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The Grognardia review also points to the tables as the weakest part of it. The glowing praise for the book there is focused on the essays about evocative dungeon features. From my own experience, I find that it's pretty easy to make tables for my own use, and that the best published tables are...

LostSoul, are you answering the question "what sandbox techniques could contribute to a storytelling DM's toolkit" or visa versa? I think it's revealing that I often can't be sure either way! Here are some techniques that I've learned use in my current sandbox game that I think weren't part of...

I think it's a good point that having a dynamic NPC can let you put pressure on the players even if you're a sit-back DM in scenes where there aren't NPCs pushing their own agenda. However, in practice I find that drawing the line between me and the NPCs I roleplay is difficult. (e.g. the...

You can tell a good style name when saying it makes you want to move your mouth out of synch with the words. "Your Ten-Foot-Pole Paranoia is no match for my Rat Bastard style!"

It's awesome when this is the case - but even if so, it's not always apparent to the players. I think we've all had the experience of feeling like the fun the GM has provided for the session requires the players to do a certain thing. That's bad GMing and we're better off focusing on the good...

Inyssius, all of the three Insider pieces I've worked on started with Chris Youngs coming to me with a specific assignment he needs to fill, along the general lines of "an article about X as part of the Y series, ### words total with ## words of flavor hook." I then come up with some ideas...

Ariosto, maybe you could help us out by giving some details of your actual play? I'm interested in your perspective, but I can (and have) read theories and texts on my own. The most unique thing I can get from your contribution to this thread is how you personally translate ideas into action at...

Cool, thanks for the perspective! I think the common ground would be that both of us would be frustrated with an environment that we couldn't prod and push and get traction on - "you're floating in Limbo and there's nothing around" - or with a situation where the GM is strongly signaling that...

You'll get only bragging from me, and I didn't work on rogues ;)

This is definitely a big thrill in our current campaign; Caverns of Thracia is full of stuff like that. I'm pleased that so many of them have in fact been discovered, but even before they had secret-door-detecting swords and the like I got a kick just from watching the PCs walk past hidden areas...

I was flattered that you picked out “No Gambit is Wasted” and “Together We Survive” as evocative power names, Dave; those are mine, but not “Hold the Line” and “Expert Timing", sadly.

That's awesome; I am apparently meeting EN Worlders all the time without realizing it. One thing about that game that would make any GM look good is having had great players! Which suggests some questions for GMs: - before play starts, how do you communicate to your players what your role in...

Contributors' copies have not arrived yet (or at least mine; I am tempted to ride the subway up to Washington Heights and see if this is also true of Eytan, and perhaps snatch his off his doorstep if it is indeed there).

I had the same experience (although in our Sasserine campaign the players were thieves)! Savage Tide was the campaign I ran immediately before starting my current sandbox game. Part of my wanting to go in that direction was having felt like players got the most enjoyment out of the Sasserine...

Jim Ward is also running some MA sessions - no problem if you miss mine when you could get it straight from the source. I totally remember that dinner, howandwhy99, but never connected you with your online name before!

Thanks for the example of a great DM with a different style, Piratecat! I think it's useful to say "let's look at the best possible examples of different GM approaches." As GMs one of the things we choose is who to model ourselves after; likewise as players it can be helpful to have an...

No pic is linked to, which is good because now you'll have to go to Gary Con and/or the Arneson memorial gameday to see me! Mark and Diaglo, I'm looking forward to hanging with y'all again and am eager to meet grodog, DavyJones, and howandwhy99! (I'm running lots of Metamorphosis Alpha, which...

I like the formality whereby y'all are referred to as Mr., like the style guide that used to make the New York Times' arts section talk about an Iggy Pop concert in funny ways: "Mr. Pop slashed his chest with razorblades while staggering about the stage..."

This would be more compelling if there was a unitary "the" fiction that informs D&D. I think it's fair to say that you need different DM techniques to incorporate the story elements of Tolkien and his heirs' quest-driven, epic plots unfolding across trilogies of fat novels than you do...

You may be right that there were more than 17 rooms per level - I only got a quick glimpse of the map when diaglo won the auction for Tim's tournament module and let me sneak a peek. What I know for sure is that we descended down six levels, passed up a lot of doors, and spent so much time*...