Tokkens Review: Magnetically Appealing, but Flawed

A little while back, Fantasy Mint asked if I’d do a review of Tokkens, their line of collectible metal magic item cards for the d20 System, and I jumped at the chance.

These puppies looked amazing at GenCon 2006, and the only reason I didn’t buy any then was because they’re collectible.

Tokkens are just plain cool, and your players will love using them — but random packaging and poor use of space hurts their utility as a GMing tool.

Let’s go a bit deeper — here’s an in-depth, hands-on review of Tokkens from a GM’s perspective.

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The 7-Sentence NPC: A Tool Worth Tracking Down

Way back in 1992, Dragon Magazine #184 featured an article by C.M. Cline entitled “The 7-Sentence NPC,” and it’s by far one of the best GMing tools I’ve ever used. I mentioned it in 2005’s Vibrant NPCs here on TT, but I thought it deserved a post of its own.

The basic concept is that you can use a seven-sentence template to describe nearly any NPC — and although it appeared in Dragon, it’s not limited to fantasy characters by any means. Each sentence covers a specific aspect of the NPC, from appearance to memorable quirks, and the end product is both remarkably detailed and simple enough to reference on the fly.

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ENnies Voting Now Open, and TT is Nominated

Just a quick reminder that you can now vote in the 2007 ENnie Awards, and that Treasure Tables has been nominated for Best Fan Site.

Voting is quick and painless, and you don’t need to sign up for anything to cast your ballot. It’s an honor to be nominated, and I hope you’ll consider voting for Treasure Tables. (TT is in the very first category on the ballot.)

Best of luck to all of the nominees!

When You Play, Actively Observe Your GM

As a GM, you should take every opportunity you can to learn from the other side of the screen (one of my three maxims for GMs). You’ll be soaking up GMing ideas as a player even if you’re not really thinking about it — but if you make a conscious effort to learn from other GMs, it’ll happen more quickly.

That distills down to a quick GMing tip pretty nicely: When you spot a GM doing something you’re not so good at, or that you’d love to learn more about, actively observe what he does and how he does it.

This works best if you’re playing in a regular game, as you’ll have multiple opportunities to be exposed to the technique you’re trying to learn. Even if you’re at a convention event, though, there’s a decent chance you’ll see it more than once — so take notice the first time, and watch out for it (whatever it is).

It’s that conscious spark — “Hey, the way she does [X] is awesome! I want to learn how to do that.” — that sets this simple approach apart from just absorbing GMing ideas passively, through osmosis.

You probably do this already, both consciously and unconsciously, which is great. Even though I often do this automatically, though, I find it to be a useful tip to keep in mind when I play.

Does Your Group Pool Funds for Gaming Books?

Back in grade school, this used to crop up from time to time — the GMs I knew (myself included) spent a lot more than their players did on games that the whole group enjoyed, so why not pool funds to buy books?

I never felt quite right asking my players to do that, and I don’t remember ever paying for the GM’s books myself as a player, either. And as we all got older, of course, spending money became less of a concern.

The truism that in any given group, the GM will be the one who owns the most books for the current game still seems to hold true, though. And when that’s me, I don’t mind.

So how about it — has this ever been brought up in your group? Did it come up when you were younger? I know of groups that have pooled their cash for digital projectors, but does anyone actually do this for books, adventures and the like?

Interviewed for the Campaign Builder’s Guide: Volume Five is Out

R.D. “Túrin” Heesen interviewed me for the latest issue of the Campaign Builders’ Guild magazine, which you can download for free in PDF form: Campaign Builders’ Guide Volume Five. We talked about giant space hamsters, my favorite GMing session, a basic principle of homebrewing and more.

More importantly, if you’re into fantasy worldbuilding in general and d20 System games in particular, you’ll find a lot of nifty content in this issue. My two favorite sections were Border Patrol (the third in a series), which explores defending one’s borders in a fantasy world, and the first installment of the Campaign Builder’s Diary, which chronicles the creation of a setting from the ground up.

The Guide is well-written, hefty (24 pages), illustrated and nicely put together — it looks better than some “professional” PDF products I’ve seen, and it’s well worth a download.

What Should You Do When One of Your Players is Pissed?

If you GM for long enough, it’s inevitable: at some point, a situation will come up in-game that really ticks one of your players off.

It might be your fault, or it might not, but either way a pissed-off player can have a poisonous effect on a gaming session — whether they mean to or not.

So what should you do?

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Four GMing Links: NPCs, Networking and More

Just lately, I’ve come across a bevy of good GMing links. I figured I’d share them all at once, rather than spreading them out:

• Burning Spotlight: This ars ludi post kicks off with a great piece of GMing insight: “Players want play time. Forget about treasure, XP, or hero points: the only reward that really counts is getting to play.” Ben then delves into downsides of spotlight time, something I’ve never considered before.

• RPGSpaces: A new social networking site aimed at gamers, for online games, linking up with other players, campaign blogs and the like. And unlike Gleemax, it won’t make your eyes bleed. I suspect we’ll be seeing more RPG networking sites in the near future — this is an idea whose time has come.

• Interrogate Your NPCs — NPCs Need to be Needy: This My Play post is a follow-up to Interrogate Your NPCs — Whys and Hows, and it’s excellent. It also dovetails will with The Conflict Rule of NPC Design here on TT. Gerald opens with “The simplest way to ensure that an NPC has an effect is to ask, “What does this NPC want from the PCs?” which is a great starting point.

• Zuzzy Miniatures: These guys make textured, paintable battlemats — instead of just being flat, they’re molded with low-profile terrain features, and they look incredible. Apparently, you can still roll them up after they’re painted, making them easy to transport. For GMs who love minis, this is a pretty neat idea. (Via Gaming Report.)

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