Backup Plan When the party completely jumps the rails of your story and turns your carefully planned adventure into train wreck, sometimes you save elements of the adventure. An NPC can be brought back, an encounter could be used in […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Sitting Posture I’ve noticed that the longer a game session goes on, the less i’m actually sitting. I start standing to set-up combat and move minis, but soon just remain standing rather that return to my seat. Because I’m just […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Nine This is the Session that Would Not Be. It was first delayed because one player was out of town, and delayed again because another player’s work scheduling a weekend training session. *sigh*. I have two goals for […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Eight With a long, long month between sessions I had lots of time to prep, and plan, and scheme. But, with Christmas, the winter break, and my son, much of my time will be taken up being a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session 7.5 My BorderLands campaign is on Holiday Hiatus until early January, assuming things go as planned. With the longer gap between blog entries I’m taking this opportunity to write about campaign details unrelated to planning for a specific […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Seven It has been said that none of the Gamemaster’s plans withstand contact with the players. My last session was a good reminder that the Dungeon Master is also a player, because I totally messed up all of […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Six As I start planning for my next session I’m really planning for my next two sessions. With the game killing one-two punch of Christmas & New Year’s Eve looming, my group is meeting two weeks in a […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Five In the third session of my campaign, I planned an encounter on a road running alongside gorge, with a steep cliff on either side (one going up, one going down). It was the perfect ambush location, and […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
BorderLands: Session Three My last gaming session closed with a soft ending. There wasn’t a cliffhanger or element of danger, but neither was there a looming question or new side quest. The party had left the desert behind and found […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Trapper Keepered It can be hard to keep track of details as a gamemaster. First, you need to remember the necessary details of the world, including those relevant to the adventure as well as random facts the players might ask, […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Highly Suspicious When the game master moves from describing the terrain as “a thick forest” to “a temperate woodland thick with deciduous trees whose dark bark is warped by age and heavy with moss, lichens, and cobwebs” you know something is […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
A Truly Grand Canyon “This area of the map is a little plain. Let’s see… that area’s probably close to Nevada or Arizona. Hrm, a canyon would be nice. The Great Canyon? Too obvious a parallel. The Great Rift? The Glorious […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
