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This section lists a few games that you can check out to expand your gaming horizons. All of them have interesting ideas and different approaches to the hobby.

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This is the complement to my previous article, "Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror." In the previous article, we learned how racist myths from the British academy and army fueled JRR Tolkien's creation of orcs as an analogue for Asian people. Today I want to look at what happens to orcs as we follow Lord of the Rings's influence into modern media. When Dungeons & Dragons and its descendants introduced orcs to the United States of America, orcs gained new ethnic dimensions and encountered new and visceral depths of criminalization and dehumanization. In the conclusion to this piece, I suggest several new directions in which gamers of all ethnicities might take the orcs they design or play, to rework this symbol of racist degeneracy into the vanguard of decolonization.

This is a story about a racist role-playing game I encountered at Dreamation 2019. This game exemplifies how racist expressions draw on public-facing and commercially available cultural expressions: in this case food, cinema, and sport. It is also a story about the man who designed and facilitated the game, but I wish it didn't have to be. I want to focus on what he did, not who he is, because he now realizes the thing he made harms Asians and he wants to improve.

I don't know whether he'll succeed, though, because he wrote a game about fortune cookies.

I'm back from Dreamation . It went well, really, but damn was there a lot of racism. My hero Clio Yun-su Davis graciously agreed to talk with me about their intense, exhausting experiences with racism at this convention and elsewhere. Content warnings: racism, elder abuse.

I get this question more frequently than any other in my professional and gaming life. I get it almost exclusively from white folks, since gaming's Eurocentrism requires people of color to play outside their race most of the time. My answer is emphatically yes, but please study how to do it. Here's why and how.

I hope you enjoyed Part I of my series on Thousand Arrows, sensitivity, and respect. Here, Part II addresses issues specific to our 900-backer stretch goal, "Dragon King's Gambit." In this campaign, a sea monster attack in December 1592 forces the Imjin War's Chinese, Korean, and Japanese combatants to work together against a common enemy. It draws on historical, literary, and religious sources: I wouldn't call it fantasy, but it features folkloric and legendary entities important to East Asian religious practice.

While we're unlikely to unlock DKG, its subject matter has generated some concern above and beyond the core game. My previous post on best practices for historical gaming governs my take on the Imjin War. But I want to go a little further and break down some of the reasons why folks might worry more about DKG than about core Thousand Arrows, as well as why I think DKG is important nonetheless.

I'd like to share some principles I follow when I work with historical and real-world settings, either in play or in design. For shorthand, I'm going to refer to them as "historical," but many of these principles also apply to games set on contemporary Earth. This article refers to choices I made in Thousand Arrows, but it isn't really about Thousand Arrows, so you still get a proper Imjin War-focused Part II later on.

So, Thousand Arrows is on Kickstarter! Thousand Arrows is a tabletop role-playing game about samurai action and tragedy in the Japanese Warring States Period, powered by the Apocalypse. I've gotten some questions from the Internet about sensitivity, respect, and appropriation in the game. I've broken my answers into what I project to be two blog posts. This first one addresses issues which affect the core game of Thousand Arrows.

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This is the complement to my previous article, "Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror." In the previous article, we learned how racist myths from the British academy and army fueled JRR Tolkien's creation of orcs as an analogue for Asian people.

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Mythcreants is a blog by and for creators of fantasy and science fiction.

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While wikis can easily get out of hand, they can also be useful. I use a portable installation of Zimwiki, which means I don't need to be online to access it.

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Avoiding sexual assault, slavery and racism

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Avoiding sexual assault, slavery and racism

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Sexual Assault, Slavery, & Racism in Plot

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I've said it before: GMing is hard. We all make mistakes-it's part of the job. Some mistakes are more critical than others, and recognizing them is important if you want to level up your GMing skills. While each game is different, some mistakes crop up over and over again. Addressing them is a vital step on your journey towards mastering roleplaying games. Do you recognize any of these mistakes from your own table?

1. Telling Your Novel

Because roleplaying is a form of storytelling, it's no surprise that many GMs are also writers. The problem is when the walls between novel and campaign start to break down. Roleplaying games and long form prose are very different mediums. They can't be told the same way, but that doesn't stop some GMs from trying.

This mistake manifests in GMs that have planned out every last detail of the narrative. They aren't interested in player input because the story is already finished. The players will never succeed in their siege of Castle Plot Shield, because the GM has already planned a different fate for it. Typically, the novelist GM will have a stable of super important NPCs around to do the job of main character, leaving the PCs in a supporting role at best. Worse than railroading, this makes the players watch while someone else saves the day.

Novel telling also crops up in GMs who have a theme or message they want to communicate and don't know when to stop. Yes, it's great to have a campaign about the futility of war, but you can't force that message on the PCs by having your super protagonist NPC turn all their weapons into candy canes.

This kind of game alienates players fast. What might have been an interesting story is now ruined because they have no input. If they don't like where the game is going, too bad. They've got to tough it out, knowing they are mere observers in these grand events. Or they might just not come back next week.

How to Avoid It

If you've got a campaign idea that might work better as a novel or short story, write it. Writing is fun! Once the story is written, you'll always have it. No matter in what weird direction the PCs take your game, the original will be safe on your hard drive or submitted to a publisher. Then you can use Sapphire Castle as the setting for your campaign without it being ruined by meddling PCs and their dog.

When you find yourself crafting an epic campaign in which everything must turn out just so, stop and replace the NPC protagonists with PCs. If your story depends on a genetically engineered team of super soldiers, tell the players to roll up some genetically engineered super soldiers. Now your grand story turns on what the PCs do. It will be way less tempting to override their actions when you don't have a team of backup NPCs to take over.

2. Meandering

GMs worth their screen know railroading is bad, and sometimes they overcompensate. They stick their players in the middle of a setting with no direction and ask, "What do you do?" Some GMs do this because they didn't have time to plan a story. Others, because they want to give the PCs absolute freedom. Either way, the results are the same.

Unless you have extremely active players, they'll stand around wondering what to do. On the first session, they don't know the setting or their characters. They have no basis from which to formulate a plan. Instead, they suffer analysis paralysis and do nothing. Even with a few sessions under their belts, players often desire guidance from the GM. If they wanted to think of the whole story themselves, they'd be sitting behind the screen.

Sometimes players will seize on the absolute freedom they're offered, but without a guiding voice, they'll all take that freedom in different directions. Each player will pick something important to their character and pursue it exclusively. The PCs drift apart, rarely interacting with each other from their cloistered corners. Therein lies the peril of meandering.

How to Avoid It

Give your players a direction, and see how they respond. Describe the setting, their place in it, and then something important happening, something out of the ordinary that affects them all. They're wealthy merchants in the city of Plotopia, and a dragon attacks! Or the neighboring kingdom's army is at the door. Or the princess is marrying her three husbands, and everyone in the city is required to attend. Then ask what they do.

You aren't dictating your PCs' actions; you're giving them a push. Whether they go with the push or fight against it is up to them. With that foundation to build on, most players will have some idea of how to react. Then you can fill in the rest based on their actions. Do they choose to fight the dragon? Then it's a dragon slaying game. Do they refuse to attend the Princess's wedding? Then it's a game about fleeing an angry monarch.

The PCs still have freedom, and you can get by with a minimum of planning by letting their choices guide the story.

3. Overdeveloping the World

Storytellers get weird about worldbuilding. Many guides advocate planning as much of your world as possible, mapping everything from equator to pole and back again. You must understand every facet of your fictional society, they insist. What trade goods do airships carry above the Quiet Gap? What crops are grown in the Screaming Fields? This is all essential information that will make your story a richer one.

Not really, it turns out. Even in very long-running campaigns, the players will only explore a tiny fraction of your world. If something doesn't show up in a session, it doesn't matter. All the work you put into mapping the Obsidian Peaks is wasted if the players never go there. When you put your time into this kind of nonfunctional work, it means less time for what matters. Your villains will be less lifelike, your combats not as well planned. It also means less time for sleep, and we could all use more of that.

Worse, overdeveloping your world reduces your story's flexibility. Everything's already written down, and without meaning to, you'll close the door on great possibilities. If the PCs are searching for a dragon, they might speculate that it has taken refuge in the next valley over. Too bad you've already put a heavily defended fortress in that valley. Throwing that fortress out so the players can pursue their ideas means letting a lot of work go to waste, and many GMs will hesitate to do it.

GMs who overdevelop their worlds are tempted to over-exposit as well. They've done so much work creating a unique hierarchy for the city's criminal underworld, and they really want to share it. Never mind that the PCs aren't interested in organized crime.

How to Avoid It

If your campaign is based in a single location, imagine the world radiating out from it. The area closest to the PCs, where they spend the most time, should be as well-developed as possible. If they're union workers, the area is the factory where they're employed. For royal guards, it's the king's castle. The world gets more abstract the further from home you get. How far away is the nearest neighboring city? A few days. What does that city do? Trade. What do its people look like? They wear funny hat s. If the PCs ever become interested in something outside their home turf, then you can fully define it.

If your campaign moves from place to place, this becomes a bit more challenging. Don't build all the places they might potentially go-that way lies madness. Instead, create a few potential destinations, but keep the details vague: a mountain town, an underwater ruin, a foreboding castle. Once you've completed the broad swaths, you can slot them in wherever your PCs go. "You travel west for three days? Yes, let me tell you about the abandoned keep you find on the way."

You don't need detailed descriptions of these places, because the players have only just arrived. They don't know anything about the area, so they won't notice that you haven't fully mapped out all the sewer lines and air ducts. If they like it enough to stick around, then you can go into greater detail.

4. Making the Game About You

Some GMs like being a player so much, they do it in their own games. How does that work, you ask? Poorly. These game masters create a special NPC and plant it in the party's midst. Soon that NPC is taking the spotlight at every opportunity and rushing in to save the day before anyone else gets the chance.

Players serve as advocates for their characters. When a character's advocate has a GM's power and authority, abuse follows. The GM's character has no limits and no one to reign it in when things get out of hand. No PC can equal the GM, because regular players are bound by rules that don't apply to the GM.

The natural reaction is resentment. Players don't take hours out of their day to hear how awesome the GM's character is. Every time the special NPC solves a problem or shows up the other characters, that resentment grows. Eventually it turns into anger. Nothing's more frustrating than being told your character can't do something because the GM's beautiful and unique snowflake already did it.

How to Avoid It

If you're running a game and one of your NPCs looks like player-character material, make a note of it for the next time someone else is running a game. The character might be as cool as you imagined, or they might not, but either way you'll get to find out without ruining your players' fun.

If you still find yourself tempted by a particularly cool NPC, give them some traits you don't enjoy playing. Make them greedy, or rude, or cowardly, whatever turns you off. If that's not enough, make them less powerful or weak enough that they can never outshine your players. The key is to remove temptation by any means necessary.

5. Assuming Success

Player characters tend to be good at what they do, so it's a surprise when they fail a roll. Some GMs take this to heart, assuming the dice will always go in the PCs favor and treating rolls as a mere formality. This assumption is reinforced by system upon system in which failure is a rare beast. However, no matter how rare, failures do happen. Unwary GMs can find themselves in a pickle when the dice don't return the expected results.

Sometimes GMs will announce consequences for failures that they aren't prepared to follow through with. If the PC fails a roll to save the young heir from certain death, it messes up the arc of putting that child back on the rightful throne. The GM is left wondering where to take the story next. Some can roll with the punches, but others will flounder.

Just as common, GMs will often call for a roll that has no interesting consequences for failure. "Roll to climb the tree. You fail? I guess the tree is angry now." When that happens, the GM must either conjure consequences out of thin air or sheepishly admit that the roll didn't actually matter. This often comes up in mystery games, when the PCs must discover a vital clue but keep failing their investigation rolls. Eventually, the GM will find a way to just give them the clue.

How to Avoid It

At the start of a story arc, make a list of the various elements you need for a satisfactory conclusion. They can include NPCs, items, locations, anything vital to the story. Usually, the player characters will be on the list as well. Armed with this list, you'll know what can't be wagered on the outcome on a random roll. Make sure to update it occasionally as your story evolves.

To address rolls without failure consequences, don't roll when their are no consequences for failure. This is a tough habit to break; it's been drilled into us by years of 3.5 D&D. But it can be done. Whenever you call for a roll, say the consequences for failure out loud. If you can't think of anything to say, just describe the character getting what they want in a cool manner.

In either situation, remember that it's OK to tell the group you made a mistake and rewind a little. They'll forgive you if it means a better game.

GMing is a skill, and like any other it improves with practice. Most GMs will make all of these mistakes at some point in their career; what's important is to recognize them. Once you've done this, you will continue to improve until players tremble at the sound of your dice. Or maybe they'll be banging down the door to play.

