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Despite a horrible week at work (covering for multiple people out with covid :( ), I managed to run the mini-hex “dungeon” from my previous post. It went okay but it could have gone better. I implemented a variant of the scout action in which each person scouting got to see the hazards of one of...

As someone who never really felt comfortable with the “modern school” of game design, I am quite impressed with what I have read of Age of Ashes so far. Despite what some people think, adventure paths are actually written for a variety of play styles and while I can see some flaws with the path...

Right. I wasn't talking about adding material (although you certainly can). I was talking about not stripping 90% of the module out until it is nothing but a series of combats. Let me get nostalgic here: back in the days of AD&D 2e and earlier, things like CR or monster Level or the 'adventuring...

List one (in no particular order) 1. The Deverry Cycle by Katherine Kerr - Celtic fantasy with a unique focus on reincarnation and told non-linearly. 2. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - a classic, my dad used to read this to me when I was a little kid. 3. Memory, sorrow, and thorn by Tad...

Like Fire, adventure paths and rules make good servants but poor masters. I think your players have placed you in a bad situation: they want the game played in a specific way without houserules/interpretations but you need those things to run it successfully because the specific way they want...

Since we’re talking tactics I figured I would add this to the discussion: I just ran a low-level game and my players stomped the encounters hard (one low, two severe one in which they didn’t have armor on, and one trivial). They aren’t tactical geniuses by any stretch but they are exploration...

I was wondering if the upload would work. The actual file is an absolutely massive drawing, but I turned it into a png., to try and get it to upload. Glad to see it did! I ran my jungle game today and I tried the time wheel out but instead of a spinner I just put a token on it. Much easier...

Hmmmm. I’m a killer kobold fan but I don’t think they can make the finals. That being said, here are my picks: Semifinals: Killer Kobolds Bull man Ogre Brothers Poison Shadows Finals: First: Ogre Brothers Second: Bull man Third: Poison Shadows

A couple of years ago I ran a very successful one shot in Eclipse Phase in which a Jovian marine team was to investigate a distress signal from one of their old bases. You know, standard Eclipse Phase horror. I livened it up though by giving each player an envelope with a letter on it that had a...

Okay, so I am doing things a little out of my usual order but I have been working on step 6 of my process before fully finishing the previous steps, mostly because I am trying to figure out how to really give an example of module prep in print without writing a textbook. But I figured I would...

I also use open rolls so that technique should work for me and I see the appeal flow wise... but I think I prefer to keep the focus on the character performing the action - at least when the’re being awesome. I can totally see doing this on less spectacular turns though and I wondering: if I...

Not sure if I can even post this but, if anyone is interested: My Time Wheel. My plan is to put it on a wheel and mount it so that it spins and thereby give a physical representation of time passing as the PCs travel.

I come to GMing mostly from a horror gaming (nWoD/Chronicles of Darkness and Eclipse Phase) and (post)cyberpunk (Shadowrun 2e/3e and Eclipse Phase) angle and as such I am really good at running theater of the mind. In this situation theater of the mind is good for four reasons It doesn’t...

Note: this was written haphazardly, stream of consciousness style; please forgive any errors. Overall: The structure of the plot pretty well matches Guy Sclanders five step method (find out plot, travel to plot, find out plot is not plot, travel to new plot, kill plot) The author deliberately...

So I am going to be running Age of Ashes (as soon as a slot opens up, probably early next year) and I figured I would go through and prep it, giving my thoughts as I do so because seeing what other GMs do is one of the best ways to learn (I learned that from Happy Jacks btw) Let me briefly go...

I find pf2e very poorly suited for combat-reset-combat-reset-repeat style of play. But if a gm doesn’t have a “I need this many combats per day mentality” and instead relaxes and enjoys what the players do when given some agency outside of combat, then l think the game runs very well. The APs...