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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas and a community of GMs helping each other run great games since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
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Top 25 Posts on Treasure Tables
This page provides links to 25 of the most popular, most commented-on and most useful posts here on Treasure Tables. If you’re new to TT, this is a great place to start!
Top 25 Posts
• Being a Player is Like Using a Flashlight: A simple, succinct analogy that might just change the way you think about GMing.
• The Boardgame Approach to GMing for Newbies: Seven ways to make GMing for inexperienced players go smoothly — especially if they’ve never gamed before.
• Coming Up With, and Using, NPC Names: 27 ways to come up with your next NPC’s name, and tips on making a name list to speed up play.
• Encounters: A Simple Formula: Two basic elements separate a good encounter from a bad one — and that’s true for nearly any RPG.
• Fear Checks: Always a Bad Idea: Fear mechanics dissected, and lots of food for thought about player choice and roleplaying opportunities.
• Fudging Die Rolls: Do you ever fudge die rolls? This post ignited a great discussion, and it’s an issue every GM will have to address at some point.
• Getting Player Feedback: Tips and tricks for getting feedback from your players — which can sometimes be a bit like squeezing blood from a stone.
• Hand-Held Dry-Erase Boards: A Versatile GMing Tool: There are lots of ways that using a dry-erase board can enhance your game, as Kestral shows in this contest-winning guest post.
• How Different RPGs Define the GM’s Role: How 97 RPGs define the term “game master,” and the significance of those definitions.
• How to Be a Bad GM: A Primer: Don’t do these things, and your GMing career will be off to a very good start.
• How to Kick Out a Player and Respect Yourself in the Morning: This article offers a step-by-step approach to kicking out a player, based on suggestions from the TT community.
• Interviewing Prospective Players: Interviewing players before they join your group is a surprisingly effective technique (after trying it once, I was hooked).
• Interview with Luke Crane: A lively interview with the creator of Burning Wheel, one of the best GMs I’ve ever met.
• Lead With the Cool Stuff: One of TT’s most popular and enduring posts. In a nutshell: Don’t hoard your best ideas.
• Martin’s Maxims for GMs: Three simple things you can do to become a better GM, starting with “Never stop learning.”
• 9 Lessons GMs Can Learn from World of Warcraft: The most-read and most controversial post on Treasure Tables, this article looks at ways to improve your GMing based on WoW.
• Professional GMing: Professional GMing — pipe dream or reality?
• Seven of the Worst Ideas in GMing History: From random encounters to THAC0, this post looks at seven ideas that really missed the mark.
• 6 Tips for GMing a Large Group: Running games for a large group is a challenge, but taking these easy steps will help you do it with style.
• Social Contracts for RPG Groups: Heard the term “social contract,” but not quite sure what it means? This engaging, accessible guest post by Chris Chinn tackles one of the most important concepts in gaming.
• Start Small: A basic worldbuilding principle, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” that can be applied equally well to game prep.
• Tact-Tiles: The Ultimate Battlemat: One of the niftiest products for GMs out there, Tact-Tiles are a modular alternative to battlemats.
• Tools of the Trade: Index Cards: The humble index card can be a GM’s best friend, and there are tons of ways to use them in your game.
• When Dice Go Bad: What do you do with a set of really crappy dice? Bury them in the backyard, of course.
• Write Your Own Naughty List: Knowing your weaknesses as a GM is the first step in strengthening your skills in those areas.