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Five Common GMing Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them

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I've said it before: GMing is hard. We all make mistakes-it's part of the job. Some mistakes are more critical than others, and recognizing them is important if you want to level up your GMing skills. While each game is different, some mistakes crop up over and over again.

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This post was originally posted on G+ by P.H. Lee on August 28, 2017. It was a significant influence on updates to the Script Change RPG toolbox, and is an essential read in regards to addressing safety in the game community and at every game table. Lee has authorized me to post the text here in full since G+ is dying, which I greatly appreciate - it's super valuable!
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I have PTSD. About 6-7 years ago, more or less, various pan-RPG techniques to control triggering[1] content - The Veil and the X-Card, to name two of a vast diversity - became commonplace in the RPG circles that I played in. Around the same time, I stopped participating in role-playing games at meet-ups and conventions, or anywhere else that these techniques were promulgated. These three things (PTSD, X-Card, and my withdrawal from play) are related. I'm writing this essay to discuss the ways that these techniques cut off my access to role-playing games, and introduce know techniques that, I hope, will point to a way forward in terms of accessibility.

Conflicting Access Needs
Before I go further, I'd like to reference a term from the disability rights movement: conflicting access needs. Disabled people are extremely diverse and our disabilities are also extremely diverse. While an ideal world would have everyone's access needs met at all times and in all circumstances, in many circumstances, with many disabilities, that is practically or fundamentally impossible.

An example, which I'm paraphrasing from Autistic blogger Mel Baggs: A group home for Autistic people have some occupants who constantly verbalize, and others who are hypersensitive to noise. The verbalizers have a reasonable access need to be allowed to verbalize. The hypersensitive have a reasonable access need for quiet. Both of these access needs are reasonable, but it is impossible to meet both of them in the same space.

For this essay, the point is that, while I'm describing ways that my (and others) access to role-playing games has been cut off, I want to acknowledge that the techniques in question were developed and promulgated - often by people with similar disabilities to mine - to meet a legitimate access need. That they cut off my (and others) access to role-playing games does not mean that they are inherently wrong, bad, or ableist.

I do not want this to turn into "X-Card (or The Veil, etc, etc) is bad" and, even more so, I do not want it to turn into "the people who propagate these techniques are bad." That's not my opinion and, also, it's wrong. I am hoping that by writing this essay I can move the discussion of accessibility of RPGs for PTSD sufferers from "use this technique" to a conversation which can account for different players, different goals, different communities, and different access needs.
A Note on Personal Narrative
I'm going to use a personal narrative throughout this essay, because it is based on my own experiences of both role-playing games and PTSD. But I want to be clear: I am not speaking solely for myself in this. Simply from personal circumstances, I can attest that the problems I have are problems that are shared by a number of other people with triggered mental illnesses.

Likewise, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who have a very different experience - most importantly, there are people with triggered mental illnesses who find the X-Card, The Veil, etc. to be vital techniques for their access to role-playing games. I do not want to erase these people - they exist, and their experiences also matter.

Please do not take my use of personal narrative as evidence that I speak only for myself. I don't. Likewise, please don't take my speaking on this topic as someone with PTSD to assume that I speak for all people with triggered mental illness. I don't.
The X-Card, the Veil, and all that
The X-Card, the Veil, and similar techniques have their roots in a section of Sex and Sorcery, a supplement for Sorcerer by Ron Edwards, where he (roughly paraphrasing) suggests a technique dealing with difficult sexual content in the game by "drawing a veil over it," basically, describing it in loose terms and then moving on with play, rather than playing it out. This is included together with several other techniques, including actually playing it out and fading to black. From there, like many things from the Sorcerer supplements, it developed on the Forge forums as a more generalized technique that could be applicable to all games.

I first encountered The Veil as a universally applicable technique in the context of public play in the Pacific Northwest - I believe it comes out of the Go Play NW convention, but I could be mistaken. By the time it reached this form, it had mutated considerably - it was something that was invoked by a particular player, rather than a general technique for play, and it generally had the effect of erasing the content of play [2], rather than playing it out in a vague sense and then moving on. It became a widespread meta-technique[3], adopted at a lot of public play events.

Simultaneously [4], in the New York City play scene, John Stavropoulos developed the X-Card as a meta-technique. With the X-Card, the system is formalized. By "throwing the X-Card" (either a physical card marked with an X or just an invocation), a player stops play, and the offending material is erased, and play continues as if it had never happened.

The X-Card grew in popularity and was adopted throughout the indie-games public play culture. By the time that I had largely retreated from public play (~2013), it was fairly universal. Although I have not been in touch with public play culture since, it does not seem (from my outsider perspective) to have become any less widespread.
My Experience
My first reaction to The Veil as a meta-technique was simply "well, I don't want to do that." At the time, it was not generally regarded as a universal meta-rule, so that was the end of my encounter with it. However, as it grew in popularity, I began to be increasingly averse to it. I remember a particular event - I think it was at Indie Hurricane, although I could not guess at the year - where it was introduced as a generic rule for all pick-up games. I got a horrified, sinking feeling, my eyes started to flutter and my stomach twisted - familiar signs of a triggering [1] event. I cannot remember whether I then said to my players "I'd like not to use that for our game" or not - I cannot even remember if I ran my planned game or left the scene immediately. Poor memory often accompanies being exposed to triggers.

I tried playing a few games with the rule in place, thinking I could maybe get used to it. Even though, to my recollection, it was never invoked, those games left me an anxious wreck afterward.

I stopped going to convention events as often. I started going to local public play groups, but shortly thereafter the meta-rule spread there as well, and I stopped attending those as well.

I did not at the time understand why this was triggering to me. I'm not entirely sure I was conscious that I was being triggered - it seems obvious in retrospect but I think that at the time I was not able to recognize exactly what was going on.

I made several attempts to communicate my distress - I remember talking on separate occasions with John Stavropoulos and Avery Alder about it - but because I didn't understand what was going on, I could not clearly explain my problems, let alone propose solutions. Obviously, my attempts at communication were unsuccessful [5].

The Veil was replaced by the X-Card, and the technique continued to spread. I continued to retreat from Indie RPG circles, although I continued to play with personal groups and in non Indie RPG spaces such as AmberCon NW.

As an aside, I should say that this inaccessibility was far from the sole reason I retreated from Indie RPG circles and that, also, I do not regret having done so. My retreat has allowed me to spend more time on fiction writing, on personal friends, and on campaign play of RPGs. All of these have benefitted me both personally and professionally.
The problem
Both the X-Card and The Veil (as practiced in the PNW at that time) have as their core concept that the correct default way to handle triggering material in a role-playing game is to excise the material from the fictional timeline and thereafter to continue play. This is a commonplace understanding of how triggers work - remove the trigger, problem now solved.

This is, for me, a disaster, because it replicates the environment of denial and powerlessness that caused my PTSD in the first place.

Fundamentally, any approach to triggering material that contains any element of "pretend it never happened" is emotionally disastrous for me, because it recapitulates the environment of denial and dismissal around my traumatic experiences. This is not limited to excising the material from play - it also includes attempts to dismiss, deny, or minimize it.

No technique that centers this approach can possibly be functional as an accommodation; furthermore, any game or community that uses a technique that centers this approach is necessarily inaccessible to me, because an environment that centers denial as a coping strategy for triggering material, is in and of itself, a traumatic trigger.
Centering status quo vs centering healing
Fundamentally, these meta-techniques center the status quo - the goal is to "deal with" the triggering event, or the triggered person, and then return to regular play as if the interruption had never happened. I submit that, due the nature of PTSD, this approach is fundamentally flawed.

Once I have been triggered, I am in a traumatic experience. No amount of care or concern or comfort or accommodation can untrigger me. The question is not "how do we return Lee to the status quo?" or "how can we stop Lee from having a traumatic experience?" because those goals are impossible. The question is "what kind of traumatic experience is Lee going to have?" It can either be a damaging experience - one that reinforces the trigger and my PTSD - or it can be a healing experience - one that lets me recontextualize the trigger and its part of the trauma into my normal psyche.

Denial and social pressure to "return to normal" are damaging experiences.

Acknowledgement, empowerment, and story-building are healing experiences.

I believe that, in principle, good techniques for dealing with PTSD in role-playing games will avoid damaging experiences and center healing experiences.
The Luxton Technique
I didn't post about my problems with X-Card, The Veil, etc for a long time because, among other factors, I did not have a proposed solution or alternative technique. All I could do was say "I'd rather have nothing than this," but "no technique" is not particularly good rallying cry and it was not really a meaningful solution, just an attempt to get back to the somewhat-more-accessible-but-not-great status quo.

Until last year, I truly believed that there was no technique that would improve access to RPGs for some PTSD sufferers without also excluding PTSD sufferers like myself. But, last year, I played in a role-playing game at AmberCon NW that was specifically focused on traumatic experience and, particularly, centering the trauma of the players in the story we made. In that game, we used a particular technique - which I'd like to call the Luxton Technique after the GM of the game - which I found to be empowering, healing, and accessible to me.

It's difficult for me to summarize all the parts of this that worked, but, roughly, the Luxton Technique includes:

* An honest discussion of potential traumatic triggers prior to play, in a supportive environment, with the understanding that there is no possible way to identify or discuss every conceivable trigger or trauma, and with no social pressure to disclose particulars of individual trauma.

* When, in play, a player encounters triggering material, they can, if they choose, talk about that to the other players. When they do this, the other players listen.

* As part of talking about it - and possibly the only thing that they need say - the player is given absolute fiat power over that material, expressed as a want or a need. For instance "I'd like to play [character name] for this scene" or "I need this to have a happy ending" or "I want this character to not be hurt right now" or "I need this character to not get away with this" or "By the end of play, this should not be a secret" or "I need to stop play and get a drink of water" or "I don't have a specific request, I just wanted you to know."

* A player does not need to use their traumatic experience to justify any requests or demands. We just do it.

* A player does not need to be the one to speak first. We keep an eye on each other and we are watchful for people who seem withdrawn or unfocused or upset. If we are worried about someone, we ask.

* We play towards accommodating that player's requests.

It's hard to overstate how much the Luxton Technique (or, really, set of techniques) helped us approach extremely difficult, extremely person material, both for the trauma survivors at the table and for the non-survivors. Rather than having our traumatic experiences - already a disjoint with reality - cause a disjoint in play, we were able to integrate them into play and tell a story about or, at least, at an angle to, our traumatic experiences, real and pretend.
Healing and RPGs
I am well aware that it sounds both pretentious and terrifying to talk about RPG play as a process by which one might legitimately heal from trauma. But I'd like to elaborate on that a little, because I think it's important.

Fundamentally, a traumatic experience is an experience that is at a disjoint with the narrative of one's life. Having PTSD means that your trauma exists out of time, out of place, and always in the present tense. A big part of recovering from PTSD, inasmuch as it is possible, is not about excising the trauma or your continued experience of it. Rather, it's about integrating the trauma into normal memory and a normal narrative of your life.

A big part of that is story-telling, because a story is about incorporating disparate elements into a coherent narrative. And, for me, a big part of that story-telling has been role-playing games. In this essay, I present the choice as a binary - either a game can harm, or it can heal. That's a lot of pressure to put on something as casual as a role-playing game! But, also, story-telling helps, and the story itself doesn't need to be traumatic. Any story-telling experience can contribute, constructively, to healing, because PTSD sufferers need to be able to tell our own stories to the world and, more importantly, to ourselves. As an accessible storytelling medium, RPGs can't be beat. They have been, and continue to be, a great help to me. In introducing these techniques, I am hoping that they can continue to be a help to others as well.

This is not limited to "heavy intense" sorts of stories that directly reference trauma. Ordinary RPGs can be stories about friends sticking together, or triumphing over evil, or just being clever and solving traps and puzzles, all of which have the potential to be healing narratives. Don't think that I'm limiting the healing potential of RPGs to "serious" games or "serious" stories. I'm not.

It's a reasonable reaction to say "I don't want to do anything that heavy in my RPG!" or "I can't be responsible for this!" And, obviously, don't play in circumstances that you're uncomfortable. But RPGs, and the people I've played them with, have given me so much healing. It's wrong for me to dismiss, deny, or belittle that simply because games are a recreational activity. I hope that, in looking at problems of accessibility of RPGs, we can look to their potential to heal as much, if not more, than their potential to harm.

My hope (edited addition)

My hope is that this essay will start / continue a conversation where we look critically at our tools and techniques for RPG play. I hope that we can get to a place, as a community, where we understand that they are not one-size-fits-all and that we are able to take a look at what that means in terms of accessibility. I'd like for us to be able to make better-informed choices about accessibility and our RPG play, and the trade-offs that entails.

