GenCon16 – Gilligan

Now that work has slowed I’m starting to work on my games for GenCon. First up is a DnD 5e game, Return to Gilligan’s Island. I stole the idea from an event I saw listed at Gamehole Con. I think it was just a Gilligan’s Island game then. At the time, my oldest son was […]

Weekly GMing – New Player Old PC

Weekly game happened last night (hooray, see below for “spoilers”) and I had a new player and a missing player. Traditionally when this happens I’ll let the new player take control of the missing players PC. There are a lot of circumstantial issues around this; are the PCs in a spot were it’s OK to […]

Weekly GMing – Re-Prepping a Game

After a three week break, I am back in the GM chair (I have my favorite chair). When I left the game, it was in a little bit of a suspenseful situation (the PCs don’t know it – the players do). In my head I have a good idea of where we are, but I […]

Weekly GMing – A PC under every rock

No gaming this past week. Work combined with family commitments took over my normal evening for dice rolling. So what to do when no gaming? It’s time to recharge the batteries. I like to envision how to turn all the random media I see in a week into a Role Playing game. Here’s what the […]

Weekly GMing – Cliffhanger!

Kid activities and work activities are sending me on at least a 3 week break from GMing and Playing. So what to do with a paused campaign? For myself, I prefer a cliffhanger if it fits in with the story and time. Cliffhangers, or any pause while in the midst of play, can be difficult […]

Weekly GMing – Your PC can do What!

In last nights game the PCs finally got into a limited amount of combat. Their first combat after leveling up to 8th. Welcome to the hell that is GMing a monk. Already the speediest character (50 feet!) he can now manipulate large areas of ice or water as an action up to 8 times (refreshed […]

Weekly GMing – Late Players

Another week with everyone in person, just arriving at different times. It’s common for folks to all arrive within about 30 minutes. Our group eats dinner before playing so there’s always time for talking and catching up before we play. However, for the next few months there is one player that can’t arrive until we […]

Weekly GMing – A Party In Person

It doesn’t really matter how much you prepare, the party will do something else. -Every GM Ever I over prepared. My fault for thinking that folks would make decisions and move things forward. Regardless, much fun was had. Very interesting having players around the table versus over Google Hangouts. We had nearly the same type […]

Weekly GMing – Waterdeep and Google Hangouts

What GM doesn’t love a good curveball the day you start GMing? The email came out first thing the morning of the game – how about trying to use Google Hangouts because not everyone could physically be there. Not a problem (except for the large crockpot of chili cooking on my kitchen counter). Thinking about […]

Weekly GMing – Rise of Tiamat and the Flying Ice Castle

Starting some weekly DMing tomorrow night with the regular Tuesday group. We completed Hoard of the Dragon Queen and are moving to Rise of Tiamat. First session will likely be leveling up characters, and getting reacquainted with characters. It’s been more than a couple months since we played and I need to get everyone back […]