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Tag: TTRPGs

Writestorm 2022 Continued

Writestorm 2022 Continued

Published by MichelV69 on August 26, 2022

Post Views: 177 Since a picture is worth a thousand words, plus or minus an ALT tag: The tentative title is “to Arise In the Fall“; It’s not perfect, but it’s got the right vibe. This one almost came out too fast. I’m going to need to let it sit for a couple days and then go back over it for all the “senses” stuff that should be in scenes. But, the core story is there, including the two primary conflicts; internal and external. So I’m figuring it’ll pick up another ten thousand or so words. I usually multi-pass everything to the point where first draft is just a spell check and a grammar check away from being last draft. I do a couple of read-alouds looking for…

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You Need A GM Sheet

Published by MichelV69 on April 21, 2021

Post Views: 472 So, a while ago on my Twitch Channel, I made the assertion that you need a “GM Sheet“. If you’re a Games Master / Story Teller for a Table Top Role Playing Game (TTRPG) group, and you don’t have a GM Sheet passed out to your players, and then periodically reviewed for currency, you aren’t just lazy. You’re straight-up doing it wrong. I’ve been told, both directly and indirectly, that an awful lot of LGTBQA+ and BIPOC / WOC folx hear alarm bells ringing if a GM/ST doesn’t have or, even worse, doesn’t know what a GM Sheet is for. This is something that’s been in the TTRPG community for about five years now. As a DAWG GM/ST, it was only something I found out…

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How Big is the World?TTRPG Map - The Duchy of the Mists - My Homebrew Setting

How Big is the World?

Published by MichelV69 on January 11, 2021

Post Views: 655 Hi, am after a little help from #DungeonMasters. Looking to run an online game for friends during lockdown and wondered how many of you created your own world, and how deep did you go creating it? #ttrpg #DnD #dungeonsanddragons #RPG #DnD5e @Chinn3rsTV on Twitter That is an excellent question, and it comes up often from new GMs watching my live-stream. The short answer for Twitter is cruxxed around a primary question; what is the fastest that power and news can move? The speed of military power and regional news is what restricts the speed of decision making and governance. In a very broad sense, everything else exists within that framework. If you put a map of Europe & the USA side by side, you’re going…

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An Impossible Dream, NowSpellbinder Nightfall Dice - Diehard Dice

An Impossible Dream, Now

Published by MichelV69 on December 5, 2020

Post Views: 661 So, one of those things that’s been on my “bucket list”, since I was a teen, was the idea of being a table-top role-playing “Games Master” for a “game on TV”. Back in the 80s and 90s, it was just absurd to think that idea would or could ever be a thing. First off, “Nerd Culture” or “Geek Culture” was universally scorned. Games like Dungeons & Dragons were reviled by mainstream culture, subject to crazy-killer movie mythology, and the like. A quarter century or more later, and a lot has changed. “Critical Role” took the cultural world by storm, “Which Alignment Are You” memes are passed by board-room execs, and eSports have multi-million dollar prize purses available. Two-story TV stations fit in the space of…

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When Sub-Optimal Is Better in TTRPGs

Published by MichelV69 on February 12, 2020

Post Views: 2,288 For those of you who haven’t heard “Due Respite Media” (https://durespite.com/) have started a Table-Top Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) focuses VODcast / Talk-show that runs every Monday night, 9pm Mountain time.  It’s titled “Story Teller’s Studio” and you can catch it live at https://www.twitch.tv/duerespite or the next morning on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIiBBusPG1DoXelX3lIUNLg . The driving force behind Due Respite Media (DRM) is Erik Taylor, who you can catch up with on Twitter as @Shrimpiclese .  He’s clearly passionate about TTRPGs and stories, as well as the tight group of awesome people he’s got working with him in his vision for DRM. Thus far, the show has hit episode six.  The conversations are consistently smart and thought-provoking.  It’s done in a curated-table format, with Erik putting questions…

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Puzzles and Points of Failure

Published by MichelV69 on May 16, 2019

Post Views: 621 How not to stall your game with stuff other than hitting monsters I was asked recently on my Discord server how I handle puzzles in my games.  Do I use them, how do I make sure they aren’t too hard, and what do I do if they party gets stumped?  A fellow Game Master (GM) dropped the following snark: “You want to put a puzzle for your players to solve?  Easy, just look up ‘puzzles for toddlers’ on the Internet, and then spend the evening tearing your hair out as they fail to solve it.” — Annon GM This perception, while funny, is at the heart of why so many GMs do not use puzzles or tricks in their table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) sessions.  The…

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