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[1] Because I have no alternative vocabulary, I'm going to use "triggering" in this essay to describe images, words, or ideas that trigger traumatic flashbacks, panic attacks, or other PTSD symptoms. I'm aware of the popular usage of "triggering" as a derisive term for an emotional reaction. I am not using it in that respect. Please, also, refrain from doing so in responses. Thanks.

[2] I'm not sure exactly when the pivot from "veil as not playing out blow-by-blow" to "veil as erasing the content from play" occurred. It might have been after this.

[3] I use the term "meta-technique" to mean "a role-playing game rule intended to be used with any game." In some cases, it is "a role-playing game rule intended to be used with every game."

[4] I am not sure about the historical relationship between the X-Card and the Veil. It's possible that there was some inspiration. It's also possible it was a parallel development.

[5] I do not want to cast any aspersions on John or Avery for our failure to communicate. Both of them listened as well as they could have to my concerns, even though I was unable to communicate them clearly. The failure was definitely on my end, and I want to thank both of them for their patience in waiting this long to hear my thoughts more clearly expressed.

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PTSD, access to role-playing games, and the Luxton technique by P.H. Lee

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This post was originally posted on G+ by P.H. Lee on August 28, 2017. It was a significant influence on updates to the Script Change RPG toolbox, and is an essential read in regards to addressing safety in the game community and at every game table.

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Free booklet with consent and safety tools

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Tackle Mature Content with Confidence!

From fending off an attack by bloodthirsty pirates to delving into dank caverns, roleplaying games allow you to explore and experience things you probably don't want to face in real life-or to approach topics from the perspective of characters who may be very different than your actual self. This shared experience is intended to be fun for all involved, but RPGs can put characters in life-or-death crises, intense emotional situations, or traumatic environments. Whether it's body horror in a scary game, violence against children or animals in a fantasy world, flirty, romantic, or sexual relationships in any setting-or numerous other challenging scenarios-the line between fun and awkward, difficult, or downright unpleasant can be difficult to identify, and varies dramatically from player to player.

Mature or controversial elements can and should be a part of many RPGs. But how do you know what topics to include or leave out of your games? How do you include potentially difficult elements while ensuring that nobody's game night is ruined? Consent in Gaming gives you the strategies you need to make sure everyone at the table has a great experience, even when the game goes in a challenging direction.

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Consent in Gaming - Monte Cook Games Store

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Tackle Mature Content with Confidence! From fending off an attack by bloodthirsty pirates to delving into dank caverns, roleplaying games allow you to explore and experience things you probably don't want to face in real life-or to approach topics from the perspective of characters who may be very different than your actual self.

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Something you hear a lot in RPG spaces is the recurring lamentation of, "no one wants to try this system with me because everyone just wants to play D&D 5E!" DIY and OSR folks are obsessed with having different systems, making different systems, trying out different systems, etc. On the positive end, I once recall Questing Beast telling his 5th graders that "everyone who plays RPGs should try making their own system at least once" and I can definitely see the value in that as a creative exercise. On the negative end, I recently saw a guy say he's "thankful" for 5E catching 90% of people new to the hobby because it, "keeps the scum out." I love 5th Edition D&D, I'm glad that it's popular, and I'm glad that it's made the size of this hobby fucking explode over the last 6 years. But other games are cool too and I surround myself with people who never shut up about them so I needed to just sit down and make a guide. These are loosely categorized and described briefly. If I found something short that could give you a good handle on the system, I also put it in as a link (usually a page-by-page review of it, or in the case of smaller ones, a direct link to the RPG itself). Most things on this list either don't have a unified task resolution system or they use the basic d20 model, so I really only noted exceptions (and usually only when that exception is one of the most notable things about the system). This is, obviously, nowhere even close to an exhaustive list.

In our first two sections, we'll be talking about any RPG that's just a fantasy-dungeon-crawling-type that you pretty much inevitably end up calling "D&D" even when it's not. Like you say to your parents or your roommates or whatever, "yeah, heading out to Tyler's place for some D&D. See you tonight!" even though you're playing Pathfinder. That's these games.

Firstly, "Old School" Editions of D&D (and their Retroclones)

In pretty much all cases, it's better to play a retroclone than the original thing. For as much as people worship the old editions as sacred texts, they're actually awful books written by people who did not know how to write a game book. The whole point of a retroclone is to repackage things to be more usable and convenient. Pretty much any content made for any of these systems will be compatible with each other. And if you want a full diagram to grasp the publication history, the best one I've ever seen is the timeline on the Wikipedia article about Editions of D&D.

Edition of D&D...

...and its Retroclone(s)

Original D&D (literally as archaic as it gets. Race-as-class, only alignments are Law-Neutrality-Chaos, combat uses rules of a board game called Chainmail, make-it-up-as-you-go rules everywhere, bizarre. I love it)
Swords and Wizardry

Advanced D&D 1st Edition (specific, complicated rules for every activity. Nothing standardized. Added Good and Evil. Now races merely have favored classes. Classes have "subclasses" sorta. Psionics in core rules. Female characters have a Strength cap because it was the 70's. Yes, really)

OSRIC ( Old School Reference and Index Compilation)

Advanced D&D 2nd Edition (cut out the ugly stuff because of Satanic Panic, so no more demons, devils, half-orcs, or assassins. Introduced THAC0. Big emphasis on proficiency and class kits)

For Gold and Glory (thanks u/KebusMaximus for telling me about this one)

Basic D&D (really solid but simple. Only 3 levels. Race-as-Class, 4 classes, "Keep on the Borderlands" included)
Mazes and Perils

Basic/Expert D&D (the gold fucking standard among old cranky gamers. 14 levels, added stuff for Wilderness Travel, more monsters, misc. Most old school play revolves around this one)

Labyrinth Lord (expands to 20 levels, clerics get spells at lvl 1)

Basic Fantasy RPG (ascending AC, race separated from class)

Old School Essentials (pure restoration + lots of optional content, and optimized for use-at-the-table. Definitely the best one)

BECMI D&D (36+ levels, a lot of old people think it went overboard and stopped being the "Basic" alternative to "Advanced". Nerfed thieves, buffed mages, adds skills + complexity, focuses on the planes + immortality, written in a more mature voice)

Dark Dungeons (specifically a retroclone of the Rules Cyclopedia)

For as cool and fun as these are as historical artifacts, I don't think any of them are worth playing over something off the following list. Grognards rarely admit that sometimes system can be improved.

Secondly, other basic/low-crunch dungeon crawling games (in order of decreasing familiarity to someone who plays 5th Edition D&D)

HERE IS SOME FUCKING D&D (minimalist 5E, silly/edgy. Includes a not-silly version. Free as a folder on Google Drive)

Five Torches Deep (minimalist 5E, has some chaos magic, 4 classes+subclasses, has a cool "supply" mechanic)

Lamentations of the Flame Princess (B/X-based, standardized d6 skill system that people like, "specialist" class instead of thief, firearms, awesome slot-based encumbrance, crazy summoning rules)

Knave (classless, raceless, equipment and inventory focused, gritty and murder hobo-y. Personal favorite)

Castles and Crusades (d20 SIEGE engine but no skills or feats, prime attributes mechanic, "B/X.5 Edition")

The Black Hack (roll-under stats for everything, player-facing rolls, usage dice, armor as DR, close/near/far distances)

The Nightmares Underneath (Islamic fantasy, dreams, basically a compilation of millions of houserules, many task resolution systems)

Dungeon Crawl Classics (crazy spellcasting, sword and sorcery, funnel character creation, funky dice like d3, d7, d13, etc.)

i.e. Goblin Laws of Gaming (class "templates" for first 4 levels, special dice-based magic, lots of houserules)

Maze Rats (random tables, 3 abilities, 2d6 "danger rolls," made with 5th graders in mind and maybe the most elegant one here)

Index Card RPG (classless, "natural language" rules like "hard check" or "easy check," hearts-as-HP like in Legend of Zelda, loot-based advancement, "room DC" mechanic, timer mechanic, literally index card maps)

Tunnels and Trolls (early competitor to D&D from 1975, emphasizes accessibility and simplicity, only uses d6s, uses spell points instead of Vancian magic, armor as DR, can be played solo. Mostly remembered fondly by some old people but otherwise pretty obscure. Still very usable, though)

*Note: There are other ones like Torchbearer and Dungeon World and World of Dungeons and on and on but they'll get covered in later categories.

All of these are neat and special and worth checking out because they all contain nuggets that you'll want to plunder if you are down to houserule your own game. Here's the thing about these systems, though.

Remember the "everyone wants to play 5th Edition!" problem? The corollary is that each of these systems only have an audience with people for whom it was literally the first non-D&D system they found. It was just something different and it captured their interest, mostly for not being D&D. I feel like when people sing the praises of any of these systems, they highly exaggerate what makes it special and they especially exaggerate how different it is from 5E (I've even heard people tell outright lies, saying things like, "I like how in this game, unlike 5E, you only roll a check when there's something at stake!" or, "In this game, PCs can't keep re-rolling new attempts at something! We call it the 'Let it Ride' rule!" or "The problem with 5E is that everything is about adding up +2 this, -3 that, +4 here and doing math! Not this game!")

The fact is that you really don't have that much reason to choose one of these over another, and if you see something that you really like from one of them then you should just steal that element and hack it in. This is the realm of "every GM has their own personal RPG." The only reason why you'd really commit to one system is because maybe it just has a really awesome, usable, comprehensive core rulebook that you'd like to use at the table as your core reference document, unedited and authoritative. For example, every spell in DCC has its own table of random effect results, taking up like a hundred goddamn pages and comprising the bulk of the book. So if you want to use DCC's awesome spellcasting system, you may as well just hunker down and embrace the whole package. But when the differences are between task resolution math like d20, d10, d6, 2d6, d%, roll-under, roll-under blackjack, narrative dice, etc. they just don't really fucking matter. The only systems here I think I'd gush over are Knave, DCC, and maybe Lamentations. But if I wanted to blow the mind of a new 5E DM then I'd show them the Black Hack. Eventually, if you houserule enough, you'll end up with a pretty unique, crazy beast of its own like Neoclassical Geek Revival (an acclaimed but kind of baffling system, like if you "revised" B/X D&D 10 times over).

What other sorts of RPGs might someone new to this hobby want to know about? Well, I figured the next best category to cover is...

Mainstream RPGs that aren't Dungeons and Dragons

That's right! They exist! Major, commercially-successful ones. It's all relative, of course. Literally all RPGs are kind of "indie" or "DIY" just because it's a small hobby. But these are the ones that are closest to D&D in terms of popularity. Or at the very least, they're on this list because people talk about them all the time and you'll inevitably hear about them. These aren't in any order.

Pathfinder ("D&D 3.75 Edition." For people who wanted a dungeoncrawler but wanted more crunch instead of less, especially regarding character customization and designing "builds". Rose to success because 4th Edition D&D had a lot of backlash, basically. Also has full online support for free at https://www.d20pfsrd.com/ [1st edition] and at https://2e.aonprd.com/ [2nd edition])

By the way if you're really new to the hobby and you want some history, basically D&D 3rd edition came out in 2000 and is usually considered the dividing line between the "old school era" and the "new school era." 3.5 Edition is a patch released in 2003, and if you want to play this version of the game then Pathfinder 1st Edition is honestly your best option. It is simply a better version of 3.X Edition. A pretty clean revision and update, still backwards-compatible. However, Pathfinder 2nd Edition is distinct enough where you can't definitively say one way or another if it's better or worse than its predecessor.

Call of Cthulhu (cosmic horror/mystery RPG about H.P. Lovecraft stuff. Famous for having a Sanity [SAN] stat)

World of Darkness (urban fantasy horror. Specific games within this franchise to play as Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, Van Helsings, etc. Roll d10s, add more to pool for better chances of success. Very roleplay-heavy, very serious, very edgy. Allegedly the RPG to have been outselling D&D at some point, back in the 90's)

Shadowrun (cyberpunk + fantasy. Really lore intensive so if you can't get into the setting there may not be anything for you here. Then again, you might love it. Uses all d6s)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (the Warhammer RPG. Setting-specific. Uses a d% system + "careers," very crunchy. Has a much-acclaimed retroclone called Zweihander)

GURPS i.e. Generic Universal RolePlaying System (quintessential simulationist sytem, crunchiest in the goddamn world, very flexible. Uses d6s. Most "licensed games" from your favorite movie or book or TV show use a GURPS system, e.g. Star Trek, Conan, Discworld, Hellboy, etc.)

