I recently wrote about preparing to run games at a convention – specifically at Origins Game Fair. That’s over now, so let’s look at how things went.
Tag: rpg Page 1 of 3
Posts about roleplaying games.
This year I am hosting some games at two conventions, Origins Game Fair and Gen Con. One takes place out of state. The other is a 45-minute drive from home. In both cases I need to pack everything I need. But I must pack light, because I have to carry the game materials a fair distance through the convention to get to my game table. So today, let’s talk about organizing for conventions.
Miniature figures to depict the characters in an RPG can really add a lot to a game. But conventional metal miniatures are heavy, fragile, and expensive. They’re bulky to store and difficult to move, and you need a lot of them. What’s more, you need to paint them yourself, and that’s an entire skillset (and, for some, and entire hobby) in itself. Paper minis serve as an alternative that provide most of the advantages of conventional minis without many of the drawbacks.
Michelle and I don’t generally do New Year’s resolutions. But we do try to make changes in our lives. Once in awhile it makes sense to make them at the start of the year, and this year was one of those times. We decided that 2023 would be the year of saying “yes”.
We love playing RPG’s, and we hate to miss a session, but we’re grownups (technically), and sometimes life happens. Everyone understands why players have to miss a session once in a while. But during that game you missed, a bunch of things happened. The player’s character missed it, somehow. Why were they gone? There must be a reason. Here’s a few to get you started!
Sometimes in the course of a roleplaying game (RPG) the characters come across documents. These are often very important to the overall plot of the game. But documents are boring. Players don’t want to sit around and sift through pages of text to find important clues. They want to roll some dice and move on to the next scene.
You probably don’t want to write pages of text either. What’s a poor GM to do?
Every game master does their preparations for a game in the style that suits them. I have run a few games and have developed a system that works well for me. Especially when I am taking my adventure on the road (not playing at home!), I want to be sure everything is organized and easy to follow. There’s nothing worse than realizing you forgot an important character sheet or your tokens.
McSweeney’s has now published two articles by Dave. That’s pretty exciting!
Walt and I like role-playing games (in case you couldn’t tell). Much of the games are theater of the mind, where the events are described but not actually seen. Often times, tokens of some sort are used on a map to help show where characters are in relation to each other. For an online game, they are images, such as Walt described here.
These tokens can be simple pieces of card stock or they can be more elaborate miniature figures. Here is a glimpse into my painting set-up for working on figures.
A good prop can make an RPG session really memorable. A map written on actual parchment, for example, grabs the imagination a little harder than the same drawing on a page ripped from a spiral notebook. Good props help the players feel immersed in the game, and give the setting verisimilitude.
Some purchased adventures include such handouts. But if you’re writing your own adventures, you have to make your own props too.
And if you play online, the props have to be digital.