Not related to any one particular system of rules.
21
votes
11answers
759 views
How can I create a megadungeon in a futuristic/post-apocalyptic setting?
I play a lot of AD&D 2e, and I really enjoy creating dungeons and megadungeons. However, in a futuristic/postapocalyptic setting, how can I thematically create a megadungeon? Obviously, I couldn't ...
21
votes
14answers
818 views
How to deal effectively with a player unable to lose?
How do you effectively handle a player that overreacts to any loss of his character (level drain, death) ?
21
votes
6answers
698 views
When GMing in a high-tech game world how do you handle potentially disruptive tech?
This question stems from my Eclipse Phase campaign, but applies to any high-tech setting. While the setting books describe a wealth of technology, there are plenty of tools that are not listed. That's ...
21
votes
7answers
683 views
Inventiveness vs. breaking the game; How do I encourage one, without enabling the other?
So, recently, I had an issue where I had to make a call on a custom-made weapon, and I'm not sure I handled it very well. The player was using a human alchemist, and instead of throwing 'bombs' every ...
21
votes
7answers
457 views
It is possible to have one player lose control of their actions (get possessed) and have the other players not know it?
One of the players in my group is getting rather fond of a very powerful and clearly evil sword that gives them great increases to strength and magical ability. As a consequence, I would love to have ...
21
votes
8answers
542 views
What can I do to give the players the same feel their characters would have about wilderness travel?
I find that in a lot of our group's games, traveling long distances through wilderness is too easy. In real life, it's quite arduous traveling overland. No one who's just walked a hundred miles is ...
21
votes
6answers
630 views
How can I treat old and new players fairly, without upsetting anyone?
The last time I ran a game of D&D there was a lot of tension between new players (both to the group, and D&D) and old players. It stemmed partly from oldbies not wanting their ball taken away, ...
21
votes
5answers
405 views
Preventing character skill from impeding player enjoyment
Let's consider a player, whom we shall call Bob. Bob loves exciting gunfights and is a big John Woo fan. So he makes up "Shooty McShootenstein," who is a master with a gun. One thing that Bob is not ...
20
votes
7answers
732 views
How to handle wealthy player characters as a GM?
One of the long-standing settings our group keeps returning to is classic medieval fantasy. (Examples are MERP, Rolemaster, The Dark Eye -- But this question is aimed to be system agnostic and is ...
20
votes
10answers
929 views
Flaws that aren't flaws
What do you do when a system gives points at character creation for flaws/disadvantages when a player can permanently remove the effects of that flaw by buying something or spending other points to ...
20
votes
5answers
1k views
How much detail should I include in medieval maps for players?
I am running a campaign in the Eberron (DnD) setting, but really, this question could apply to anyone running a game in a medieval setting.
I wanted to know what level of detail/accuracy to include ...
20
votes
10answers
572 views
What are the advantages and disadvantages of develop in play (DIP) compared to develop at the start (DAS) character generation?
Originally, Are you really DIPpy?1
What are the advantages and disadvantages to developing your character in play (DIP) compared to developping at the start (DAS)?
What experiences have you had with ...
20
votes
9answers
818 views
How to Manage Player Frustration and Disengagement
Many RPGs have random elements, such as dice rolling, which can determine success or failure of an action. In some of these games, failure basically means the player character does nothing or ...
20
votes
4answers
377 views
How do I alert the rest of the party that a character within the party has stolen a major plot device?
I'm running a campaign in which a rogue has stolen a powerful necromantic focus (and is keeping it outside of the box that protects the world from it.) The party doesn't know, and I'm looking for a ...
20
votes
4answers
360 views
How to become better at descriptions of what your character is doing?
A (very) common GM question is "What is your character doing?"
How do you, as a player, describe effectively what you character is doing?
What techniques do you use to evoke wonder and spark ...
20
votes
5answers
345 views
Maintaining a party in a world of mistrust
In essence, how would you keep a colorful group of players together in a world filled with mistrust, without going too much meta?