Mutants and Masterminds (Superhero D&D, heavy on crunch)

Deadlands (Cowboys + Horror. Different editions have totally different rule systems. This is the RPG that Bruce Campbell is really into)

Apocalypse World + any "Powered by the Apocalypse" systems (originally a post-apocalypse game but has a million spin-offs, uses a universal system, 2d6+stat with gradations of success, collaborative narration)

FUDGE/FATE Core (universal system, roll 4d3, more successes means higher up on a "success" track)

Savage Worlds (universal system, traits are measured in die size e.g. "I have a d4 in Strength but a d10 in Smarts and a d12 in Agility!" which is a neat idea. Also it has exploding dice AND uses playing cards)

Mazes and Minotaurs (retro system like OD&D or AD&D but if Gary and Dave were into classical mythology and Ray Harryhausen. A fascinating exercise in alternate-universe design and also a pretty good system for an Ancient Greek game. Short and free, too)

Fiasco (Storygame without a GM, very short, emulates black comedy crime films like from the Coen Brothers or Quentin Tarantino, very cinematic, focuses on relationships, heavy on improv and gets hilarious, uses a fuckload of d6s)

Scion ("Percy Jackson the RPG" but also American Gods, World of Darkness mechanics)

Burning Wheel (really neat, creative narrativist universal system that emphasizes building up complex characters and testing their convictions and principles. Uses a fun rock-paper-scissors style challenge system that can be skinned for combat, a debate, surgery, hacking, etc.)

Mouseguard and Torchbearer are two spin-off systems that modify things based on 1) the comic series by David Peterson, and 2) old-school fantasy dungeoncrawling, respectively. Generally better liked than the original system.

Pendragon (THE King Arthur system, heavily based on literary themes so it's mostly story game-y, all about knights and chivalry, generational i.e. the campaign takes place over 80 years so you play as a line of fathers and sons, downtime system is important but interesting. 5th Edition PDF is free online, I'd recommend starting by looking at the character sheet at the end)

Into the Odd (very concise but popular OSR "weird fantasy" system. 3 abilities, roll-under d20, attacks are automatic hits and not rolled, characters are mostly pre-made packages)

RuneQuest (an old D&D competitor from 1978 that innovated a lot of mechanics. d% resolution, classless, has a skill system, abilities improve the more you use them, attacks in combat targets specific body parts. Overall pretty crunchy)

F.A.T.A.L. (fucking terrible troll RPG but kind of hilarious, crunchiest system ever, edgy and gory and rapey, typos everywhere, seems like it was written by a 12-year-old)

(everyone is a wizard in pseudo-historical Europe, has an awesome creative spellcasting system based on combining Latin words, GM role cycles between group members, uses a troupe system)

Paranoia (comedy version of 1984, lots of backstabbing, high-lethality but you have backup clones of your PC, very funny)

Rolemaster (yet another historical one that people still bring up but I've never actually heard of someone who likes it it has been pointed out to me that it's competitor was 2nd Edition AD&D so it looks pretty good in comparison. D&D competitor with d% resolution and a million reference tables to consult, so it takes forever to do anything + character creation takes forever)

Dread (horror RPG that uses a Jenga Tower for task resolution instead of dice. Yes, really. The name is very fitting, too. Also uses a questionnaire style character generation which is fun)

Legend of the Five Rings RPG (Based on the card game. Fantasy setting based on historical Japan+China+Korea, has some emphasis on social mechanics)

7th Sea (uses similar mechanics to L5R, all about a fictional Golden Age of Piracy setting where every country is a knockoff of a real world colonial empire except now the noble class is all spellcasters. If you like the Three Musketeers, Zorro, 30 Years' War, Machiavelli, etc.)

Rifts (very [in]famous classic RPG that has a fantastic premise and legendarily bad mechanical execution, often cited as a masterclass in poor design. It's a omni-genre multiverse RPG where every different universe and setting is connected through dimensional "rifts," with post-apocalyptic Earth as the playground where they're all clashing. So you have vampires and Atlanteans and and aliens and cyborg cowboys and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and dwarves and dinosaurs and blablablabla.)

(brilliantly-designed mechanics and set in a really cool Science Fantasy world with awesome lore but really daunting and impenetrable at first. Character creation is based on a statement of "I am an adjective noun who verbs," has 3 stats with limited pool of effort you expend e.g. you draw on the same resource for your attacks as you use for health so you actually get worse in combat the more beaten up you are. All player-facing rolls)

("Hayao Miyazaki's Oregon Trail," heavy on friendship and exploration. DM controls a PC little dragon dude in the party who collects stories for their big dragon. Also has collaborative worldbuilding! Very cute and wholesome but can be badass too, like Princess Mononoke)

13th Age (D&D 3E + D&D 4E, refined from both systems, setting-specific, fairly narrativist, high fantasy, uber-powerful special snowflake PCs but I've heard great things)

Troika! ("hipster Planescape," gonzo, roll-under d6, uses a luck-points system)

Fantasy Craft (really crunchy and hard to use but filled with fucking fascinating rules. If you want to go into RPG design you should check this out. One of the most GM-friendly resources for worldbuilding and shaping the rules around your personal setting. Has some crazy playable races like dragons, giants, treants, etc. Leans narrativist+simulationist)

Blades in the Dark (Crime + heists in a Gothic Victorian urban fantasy setting, has a stress mechanic, supposed to be an urban sandbox sorta thing)

Whitehack (roll-under everything but roll high, i.e. "roll-under blackjack", genre-agnostic, slot-based character customization. This is the system that inspired the Black Hack, but is universalist instead of being a fantasy dungeon-crawler)

HackMaster (parody of AD&D, ridiculous levels of crunch, unreliable joke-y narrator, surprisingly playable I've heard)

Lasers and Feelings (an awesome one-page RPG where you have two stats: Lasers and Feelings. Actually a really neat and clever rule system, though. I would recommend you look up more one-page RPGs, they tend to have pretty creative game design)

Very commonly reskinned for various genres, my personal favorite being Boy Problems, a cyberpunk heist RPG about Canadian pop singer Carly Rae Jepsen. Colin Cummings makes a bunch of RPGs about her and they're all hilarious and awesome.

Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Adventure Game (oh god this game is so cool it's literally the movie Labyrinth but turned into a fucking rad RPG)

Exalted (high, HIGH fantasy epic godling heros but in a very anime way, unbelievably crunchy but people say it's like Dragon Ball Z levels of crazy power awesomeness)

If that sounds cool but intimidating, the same guy who made Stars Without Number made an RPG with a similar premise called Godbound but is very low on crunch.

Shadow of the Demon Lord (Dark Souls / Darkest Dungeon-type game. Medieval fantasy but also horror, has insanity and corruption rules. Mechanically like D&D 5E + Warhammer Fantasy. Uses d20 system modified with "boons" and banes," which are additional d6 rolls you add or subtract. But instead of stacking, you take the best/worst result from all the dice rolled, so it avoids bonus inflation. Neat alternative to advantage/disadvantage)

Genesys (I mentioned Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars RPG. This is the general system that game uses, adaptable to whatever genre you want. Uses one huge core rulebook and custom dice. Considered pretty narrativist but it's flexible)

-DwizKhalifa

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Something you hear a lot in RPG spaces is the recurring lamentation of, "no one wants to try this system with me because everyone just wants to play D&D 5E!" DIY and OSR folks are obsessed with having different systems, making different systems, trying out different systems, etc.

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Stabbing your players and being thanked

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Original post from u/jimbaby on r/DnD

When writing a character's backstory, it's important to include a certain number of "knives". Knives are essentially anything that the DM can use to raise the stakes of a situation for your character. Anything that can make a conflict personal, like a threatened loved one or the appearance of a sudden enemy. They're called "knives" because the players lovingly forge them and present them to the DM so that the DM can use them to stab the player over and over again.

The more knives a player has, the easier it is for the DM to involve them in the story. So it's important to have them! When breaking down a backstory, it kind of goes like this:

Every named person your character cares about, living or dead (i.e. sibling, spouse, childhood friend) +1 knife [EDIT: a large family can be bundled into one big knife]

Every phobia or trauma your character experiences/has experienced +1 knife

Every mystery in your character's life (i.e. unknown parents, unexplained powers) +1 knife

Every enemy your character has +1 knife

Every ongoing obligation or loyalty your character has +1 knife

Additionally, every obligation your character has failed +1 knife

Every serious crime your character has committed (i.e. murder, arson) +1 knife

Every crime your character is falsely accused of +1 knife

Alternatively if your character is a serial killer or the leader of a thieves guild, those crimes can be bundled under a +1 BIG knife

Any discrimination experienced (i.e. fantasy racism) +1 knife

Every favored item/heirloom +1 knife

Every secret your character is keeping +1 knife

You kind of get the point. Any part of your backstory that could be used against you is considered a knife. A skilled DM will use these knives to get at your character and get you invested in the story. A really good DM can break your knives into smaller, sharper knives with which to stab you. They can bundle different characters' knives together into one GIANT knife. Because we're all secretly masochists when it comes to D&D, the more knives you hand out often means the more rewarding the story will be.

On the other hand, you don't want to be a sad edgelord with too many knives. A buttload of knives just means that everyone in your party will inadvertently get stabbed by your knives, and eventually that gets annoying. Anything over 15 knives seems excessive. The DM will no doubt get more as time goes on, but you don't want to start out with too many. You also don't want to be the plain, boring character with only two knives. It means the DM has to work harder to give you a personal stake in the story you're telling together. Also, knives are cool!! Get more knives!!!

I always try to incorporate at least 7 knives into my character's backstory, and so far the return has been a stab-ity good time. Going back into previous characters, I've noticed that fewer knives present in my backstory has correlated with fewer direct consequences for my character in game. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule, it's just something that my friends and I have come up with to help with character creation. We like to challenge each other to make surprising and creative knives. If you think of any that should be included, let me know.

EDIT: I feel I should mention it's important to vary up the type of knives you have. All 7 of your knives shouldn't be family members, nor should they be crimes that you've done in the past. That's a one-way ticket to repetitive gameplay. Part of the fun is making new and interesting knives that could lead to fun surprises in game.

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Original post from u/jimbaby on r/DnD When writing a character's backstory, it's important to include a certain number of "knives". Knives are essentially anything that the DM can use to raise the stakes of a situation for your character. Anything that can make a conflict personal, like a threatened loved one or the appearance of a sudden enemy.

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The easy solution to every problem in an RPG is to kill it with fire. Or swords. Or guns. Or hell, rocket launchers if you're into a Resident Evil style game. Regardless of your personal weapon choice, the fact of the matter remains: we default to physical action as consequence or conclusion. We take tiny steps and there the conclusion of physical action lies. Now, if you're playing a game, it's pretty likely that your course of action will draw blood of some kind.

When did violence become so casual to us gamers? When those dice hit the table and they roll up snake eyes or the dreaded critical fail one, we turn our anxious gaze to our GM and fear but anticipate their next move. You know it's gonna be real bad. You fucked up real good, son. Something is about to hurt. And you want it. Like a submissive who can't quite get enough punishment, we pony up to the table and ask our GM to make our lives hard.

The GM will smile. Maybe smirk. There's probably something in their head as a direct consequence. Now, if your GM says something like "You drop your weapon" or "The orc hits you, take *roll dice* 7 points of damage" or "the vampire bites you, take a wound" or "the dragon breathes its fire all over your fucking face" or "you hear the snarling of creatures in the dark and eyes begin to illuminate around you" then you're probably not all that surprised. You may even be annoyed because now you have to waste a round picking up your stupid sword and someone's gonna get an attack of opportunity on you.

Those consequences are traditional, boring, and violent. Some of them, granted, are necessary and follow the logical progression of fiction. But a lot of hard moves aka consequences of a failed roll are focusing on actionability on a physical level. GMs are told that what they say must be things that are actionable, things the players can take action on. Most of the time, violence is pretty fucking actionable. Someone hits you, you hit them, repeat. Someone dies. Victory party. Repeat.

But what if we challenge that narrative for a minute?

I don't want to say that violence isn't interesting. It totally is. To me, the interesting part of violence is how it makes us feel. And yet, more often than not, I see people pass up the emotional feedback of violence around them (at least in gaming) and go straight for the physical. I see GMs ignore emotional choices and go for physical things that lack complexity but are immediately actionable.

And yet, so many people keep asking me how to add or facilitate emotional play. So much so that it's become a thing I'm doing almost daily. How I became a random expert on emotional play is a baffling mystery to me, (and true story: I'm not an expert) but it is a question I usually have an answer of some kind to. When I spoke on The Gauntlet about facilitating emotional play, a lot of great conversation happened. Still, I knew there was more in my head I wanted to push out.

It was the topic of consequences. Consequences in games are the perfect time to talk about emotional play. So many times have I played a PbtA game and the response from the GM has been non-emotional. Let me give an example. Because I feel like examples are great for this sort of thing.

