I think this article is more geared as “player advice,” but I think GMs should pay attention as well. There are many ways to hook a character into the plot line of the story during session zero. Hooks Ties to locations, NPCs, and the other PCs make sure the PC is...
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I don’t like sandboxes. Sand is coarse and rough and irritating — and it gets everywhere. Oh wait. Wrong kind of sand. I hear those unfamiliar with the term asking, “But Ang, what is a sandbox game?” A sandbox game is one in which the GM has created a world that the players are allowed to explore...
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As followers of my posts know, I wrapped up a long-running D&D campaign recently. I’m already thinking ahead to what challenges and quests I can throw at those same “retired” characters by fast forwarding ten or twenty years into the future if and when we pick those...
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A party at the palace. A meeting of the ruling council of a secret cabal. A tense negotiation between leaders. There are many situations in which game masters can find themselves having to play multiple NPCs during the same scene. These scenes can often prove challenging as the GM has to switch...
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As you can probably tell, I’ve been in the midst of finishing up a campaign that ran for a good long time. We almost hit 16 months during the course of near-weekly gameplay. The ultimate battle against the twisted storm giant king leading an army against the walls of Waterdeep tested the...
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Over the past year or so, I have been refining my Session Zero format, to make sure that it delivers what my group needs in order to get the game started. I have combined a number of tools and pieces of advice that I have tuned to get all the things I want out of a Session Zero. I just used it...
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Find your session zero notes. Share79Tweet7Reddit1Email There’s almost nothing better in the RPG world than getting a proper ending to a campaign’s storyline. It could have been something you’ve really focused on for only a few months, or it could have been a marathon-style...
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There are times when a campaign gets long in the tooth. While the game play might still be enjoyable, there are times when the players and/or GM will get the urge to move on to the next campaign, the next system, or the next idea. It’s a natural progression of things, so if you’re...
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Hello and welcome to “Di’s 7 Swords of TRPG Design,” a highly egotistic [proclamation] on Tabletop RPG design and gamemastery. What I mean by this is that I plan to declare my views and opinions on what I believe makes a good game — be it from the design angle or the gamemastery...
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Recently, WizKids has released several sets of interlocking three-dimensional tiles (called WarLock) that can be used to physically build encounter locations. This is clearly their answer to Dwarven Forge tile sets, and while it isn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination, it is also very,...
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