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Showing posts from February, 2015

Online Player Etiquette: The DO's and DON'Ts of Being and Online RPG Player

I, personally, have had some bad experience as of late with online player etiquette when trying to start a couple new games, so I though it might be a good idea to share some advice with those players out there looking to get into an online game. Let's start off with things not to do: Don't sign up for an online game unless you can make a commitment to the game. Don't ask to join a game and then not respond quickly when you are asked to join. Don't join a game and then immediately quit. Don't ignore the parameters of the game.  Make sure you build an appropriate character. Don't argue with previous rulings.  If an established group has already agreed, you shouldn't be challenging a ruling after the fact. Here is a good list of things to do: Make sure you ask questions that influence you wanting to join before asking to join. Understand how you group and GM wish to communicate and adapt to that method. Be gracious and respectful. Adapt your c

Pressure Points: Getting to Spielvergnuegen

Too much pressure! Being a GM is about being a leader that helps your group find spielvergnuegen -- gaming pleasure.  Gaming pleasure seems like a simple thing, but the GM has all sorts of knobs and twiddles to help things along.  In this article we are going to walk through a bunch of those "controls" and see how they can be used to get your gaming group to maximum gaming ecstasy. First, lets divide things up a bit.  In the real world, your gaming group consists of players .  These players control characters in a party .  GMs interact with players directly and use the game world to interact with characters.  Players and characters remain separate things, unless there is bleed .  Bleed is the transfer of emotion between characters and players.  For example, a player might become sad when the character is sad for losing a beloved animal companion, or a character might react violently against another character when the player is also angry. In some ways, the GM intera

Shadows of the Last War: Remnents of Cyre

For the time being, the pages of this journal find me strong enough and well enough to record our journey; hopefully they will for many years to come.  We made it to seaside and the Golden Dawn had other duties, so they broke our deal and left an "observer" to spy on us while leaving us alone.  I had half a mine to make a run for it and dump the spy overboard.  The captain shows us no respect. We found undead had slaughtered Emerald Claw folks in the ruins below.  The old Counselor, a lich-looking elf, summoned a huge undead crab-like creature to fight us, in addition to his undead skeletal zombies.  It was a tough fight, but we bested them all.  The counselor chose to walk back to his country some 3 weeks away and tell his council after we took the schema and all the magical items he had collected.  He warned us not to let it fall into the hands of the Lord of Blades, like we hadn't already thought of that.  He warned of spies everywhere.  I tease Ink Slinger, but I k