
Three great links from the GMing community:
Behind the Screen: Listen to your players…: Dante of the new site Stupid Ranger posted this little gem about paying attention to what your players say at the table. Sounds obvious, right? Well, it is — but in a good way. Since getting feedback from your players can be…difficult…at times, it’s easy to forget that at other times, that feedback is right out there in the open.
eFuture Tiles: Galactic Transport: I’ve always admired Skeleton Key Games‘s badass minis-scale tiles, but none of them have ever grabbed me quite like these. If I was running a sci-fi game that used minis or counters, I’d pick up this PDF in a heartbeat. It presents 30 modular tiles that can be configured in a variety of ways to create different spaceship deck plans — and in a clever touch, the set includes 10 alternate tiles with cargo on them. (Via Gaming Report.)
Interrogate Your NPCs — Follow Up: Linnaeus of My Play has posted the third article in his “Interrogate Your NPCs” series, and it’s just as good as the previous two (Whys and Hows and NPCs Need to be Needy). Here’s the teaser: “Instead of wasting hours preparing for a hundred alternatives that won’t happen, how does preparing for just two key ones sound?”
(I’m at GenCon from Wednesday, August 15th through Sunday, August 19th — two trips in a row makes for a busy month! As before, there will be a new post every day, but I won’t be able to respond to comments or reply to emails. I’ll be back with a full report next week — have a good time without me! — Martin
Yax, good point there. I think that really tuning in on the subtle nuances of how your characters are emoting, both verbally and in body language, can tell you a lot about their level of enjoyment.
Over the years, I’ve had several players that would always tell you “everything is fine, that was fun” when it was very clear that everything was NOT fine and they were NOT having fun from their tone and body language.
Those are the players that will eventually become a cancer in your group if not satisfied, because I’ve found those are the types of people that tend to trash your campaign to the rest of the players behind your back. 🙂 Nipping that whole business in the bud is a pretty good thing!