Always make your games your own.
I was trying to convince my sibling to play Blades in the Dark with me, and kept running into a wall. They just didn’t want to—more than that, they said it felt icky. I, like a good little sibling, kept poking at them until truth poured out.
Continue readingWe’ve been talking a lot about improvisation and working with your players, but we haven’t given you nearly enough background for the topic. There’s a book that I found years ago called Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering, and I lend or recommend it to every one of my friends who asks me for tips on how to be a good storyteller. I like it so much that when I started looking through my old copy again while I was starting this article, I had to stop myself from simply quoting the book word for word. It’s more than just a good place to start; the book has an impressively down-to-earth approach that will give you a basis for campaign and adventure design, for preparing easy improvisation, and for reading and managing your gaming group’s social (and problem solving) dynamics. It also offers a very simple gamer typology that should allow you to identify what drives you and your players and what rewards them most in the realm of RPGs. If you’re interested in gaming or in group dynamics, I couldn’t recommend a better read.
Much like with Jason’s article, this is not meant to be an exhaustive discussion of how to run a game. It also isn’t meant to be prescriptive. Like it says on the tin, I want to share with you how I go about running games these days. Curious about success through brainstorming and improvisation? Keep reading.
Fistful of Wits 