Here is the scenario :
Our hero consists of members of a special ...
19
votes
12answers
852 views
Do role-playing games have to be fun?
There is a hypothesis that entertaining activities (like role-playing games) should be "fun." Quotes like "It doesn't matter, as long as you're having fun" and "The rules aren't important as long as ...
19
votes
9answers
604 views
Dealing with skill rerolls by several players
I could use some advice as a GM on how to handle rolls which get repeated by several players one after the other.
Example 1
The PCs stand in front of a locked door and try to force it open. The ...
19
votes
5answers
495 views
How to handle diverging expectations on “background density”?
Sorry, this is lengthy, but I want to put this into context.
After many years (try 15) of not GM'ing a group of my own, I recently made an attempt to return to the head of the table and shake off ...
19
votes
9answers
580 views
How can you encourage players to portray a “realistic” reaction to in-game stressful/traumatic circumstances?
This question came to me while I was thinking about killing people in pen-and-paper rpgs.
When a character starts his career, in most systems, he is somewhat young. As an example, when you are first ...
19
votes
5answers
574 views
What sorts of things in a typical fantasy village would be made of iron?
I'd like to run an adventure where the party needs to improvise and find some sources of iron when they're in and around a small village. Cold iron plays a role in a lot of games as the bane of fey ...
18
votes
9answers
2k views
How can my character coerce uncooperative player characters?
Occasionally in games we find ourselves in a situation where the player characters might not want to co-operate even if their players do.
How do you handle the party coercing those characters into ...
18
votes
8answers
537 views
Inventory: How can you carry adequate equipment without bringing a caravan?
In our campaign, we try to stay somewhat realistic. Unfortunately, we always find ourselves in one of two situations:
Lacking equipment to survive in basic adventure circumstances.
Burdened by ...
18
votes
6answers
813 views
What to do when a player character does something suicidal?
Every now and then a player character does something extremely risky because "it would be fun." What are some good ways to handle this as a GM, for the different styles of play? I like playing ...
18
votes
8answers
382 views
Practices to mitigate player characters' conflicting agendas
You have a campaign that provides, by design, a high level of freedom for the players to pick the story threads, sides and whatnot for themselves.
In the long run, a conflict arises: some player ...
18
votes
10answers
429 views
How do I transition my players from roll-playing to role-playing?
The context for this question is the same as this related question about spending time in town, but I am looking for sufficiently different advice so I thought it warranted its own question.
I've ...
18
votes
5answers
386 views
How do I learn to do accents?
I've always enjoyed playing in games where the GM/DM/ST makes use of a variety of accents to differentiate between NPCs. I've always wanted to learn how to do that, but I realize that I'm not ...
18
votes
4answers
280 views
How to run an encounter where PCs have different observations of the same events?
Some of the discussion in this question got me to thinking about an encounter design that sounded fun but I couldn't figure out an elegant way to pull it off:
In some situation where one or more PCs ...
18
votes
4answers
345 views
What analyses exist of capitalist economies in “modern” setting RPGs?
A number of questions exist on stack-exchange discussing feudal economies in RPGs, indicating a number of essays regarding feudal economics in RPG.
What equivalent essay analyses exist of game ...
17
votes
10answers
973 views
How do I encourage a GM to use the rules as written?
Related to this question, there are some game masters who either don't know the rules or ignore them properly. They come into conflict with rules lawyers, players who know the rules well and expect ...
17
votes
3answers
432 views
How does a GM fix the rules when they goof?
I think it happens to the best of us. I'm not the best of us, so I get to goof a bit more often. The specific example I'm going to mention was using Dresden Files (a derivative of FATE for those who ...
17
votes
8answers
435 views
What to do when your PCs skip an important part of the story line
In the earliest stage of my new duet campaign, I thought I had "rail-roaded" the PC into the first important encounter, one that leads to a major story line for the campaign. Specifically, the PC was ...
17
votes
8answers
422 views
How do I create a sense of mystery about magic?