I was running Monsterhearts. The fae wanted to seduce a werewolf so he wouldn't get in trouble with her. So he rolls, and despite being a hot as fuck fae, rolls a bad bad bad fail. The obvious answer was to get him in trouble, have the wolf shove him against a wall and do a bit of damage, because fae suck at that. Instead, I had them have sex and decided then and there that werewolves mate for life, like real wolves. That was the hard move. An emotionally impactful hard move that would continue to be a thread.

Had I chosen to just beat up the little fae lover, he would've taken some harm, but really, not much would've come of it. He'd be afraid of the wolf, probably avoid her, but play would pretty much continue on. Instead, I tried to see how I could make the outcome of the move emotional for him. How would the fae feel when someone fell in love with him and wanted to be with him forever, would get hurt protecting him, and would try to be there for him without being a stalker?

That small choice, that moment of choosing the emotional over the physical, gives you and your players a chance to explore more emotional play. You can change the flow of narration by making your decisions emotion based. Ask yourself how will it impact your characters on an emotional level, and hell, after something happens, pause and ask them "How are you feeling now that this werewolf has chosen to be with you forever?"

Remember that asking questions like crazy brings your players food for thought. If you add to the narrative questions about their feelings, they may sit with it for a minute to suss that out, but they then may also start thinking about using it to guide their response. And when you start adding emotional consequences, play can shift from a game that focuses a lot on the actions of violence and abuse and more on how those things impact your characters.

There have been several games I've been playing lately that have focused on how characters feel, and using emotional consequences. So when my vampire attacked a guy, she didn't mean to kill him but totally did. The consequence? That a friend of mine saw and knew I was a monster. The dead guy wasn't important. That someone I cared about was afraid of me was a consequence. It was an emotional consequence that still dramatically impacted the story, and also made my next set of actions something other than more fighting and violence. It made me pull back and try to assure them, despite their terror, that I wasn't a monster. Even though I was.

In all fairness, sometimes those emotional consequences may take a second to think about. They're more subtle than the over the top responses of aggression and anger. They impact the story in more meaningful but often less theatrical ways. If you're game is about badass fighting, then throwing in emotional consequences all the time won't do much. It'll make people annoyed that the action isn't continuing. But if you sprinkle them in here and there, it adds some great layers to an otherwise action packed game.

How do you think of emotional consequences? For me, I try to imagine how the people seeing the violence or horror or whatever would feel. How would I feel if the person I loved just hurt someone? How does violence make me feel? How does witnessing tragedy make me feel? It's easy for me because I have way too much empathy, but in general, I try to let those conclusions come out. If you say something mean or hurtful, the person you hurt will be hurt. They'll be disinterested in helping you. They won't want you in their lives.

I also try to make sure that if the PCs are abusive, that people eventually tell them they are. I want them to feel it when someone they trust distances themselves and when called on it goes: "I'm afraid of you. You scare me. You hurt people." When my one PC was told she was abusive, my heart hurt. I liked my PC, I thought she was a good guy, and she was. Except she was also a bad person. And I had to come to grips with that and see how I could make her realize her own abusive patterns.

Emotional consequences are a part of the real world. We struggle with them daily and they had depth and meaning to our lives. Adding them to your games is a way to ensure that the world feels real, what the heroes do matters, and that they aren't impervious to emotional hurt. It will amp up your play and increase the stakes when they roll. How people see them, interact with them, and trust them should impact them. Make sure their actions have physical, mental, and emotional consequences.

These aren't all the things you can do to improve your emotional experience at the table. This is just something that I'd like to see more of and something I'm implementing more and more into my own GMing. There are a tonne of other things you can do too, but this is one of the easiest and fastest steps you can take to immediately up the emotional risks your players and you take at the table. Make them vulnerable. Make your NPCs vulnerable. And make their emotions matter. Make it have consequence. Bring emotion and life to your games.

You can do it. I believe in you.

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Emotionally Charged: Adding Some Feels to Your Play

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The easy solution to every problem in an RPG is to kill it with fire. Or swords. Or guns. Or hell, rocket launchers if you're into a Resident Evil style game. Regardless of your personal weapon choice, the fact of the matter remains: we default to physical action as consequence or conclusion.

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A d20 system with interesting narrative components; the SRD is free.

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13th Age Core Book

Silver ENnie award winner for Best Rules; nominee for Best Game and Product of the Year.

13th Age combines the best parts of traditional d20-rolling fantasy gaming with new story-focused rules, designed so you can run the kind of game you most want to play with your group. Created by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, 13th Age gives you all the tools you need to make unique characters who are immediately embedded in the setting in important ways; quickly prepare adventures based on the PCs' backgrounds and goals; create your own monsters; fight exciting battles; and focus on what's always been cool and fun about fantasy adventure gaming:
Get your copy of 13th Age today at the Pelgrane Shop or your local game store. "13th Age RPG delivers an incredible fantasy storytelling experience." - io9 "13th Age is, perhaps, the first d20 game that I've ever played that treats the game inside of combat and the game outside of combat with equal love, attention, and innovation." - Dorkadia Learn more about 13th Age.
Check out the Resources page for downloads, reviews, interviews, convention videos and actual play, and visit the 13th Age Facebook group to talk with other GMs and players.

Want to create 13th Age compatible content? See here.

Play 5th Edition? See here and here.
"One of the best systems I've encountered-and I've either played or read the rules to countless d20 systems at this point-is 13th Age... It's fun, fast and accessible." - Forbes "[13th Age] has just enough of the freedom I want from a tabletop game while also being able to balance the crunchy aspects. I was just about to swear off D20 games, too. So I'm glad I found this." - Kirby Smith, playtester "The system is absolutely brilliant. For me, it brings a lot of the things I really enjoy about traditional fantasy gaming and infuses them with some new and really useful ideas that you often see in more indie gaming." - Aaron R., GM of Forgotten Sagas of the 13th Age, Obsidian Portal's March 2013 Campaign of the Month
About 13th Age
In the 13th Age of the world, adventurers seek their fortunes in the Dragon Empire while powerful individuals known as Icons pursue goals that may preserve the empire from chaos, or send it over the edge.

Players decide which Icons their characters ally with, and which ones they oppose. These relationships, along with a personal history and a unique trait chosen during character creation, help define an adventurer's place in the world of 13th Age and lay the groundwork for epic stories that emerge through play.

There are also fun new rules for hitting orcs and making them go splat.
"Our goal with 13th Age is to recapture the free-wheeling style of old-school gaming by creating a game with more soul and fewer technical details. ...13th Age makes the play group's campaign the center of attention, with a toolkit of rules that you can pick and choose from based on the kind of game you want to play. The mechanics draw from classic games as well as newer, story-based games." - Jonathan Tweet, co-designer
About Rob Heinsoo
Rob Heinsoo has created dozens of role-playing games, card games, miniatures games and board games. He led the design of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons® and wrote or led the design of many 4e sourcebooks. Rob has just released the card game Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. Other recent game designs include THREE-DRAGON ANTE, THREE-DRAGON ANTE: Emperor's Gambit, Inn-Fighting, Dreamblade, FORGOTTEN REALMS® Campaign Setting, and the first nine sets of D&D Miniatures®. Games he worked on in the 90's that have aged well include Shadowfist, Feng Shui, and King of Dragon Pass.

About Jonathan Tweet
Jonathan Tweet has been creating games professionally for 25 years. He created or co-created the roleplaying games Ars Magica (1987), Over the Edge (1992), and Everway (1995). He started writing for Dungeons & Dragons in 1992, and in 2000 he became the lead designer of the game's third edition. In addition to roleplaying games, Jonathan has created and contributed to card games, miniatures games, computer games, and fiction. His games have won three Origins Awards, and he is in the Origins Award Hall of Fame.

Price: $44.95

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13th Age Core Book 13th Age combines the best parts of traditional d20-rolling fantasy gaming with new story-focused rules, designed so you can run the kind of game you most want to play with your group.

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I don't use this myself, but Roll20 compiles a list of options.

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Regardless of your photo-editing software of choice, here are some links to resources useful for map creation.

Online Mapmaking Tools

Here are some online map making tools that you can use to make maps for Roll20.

Mapmaking Software

Paint Brushes

Pre-Made maps

List of pages with free world/dungeon/historical/other maps that could be used in your games

Tokens & such

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Regardless of your photo-editing software of choice, here are some links to resources useful for map creation. Here are some online map making tools that you can use to make maps for Roll20. List of pages with free world/dungeon/historical/other maps that could be used in your games

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Making them feel like real people
Keeping track of them
Improvising them
Using Tarot to characterise

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Mystery scenarios for roleplaying games have earned a reputation for turning into unmitigated disasters: The PCs will end up veering wildly off-course or failing to find a particular clue and the entire scenario will grind to a screeching halt or go careening off the nearest cliff. The players will become unsure of what they should be doing. The GM will feel as if they've done something wrong. And the whole evening will probably end in either boredom or frustration or both.

Here's a typical example: When the PCs approach a murder scene they don't search outside the house, so they never find the wolf tracks which transform into the tracks of a human. They fail the Search check to find the hidden love letters, so they never realize that both women were being courted by the same man. They find the broken crate reading DANNER'S MEATS, but rather than going back to check on the local butcher they spoke to earlier they decide to go stake out the nearest meat processing plant instead.

As a result of problems like these, many people reach an erroneous conclusion: Mystery scenarios in RPGs are a bad idea. In a typical murder mystery, for example, the protagonist is a brilliant detective. The players are probably not brilliant detectives. Therefore, mysteries are impossible.

Or, as someone else once put it to me: "The players are not Sherlock Holmes."

Although the conclusion is incorrect, there's an element of truth in this. For example, in A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes is investigating the scene of a murder. He discovers a small pile of ashes in the corner of the room. He studies them carefully and is able to conclude that the ashes have come from a Trichinopoly cigar.

Now, let's analyze how this relatively minor example of Holmesian deduction would play out at the game table:

(1) The players would need to successfully search the room.

(2) They would need to care enough about the ashes to examine them.

(3) They would need to succeed at a skill check to identify them.

(4) They would need to use that knowledge to reach the correct conclusion.

That's four potential points of failure: The PCs could fail to search the room (either because the players don't think to do it or because their skill checks were poor). The PCs could fail to examine the ashes (because they don't think them important). The PCs could fail the skill check to identify them. The PCs could fail to make the correct deduction.

If correctly understanding this clue is, in fact, essential to the adventure proceeding - if, for example, the PCs need to go to the nearest specialty cigar shop and start asking questions - then the clue serves as chokepoint: Either the PCs understand the clue or the PCs slam into a wall.

Chokepoints in adventure design are always a big problem and need to be avoided, but we can see that when it comes to a mystery scenario the problem is much worse: Each clue is not just one chokepoint, it's actually multiple chokepoints.

So the solution here is simple: Remove the chokepoints.

For the GUMSHOE system (used in The Esoterrorists, Fear Itself, and The Trail of Cthulhu), Robin D. Laws decided to get rid of the concept of needing to find clues. In each "scene" of an investigation scenario, there is a "clue". It's automatically assumed that the investigators will find this clue.

This removes three of our four chokepoints, leaving only the necessity of using the clue to make the correct deduction (i.e., the deduction which moves you onto the next "scene" where the next clue can be imparted). And, in the case of the GUMSHOE system, even this step can be tackled mechanically (with the players committing points from their character's skills to receive increasingly accurate "deductions" from the GM).

This is a mechanical solution to the problem. But while it may result in a game session which superficially follows the structure of a mystery story, I think it fails because it doesn't particularly feel as if you're playing a mystery.

Laws' fundamental mistake, I think, is in assuming that a mystery story is fundamentally about following a "bread crumb trail" of clues. Here's a quote from a design essay on the subject:

I'd argue, first of all, that these fears are misplaced, and arise from a fundamental misperception. The trail of clues, or bread crumb plot, is not the story, and does not constitute a pre-scripted experience. What the PCs choose to do, and how they interact with each other as they solve the mystery, is the story. As mentioned in The Esoterrorist rules, we saw this at work during playtest, as all of the groups had very different experiences of the sample scenario, as each GM and player combo riffed in their own unique ways off the situations it suggested.

But, in point of fact, this type of simplistic "A leads to B leads to C leads to D" plotting is not typical of the mystery genre. For a relatively simplistic counter-example, let's return to Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet:

WATSON: "That seems simple enough," said I; but how about the other man's height?"

HOLMES: "Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow's stride both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write above the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just over six feet from the ground. It was child's play."

