If you are a GM you will frequently find yourself in need of quality allies and enemies for your campaign and find yourself pressed for time.  Any old NPC will often not do.  You want someone with a full conceptions and some history.

I have to admit I HATE the number of casual magic items that appear in the average fantasy game, D20 being the worst. The amount of magic is being reinforced by the rules and the treasure chart. They are just “power ups” of the video game nature. They don’t add anything to the game except requiring bigger and badder bad guys.

A fight scene should be more than just rolling dice and counting numbers. It should be a chance for you to roleplay.

Say, MoonHunter, have any packs to give to a character to make them actually roleplay instead of just dictating their character’s actions? The majority of my players just do this.

ME:“You see a grizzled old knight with a scar over his face. He walks up to you and greets you with an ancient Cardomian salute, though he is unfamiliar to your eye.”
THEM:“I say “Hi.”
ME:“That’s it?”
THEM:“Yes. Now, I walk around him and open the door.”
ME:“But, but, he’s an important story character!”
THEM:“F**k the story! I want gold and XP, dammit!”
ME:“I hate you more than you’ll ever know.”

Action sequences in movies are fast, furious, and over all to fast.  They are exciting moments that most gamers are looking forward to.  Yet combat in most games is slow, ponderous, and takes up much game time. Gamers tend to blame the game systems. It is not the System, it is the group.

I am not a normal fantasy GM. If a player is delving through a dark tomb searching for loot in my campaign, he is probably on a fruitless quest. I dislike the dungeon crawl. I have since the earliest years of DnD. I mean where in Tolkein did they really crawl through a dungeon or other tomb/ place of mystery?

This is a list of laws, axioms, and strong recomendations from published and/or famous game designers/ writers I have recently collected. If you find them, add them. Please do not just add “any old” gamer’s axions, laws, etc.

Language is an essential part of any culture. Culture wouldn’t exist without some form of communication, and humans communicate by speaking. But the connection is deeper even than that. The language helps to define the culture which uses it, and is in turn affected by that culture. This dynamic process is what keeps a language “alive”: Latin is a dead language because the culture to which it belonged no longer exists.

What makes great entertainment for Gamers? Movies. They love action movies, even if their favorite pastime is reading books, writing websites, learning ancient languages, or gaming like madmen. If you pattern your games and campaigns after movies, you are sure to have an entertaining game.

Come down from the mountain with your stone tablets. Give forth your wisdom in the format of 10 statements that pertain to gaming.

Excalibur. Stormbringer. Sting. I blame fantasy authors and history professionals that have over simplified things for this preoccupation with swords.

I am always giving advice to various gamers on various game forums. I am constantly giving the same advice over and over again (cut/ paste repeat). Once a year I think about the advice and put together The List.

I am always giving advice to various gamers on various game forums. I am constantly giving the same advice over and over again (cut/ paste repeat). Once a year I think about the advice and put together The List.

I am always giving advice to various gamers on various game forums. I am constantly giving the same advice over and over again (cut/ paste repeat). Once a year I think about the advice and put together The List.

Some GMs, and the computer game industry too, seems to think gemstones, gold and magic weapons are the only way in which to reward the players. Most experienced GMs know this isn’t true, so I created this thread here to let us remind each other of the different alternative rewards a player can receive, and to have a place where ordinary item descriptions can be posted.