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What sort of bad things can happen on a journey? During a journey in The One Ring, various negative events can occur that challenge the Player-heroes and add tension to the narrative. Here are some types of bad things that can happen, along with examples and their potential consequences: TYPES...

How do I run a journey? List the steps I must take as a GM and describe them in detail. List the roles a player can take and skills needed for those roles STEPS TO RUN A JOURNEY 1. Set Journey Path: - Determine Route: Begin by discussing with the players the route they intend to take. Use...

So, I'm starting to run a campaign set in Moria using the (very cool) recent campaign book for it in the One Ring system. So, as a computer geek who wanted to learn the system and plan for the campaign, I thought I'd do the obvious thing. So I Extracted the text from my purchased copies of the...

I'm not sure how you can think that, as my statement was about "specific code for each scenario". Your statement and example is about rules for a single action. You are arguing about a single action; I am arguing about a set of actions. Let me iterate: I believe that coming up with a scenario...

Getting a little esoteric here, but this is just not right. I worked in software dev for many years and read through the Nethack code maybe 20 years ago, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t changed that much. Nethack does not usually have code to anticipate actions given a context — it has general...

Although I understand where you're coming from, I'm not sure I'd agree that there is a hard dividing line between a board game and an RPG. As a thought exercise, let's imagine a one-hour game with defined characters where the goal is to break into bank. Modern day spy genre. I could make a...

Back in the day, I built a D&D world in the far north; snow, ice, several civilizations (one led by sentient ice boulders) and prepped a few opening encounters. My players, when told about it, said "nah, we prefer the warmth. Heading south" A quarter century later, I still have that ready to...

Honestly, my major comment is that I agree with you. Your statement “GM ensures the play moves forward in directions players care about.” is a great summary. It implies, I believe correctly, that the GM is not setting a direction all by themselves, but is emphasizing and pruning directions the...

So you are looking for a tactical system in which players can feel great and powerful, but: Powers do not change when you level up Items do not affect powers You have very few options when your turn comes up I think it is going to be really hard to provide the tactical fun your players are...

Have you looked into 13th Age? It has a lot of similarity to 4E -- but not so intense and much easier to play in a casual fashion. It allows players to play with a range of levels of engagement and the character classes allow people to choose how much crunch they want to deal with. I've found...

I think there is a strong difference between immersion and simulation. I find I like games which lean towards narrative and/or gamist styles of play, and my experience is that games aimed at simulation pull me out of immersion because they regular require me to think about how the rules work for...

I feel a bit sorry for black lodge games. If this video is based on their experience then they really seem to have a very limited view of what either a GM or a director does. I’ve been both for 30 years, and so many of the statements he makes are not at all close to my experience. A selection...

A good selection of advice. I might add in the "Create Pregen Characters" section that allowing players to make minor tweaks to their pregens is something to consider. It takes very little time and encourages buy-in from players. Examples I have used in Con games: 13th Age: Allow choice of 1...

I've introduced a ton of people to roleplaying games, having started a club in my church and run in non-RPG conventions a few times. I've run a number of systems and usually get people started with just two main points: WHAT YOU ARE This is where you say "I'm a warrior" or "an elf who likes to...

A long-winded answer is tempting, but I’ll go with: Narrative games are ones where you spend more time narrating, as opposed to gamist games where you spend more time enacting rules.

That was literally my point; different games favor different answers. Also, I was not comparing systems, I was contrasting them.

From this list, I’ve only backed MORIA, which probably hasn’t shipped to my house yet, but I’m starting a campaign for it. It’s one of the few on the list where I feel the property that is being described has a naturally good fit to the system, and the system is one I enjoy. I’ve played one...

In my experience, unless you are casting boring damage spells, rote spells take much longer to adjudicate. Take the D&D polymorph spell. In Fate, this could be a simple dynamic spell -- you gain the aspect "You are an X". Zero time to cast and not hard to adjudicate. If you turn into a mouse...

Like much good advice, this can be summarized by the philosophy of Bill and Ted: First, you need to be excellent to one another; not just begrudgingly do no harm or be generally nice, but be excellent to your fellow players and GM. They must not just tolerate your character and play style but...

I think it depends on where you find the fun in spell casting. It looks like you find the fun in carefully scouting out and working out what the best spell or set of spells is for a given situation. Others, myself included, like the challenge of trying to adapt a fixed set of spells to given...