This is just one small deduction in a much larger mystery, but you'll note that Holmes has in fact gathered several clues, studied them, and then distilled a conclusion out of them. And this is, in fact, the typical structure of the mystery genre: The detective slowly gathers a body of evidence until, finally, a conclusion emerges. In the famous words of Holmes himself, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

What is true, however, is that in many cases it is necessary for many smaller deductions to be made in order for all of the evidence required to solve the mystery to be gathered. However, as the example from A Study in Scarlet demonstrates, even these smaller deductions can be based on a body of evidence and not just one clue in isolation.

This observation leads us, inexorably, to the solution we've been looking for.

Whenever you're designing a mystery scenario, you should invariably follow the Three Clue Rule:
For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.
Why three? Because the PCs will probably miss the first; ignore the second; and misinterpret the third before making some incredible leap of logic that gets them where you wanted them to go all along.

I'm kidding, of course. But if you think of each clue as a plan (the PCs will find A, conclude B, and go to C), then when you have three clues you've not only got a plan - you've also got two backup plans. And when you realize that your plans never survive contact with the players, the need for those backup plans becomes clear.

In a best case scenario, of course, the players will find all three clues. There's nothing wrong with that. They can use those clues to confirm their suspicions and reinforce their conclusions (just like Sherlock Holmes).

In a worst case scenario, they should be able to use at least one of these clues to reach the right conclusion and keep the adventure moving.

And here's an important tip: There are no exceptions to the Three Clue Rule.

"But Justin!" I hear you say. "This clue is really obvious. There is no way the players won't figure it out."

In my experience, you're probably wrong. For one thing, you're the one designing the scenario. You already know what the solution to the mystery is. This makes it very difficult for you to objectively judge whether something is obvious or not.

And even if you're right, so what? Having extra clues isn't going to cause any problems. Why not be safe rather than sorry?
EXTENDING THE THREE CLUE RULE
If you think about it in a broader sense, the Three Clue Rule is actually a good idea to keep in mind when you're designing any scenario.

Richard Garriott, the designer of the computer games and Tabula Rasa, once said that his job as a game designer was to make sure that at least one solution to a problem was possible without preventing the player from finding other solutions on their own. For example, if you find a locked door in an Ultima game then there will be a key for that door somewhere. But you could also hack your way through it; or pick the lock; or pull a cannon up to it and blow it away.

Warren Spector, who started working with Garriott on Ultima VI, would later go on to design Deus Ex. He follows the same design philosophy and speaks glowingly of the thrill he would get watching someone play his game and thinking, "Wait... is that going to work?"

When designing an adventure, I actually try to take this design philosophy one step further: For any given problem, I make sure there's at least one solution and remain completely open to any solutions the players might come up with on their own.

But, for any chokepoint problem, I make sure there's at least three solutions.

By a chokepoint, I mean any problem that must be solved in order for the adventure to continue.

For example, let's say that there's a secret door behind which is hidden some random but ultimately unimportant treasure. Finding the secret door is a problem, but it's not a chokepoint, so I only need to come up with one solution. In D&D this solution is easy because it's built right into the rules: The secret door can be found with a successful Search check.

But let's say that, instead of some random treasure, there is something of absolutely vital importance behind that door. For the adventure to work, the PCs must find that secret door.

The secret door is now a chokepoint problem and so I'll try to make sure that there are at least three solutions. The first solution remains the same: A successful Search check. To this we could add a note in a different location where a cultist is instructed to "hide the artifact behind the statue of Ra" (where the secret door is); a badly damaged journal written by the designer of the complex which refers to the door; a second secret door leading to the same location (this counts as a separate solution because it immediately introduces the possibility of a second Search check); a probable scenario in which the main villain will attempt to flee through the secret door; the ability to interrogate captured cultists; and so forth.

Once you identify a chokepoint like this, it actually becomes quite trivial to start adding solutions like this.

I've seen some GMs argue that this makes things "too easy". But the reality is that alternative solutions like this tend to make the scenario more interesting, not less interesting. Look at our secret door, for example: Before we started adding alternative solutions, it was just a dice roll. Now it's designed by a specific person; used by cultists; and potentially exploited as a get-away.

As you begin layering these Three Clue Rule techniques, you'll find that your scenarios become even more robust. For example, let's take a murder mystery in which the killer is a werewolf who seeks out his ex-lovers. We come up with three possible ways to identify the killer:

(1) Patrol the streets of the small town on the night of the full moon.

(2) Identify the victims as all being former lovers of the same man.

(3) Go to the local butcher shop where the killer works and find his confessions of nightmare and sin written in blood on the walls of the back room.

For each of these conclusions (he's a werewolf; he's a former lover; we should check out the butcher shop) we'll need three clues.

HE'S A WEREWOLF: Tracks that turn from wolf paw prints to human footprints. Over-sized claw marks on the victims. One of the victims owned a handgun loaded with silver bullets.

HE'S A FORMER LOVER: Love letters written by the same guy. A diary written by one victim describing how he cheated on her with another victim. Pictures of the same guy either on the victims or kept in their houses somewhere.

CHECK OUT THE BUTCHER SHOP: A broken crate reading DANNER'S MEATS at one of the crime scenes. A note saying "meet me at the butcher shop" crumpled up and thrown in a wastepaper basket. A jotted entry saying "meet P at butcher shop" in the day planner of one of the victims.

And just like that you've created a scenario with nine different paths to success. And if you keep your mind open to the idea of "more clues are always better" as you're designing the adventure, you'll find even more opportunities. For example, how trivial would it be to drop a reference to the butcher shop into one of those love letters? Or to fill that diary with half-mad charcoal sketches of wolves?

The fun part of all this is, once you've given yourself permission to include lots of clues, you've given yourself the opportunity to include some really esoteric and subtle clues. If the players figure them out, then they'll feel pretty awesome for having done so. If they don't notice them or don't understand them, that's OK, too: You've got plenty of other clues for them to pursue (and once they do solve the mystery, they'll really enjoy looking back at those esoteric clues and understanding what they meant).
COROLLARY: PERMISSIVE CLUE-FINDING
The maxim "more clues are always better" is an important one. There is a natural impulse when designing a mystery, I think, to hold back information. This is logical inclination: After all, a mystery is essentially defined by a lack of information. And there's a difference between having lots of clues and having the murderer write his home address in blood on the wall.

But the desire to hold back information does more harm than good, I think. Whenever you hold back a piece of information, you are essentially closing off a path towards potential success. This goes back to Garriott's advice: Unless there's some reason why the door should be cannon-proof, the player should be rewarded for their clever thinking. Or, to put it another way: Just because you shouldn't leave the key to a locked door laying on the floor in front of the door, it doesn't mean that there shouldn't be multiple ways to get past the locked door.

With that in mind, you should consciously open yourself to permissive clue-finding. By this I mean that, if the players come up with a clever approach to their investigation, you should be open to the idea of giving them useful information as a result.

Here's another way of thinking about it: Don't treat the list of clues you came up with during your prep time as a straitjacket. Instead, think of that prep work as your safety net.

I used to get really attached to a particularly clever solution when I would design it. I would emotionally invest in the idea of my players discovering this clever solution that I had designed. As a result, I would tend to veto other potential solutions the players came up with - after all, if those other solutions worked they would never discover the clever solution I had come up with.

Over time, I've learned that it's actually a lot more fun when the players surprise me. It's the same reason I avoid fudging dice rolls to preserve whatever dramatic conceit I came up with. As a result, I now tend to think of my predesigned solution as a worst case scenario - the safety net that snaps into place when my players fail to come up with anything more interesting.

In order to be open to permissive clue-finding you first have to understand the underlying situation. (Who is the werewolf? How did he kill this victim? Why did he kill them? When did he kill them?) Then embrace the unexpected ideas and approaches the PCs will have, and lean on the permissive side when deciding whether or not they can find a clue you had never thought about before.
COROLLARY: PROACTIVE CLUES
A.K.A. Bash Them On the Head With It.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the players will work themselves into a dead-end: They don't know what the clues mean or they're ignoring the clues or they've used the clues to reach an incorrect conclusion and are now heading in completely the wrong direction. (When I'm using the Three Clue Rule, I find this will most often happen when the PCs don't realize that there's actually a mystery that needs to be solved - not every mystery is as obvious as a dead body, after all.)

This is when having a backup plan is useful. The problem in this scenario is that the PCs are being too passive - either because they don't have the information they need or because they're using the information in the wrong way. The solution, therefore, is to have something active happen to them.

Raymond Chandler's advice for this kind of impasse was, "Have a guy with a gun walk through the door."

My typical fallback is in the same vein: The bad guy finds out they're the ones investigating the crime and sends someone to kill them or bribe them.

Another good one is "somebody else dies". Or, in a more general sense, "the next part of the bad guy's plan happens". This has the effect of proactively creating a new location or event for the PCs to interact with.

The idea with all of these, of course, is not simply "have something happen". You specifically want to have the event give them a new clue (or, better yet, multiple clues) that they can follow up on.

In a worst case scenario, though, you can design a final "Get Out of Jail Free" card that you can use to bring the scenario to a satisfactory close no matter how badly the PCs get bolloxed up. For example, in our werewolf mystery - if the PCs get completely lost - you could simply have the werewolf show up and try to kill them (because he thinks they're "getting too close"). This is usually less than satisfactory, but at least it gets you out of a bad situation. It's the final backup when all other backups have failed.

COROLLARY: RED HERRINGS ARE OVERRATED

Red herrings are a classic element of the mystery genre: All the evidence points towards X, but its a red herring! The real murderer is Y!

When it comes to designing a scenario for an RPG, however, red herrings are overrated. I'm not going to go so far as to say that you should never use them, but I will go so far as to say that you should only use them with extreme caution.

There are two reasons for this:

First, getting the players to make the deductions they're supposed to make is hard enough. Throwing in a red herring just makes it all the harder. More importantly, however, once the players have reached a conclusion they'll tend to latch onto it. It can be extremely difficult to convince them to let it go and re-assess the evidence. (One of the ways to make a red herring work is to make sure that there will be an absolutely incontrovertible refutation of it: For example, the murders continue even after the PCs arrest a suspect. Unfortunately, your concept of an "incontrovertible refutation" may hold just as much water as your concept of a "really obvious clue that cannot be missed.)

Second, there's really no need for you to make up a red herring: The players are almost certainly going to take care of it for you. If you fill your adventure with nothing but clues pointing conclusively and decisively at the real killer, I can virtually guarantee you that the players will become suspicious of at least three other people before they figure out who's really behind it all. They will become very attached to these suspicions and begin weaving complicated theories explaining how the evidence they have fits the suspect they want.

In other words, the big trick in designing a mystery scenario is to try to avoid a car wreck. Throwing red herrings into the mix is like boozing the players before putting them behind the wheel of the car.
COROLLARY: NOTHING IS FOOLPROOF
You've carefully laid out a scenario in which there are multiple paths to the solution with each step along each path supported by dozens of clues. You've even got a couple of proactive backup plans designed to get the PCs back on track if things should go awry.

Nothing could possibly go wrong!

... why do you even saying things like that?

The truth is that you are either a mouse or a man and, sooner or later, your plans are going to go awry. When that happens, you're going to want to be prepared for the possibility of spinning out new backup plans on the fly.

Here's a quote from an excellent essay by Ben Robbins:
Normal weapons can't kill the zombies. MicroMan doesn't trust Captain Fury. The lake monster is really Old Man Wiggins in a rubber mask.
These are Revelations. They are things you want the players to find out so that they can make good choices or just understand what is going on in the game. Revelations advance the plot and make the game dramatically interesting. If the players don't find them out (or don't find them out at the right time) they can mess up your game.

I recommend this essay highly. It says pretty much everything I was planning to include in my discussion of this final corollary, so I'm not going to waste my time rephrasing something that's already been written so well. Instead, I'll satisfy myself by just quoting this piece of advice from it:

Write Your Revelations: Writing out your revelations ahead of time shows you how the game is going to flow. Once play starts things can get a little hectic - you may accidentally have the evil mastermind show up and deliver his ultimatum and stomp off again without remembering to drop that one key hint that leads the heroes to his base. If you're lucky you recognize the omission and can backtrack. If you're unlucky you don't notice it at all, and you spend the rest of the game wondering why the players have such a different idea of what is going on than you do.

As we've discussed, one way to avoid this type of problem is to avoid having "one key hint" on which the adventure hinges. But the advice of "writing out your revelations ahead of time" is an excellent one. As Robbins says, this "should be a checklist or a trigger, not the whole explanation".

What I recommend is listing each conclusion you want the players to reach. Under each conclusion, list every clue that might lead them to that conclusion. (This can also serve as a good design checklist to make sure you've got enough clues supporting every conclusion.) As the PCs receive the clues, check them off. (This lets you see, at a glance, if there are areas where the PCs are missing too many clues.)

