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GURPS. Ridiculously so.

It's INTERACTION. The GM does their thing and the players do theirs. Is the GM entertaining the group? Yup. Are the players entertaining the GM? Yup. It's cooperative. You don't even have a tabletop RPG unless the GM is introducing and the players are reacting. How do you escape the...

I complete an Enneagram Personality Test for important PCs & NPCs which informs me of how the character will behave. Then I toss in a few setting seeds to give the character 3 dimensions. I don't want to have to guess how the character will act in certain situations and I want their behavior to...

I hate games that create a certain culture which demonizes the rest of the hobby. White Wolf did this with Vampire: they were so special. They actually thought they were different in a way that made them the civilized folk of the hobby while the rest of us were tree-living monkeys. I get the...

"Magic" is synonymous with "supernatural" in classic "Sword & Sorcery" stories. It could be argued that how superheroes get their powers is also "magical" as in the real world getting bitten by a radioactive spider would at least harm most people. So what the Celestials did in the Marvel...

Wow. D&D PCs CAN DIE. Maybe you didn't emphasize that early on. I tell players this at the start so it isn't surprising. Roll a new PC if you like. But abandon the game or hobby because of that? LoL! You just need to find a group that understands how the game works and it won't be such a...

As a GM you can and should do whatever makes the adventure INTERESTING to the players. If they enjoy what you're presenting it doesn't really matter HOW you do it. Just make it fun because if the group is having fun everything is good.

Why won't players choose spellcasters? Because casting spells has a COST that other classes don't have to deal with. What if casting a spell drains one year of life? What if casting a spell drains Stamina/Endurance? What if casting a spell takes twice as long as attacking with a weapon? What...

It's like chess: there's a formula to every move that translates to each and every next move. You reverse it and design a trap that if they fail it has little or no noticeable consequence but gets worse every 60 seconds in a subtle way that requires additional saves. Like contracting the Flu...

Breaking News: Some TTRPG players have real psychological issues! This is why you screen players. Easiest way? "The party has taken out the Orc warriors and now face a group of female orcs defending their children with short swords! What do you do?" Their answer to that should handle...

Yikes! Ugly old-school session!

Sad. Great game with incredible artwork and a "labor of love" system. The mistake was free rulesets. If you're designing a new game, DO NOT offer the rules for free just to attract gamers. Offer a rules-lite free download but make the complete system $29.99+ Get what you've earned.

Scared the players to death. When two players would rather run games than play, you did well. Usually.

As a GM, you lose a lot of energy designing adventures. Scene by scene. If you used random encounters, it spares most of that RP energy. Have tables for everything in between.

I'm so tired of the "Race Debate" in RPG Gaming. You can run Orcs as Lawful Good or whatever you want in your setting and still call them "Monsters". How is this hard unless you have some underlying agenda to change how people interpret "Race" in an RPG. What term do you want? What makes you...

I use Terry Brooks' Shannarra material to motivate me. Some don't like it, but it works for me. Allanon rocks!

Tell your players to immerse in their characters or they won't reach role-playing. You wouldn't be lying to them. Immersion is the highest level of RP. Stop being nice and drive them into what the hobby is.

You state "generic items" but "generic" varies system to system. A powerful magic item with 5e might not be so powerful with Shadowrun. Bring more.

Green Ronin always knows how to get money out of me. This looks fun.

Execute the defiant PCs and allow the players to make new characters. Maybe the new PCs emerge from local Revolutionaries.