Search results

Woaz, I think you don't need to describe anything except the swords-and-sorcery situation itself (unclothed struggling maiden is strapped to altar; all-powerful mistress of a decadent empire brings her prisoners to her boudoir to relish their helpless captivity) and be confident that your...

That looks like a good list of goals, Gunton the Terrible. I'd present it to the players as examples rather than an exhaustive list - part of the fun is seeing what people come up with on their own. I do cap the amount of gold that can be spent each session to gain XP. As this campaign is...

The game that gives you XP for spending money on ale and whores later became D&D. This idea is literally as old as roleplaying itself. In 1977, Dave Arneson published The First Fantasy Campaign, in which he looks back on the development of the Blackmoor campaign beginning in 1970/71. It's a...

Too bad we missed you, jaerdaph! If you're back in town at any point & looking for some old-school gaming, check out the New York Red Box site in my sig and see if there's anything scheduled when you're around - if not post & we'll try to get a session together then. It seemed like a good time...

Mark: Next year I'll definitely announce things further in advance! I started planning this at New York Red Box weeks ago, and posted at nerdNYC, Facebook, the OD&D '74 board, and the local D&D Meetup last week. Forgot EN World until I saw Spinachcat's post pop up with a Convention tag; this...

In honor of the memory of Dave Arneson, the Compleat Strategist is hosting an afternoon of gaming this Saturday, May 9th from noon to 5 pm, at their store on 11 E. 33rd St. in Manhattan. Dave is best remembered as the co-creator of the original Dungeons and Dragons, but he has as good a claim...

Could you post those links, Janx? It'd be interesting to see what they offer, how long they've been doing it, and what level of success they've had.

That's a good start, but the site link should still be in your .sig file. A Google search for a professional GM (assuming there are people out there searching for one, which isn't likely to be the case; part of why this business plan is difficult is that you have to create a demand, not just tap...

Original artwork is potentially a valuable contribution to a session - it's certainly not a skill I have as a DM, and as a player I love it when one of the artists in a group does a sketch of my character. Making some of your art available for potential customers to check out is a good idea, on...

Paul Jaquays' Caverns of Thracia, first published in 1979, specifies that PCs must roll under their Dexterity on a d20 to avoid falling if they engage in combat on the rope bridges. I don't doubt that this was simply a published example of a prevalent house-rule, as the mighty and wise Kask...

I had the pleasure of meeting the OP this week to share my experience with different approaches to professional GMing. I can verify that he is a real person who is putting a lot of effort into trying to make this happen, although I did not apply fire or acid to determine whether he is a troll...

I'll ditto Faery's Tale as a good choice, and recently my seven-year-old and I have really been enjoying playing Donjon together.

Sign me up for #3 and #4. I'm ready to see some ideas for opening up the game in new directions; we have new classes aplenty, and both the passage of time and the flexibility of powers are things I'd particularly like to see addressed. A drinking-themed adventure is always welcome, though...

My martial arts experience definitely informs my writing for D&D. When I did the monk class for Forgotten Heroes I watched a bunch of MMA and martial arts movies with a notebook, jotting down moves that I wanted the monk to be able to perform. More recently when I've designed martial powers or...

Yep, that's why you're not the target market. The problem with using RPG forums to reach potential customers is that just about everyone who's reading this would have no problem finding a non-pay-to-play game if they were in NYC. The trick is reaching the people who are so out of the loop that...

When Becky Thomas was a teacher, she had her students do a cartography assignment so she could work on a map for her home campaign & use it as an example. Some of her students noticed her still working on it after the assignment was over and asked her about it; when they heard it was for a game...

A good rule of thumb is that people will pay for professional GM services, or for the experience of playing a RPG, only if it's offered as part of something else they're accustomed to pay for. People pay for someone to educate their kids & give them a safe place to go after school and over the...

Good post, aboyd. In Korea there are game cafes that work on this model. My hosts took me to one in a mall in Seoul. It's kind of like a Starbucks, except that the walls are lined with shelves of games. You order drinks from a menu, buy table time (about the price of a fancy coffee for one hour...

The successful professional GMs I know about fall into three categories: 1) Game designers/writers whose fan base is willing to pay for the experience of playing a game with someone whose work they admire. Examples are Dave Arneson's charity auction games or Ken Hite's walking tour/Call of...

Orsal, you're the first gamer I've heard with a favorable reaction to the film. Robin Laws saw it at the Toronto Film Festival and posted a follow-up to his initial reaction in his blog. The people featured in the doc hadn't seen it at the time of the Toronto festival, but their later reaction...