Finally, listen carefully to what the players are saying to each other. When they've actually reached a particular conclusion, you can check the whole conclusion off your list. (Be careful not to check it off as soon as they consider it as a possibility. Only check it off once they've actually concluded that it's true.)

If you see that too many clues for a conclusion are being missed, or that all the clues have been found but the players still haven't figured it out, then you'll know it's probably time to start thinking about new clues that can be worked into the adventure.
THE FINAL WORD
Basically, what all of this boils down to is simple: Plan multiple paths to success. Encourage player ingenuity. Give yourself a failsafe.

And remember the Three Clue Rule:
For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.

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Mystery scenarios for roleplaying games have earned a reputation for turning into unmitigated disasters: The PCs will end up veering wildly off-course or failing to find a particular clue and the entire scenario will grind to a screeching halt or go careening off the nearest cliff.

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The Powered by the Apocalypse system I'm most familiar with, its rules on fronts for campaign planning are particularly worthy of note. SRD.

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Includes character sheets, reference sheets, and GM sheets. Everything you need to play, just add dice and pencils.

A Dungeon World supplement for playing monsters in their endless battle against marauding adventurers.

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Dungeon World - Wave hands like a muppet

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Includes character sheets, reference sheets, and GM sheets. Everything you need to play, just add dice and pencils. A Dungeon World supplement for playing monsters in their endless battle against marauding adventurers.

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You may not want to actually play it but damn is it funny to imagine.

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One page, everything you need. See also Grant Howitt's extensive library of (often hilarious) one-pagers including Honey Heist.

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Should you feel like you need to design a character sheet or begin digital art, there are free tools out there; GravitDesigner and Canva are good for the graphic design side, while Krita is free art software, and Inkscape handles design/vector art.

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(a follow-up article)
(another approach to prep)

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A few weeks ago, I got all ranty on Twitter about something I am calling Prep-Shaming. It is that thing when someone brags to you or just to the world about how little their prep for their game was. It always sounds something like this, "It took you four hours to prep that game, I prep my game in 5 min with six words I write on a Post-It ™ note."

Here is a secret from the guy who wrote the book on Prep (seriously look over to the right, its right over there)...
It does not matter how much or how little you prep.* What matters is did you run a great game for you and your players?
Why is there an asterisk? Well, there is one caveat, which I will get to in a little bit.

But first, let's talk about prep.

What Is Prep?

Most people will say that prep contains your notes, monster stats, clues, etc that you need when you run your game. They are only partly right. Sure we put those things in there, sometimes we put too many things in, sometimes we put the wrong things in there. But all we have established is what prep We need to understand what prep does, before we define what it is, to us.
Prep is what we need to feel confident enough to run a session of whatever game you are playing.
Prep is short for being prepared. If you are prepared to run your game, then it means you are confident enough to run your game. Does that mean the game will be good? No. Prep does not determine a good game. Your GMing and the players will determine that.

But if you are confident and relaxed because the Prep you did has you prepared to run your game, then the chances of a good game are much higher than if you are stressed and freezing up because you can't find the Dragon Grappling rules.

The Size of Your Prep

Ok. So now that we know that prep is the thing that we use to make us confident to run a game, we can start fresh and figure out what should go into it.

Never Unprepared does a good job of talking about this, so I will sum it up. Put into your prep the things that as a GM you are not going to be able to do off the top of your head as the game is unfolding. That may be maps, or monster stats, clues, key dialog, rules for swimming in armor, etc. Don't put things in your prep that you are good at, let your brain take care of those.

Also, different games need different prep. A Powered by the Apocalypse game requires a small amount of prep, but a complicated investigation in Gumshoe will likely require more.

So, in the end, your prep will be whatever size you need it to be. In the 36 years I have been gaming, my prep for a single 4-hour session has varied from 15-20 pages to 1, but one thing remained constant. No matter how big or how small, I was confident when I got to the table. That allowed me to focus on running good games.

So don't let anyone prep-shame you about your prep, and don't compare you prep to anyone else. Your prep is for you alone.

What about that asterisk?

Oh right. That asterisk, we should talk about the caveat about how big your prep is.

Your prep is only ever the wrong size if you can't prep your game in the time between games, and that is causing you to not feel so confident at the table - or worse, causing you to cancel games because you are not ready.

So if you are playing weekly and writing 10 pages of prep, and you can do that every week, then you are doing fine. But if you are playing weekly and you can't always get those 10 pages done, then you need to change something.

You have a few things you can change:

The frequency of your game. You can move your game from weekly to bi-weekly and increase the time between sessions to get your prep done.

Change games. You can change the game you are running to something that requires less prep.

You can get supplemental material to aid your prep. You can buy maps, magic items, or other things on DriveThruRPG, and use them rather than make them yourself.

You can figure out what other things you can eliminate from your prep, based on what you can handle in your head. I wrote a series of articles years ago called You can reduce what you prep. Prep-Lite that detail some of this, and it's in Never Unprepared as well.

As your life changes, your free time to prep is going to grow and shrink. Additional responsibilities such as children, advanced degrees, gig work, etc are all going to shrink your free time each day, and your prep will get crunched.

How you solve that problem is up to you. Often its a combination of the things listed. For me, when my kids were born, I eventually did three of the four things. I started by changing my games from weekly to bi-weekly. Then I started to reduce my prep. Eventually, I changed to games that were more improv in nature and supported lower amounts of prep.

Keep On Prepping

Your prep is a personal thing. It is made by you, for you, to use to run awesome games. Do not fall for the trap that your prep has to be like anyone else's. It needs to be what you need it to be. The most important thing is that you get to the game and behind the screen feeling confident and ready to have a great time with your players.

Over time our lives change and we often have to adapt in order to keep that confident feeling at the table. Sometimes that means that we have to change our prep and hone it to be more concise.

To paraphrase a popular saying, "you prep you."

Tell me how your prep has changed over time. Share some details, but no prep-shaming.

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A few weeks ago, I got all ranty on Twitter about something I am calling Prep-Shaming. It is that thing when someone brags to you or just to the world about how little their prep for their game was.

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Very cool PbtA game about teenage monsters, includes some good content on responsibility at the table and creating the setting collaboratively.

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By the time they hit adolescence, most people have gotten over their fear of the dark. They spend their midnight hour on gushy phone calls, diary ramblings, and wet dreams. They fall asleep peacefully, assured that the shadows hold no monsters. But the shadows do hold monsters. You know because you're one of them. Wickedness dwells within your heart, hunger courses through your veins. High school weighs on you and teen drama puts you on edge, but you have power. What do you do next?
Monsterhearts 2 lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles. When you play, you explore the terror and confusion of having a body that is changing without your permission.

This game is powered by the Apocalypse World engine. It draws inspiration from Twilight, Buffy, Ginger Snaps, The Vampire Diaries, and The Craft.

Monsterhearts is a fantastic game to play but on top of that it's my very favorite text in RPGs. The book is crystal clear, inspiring for play, and a real pleasure to read.
-John Harper, author of Blades in the Dark

Read an overview on Shut Up & Sit Down. Watch some actual play of the first edition by the Misscliks.

Buy Now!

The game is available in PDF, softcover, or hardcover format. Visit the store to pick up a copy.

Resources

Reference Sheets and Core Skins - this link contains the player sheet, the MC sheet, and the ten Skins included in the main book (The Fae, The Ghost, The Ghoul, The Hollow, The Infernal, The Mortal, The Queen, The Vampire, The Werewolf, and The Witch). The reference sheets are just single pages, but the Skins are designed to be printed front-and-back and then folded. This is everything you need at the table with you to play, aside from pencils and dice.

The Chosen is an additional Skin you can add to your game. They're a warrior, sworn to vanquish darkness and evil in the world. But with such a heavy burden to bear, and surrounded by a monstrous lot, will they be able to hold to their noble and powerful sense of self? The Chosen isn't included in the main book because it dramatically changes the tone of play, pushing toward a story about tense allegiances and moral turmoil.

The Serpentine is another option to throw into the mix. They're caught between the human and serpent worlds, between a manipulative family and everyone else. How will they adapt, and who will they trust? This Skin isn't for every group, especially if you've already got a lot of characters competing for spotlight. The Serpentine brings with it a host of side characters who remain mostly private throughout the game.

The Cerberus is weird and conceptual, created for a fan. What if you were a three-headed dog, covered in writhing snakes, tasked with guarding the gates to the afterlife? And what if this was all an elaborate metaphor for playing Jughead from CW's Riverdale?

Small Towns is a collection of eight different one-page settings for the game, allowing you to set up and dive into play as quickly as possible. Each of these settings is authored by someone different, bringing you a mix of brilliant and diverse voices: Jackson Tegu, Ciel Sainte-Marie, anna anthropy, Marissa Kelly & Mark Diaz Truman, Kieron Gillen, Kira Magrann, and Naomi Clark!

Finally, there is an inDesign template available if you want to lay out your own skins and small towns. The master pages are filled with section-by-section tips for how to bring it all together. To get your hands on this, email me! alder.avery at gmail dot com
Wondering what's new in the second edition? Click here!
(Resources From The First Edition)

Here are the Monsterhearts Skins and Monsterhearts Reference Sheets. And made possible by Christopher Murray, I'm pleased to reveal The Serpentine.

In March of 2014 I released Safe Hearts, a guide to navigating boundaries and vulnerability in Monsterhearts.

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By the time they hit adolescence, most people have gotten over their fear of the dark. They spend their midnight hour on gushy phone calls, diary ramblings, and wet dreams. They fall asleep peacefully, assured that the shadows hold no monsters. But the shadows do hold monsters.

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Role-playing and story games offer a unique opportunity for creativity and collaboration. However, the improvisational nature of these games exposes players to the risk of discomfort and emotional distress. Everyone has different boundaries and it's impossible to know what will be upsetting to a fellow gamer. Best practices and safety tools are an important part of tabletop role-playing because they allow clear communication about what is, and what is not okay for everyone at the table.

Remember, the most important part of safety tools is using them to make yourself heard. In other words, if there are safety tools being used at the table it is your responsibility to use them to communicate with your fellow players. They are there for a reason. It is your responsibility to utilize them to ensure your own well-being. Safety tools cannot work if players do not implement them.

BEST PRACTICES: Every Game, Every Time

These tools should be used for every game session. You should use other safety tools as well, but these are general gaming best-practices more than "tools."

Pregame Agreements
Step one of creating a game that everyone can enjoy is clearly communicating the tone of the game and agreeing on which safety tools you will be using for your game. Some games or groups may only need one tool in place, but if your game setting is especially emotional, violent or "close-to-home" for anyone at the table it may be a good idea to use multiple tools. Make sure everyone at the table is clear on how all of your safety tools work before each session.

Agreeing on tone is an important step before starting your game too. Tone is defined as "the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing, situation, etc." Before making characters it's important that everyone know if it's going to be a lighthearted romp with funny characters, an intense emotional exploration, a game focused on romance and seduction, or a battle-heavy dungeon crawl. A good way of defining tone is to describe it using movie ratings (G, PG-13, R) and to cite examples of popular media to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Debriefs
After you have finished a session of your game, it is important to check in with everyone to see how they are feeling. This can be done by the GM in private with each person for highly sensitive games, or just be a casual conversation with everyone after the game over some beers. It's especially important that players touch base with one another after intense scenes or conflicts that happened during the game. This avoids the buildup of negative emotions between sessions and player misunderstandings.

Open Door Policy
An open door policy is exactly what it sounds like, players can leave the table or leave the game in a mature manner for any reason without being judged. Obviously, this policy doesn't apply to players who leave the table in a combative or unreasonable way. This can apply to things as simple as restroom breaks, taking phone calls, or going to another room for an emotional cool-down. Everyone at the table is an adult and deserves the respect to take care of their own needs.

SAFETY TOOLS

Here is a collection of our favorite role-playing safety tools. We did not create these tools and have credited the creators when we could find them. There are many others available if you look through the online tabletop role-playing communities! Find the ones that work for you!
Many of these tools have printable versions for letter sized paper or for 3×5 inch cards. Thank you, Tomer Gurantz! X-card
The x-card is the simplest safety tool and also the easiest to implement. A card with a large X is placed on the table where everyone can reach it. If anyone feels uncomfortable, they simply touch the x-card. The GM and other players will change the scene immediately by skipping it or changing what is happening. The person who activated the x-card is not expected to explain their reasons. You can read more about the x-card at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg. John Stavropoulos developed the x-card.

Lines/Veils
Lines and veils are established boundaries for the story and are defined by each player individually. Generally they are shared with the GM, either as a group or in private, before the start of a game or campaign.

