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Last spring I witnessed a good way to explain it by a local gamestore owner. When a reporter asked over the phone the proverbial "What are RPG's?" the game store owner responded with; "It's hard to explain, but hypothetically, what would you do if you walked into a room full of grizzlies?" "Ok...

Combat allows for a whole host of responses and solutions and not all of them necessarily end up with a dead monster. Puzzles usually don't, the DM expects the party to play along exactly as anticipated which is frustrating. A good puzzle should have multiple ways to tackle the problem, ways...

Boy I'm going with Wormwood on this one. In all the time I've gamed I've only seen this done well or even acceptably a few times and mishandled hundreds of times. Its gotten so bad that when it happens it takes every ounce of tolerance and politeness I have to not pack up and walk out the door...

I too have received plenty of praise for DMing, but still feel the way you do. My wife says that's because good DM's are never satisfied and continually strive to make their games better. Ultimately the question of quality is too subjective and ourselves too close to it to judge, so take the...

The greatest weapon of the elves is time. Use it. Mold the incoming people to your wishes, perhaps with cumpulsory education (who can be against readin` and writin`?) in schools with only elven teachers and texts. Also provide for only elven ownership on all land with leases capped at a...

To place the 4.6 million in perspective, here's a site showing the relative sizes of various American religious demoninations. Compare the number of D&Ders to relatively mainstream churches. http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions Nothing political, but at this size D&D should be a...

Construction site theft is nothing new, but it is bad every where. Several times I have been offered "left over" stock that still has the address it was stolen from written on it. To combat this I've done a couple of things; 1) Permanently label everything! Doesn't really do much good but I...

Also look for the nearest university with a law school. Most have some sort of program for providing legal services as a training feature for the law students. The primary draw back is you get what you pay for.

I almost always give my characters two - the first when I make up the character. Its broad and basic, along the lines of I'm a mercenary or such, but once he's leveled up I usually have a better feel for the character and do a more detailed one. Most players though are reluctant. DM's usually...

I've played in several all rogue campaigns all using at least some of the Thieves Guild material, and it looks like you already have the basics down. One thing I've noticed is the need to move away from the guild format. We usually went with competing families with most of the crime families...

You may need to clean the minis as well. Simple dishsoap and some water, scrub with an old toothbrush. Often the problem of primer not sticking is grease and oils from your hands. If the figs are old enough and the metal has taken on a yellowish tinge then you may be facing oxidation, often...

IRL I am an employer in a field roughly modeled on an apprentice/master level with minimal formal training and a lot of on the job experience. By and large I don't care whether its skill or inate ability that gets the job done as long as they can do it. I have seen people who can walk in the...

I've gotta concur with Lost Soul - general mastery is generally around a +10. The ability to do the mindless (taking 0) and achieve the dificult every day (take 10 with a +10). It doesn't really matter how they get there either as long as they can do it.

I too remember that list - something like "100 things every DM should do". I haven't seen it on the net in a while but it was worthwhile. The basic idea is that it is easier for a DM to rely on experience - even a simple one time experience.

I usually use house rules I've adapted from running CoC. Old tomes by there very nature are large books with obscure text and references written by people who abhor indexes, logical order, consice lines of thought, foot notes and everything else we expect in a modern book. As such the...

I've been using the same home brew world for nearly twenty years and my history timeline is barely more than one page. The players don't care too much so instead of detailed timelines I have given them little bits of stories here and there when appropriate to the plot or as part of the...

The key here is that the players only think they're getting the same ruby back.

I've allowed chains, ropes, and towels to all be used as garrotes with a -4 penalty for improvised weapon and otherwise using the Song and Silence rules. The penalties are enough only the peons get killed in such a way, and what are the peons and mooks there for if not to die in amusing ways?

I was supposed to get a copy from the station but the guy was able to get the engineer to deep six it.

During my pulp/CoC game this summer the players developed a powerful animosity towards an NPC protagonist who would always turn up when least expected -to the point one of the players would go red at the mention of the NPC's name. That player is one of the newscasters on the local news, and...