Magic in so many games is something mechanical and fully understood. Assuming I control the setting (and have a group of players willing to try new rules), how do I make magic something mysterious?
...
17
votes
8answers
586 views
How can I motivate my fellow players?
Although I'm very much enjoying the one of the games I'm in, the other players seem to be flagging and losing interest. This is a bit disheartening as their lack of enthusiasm is bringing down the ...
17
votes
7answers
343 views
How do I roleplay getting used to violence?
So I just rolled up a character for a game (D&D 3.5 if it matters) and looked around table to see we had two ex-soldiers, a professional bodyguard, and a 'famous' adventurous. (A level 1 bard with ...
17
votes
6answers
556 views
Making magic “magical”
When I work with settings that contain magic, whether traditional fantasy or others, I always perceive something of a tension when trying to portray the magic between the following factors:
Magic ...
17
votes
9answers
543 views
What happens in adventure locations between adventures?
I'm running a sandbox with several adventure locations that have been visited, but not entirely cleared, and ones that have been left open for new residents to arrive.
I'm looking for a method for ...
17
votes
9answers
557 views
How to help players settle down and focus?
We have a weekly game in the evenings; however, we often don't start playing for a few hours after we get together, if at all. This has been exacerbated recently by other events with the same people ...
17
votes
6answers
427 views
Difference between writing a one-off scenario and writing a quest for a campaign?
I want to get some of my friends into roleplaying by running a self-contained single-session game with them rather than an actual campaign opener (for lack of a better term, I'll refer to this sort of ...
17
votes
8answers
380 views
What's a good method for making cultures differ?
Just read through a great question (on getting players to play in line with their characters' cultures) and it got me thinking:
What do you do to make the cultures in your setting differ?
Let's say ...
17
votes
7answers
365 views
Fantasy and magic in a primarily realistic setting
I'm running a game that's best described as "medieval fantasy," in the sense that we're actually trying to have the lives of people in the setting strongly resemble the historical Middle Ages. There ...
17
votes
6answers
711 views
Realistic modern day combat system to model real life ambush
I came across a video (helmet camera) of an Taliban force ambushing US infantry troops in Afghanistan. This is a link to the video of ambush: Combat in the First Person, Spc.Michael Gannon guides us ...
16
votes
9answers
905 views
Rewards for a cancelled session?
If a referee has to cancel a session at very short notice, what rewards to the players are sensible?
For example part of a sessions exps, bennies or hero points.
16
votes
11answers
711 views
How can you find a balance between effective/optimised characters and creative characters?
When creating characters, I often face a dilemma between making a character. It feels like they can either be optimized so they can "pull their own weight" or having a character I think is creative ...
16
votes
9answers
740 views
What real world skills can RPGs improve?
What real world skills can be improved by playing Role-playing games? What skills have you or others in your experience improved through gaming?
16
votes
5answers
408 views
How to handle the PCs within a large military?
On some level, this might actually be getting closer to RPGs’ roots: I want to try a campaign where the PCs are members of a larger military. There may be need for them to coordinate with other ...
16
votes
5answers
380 views
Does anyone know a good system for building a city?
We're beginning a Geist game and we talked about how interesting it would be to build a city together as a group so we really felt like it was our home town.
I've heard Damnation City is good, but ...
15
votes
11answers
898 views
How do you keep the party on the map?
I'm running a fairly sandbox game, where the party can wander around easily from place to place. When the party visits areas I've prepared something for, they generally have a good time. When they ...
15
votes
8answers
430 views
Treasure that's hard to put a price on
(We've been playing D&D, but for this answer I'm looking for a system-agnostic answer that works for a premodern setting. Let's say 1500 AD or earlier.)
Most of the treasure the party gets from ...
15
votes
7answers
480 views
Techniques for skimming through travel (fast travel) without meta-teleportation
In most of my group's campaigns, we spend a lot of time traveling. Unfortunately, this leans one of two ways:
Uninteresting or distracting obstacles. If you want to spend time but keep it fresh, ...