Lines are hard boundaries that exclude specified content from the game, no questions asked. This could include anything, but common lines are children being harmed, rape or sexual violence, or racial discrimination. Veils are softer limits where the player is ok with it being included in the game but it isn't explicitly described. Things that are specified as veils will be hand-waved without going into detail or happen off-screen, like the fade-to-black sex scenes in a PG movie. You can learn more about them at: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/what-do-the-terms-lines-and-veils-mean

Consent Flower
The Consent Flower, also called the Support Flower, lets players communicate how they are feeling about a scene in a subtle, non-verbal way. There are three cards on the table, one of each color: green, yellow and red. Sometimes they can be the shape of petals or have flower pictures on them, but the three colors are what is most important. The person activating the card will make direct eye contact with the person they are trying to communicate with and tap one of the cards.

Green - this card is a request to push the current scene even harder. This is a way of giving and asking for consent without words.

Yellow - this card indicates that the person is comfortable with the scene and it should continue at the current intensity

Red - this card requests that the current scene be pulled back immediately and the intensity be lowered

It is highly recommended that the Consent Flower be used in conjunction with another safety tool, such as the x-card and Lines & Veils.

Tayler Stokes created the Consent Flower and more information about it can be found at: http://www.gamestogather.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/SupportFlower-A5-PrintJ.pdf

Script Change
Script Change is a more complex tool than some of the others, but it is highly effective at giving everyone at the table more direct control of a scene when they feel uncomfortable. Three cards are placed in the middle of the table labeled "rewind", "pause', and "fast forward" that anyone at the table can tap to activate.

"Rewind" - this card takes the game back to before the uncomfortable content so things can be retconned

"Pause" - this card puts the scene on pause but doesn't make any changes. Take a breath!

"Fast Forward" - this card skips play forward past the uncomfortable content so that it isn't described

Script Change was designed by Brie Sheldon and more information about it can be found at http://tinyurl.com/nphed7m

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Role-playing and story games offer a unique opportunity for creativity and collaboration. However, the improvisational nature of these games exposes players to the risk of discomfort and emotional distress. Everyone has different boundaries and it's impossible to know what will be upsetting to a fellow gamer.

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Everyone knows how that D&D is 90% improv, but improv is intimidating! Where does one start? Back in 2015, Dungeon Master, streamer, and improv actor Tom Lommel gave some tips on Twitter about how to develop improv skills and how to use them at the game table. You might have seen Tom on D&D: The Improvised Campaign (which we host on our Twitch channel every week!) and as the Dungeon Bastard under the alias Bill Cavalier. We're going to break down his advice and help transform you into a top notch improve DM. Learn this stuff well and you'll never have to prep for a game again! At least, not for more than 10 minutes or so.

We go pretty in-depth in our analysis here, but if you want to read the whole thread yourself, it's definitely worth your time. And the follow-up thread from 2017.

Creating a Structure
"I dispensed with the idea that improv is just "make up whatever you want" nine months ago."
The single most important lesson in improvisation is that there is more to it than just making stuff up. Everything you "make up" is based on a set of rules you've created in order to keep the story coherent. Just winging it tends to create stories that are full of holes and aren't very much fun for anybody. A structure's job is to:

1. Help you and your players suggest cool ideas.

2. Fully realize and flesh out these cool ideas.

3. Make it easy to incorporate these ideas into your game.

With that in mind, what the heck is a structure? The answer is: whatever you want them to be. If that seems uselessly vague, allow Tom to explain. "All improv is centered around a structure. Sometimes it's as simple as "Yes, And." [...] Improv has form. The best structure for improv in RPGs: Establish the premise, [then] heighten/expand it, [and then] twist the premise to reveal a new truth. That's it."

Understanding your Structure
"Improv can only work if you relinquish the idea that it's "your story" and embrace the fact that it's OUR story."
Simply put, a structure is just the system of rules that undergirds your improv, though sometimes you bend those rules to make it exciting. Sound familiar? Just like D&D rules exist to help you have a fun gaming experience, improv has structures that help you tell a good story-and both rules and structures exist to be broken once you're comfortable enough using them. By now most D&D players have heard of the improv structure of "Yes, And." It just asks the GM to allow the players to do cool things if they want to. Matthew Mercer uses "Yes, And," all the time, he just says it differently. He says "You can certainly try." Saying yes to your players' wild ideas doesn't give them carte blanche to do anything, but it does allow you to let your players help craft the story themselves.

That last point is vital. If you loosen up and allow your players to drive the story themselves, you've just saved yourself an incalculable amount of effort. In Tom's words, "You've got FIVE brains working on the story instead of [one]. You're crowdsourcing the coolness." And if you're worried that this sort of structure is "permissive" or will just lead to your players running roughshod over your carefully structured story, then this may not be your cup of tea. That's fine. But I implore you to try this, even just for a one shot. Let go of your expectations and listen to what your players want. If you engage in the mutual give-and-take of group improv and your players give you goofy stuff, then "your players are telling you what kind of game they want to play," and you should consider giving it a try.

Creating Your Own Structure
"Improv is fundamentally an act of listening, reflecting, and inventing connections..."
The idea of improvisational structure is inherently vague because it's such a personal tool. You can use secondhand structures and they'll often serve you well, but the most useful structures are the ones you build yourself. Tom wants you to know that it your structure should allow you to do three things: Prepare opportunities, embrace player details, and create or discover interesting connections between them.

Whenever you're creating a structure-whether it's a structure that you actively use while playing or one that helps you guide your pre-game prep-you should consider these three steps. Here's an example structure that I use to help me create exciting adventures:

1. Pre-Game: Prepare opportunities, but don't prepare outcomes.

2. In-Game: When your players engage with the opportunities you created, make them face the consequences of their actions.

3. Post-Game: Talk with your players about their adventure and gather ideas. Return to Step 1.

The first time you use a structure, it might suck. That's fine. The truth is that there's no shortcut to mastery. The only path to becoming good at improvisation is practicing good techniques for a long time, and doing your best to learn from the masters. You may find that one technique isn't working for you. The ultimate goal of this improv training-and really, of any GM advice-is to find a way for you to do what you're already doing, but more easily.
How much time do you spend planning each D&D session? Let us know in the comments or tweet to @GeekandSundry! Featured Image Credit: The Dungeon Bastard Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast

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The Dungeon Bastard's Tips for Improvising D&D | Geek and Sundry

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Everyone knows how that D&D is 90% improv, but improv is intimidating! Where does one start? Back in 2015, Dungeon Master, streamer, and improv actor Tom Lommel gave some tips on Twitter about how to develop improv skills and how to use them at the game table.

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I know, but they're good for having stats available when you need them.

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Aspects encourage collaboration, and there's plenty in the core book on the long game

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Grab your plasma rifles, spell components, and jetpacks! Name your game; Fate Core is the foundation that can make it happen. Fate Core is a flexible system that can support whatever worlds you dream up. Have you always wanted to play a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western with tentacle monsters? Swords and sorcery in space? Wish there was a game based on your favorite series of books, film, or television, but it never happened? Fate Core is your answer.

Fate Core is a tabletop roleplaying game about proactive, capable people who lead dramatic lives. The type of drama they experience is up to you. But wherever they go, you can expect a fun storytelling experience full of twists...of fate.

2014 Gold Ennie Award Winner for Best Game and Best Rules
2014 Silver Ennie Award Winner for Best Product of the Year

Game Information

Number of players: 3-6
Age of players: 12+
Length: 2-8 hours
Type of Game: Roleplaying Game
Languages Available: English
Suggested Retail: $25.00
Availability: Check here
Game Designers: Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson

Fate Core on Tabletop!

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Grab your plasma rifles, spell components, and jetpacks! Name your game; Fate Core is the foundation that can make it happen. Fate Core is a flexible system that can support whatever worlds you dream up. Have you always wanted to play a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western with tentacle monsters?

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Using dice to generate a map (there's lots of different techniques out there so do have a look)
Dawn of Worlds is a game of worldbuilding
Guide to homebrewing
Canon and evocative setting

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Clues vs. Leads

The core concept of GUMSHOE can be simply stated (or shouted from the rooftops) as "it's always more fun when the players get the clue". One could argue, though, that it's sometimes more accurate to say that the players always get the lead.

A lead is a clue that leads in to another scene. Leads are usually (but not always) core clues, and core clues are usually (but not always) leads, so it's easy to get the two confused. It's worth disambiguating the two in your thinking.

So - a lead is a clue that points to another scene. It can be something that the players uncover ( Evidence Collection: you find a matchbook with the name of a bar written on it), or something the characters know ( Bureaucracy: the victim was a student at the local university; it might be worth checking college records, interviewing his associates and lecturers there). Follow the lead, and you get to another scene.

A core clue is something the players must find for the scenario to progress. While most core clues are leads pointing to the next core scene, you can also have core clues that foreshadow weirdness or lay pipe for future plot developments. ( Biology: My god, it's like this student is growing gills! That doesn't immediately lead anywhere, but it's important for the players to later discover the mad ichthyologist in the university).

You could even disambiguate further, splitting things-gained-through-investigative-abilities into four buckets:

Core Leads: points to a core scene. The players must find this lead for the scenario to work.

Leads: points to a non-core scene (alternate, hazard, subplot, etc)

Core Clues: a piece of vital information needed for the scenario to make sense. The players must get this clue.

Clues: Any other piece of information.

Note #1: In general, every scene should have a lead (or multiple leads) that lead-in to it. The exceptions are scenes like antagonist reactions, which are triggered by the GM, or fuzzy "stuff to do in town" catch-all scenes that usually occur when the players are gathering information early in the game.

Note #2: There's a subtle distinction between a core clue and an important clue. A core clue might tell you that the bad guy is a vampire and that he's hiding in that castle over there, because that information is vital to your progress through the mystery. A clue that says "oh, this particular sort of vampire can only be slain by a silver bullet" isn't core, as you don't need it to make progress. You do need it to survive, but GUMSHOE is agnostic about whether the player characters live or die - as we said, getting the clues is always more interesting, which isn't the same thing as safe...

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Clues vs. Leads The core concept of GUMSHOE can be simply stated (or shouted from the rooftops) as "it's always more fun when the players get the clue". One could argue, though, that it's sometimes more accurate to say that the players always get the lead.

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and how choosing them works; worth thinking about for other class choices.

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@SidneyIcarus People choosing MH playbooks without considering how core and inevitable the darkest selves are is a path that can lead to many kinds of unwanted/unpleasant/traumatic player experience, so it’s just good sense to flag it.

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@SidneyIcarus People choosing MH playbooks without considering how core and inevitable the darkest selves are is a path that can lead to many kinds of unwanted/unpleasant/traumatic player experience, so it’s just good sense to flag it.

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@SidneyIcarus I think it depends! 😋😅

Broadly speaking, I think the more particular and specific the game’s view of what distinguishes playbooks, the more it may benefit from being clearly articulated. 

Especially in cases where, like MH, there’s a real danger of negative player experience.

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People choosing MH playbooks without considering how core and inevitable the darkest selves are is a path that can lead to many kinds of unwanted/unpleasant/traumatic player experience, so it’s just good sense to flag it.
— Luke Wildwoodsgames (@wildwoodsgames) May 1, 2020

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There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku

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Free Palestina and Ukraine from Imperial Violence

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There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku

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I was talking to a person who described an RPG as having 'a focus on storytelling'. 

Don't all RPGs have a focus on storytelling, or am I thinking too broadly?

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There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku
— free palestine (@SylphOfWhispers) May 21, 2020

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There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku

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I was talking to a person who described an RPG as having 'a focus on storytelling'. 

Don't all RPGs have a focus on storytelling, or am I thinking too broadly?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
There's theory discourse on story/games so I thought i might give my two cents 👀:
Story is not a very useful term for what ttrpgs do, esp because the widest description of it is just "things happen in relation to each other". So let’s put a different framework down [THREAD] https://t.co/HDOFeFN3ku

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
I was talking to a person who described an RPG as having 'a focus on storytelling'. 

Don't all RPGs have a focus on storytelling, or am I thinking too broadly?

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Attempting to temper the fires, writing about motifs today; because I think I know one single game (and it doesn't come to mind by name) which did that in their GMing section; but even then they were overly broad. I want to write about tools for motifs and cultivated tone.

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Attempting to temper the fires, writing about motifs today; because I think I know one single game (and it doesn't come to mind by name) which did that in their GMing section; but even then they were overly broad. I want to write about tools for motifs and cultivated tone.

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Advice and flowchart for handling player versus player conflict in tabletop RPGs.

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As mentioned in episode 8 of the podcast! (Self promo haha)

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Advice and flowchart for handling player versus player conflict in tabletop RPGs.