Game Mastery - Rondak's Oracle (Page 2)

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Game Mastery

A collection of 64 posts

GM's Tip of the Week

Sorcerers; not the easiest class, but capable of surprising depth in the right hands. Even more than wizards, sorcerers are difficult to master; their fixed spell-lists and – in Pathfinder – added bloodilne powers make them powerful, but force a player to plan ahead and be far more careful with their spell

GM's Tip of the Week.

Hello, fellow Portalites! I’m still taking a shot at classes, picking them apart for you guys. This week, it’s rogues, those loveable pains in every paladin’s butt… or, as some prefer to be called, ‘specialists in property transfer’ … and most of them get immediately saddled with trapfinding,

GM's Tip of the Week

Hello, fellow Portalites! Continuing the class examination, this week we’re looking at the humble fighter. I got Andi to write this one, as he tends to end up playing a lot of fighters, in a number of systems. This week’s entry is somewhat Pathfinder/3.5e-centric, but may

GM's Tip of the Week

As I said with the last one of these; I’m looking at classes right now. Having more or less covered paladins, I’m going to take a look at Wizards this week. Wizards seem to get almost as much mixed review as paladins; people either love them or hate

GM's Tip of the Week

I’m going to take a closer look at character classes for a few weeks, and I decided to start with paladins. Buckle up, folks, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride…Not many classes provoke as much party-based drama and strife as the badly-played paladin, and very few people

campaign building

GM's Tip of the Week

I’mma be honest, these are getting increasingly hard to write; my own experience is not so broad I can easily mine it for helpful tidbits for everyone else. However, I’m not up to kitty memes yet!Player-driven campaigning for fun and giggles. Working on the assumption that you

GM's Tip of the Week

Hey, guys. I’m kind of ill, so I’m just going to go with wishing everyone a happy and safe Halloween, blessed Samhain and a happy Day of the Dead, for those of you sporting Calaveras and marigolds. And if you’re tempted to do a themed game … if

GM's Tip of the Week

A lot of Portal staff … roughly half of us, really, are gearing up to go rampaging off to a convention, so you’re getting a short one this week. And possibly no Kickstarter post; sorry ’bout that in advance.In the meantime! Your GM’s Tip of the Week:Don’

GM's Tip of the Week

We have a lot of odd conversations in the car, Andi and I; some of them random, and then there are the days one of us stumbles over a thing with gaming, and has to mention it to the other. This time, it was Andi, shaking his head over an

GM's Tip of the Week

I got Andi to write this one, because he’s rather better at balancing encounters than I am. Onward, to encounter design! Balancing encounters. It’s a problem every GM has faced at some point; how to set up things so that the party is challenged without being hopelessly overwhelmed,

GM's Tip of the Week

So, we’ve been quiet on this front; if anyone has any suggestions or requests for new GM Tips, please, speak up! This week I’m going to talk about building a dungeon; not so much the nitty-gritty of designing and balancing an encounter, although we’ll cover that eventually

GM's Tip of the Week

Going to talk world-building, and I’m going to do it with a little help from Croidure, who’s been running games in a homebrew world for a decade or more. Croidure’s take on world-building is a little different than mine; I’m more of a ‘throw it at

GM's Tip of the Week

As a GM, you’ll eventually hear pretty much everything from a player, but the first time you get a player who wants to play something really different might just make you do a double take. Most times, thankfully, ‘really different’ is just going to mean ‘something outside of that

GM's Tip of the Week

Hey guys. We’ve talked a bit about consistency and pacing, but haven’t really covered what a GM should do in that between moment of losing a player and finding a new one. Obviously, you shouldn’t just stop; a game needs to continue. One solution is to simply

GM's Tip of the Week

Cruvis has written a series of GM’s Tips: Ten Things Every DM Should Know About Running a Play-By-Post Adventure, and is sharing them with us as a guest blogger! Please direct questions, commentary and kudos to him. This week’s tip is: Transparency This one was a huge learning

GM's Tip of the Week

Cruvis has written a series of GM’s Tips: Ten Things Every DM Should Know About Running a Play-By-Post Adventure, and is sharing them with us as a guest blogger! Please direct questions, commentary and kudos to him. This week’s tip is: Writing and Storytelling over Mechanics Play by

GM's Tip of the Week

Cruvis has written a series of GM’s Tips: Ten Things Every DM Should Know About Running a Play-By-Post Adventure, and is sharing them with us as a guest blogger! Please direct questions, commentary and kudos to him. This week’s tip is Critical Mass and Recruitment Size Matters In

Character Pictures

GM's Tip of the Week

Hello, fellow Portalites. Cruvis is out this week, on account of vacation; so I’m going to cover a Portal tip for GMs that I hope will be helpful to everyone. I’m going to cover using images! The first thing you will need is a place to store images

GM's Tip of the Week

Cruvis has written a series of GM’s Tips: Ten Things Every DM Should Know About Running a Play-By-Post Adventure, and is sharing them with us as a guest blogger! Please direct questions, commentary and kudos to him. This week’s tip is:Consistency, Pace, and the Gentle Nudge. The

GM's Tip of the Week

In honour of America’s favorite day to barbeque and blow things up – occasionally at the same time – I’m just going to point out that fireballs solve everything. … Except rogues, red or gold dragons, and fire elementals. For my American friends; have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

GM's Tip of the Week

Loss in a game is tricky. On the one hand, it’s just a game, right? Who cares if a player loses a character or two here and there, right? Just make another character and move on. Usually, it’s not that simple. The player may have spent weeks working

GM's Tip of the Week

A dozen other people have written far better guides on writing villains – and playing them – than I can. However, I’d like to think I can sum up the basics . The short form is that ‘Villains are People Too’. They don’t just wake up one day and decide to

GM's Tip of the Week

Running an Eeeeeevil Campaign. Sooner or later, you get a group that is deeply committed to doing this. From my experience, it’s not as easy as it seems; and I’ve been on both sides of the screen, trying to do it. The first problem is that players invariably

Kickstarters of Note

Some useful tools, some whimsy, and perhaps some fun; this month’s offerings are a little of all of the above. Check them out, spread the word. Nord Games presents: Wandering Monster Decks. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nordgames/wandering-monster-decks-for-5e-and-pathfinder-only?ref=video Wandering Monster decks; a helpful tool for plotting

GM's Tip of the Week

This one can apply to players too; not sure if I’ve mentioned it specifically before, but it bears repeating. Cultivating a Pocket Artist. On the face of it, this is easy; you make friends with someone who is artistically inclined, and they draw or paint things for you. This