Lego Star Destroyer: The Power of Props

Doesn’t this just make you want to run a Star Wars game?

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Rival NPCs and the Linear Guild

If you read the Order of the Stick webcomic (which I highly recommend — it’s great in so many ways), you’re familiar with the Linear Guild — the NPC foils to the main characters, the Order of the Stick.

The Linear Guild is essentially an evil version of the Order, right down to their D&D class roles — much like Link (in the Zelda videogames) always has to fight an evil copy of himself, or the Mirror Universe versions of themselves that Star Trek crews are always running into.

In those media, evil counterpart characters are a lot of fun. Their authors and creators take care to use them well, and a bit of humor (or more than a bit, for OotS) is involved. But does this concept translate well into RPGs?

Would your players enjoy occasionally fighting, or scheming against, evil versions of their PCs? Or would the similarity in abilities — and the obvious metagame aspect — get on their nerves?

Have You Ever Run a Game Outdoors?

I’ve run a solo session or two in the park, and played some Twilight: 2000 on a friend’s back porch, but I generally don’t run games outdoors (I’d much rather lurk in the basement, closer to the soda and snacks).

The fresh air was nice, but wind was a problem — character sheets kept blowing away. With a patio table and a few weights, that problem could easily have been solved.

If you tied the location to the game somehow, I could see an outdoor session being pretty cool. Playing at night in the woods would be fun for a horror game, being on the balcony of a tall building would be inspiring for a city-based supers campaign, and so forth.

Have you run the occasional session outdoors? Do you run outdoor games regularly? What do you like and dislike about it?

How PC Death is Handled in Different RPGs

Many RPGs simply assume that most groups, and most campaigns, approach PC death in the same way. “PCs can die, and when they do, it’s final” is certainly a common paradigm.

But there are lots of different ways to address player character death. Here’s a list of 8 different approaches.

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Corners in Battlestar Galactica: A Lesson in Details

Every week before our Saturday night Stargate SG-4 game, my group eats dinner while watching Battlestar Galactica. Lately we’ve mostly been making fun of it, although up until midway through the second season it was un-freaking-believably good.

Dwindling quality notwithstanding, there’s one element of the show that we always get a chuckle out of. In BSG, the corners of every square or rectangular 2-D object are cut off — sheets of paper, viewscreens, clipboards, you name it.

Older stuff (pre War on Corners, presumably) has corners, but apart from that this relatively minor detail is everywhere on BSG. And as funny as this can sometimes be, it’s a great device for subtly encouraging immersion.

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The Octopus: A Model for Urban Campaigns

In nearly every genre, urban-focused games tend to be a bit different from the norm. There’s a feeling of being at the center of a vibrant, bustling place, and a sense that the party has near-limitless options for what to do next.

For more about urban campaigns in general, check out the Urban Campaigns page on our wiki, or the Urban Adventures thread in our forums. With this post, I’d like to briefly outline a campaign model that describes one way to tackle an urban RPG: the octopus.

What’s the octopus, in GMing terms? It’s a recognizable, limited number of fairly linear options radiating out from a core.

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6 Tips for Maintaining Momentum

Every GM has experienced slow spots, hiccups and other delays during gaming sessions. There are so many moving parts involved that it’s almost inevitable — but it’s not unavoidable.

Here are 6 tips for keeping your sessions flowing smoothly.

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GMing Is Like a Sausage

Sausages: Tasty and delicious, although too many can be bad for you. Made of little bits of things that aren’t necessarily tasty on their own, but blended together they’re awesome. Can be purchased in packages, or (for the enterprising) made on your own. Eating the same sausages gets old after awhile.

GMing: Lots of fun, although too much of it (especially without also playing) can lead to burnout. Involves a variety of activities, both before and during games, that aren’t always fun on their own (for me, that’d be prep) — but when blended together, they add up to awesome. Adventures and sourcebooks can do some of the heavy lifting for you, but you can also do everything on your own. Never varying your style gets old before too long.

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