Photographer: Simon Harmer There's a good reason why player's asking for a name is such a prevalent meme in the role playing zeitgeist. Names carry a weight of personality that is expected to translate, either through correlation or juxtaposition, into the character themselves. We see this expectation played out culturally as well, see Wikipedia's entry on nominative determinism for a better understanding of how that plays out, but needless to say, names have a kind of magnetism that can draw us in or repel us from a character. I find this especially true when reading. I don't know the number of characters whose names I've changed in my head to better suit my view of them, but it's easily in the three digit range. I think that's why t he unsung hero of my GMing experience is a baby name book, specifically Bruce Lansky's 100,000+ Baby Names: The Most Helpful, Complete, & Up-to-Date Name Book . This wasn't something that was on my radar until it w...
Artist: Kim Diaz Holm NPCs are strange. The zeitgeist has also evolved the term of late, making it an insult, and in some cases, a fetish. In the TTRPG space, NPCs are necessary to facilitate the whole roleplaying aspect of the experience, but to act as someone else and understand them enough to maintain that illusive darling called EMERSION is just hard - fake being someone else convincingly enough for the indulgence of fantasy, but not too well or that in-and-of-itself is unsettling. I know the prevailing wisdom suggests that NPCs don't have to be that complex - that you don't need voices, or accents, or affects, or deep motivations, etcetera, and so on, but nowhere in the popular opinion is it held true that you don't need them at all. So all of the advice that downplays their importance tends to ring hollow for me, and I imagine, for many others out there. With the new 2024 rules (One D&D or 5.5...whatever history decides to c...
Artist: Kim Diaz Holm A tool I've found useful as a GM is a pregame questionnaire. I'm providing the one I use here (raw link below) in hopes that others find it and make use of it. It is my primer - a before-session-zero investigation to inform my choices for anything I'm going to run beyond five or so sessions. It helps me calibrate expectations for the game ahead, gather information to make the experience at the table safe and welcoming, and helps me better understand what experiences the player's want to explore most. It is not comprehensive by any means, but it is a foundation I think others might find sturdy enough to build on. Link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1yFlT9efaicQcbWfdvoKNbh75C140JRiCv_NAMhwFjDo/copy
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