#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 15: Player-Driven Gaming

by ThomasNo Comments

Well, it has been quite a bit of time since I’ve been able to write about #RPGaDAY. Truthfully, I was busy laying out roleplaying game books and other miscellany. One of these projects was Unknown Armies, which has a group setting and character creation section that’s really fun, which leads into this day’s question about the role of a GM in your games.

I started gaming in the 1980’s. Back then, the way to play roleplaying games was you players were just that: playing in the GM’s story. The person making up the game world and the story was a Dungeon Master or a Game Master. That guy was never referred to as a “player”. Most games didn’t allow for any player to affect the world except for reacting.

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#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 14: Rituals at the Game Table

by ThomasNo Comments

Earlier this month, we looked at food and gaming. What part, if any, did communal meals have with your gaming group? For the old Shadowrun group, we gathered together to share meals with each other. Which got me to thinking about the other rituals we do when gaming.

Our home group in Arizona gathered in the evening, midweek. We’d catch up and chat with each other and then by 7:30, we’d have what we called Go/No Go. If we wanted to play the game, we’d jump in at that time. If we wanted to keep chatting, we’d shelve the game for the week and just keep having fun.

But if we go on, we enter our transition space.

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#RPGaDAY 2016, Day 13: What Makes a Successful Campaign?

by ThomasNo Comments

First, define “successful”. Also “campaign”.

Back when we played the post-college Shadowrun game, I had the whole campaign outlined ((Remember, this was back when I was still thinking of roleplaying games as primarily the GM’s story where the players enter with their characters to see what happens, rather than the collaborative play style I enjoy now.)) to create story arcs, season arcs like a television show. Each season started and ended on certain points. When we played that game, we went through the first season and had a good ending. Then we tried to do play-by-email once we started all moving away in the second season and that one didn’t have a satisfying ending.

My answer? Endings make a successful campaign.

Plan for an end point.

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