating some excellent responses — from using a wiki to organize game date to custom Excel spreadsheets.

• psychoph asked the question “What is a good group size?” and started a discussion about “sweet spots” and the various factors that go into finding your ideal group size.

Want to join in the discussion? Become a member of the GMing Q&A Forum today! You can also keep tabs on the 20 most recent posts with the forum’s RSS feed.

Are these forum roundups useful to you? Have you seen any forum threads that you’re particularly excited about?

Greg Stolze Ransoms a GMing Article

Game designer Greg Stolze has opened donations for Greg’s Ultimate GM Article (no direct link, sorry!), which sounds interesting.

The ransom: $675 (when he gets $675 in donations, you can download the article for free). (Via the Forge.)

From Situation to Resolution

John Harper (who writes The Mighty Atom), breaks down some big gaming meta-concepts into one handy diagram in Situation, Scene, Conflict, Resolution.

It’s eminently accessible — you could show the diagram to a non-gamer, and they would “get it.” (Don’t miss the excellent follow-up post, either.)

Coming Up With, and Using, NPC Names

Every GM has had to come up with a name on the fly at one time or another, and if you’re not on the ball it can be pretty easy to name that fantasy blacksmith “Uh…Bob,” or that space marine captain “John…icus…var — Johnicusvar, that’s it!”

And if you’re me, you then a) forget the name you just used, or b) forget which NPC you gave it to.

Fortunately, this can be avoided if you come up with some NPC names in advance, and make a list to use during play.

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Defining Moments as a GM

A thread over at The Masters’ Council asks What were your defining moments as a GM? — and ties that into the larger question, “How do GMs learn to GM?”

See also: How Did You Learn to GM?, How Should GMs Learn to GM? and GM Workouts: Gimme Some Reps! — as well as GMing from scratch and How do you teach roleplaying to beginners in the GMing Q&A Forum.

GM as Meeting Facilitator

Meeting Facilitation and Gaming is an absolutely fascinating post over at The 20′ by 20′ Room — “one of the problems with typical rpgs is the fact that the GM is usually the meeting facilitator for a gaming group.” I can’t believe I’ve never thought of it that way before!

Interview with Johnn Four

Johnn Four runs Roleplaying Tips, one of the oldest and best-loved resource sites for gamers around. Roleplaying Tips is a free weekly e-zine that’s been running since 1999, and Johnn is both its editor and a frequent contributor. He has also written a column for Dragon Magazine, DM’s Toolbox, and is the author of GM Mastery: NPC Essentials.

Johnn graciously agreed to be interviewed for Treasure Tables, and I got a chance to ask him about his favorite issues of Roleplaying Tips, his approach to GMing and his upcoming projects.

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