Following on from last episode I talk a little bit about my thoughts having prepped and run a session using the method from Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.
Tag: GM prep
Secrets & Clues
In this episode we’re talking about the concept of Secrets & Clues as presented in Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master.
Continue reading “Secrets & Clues”5 Things to Include in Your GM Pack
In this Monday’s episode we’re discussing what we consider to be five essentials to include in your GM pack.
Continue reading “5 Things to Include in Your GM Pack”Gaming Prep – Part 2
The second part of our conversation with Johannes Paavola about all things gaming prep.
Continue reading “Gaming Prep – Part 2”How I Manage Events & Clocks in My Game
I’m an unashamed fan of the idea of clocks within RPGs, if you’re not familiar with this concept the clock (a concept I encountered first in Apocalypse World) is simply a method of tracking how many intervals of time have to pass before an event occurs. Clocks tend to be represented in Apocalypse World and other such games as a circle divided into segments.
Gaming Prep – Part 1
In this episode we’re joined by Johannes Paavola to talk about all things gaming prep.
Continue reading “Gaming Prep – Part 1”Wednesday Wisdom – Top 10 Tips for Running a Game When You’re Short of Inspiration
It’s been a long day here at Red Dice Diaries, so I thought that–whilst Hannah is running her Star Trek game on my desktop upstairs–I’d offer some advice on running a game when your well of creativity has run dry or you’re feeling low in energy.
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Podcast Episode 46 – Old school prepping and bullet journals
In this episode I discuss some ideas for manual prep and note recording methods going forward for my games:
If you’re interested in the idea of Bullet Journalling you can find out more here:
- The main bullet journal website
- Bullet Journal for RPGs tutorial
- Bullet journals for GMs MeWe community
Title Music
Shinigami by XTaKeRuX:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/XTaKeRuX/Empty_Grave/Shinigami
Used under creative commons licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Wild West Wizardry Prep Notes
Last night I ran a game of Dresden Files Accelerated for five great players, it was a one-shot and–to put a bit of a twist on it–I’d decided to set the game in the wild west rather than the more traditional modern setting of the game. Looking for an iconic town I settled on Tombstone, during it’s waning years after the silver mines had dried up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombstone,_Arizona
Using the Wikipedia page I made the following notes:
POTTED TOMBSTONE HISTORY
- Founded in 1979 by Prospector Ed Schiefflin in Arizona.
- Grew in mid-1880s, last of the boom towns.
- Local mines produced $40 to $85 million silver bullion.
- Town established on mesa above the Goodenough Mine.
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Had bowling alley, 4 churches, ice house, school, 2 banks,
3 newspapers and an ice cream parlour. - 110 saloons.
- 14 gambling halls, numerous dance halls and brothels.
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All businesses situated amongst and around silver mines.
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In mid-1880s the silver mines pentrated the water table.
- Pumps were destroyed by a fire in 1886.
- Unprofitable to re-build the costly pumps.
- City nearby became something of a ghost town.
The players were told about the setting in advance and asked to create characters using the DFAE rules, shortly before the game I posted the following plot-clue to the Facebook event:
Created using an online tool: https://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp
To give you an idea of my prep, below are some of the notes that I made for and during the game.
First of all I started with the main antagonists, a black court vampire by the name of Dillon and his thrall, a young girl with powers of necromancy.
Then I moved onto some of the goon-level flunkies who were going to be acting as muscle for our main villain:
I also made some brief notes of the powers and abilities that these villains had to save me having to look them up during the session:
During the session I also made some notes regarding PC names and incidental NPCs, I also used these index card to keep track of boosts, advantages, etc.
In addition to these note I had a text file with some rough plot ideas outlined, just before we started recording I asked the players for a bit of background and worked to incorporate it into the draft plot that I had written down already, changing it as necessary. The index card method is really useful during a game because it allows me to quickly reference the most needed stats and information without having to flip through the rulebook so much.
If you want to watch the actual play video of the session you can find it here:
What should you do when a session feels a bit flat?
We’ve all been in that position from time to time when you run a game session that you don’t feel is up to your best standards, this could be for any number of reasons, you might be tired or have other things going on that serve to distract you from running the game. Continue reading “What should you do when a session feels a bit flat?”