3.5e GM's Tip of the Week Yup, we’re still looking at classes, and we’re up to the Cleric. A more accurate name for the class would probably be ‘Priest’ – cleric and clerk have some very similar roots, after all – but either way, this class is the first one most fantasy gamers will think of
3.5e 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
3.5e 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
Game Mastery 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
Design 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’
3.5e 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
Balancing 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,
Design 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
Design 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
3.5e 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
Game Mastery 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
Game Mastery 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
Game Mastery 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
Game Mastery 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
Game Mastery 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
Game Mastery 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!
3.5e 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
Design 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
Design 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
artist 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
books GM's Tip of the Week Read everything. I don’t say that just to be funny, but in all seriousness; you never know when a piece of information might come up handy. History. Science. Fiction of all kinds. Read everything you can find on every subject that might possibly come up. Your stories, and your
Game Mastery GM Tip of the Week Minatures. Very few words strike fear into the hearts of GMs like that one can. Fortunately, you don’t really need to go and spend a stupid amount of money at your FLGS, or make a crazy order from Reaper Miniatures, Oathsworn, Bombshell or any one of a whole bunch
advertising GM's Tip of the Week Let’s talk about recruiting. For those of us lucky enough to have steady groups, this isn’t really an issue; but I have found that it is a good thing to keep in mind regardless; you never know when you might find yourself looking for new players. So, on