RPG a Day 2024: Day 24

RPG a Day 2024, day 24: Acclaimed advice?


Over the years, I have amalgamated a great amount of GM advice, from the books themselves, from playing with others and seeing different styles, from reading books of advice, be it Robin's Laws of Good Games Mastering, the little book of Keeper Tips, or the Ultimate RPG Guide series by James D'Amato.

All of which I recommend, and have taken things from.

If there is once piece of advice that I can remember clearly when and where It sunk in, it was back with MERP. One thing that the rulebook tries hard to get across was game balance. Now I do not pretend to believe that what I thought of as game balance back then and what I believe now are the same thing at all, but that concept of game balance was required for a game as swingy as MERP, and it meant that even back then, I wasn't throwing things at players that they couldn't handle. This was a game that was really trying to tell the GM that in a case of GM vs Player, the GM can always win, and therefore should be careful to make it a fair fight. In the 80s and 90s, this was news to many GMs. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Necronomicon Dissection: Part 6, Purchases

Image
Ok, so there were many reasons for going to a Con like this, but one of them is surely to pick up on products that you can't get elsewhere, or without spending too much on postage. With this in mind, I think I was actually quite restrained in my purchases. First off, I had a list of books to buy at the Chaosium stand (although I did spend my Cult of Chaos credit, and won one of these through the Extra Life Charity event prize draw). I was able to get the following: Pulp Cthulhu Two Headed Serpent Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic Doors To Darkness Dead Light Another tip to the vendors hall led me to find a couple of second hand book stores, who had all the kinds of books you'd want to find at a Con like this, including: H P Lovecraft : The Shadow over Innsmouth and other Stories of Horror, as well as a copy of August Derleth's: The Reminiscences of Solar Pons. The Necronomicon Press stand was there, where I hooked up with a copy of TED Klein's: The
Read more

The Warren

Image
Google Watership Down , and you get reviews of both the book by Richard Adams, and the film and animated series based upon it. A story of rabbits. It's slightly more than that, it is a story about anthropomorphised rabbits, and their mythic journey to a new home. A story of liberation and self-determination that strikes a chord with many diverse readers. Google Watership   Down   Trauma , and you'll get another story. My story. Children who were taken to the cinema to watch a cartoon about bunnies (rated U for universal), who were subjected to a tale of death and horror. Rabbits are choked by snares, get into bloody battles, and are snatched by predators. This film was released in cinemas when I was 3, so that was the age I watched it. It is one of my earliest memories. It scarred me. That it was partly based on the author's experience with Operation Market Garden gives us an idea of what we're working with here. Why am I talking about this on a gaming blog? Well, due
Read more