First Time GM – Game Prep II – Techniques
First Time GM is a series of articles dedicated to the newly-minted game master, making his or her first tentative die rolls behind the screen. Today’s article deals with techniques used to prepare for...
View ArticleTroy’s Crock Pot: Learning from others
One of the best ways to learn is by watching other GMs work. Being a player gives you perspective — often a better perspective than what’s offered from behind the screen. Good practices. Bad practices....
View ArticleTroy’s Crock Pot: Twist and Launch
I love it when my gaming interests intersect with real life — or at least — the lives of our family's mini-mes. The First Born’s final class assignment for her social studies unit on the medieval...
View ArticleYour Time Is Now
Experience tends to be the defining metric when discussing whether someone is a good or great GM. That precious commodity that’s measured in years, campaigns, or game systems. It’s also something that...
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The City of Danger GMing Workshop
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about to becoming a GM. It can be nerve wracking to cross the screen and run a game for the first time. Our organized play society, though, needs more GMs. I fear...
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Adding a New Gamer to an Existing Group
For those of us who have gamed for a long time (I just hit 35 years of RPG experience myself), it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that not everyone is a gamer, or that “gamer” is really a spectrum....
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The GM and the Chef
It’s International Tabletop Game Day and I am lucky enough to be at a friend’s house to run a rousing game of Pasión de las Pasiones. I walk in to the smell of something delicious and the sizzle of a...
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Getting Players to GM
As a GM, do you really get to play like everyone else at the table? Do you get to enjoy the setting and the rules of a game in the same way? Do you experience the unexpected as deeply as you would...
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Level up your GM skills with these amazing non-gaming resources
At this year’s Fan Expo Canada, I spoke on a number of panels about adventure design, getting started in RPGs, and game mastering best practices. A familiar theme arose in every panel – improving...
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Exploring Encounter Theory: How to Craft RPG Adventures
Want to write better adventures? Want to prep more efficiently? Sick of players skipping all of your best content? Prep Smarter, Not Harder, with Encounter Theory Encounter Theory: The Adventure...
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