A guide on creating legal codes for games, history, examples, and why bother?

Players want their characters to be special, and a secret is one way to do it. It is also a way to better connect the character with the game world.

Critiques and critics are a necessary evil. Now before anyone gets riled up, let me explain. No one likes to have their ideas picked apart. But we put our selves out there and hope for the best. Here are some tips on being a better critic.

Sometimes, you just need a new plot.

Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it just happens. Whether to a PC or NPC, a curse is something nasty that changes their life significantly, and not for the better. You were warned.

Dreams are another way to announce the future, to add colour, to guide the characters or even mislead them. This is a scroll of various dreams.

One player. One Game Master. Roleplaying in this way is slightly different than with a group.

Reading through the animal thread and a conversation with Scrasamax lead to the creation of this thread. For the Adventurer with a taste for exotic meals...may I present. "The Official Strolen Citadel Cookbook".

GM's block is a serious problem in the roleplaying world. Related to writer's or actor's block, it prevents the GM from being creative and enthusiastic about their work.

This article is also know as World Building 1A.

I personally always recomend creating your own game worlds for your campaigns. It makes the game your own, rather than something you are just using. Most people will not run characters that other people create. why should game worlds be any different.

With first-time players, learning the rules may seem like a burden and rolling up characters can be glossed over. We used a new method for explaining the rules and creating characters which the Harry Potter-setting made possible and which I would recommend using in other adventures.

From Feudal Japan to the modern Pizzaria, you can learn a great deal about gaming from food.

Literally, Campaigns are like plants. They can only grow if the conditions are right. The GM must plant them in the correct place and right environmental conditions (i.e. the players must like the ideas behind the games and be willing to play in them). Just like the gardener must prepare the soil and growing environment, the GM must create the basics of the campaign before play.

This is a great article posted on another site (who reposted it from another site, who took it from another), but I thought many would enjoy it here. It is The Lazy Man's Guide for Constructing a Call of the Cthulhu Adventure, written by Sandy Petersen, original author of the Call of Cthulhu.

A little advice on magic items reposted from the Runebearer website.

Larping is Live Action Role Playing. Instead of sitting around a table, play is done 'in action', up and moving about. Any resolution besides social ones are done by some 'lite' mechanic. It can be a great deal of fun.

One of the most heated topics in gaming is the arguments about player character death. Should the GM and the Players be antagonistic with each other? Should the results lay like the dice? What about story continuity and the investment in time and effort into the characters. Everyone seems to have strong opinions about this.

The journey of 1000 metaphorical miles begins with putting your hands on keys and typing away.

Everyone has their own take on what roleplaying games truly are. This is mine.