Fast…Ship

As we roll into the holiday weekend, I thought it’d be fun to share something that can completely derail my group: Kevin Spacey doing Christopher Walken auditioning for the part of Han Solo. (The rest of the video is miscellaneous Walken stuff — the Spacey bit comes first.)

Just saying “fast…ship” has, on occasion, made us laugh so hard we cried. You’re welcome?

What in-jokes, recited lines and other things have this effect on your group?

The Haiku Approach: Constrain to Inspire

In the same vein as the 20% rule for new campaigns, there is value in deliberately limiting your options when you GM — even to the point of excluding things you’re used to.

I call this the “haiku approach” because it’s got a lot in common with haiku, the Japanese poetic form best-known for its restrictive structure (five syllables, then seven syllables, then five syllables — at least, that’s how I learned it).

As with haiku, giving yourself some GMing constraints can be a good spur for your creativity — you’re forced to do more with less, and that can have intriguing results.

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RPG Web Profiler: Store Character Sheets Online

Courtesy of Ramza on the TT forums, here’s an option for storing your group’s character sheets online: RPG Web Profiler.

My most ambitious campaign website (described in TT’s second post ever, Running a Campaign Website) included online versions of all of the PCs. I made up a little text form for my players to fill in and update between sessions, and then converted them to HTML for the site. This worked very well — when someone forgets their sheet, or needed to play another player’s PC (our solution for absentees), their stats were there.

I haven’t tried it out, but RPG Web Profiler looks like a much better solution (and it’s free!). It allows you to post sheets online and limit access as you see fit — one person, a few people, the whole world. Has anyone tried this service out?

NPCs: Drive Like It’s a Rental

A perspective: NPCs exist to be fucked with by you, the GM, in pursuit of making the game more fun for your players.

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Perilous Cliff Road of Doom

I give you the amazing Perilous Cliff Road of Doom, as featured in Dangerous Roads of the World, Part 2. (Via kottke.)

Not only is this road incredibly cool, but it fits into any genre — pulp, fantasy, horror, sci-fi, modern, espionage, supers… Seriously, I can’t think of a single genre where this wouldn’t work as a standout encounter site.

And the best part is that if you like GMing with pictures, there are plenty of photos of this crazy road to choose from.

GMing Community Project: Write About NPCs

After getting a host of good suggestions for GMing wiki topics last month, I decided to get the Bulk Up the GMing Wiki Project going ahead of schedule. Originally planned as 52 one-week mini-projects for 2007, it’s now a monthly event with a few topics up for grabs each month. We’ll see how the first couple of months go, and adjust accordingly.

For the rest of December 2006 and all of January 2007, the topic on the front burner is NPCs. Specifically:

Wiki accounts are free, and even if you only have a few minutes to spare that’s all it takes to improve the wiki. Jot down an NPC, correct an error, add a section — the field is wide open.

I hope you’ll take part in this community project, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Wanted Posters for Fantasy Campaigns

Fantasy Handouts: Wanted Posters, from Ronin Arts, looks like a fun way to add some props to your game without having to do a whole lot of work yourself.

They also offer a blank wanted poster as well as menus. The menus seem less useful, but in the right circumstances they could be — if your PCs’ home base is an inn, for example.

Themed and Situational Playlists for Background Music

I spent a couple hours last night importing album art and fiddling with my iTunes playlists, so I’ve got music on the brain.

If you use mp3s for background music during your games, playlists offer variety with a consistent theme. With shuffle turned on, you get maximum variety; with shuffle off, you can match tracks to a rough sequence of events, like exploration or combat.

You could kick off with your campaign’s opening theme song, of course, and then cue up appropriate situational playlists as needed:

…and so forth. Do you do this in your games? What tricks do you use to make the most of your playlists?

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