Author Archives | Benjamin
Benjamin - who has written 13 posts on Troll in the Corner.
I'm a table top RPG, video game and art house film geek. I love world building, remember when Quest for Glory was about the most awesome game I'd ever seen, and believe existential film can save my soul. I practically live at the local gaming stores and spend way too much time playing D&D and Star Wars pen and paper games. I make short indie films in my spare time and have a special place in my heart for underground animation.
What to do when your PC’s go somewhere you hadn’t planned
I’ve found that it’s really impossible to account for even half of exactly what your party will do. Oftentimes they don’t mean to go off narrative they just didn’t realize which direction you had intended them to go. There’s nothing wrong with this, but you do have to be prepared. Just because the party has [...]
Continue reading...Making Interesting Side Quests
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
I've found that PC's don't generally want to constantly be focusing on the main story line of the game. They like a change of pace, a chance to have some quick fun. So what makes a fun side quest?
Continue reading...Building Cities
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
In most world building scenarios your players will end up in cities frequently and if you don’t do enough prep work all your cities can end up looking about the same. There are many different GMing philosophies on this but I’m going to share what’s worked for me. When I first started I tried to map [...]
Continue reading...Using More Skill Challenges
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Skill Challenges are something I think many GM's have been using for years but was finally officially introduced to the D&D world in fourth edition (though notably things like this have been in other RPG's long before this). They are a tool to help you award experience fittingly for out of combat action (or sometimes in combat skill checks).
Continue reading...Dealing With Problem Players
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
There always has to be that one guy. The guy that just isn't quite on the page with everyone else. Maybe he's obsessed with being as evil as possible in an otherwise good group, possibly he's good but just likes to pick fights, or he just disrespects the other player's time by talking out of game too much or being too distracted. These people aren't bad people generally, they just honestly have trouble fitting into the group and cause group disruption either in game or out of game. So how can we help encourage everyone to work together while hurting the fewest possible people?
Continue reading...Getting your players to care about each other
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Group unity is one of the most important things in a RP game. Without it the party spends more of their time arguing amongst each other then actually playing. Players quit games because of too much stress in a party so spending a bit of extra time focusing on keeping your party on good terms is time well spent. This is a follow up to what I wrote last week about how to get your characters to work together in the first session of a game. I'd like to expound a bit on that along with talking about how to keep them together.
Continue reading...Getting Your Players to Work Together
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
When I first started GMing I was fairly against obvious hooks in a campaign. I mean, how frequently does your party composition make a group that would all randomly come together at some tavern (and all happen to be at the same tavern) and group up to do whatever the story is. Not frequently enough for a GM's taste.
Continue reading...Making your PC’s think
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Many times players can end up playing on autopilot. Every encounter, in and out of combat, is like every other. It's easy to fall into a formula. As GM's it's our jobs to try to keep things interesting, to keep the players on their toes.
Continue reading...Showing intricate histories without shoving them down the PC’s throat
Friday, September 25, 2009
I've found that many players love rich histories within campaigns. My current campaign is a world building one and over the six or so months since it's started I've been trying to find good ways to solve the age old problem of subtly showing a depth of history in the campaign without bashing people over the head with it. On the other hand many campaigns I've played in, and sometimes even ones I've GMed, have the problem that there is an detailed history but the players never actually get a good feeling for it. For all intents and purposes they are just playing in a generic fantasy world with the occasional explanation from the GM about some historical fact. So what are some easy ways I've found to keep players within the campaign setting without boring them with long history lessons?
Continue reading...Review of 4th Edition PH3 Playtests
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
I've had a chance to tryout four of the playtests released from WotC for their upcoming Players Handbook 3. I'm not sure if I should be excited or afraid of this next release. It plays around with how a normal turn works and how a normal character acts which could be a really interesting development or something that adds way too much complexity to the game.
Continue reading...Troll Polls
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- The Forever War to be filmed in 3D, murdering a significant chunk of my teen years
- Mount & Blade Warband - new gameplay trailer
- BOH (new game for Amiga, Windows or Mac) creator Simone Bevilacqua submits to a grueling 8 question interview
- Jen Page is a chaotic-neutral gamer, actress, geek and our latest interview subject
- An Old Friend has Come Home to Stay
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- Matt: Thanks for the report! I was the DM for this sess...
- ha1ku: Hey thanks for this review. I have seen this game ...
- Ben: Hey John, it looks you may be something of a spamm...
- John Broker: What is a Role-Playing Game?...
- Battlestar Galactica keeps you on edge
- Stories with Meaning
- Of Orcs and Empire
- Old-School Gaming with OSRIC (Review – Races and Classes)
- Voices and Verisimilitude
- Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
- Why I’m Glad 4e Exists, Even Though I Don’t Use It
- Shotgun Diaries: Lightweight Zombie Roleplaying
- Scribblenauts 2 announced as I buy a new stylus
- Putting Gaming out in Public
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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