Take Pictures of Your Gaming Sessions

In 2003, I started taking pictures during my gaming sessions, and I’ve done it ever since. It rocks.

Why does it rock? Because years later, you and your group (which may have changed by then) can look at them and remember the good times you had together.

It’s also interesting to watch people change, and reflect on what was going on in your life at the time.

So, in a nutshell, it rocks forthe same reasons taking most pictures rocks — but it might be something you hadn’t thought of applying to your gaming before, and I highly recommend it.

Incoherent Play, and How to Avoid It

Deep in the Game sums up incoherent play brilliantly, and takes a succinct look at several ways to avoid it.

When it comes to making the most of your gaming, Chris’s blog is where it’s at.

Give Your NPCs a Color Palette

Abulia Savant has been rocking lately, and Gaming in Full Color is no exception. Based on his recent Fading Suns campaign, Don looks at using color when you describe your NPCs — and the dramatic impact doing so can have.

The Boardgame Approach to GMing for Newbies

If you GM enough games, you’re going to have new players — really new, as in “never played an RPG before” — in your group at some point. Bringing new gamers into the hobby is a good thing, but it can definitely be a challenge.

For me, the hook is to approach it just like playing a new boardgame.

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Mastering Your GM-Fu at GenCon 2006

I’m pleased to announce that GenCon has approved a seminar that I’m involved in for this year’s con! It’s called Mastering Your GM-Fu, and it’ll take place on Saturday, August 12th at 1:00 PM.

It’s going to be a free panel discussion on shoring up your weak points as a GM, with Zachary Houghton, Vicki Potter, Martin Ralya (that’d be me) and Phil Vecchione as the four panelists. You can read our GMing bios on the seminar page here on TT; we’ll also be adding info to that page over the coming weeks.

If you’re going to GenCon Indy this year, we’d love to see you there!

Dicing With Dragons on Published Scenarios

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a used copy of Dicing With Dragons, a book about RPGs from 1982, and asked the TT community what I should do with it.

I’ve been holding off until I was ready to do something big with it, but last night I realized that I needed to start small.

I found this portion of the GMing chapter (entitled “Playing God”) intriguing:

A section of the hobby has put forward the argument that ready-made scenarios are actually harmful to ‘true’ role-playing. They claim that this leads to stereotyped play, with referees reading descriptions from a booklet, and relieving them of the need to think on their feet.

What do you think of this statement?

Ranking Your Favorite Campaigns: What Makes You Tick?

Over on Abulia Savant, my friend (and fellow GM) Don Mappin recently posted an intriguing exercise: Rank your 10 favorite RPG campaigns, and see what your list reveals.

This is a great idea — let’s give it a shot, shall we?

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Dungeoncraft Archive

I somehow missed that John Kim (who I interviewed for TT) maintains an archive of Ray Winninger’s excellent “Dungeoncraft” column from Dragon Magazine. All 29 entries are available online, or you can download them as one big ZIP file.

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