Simons Mith

Well, maybe the half-naked ones were ALL children

the real fans would weigh in with their opinions as to whether it really was a heck of a game or not, while old colleague would just sit back. He told me this, and thereafter I couldn't help but help notice just how often he did it! (And the rep it got him for being interested in sports.) The rascal

An old colleague of mine, who DNGAF about football would nevertheless look up who was playing who in the paper, and if the match was on TV. When it was, he would come in to work the next day and say, "Did you see the match between X and Y last night? Heck of a game, wasn't it?" At which point all /1

rescued your character's sister, fishing buddies, both born under the same inauspicious star, anything like that can all form fun links.

Star Wars specifically considers this. Connections with other Characters is something you specifically consider at chargen. And I can't think of any game where adding a few connections between PCs (and NPCs) is a bad idea.
Some home town, same fighter academy, fought in the same war, their dad

Your techie analysis of the slightly janky UI of the Valheim game was a showcase of just what a subtle art User Interface design is. I like deconstructing games - generally RPGs - as a hobby. Seeing it done to an aspect of a computer game outside my skill area was really interesting!

very much, but which way round you present things has major implications for the tone of the game. Superhero games should be success-based. Call of Cthulhu, I think rightly, is a failure-based game.

/fin

fail, something bad may happen. In a failure-based game, (e.g. the RuneQuest stable) it's assumed characters will usually fail, and if you fail, nothing much happens. If you succeed, you get a bonus. To some degree this is just a glass half-full/glass half-empty distinction and doesn't matter

/2

I'm not entirely sold on this argument, but I do have an important design consideration to add. All RPGs can be divided into two basic types: ones with 'success-based' mechanics, and ones with 'failure-based' mechanics. In a success based game, it's assumed you'll usually succeed, and if you

/1

This does sound useful. The parallels between intestinal worms and stakeholders are obvious.

Feng Shui isn't bad? I used a Feng Shui-like structure for my house-ruled D6 Star Wars. Keeps things flowing, doesn't leave players hanging for ages waiting their next turn. What other good ones can you suggest?

Wasps have detachable armpits.

#dailylie

[Ugh, buried the lede here, so I could capture the tip before I forgot it. Will have to rewrite later, putting the cinematic combat bit first.]

/cinematic/ combat. This is a descriptive habit you have to cultivate as GM, and players have to change from a tactical viewpoint to cinematic, but only keeping approximate track of positioning gives players more flexibility and discourages a tactical approach.

#ttrpg 5/5

would reasonably be there.

Try to build and describe 'maps' around what characters can /do/, not what's there. If you and the PCs think in terms of stunts, called shots and fight choreography rather than sightlines and movement distances, then then you're much more likely to get

#ttrpg 4/5

(such as lighting), you and the players have flexibility to invent cool stuff like swinging on chandeliers, climbing up to higher levels, and otherwise interacting with the environment. And if a character needs it for a stunt, you can even draw in new stuff that isn't shown, but which

#ttrpg 3/5

generic map with basically nothing on it to just track relative character positions, you can then scribble corresponding terrain onto the map to roughly match the screenshot. Because the screenshot won't show the entire view, but does show stuff that wouldn't appear on a conventional map

#ttrpg 2/5

#GM tip of the day

If you have a battle map, with tokens, and you keep accurate track of positions, lines of sight, movement distances, and facing, you're likely to get /tactical/ RPG combat.

If you have a 3D screencap (or two) of what the characters can see, and just use an empty

#ttrpg 1/5

/do/, not what's there. I'm striving to get PCs to think in terms of stunts and called shots rather than sightlines and movement distances. It seems to be worthwhile, but it definitely a descriptive habit you have to cultivate as GM, and players have to change from a tactical viewpoint to cinematic.

Because a 3D view doesn't show the entire view, but does show stuff that wouldn't be drawn on a conventional map, I and the players have flexibility to invent cool stuff like swinging on chandeliers, climbing up to higher levels etc. I'm trying to build and describe 'maps' around what characters can

I suck at maps as well. My latest trick, which seems to be working okay, is to have an empty generic map with basically nothing on it to track relative character positions, and a 3D screencap of what the characters can see. I then scribble corresponding terrain onto the map to roughly match.

I really must transcribe the old Runequest living costs+living standards tables; just gotta nag my friend to retrieve them for me.

It has been known since antiquity that the moon is made of green cheese. Cosmetologists have recently determined that Titan, the moon of Saturn, is made of butterscotch mousse.

#dailylie

you see in the comics; the Star Wars D6 Force point rules (I eventually realised they were flawed (but fixable)), but even the original rules do a superb job at letting characters cut loose and do epically heroic stuff when they need to; and prob. a few more but I'm starting to slow down now

/fin

the end; even the Ghostbusters wild die, where 'something bad happens' on a skill roll if the wild die comes up a 1. (Good for Ghostbusters, yes, but the implementation was broken in Star Wars Ed II); the Golden Heroes initiative rules that did such a great job of emulating the 'swingy' combat

/4

your characters into the setting, giving them families, rivals, home territories, back story etc.; the Mutants and Masterminds 'Hero Point' system where you have to accept bad stuff happening to your character in the first half of the adventure in order to have the hero points needed to win at

/3

mechanic for D&D that lets skilled characters be reliably competent; the minor skill customisations in Ars Magica that adds a lot of character flavour in a very concise way, and which inspired my own equivalent mechanics for Star Wars; the ways Harry Desden and the latest Runequest rules plumb

/2

Oh gosh, there's at least a healthy minority of games that do one thing very well and deserve credit for it; the flashback mechanic in BiTD that lets you retroactively have the widget you need; the James Bond 'Survival Point' mechanic for villains that avoids combat escalating; the 'Take 10

/1

Yes, I mean never mind the concerns about railroading, what a recipe for burnout. Now I think of it, the weekly session rule of thumb is a good guide; imagine you're running weekly. The amount of prep you should do is the amount of prep you can reasonably do in one week. Without becoming a frazzle!

Ridiculous overkill. Imagine doing that for a session every week