Dormant Last read · last published · next check
Read 2 days ago and current, but nothing has been published for 14 months.
One of the easiest mistakes to make with a backstory is to make your character cooler in their past than they are now. If they have already killed demons and dragons, why are they now a level 1 wizard with 4 HP? Here are the steps to tone down the dissonance. Level 1: You’ve slain dragons in the past Honestly, even if you write a backstory where you were the old hero of the continent, I’m going to…
As you play TTRPGs, you may notice that your GM isn’t a neutral game designer. Official published adventures have 15 ways to solve every scenario, so that your ranger with nature skills is exactly as useful as your rogue with thievery skills. An official adventure builder has to build scenarios to be solved by any legal part of characters, because they don’t know who will be playing it. Your GM…
For six months now I’ve posted a TTRPG article weekly. I missed Tuesday and this is a makeup article, so my wife suggested that I own up to missing the post and post about missing! (It still counts as “this week” though, so my streak continues.) Everyone has to miss a session now and again. Depending on your group, it may be a common occurrence that someone misses, or it might be a rare thing. My…
At a certain point in your TTRPG career, you are going to get burned by picking abilities that sound cool from their summary. Your going to get frustrated and angry with the unfairness of it all when they don’t do what you expect. But how you move on from here changes what kind of player you’ll be at the table, and how well you’ll work with your group. Usually, what you realize is the abilities…
One of the easiest ways to make your backstory usable is to add in a debt of some kind. A debt is like a secret implanted suggestion in your character that the GM can activate in order to engage you on a quest. The secret passphrase is uttered, and adventure begins! In order to really flesh out the debts, choose a specific person/organization that you owe, what they did for you, and what they want…
Backstories are a funny sticking point in TTRPG groups. Many people aren’t comfortable writing fiction at all. Others may be fine writing, but don’t feel the agency to “force” things into the game world. And other hand you a 10 page backstory with illustrations and a family tree. Regardless of where you fall along the spectrum, it is important to keep in mind what a backstory is at the table. It…
Every week I write an article about a new skill you can level up. I am a big believer that improving yourself over time is a noble goal. Especially when the skills you gain actually improve everyone’s gaming experience at the table. But at this point, there are dozens of articles on this site throwing different pieces of advice at you. Some of the articles can be taken to an extreme and work…
Feeling like you’re always getting bulldozed during session? Like you often offer your opinions to the group, and for some reason, no one listens to you? It happens to a lot of us, but there are ways to reduce how often it happens. When there are 4-6 people all shouting opinions around a table, it can be super hard as a GM (or even as a player) to figure out where the conversation is settling.…
Being an Adventurer is kind of a dumb idea. Risk life and limb for an unknown payday? Face eldritch horrors along the way? No. Definitely not. I wouldn’t be that foolish. And yet… The promise of riches, fame, and excitement draws plenty of adventurers to their peril. But then the hero’s journey got popularized. The reason that the hero’s journey works in movies and books is that somebody gets to…
Politics is one of those weird things that seeps in to your games in both intentional and unintentional ways. Most TTRPG characters are caricatures, taking their chosen traits to wild extremes. This can also include the character’s political views, which will strike others at the table as disrespectful if done poorly. Even when you aren’t bringing political situations into your game intentionally,…
