
Sometimes running a game feels like herding a group of toddlers through the glassware department of a department store while carrying an armload of wet cats. While most of the time players act like the responsible adults...
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Awhile back I did a post on 21 Surefire Ways to Loose Players. With this being Player Month here at Evil Machinations, I thought it time to do a post for the players. Even the most die-hard GMs will change sides of the table,...
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Your GM picked out the adventure, did all of the background work, fleshed out the NPCs, balanced treasure and other rewards. Now it’s finally time to run the adventure, it’s up to the GM to find a way to motivate...
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Here it is–the first post of our “Player Month”, designed to give advice to the players on how to make a game better. After all, the GM isn’t the only one playing and the players share some responsibility...
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Whether as a PCs or an NPCs, evil characters tend to get the short end of the stick. All too often, they’re portrayed as short-sighted, reactionary, shallow, and … well, stupid. Frequently, all evil characters look and...
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I thumbed through my advanced copy of KQ #11 (okay, since it’s a PDF, I didn’t exactly thumb – more paged down through) — the first issue of KQ I’d ever seen, and started to feel the excitement I used to have when looking through early issues of Dragon magazine.
15 articles (counting Maps and Free City), 9 of which I could immediately...
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Problem players are a perennial subject on GMing blogs. But problems can go both ways. Here are some GM behaviors guaranteed to cause friction in your group. Please feel free to add more.
Force your PCs into a predetermined plot line and refuse to let them deviate from it.
View the players as opponents to be beaten.
Don’t listen to player suggestions....
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We all get them: the incessant rules lawyer who challenges your every call; the “loopholer” who will exploit everything not nailed down in the rules to gain that extra +1 advantage; the player who takes everything...
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Every player has days they can’t make a game. Sometimes, a great conjunction of events happens and a player has to miss a session at the very last minute. It happens to all of us.
These aren’t the players I’m referring to.
It can be one of the most frustrating things about a running a game: having players who are chronic no-shows. My ex-husband...
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I’m taking a break from Meadowbrook for a few days; I don’t want this blog to become “all Meadowbrook all the time”. I’m considering starting another blog devoted to world-building that would chronicle my development of Meadowbrook and it’s surrounding world; if this is something that would interest you, please leave me a comment....
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