Negative Space: game masters
- The Adventure Guide’s Handbook
- Weave fantasy stories around characters that you and your friends create. As a Gods & Monsters Adventure Guide you will present a fantastic world to your players’ characters: all of its great cities, lost ruins, deep forests, and horrendous creatures.
- The Cellphone Problem in horror roleplaying
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Modern technology makes isolation, both physical and informational, much more difficult. Game masters in modern games need to recognize that isolation is too much like a railroad, and prepare adventures accordingly.
- The Dungeon Master’s Adventure Log
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The DM’s Adventure Log was probably a very useful tool back in the day. It also had some interesting features, such as armor and weapon images and new, or at least obscure, rules.
- How I handle adventure logs
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Tracking what happens cross different sessions helps me not to forget important details, as well as obscure details that become important later.
- Island Book 1 and old-school tables
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Judges Guild Island Book 1 is a fascinating playground on which to place a sea-going adventure or campaign. It’s also a great example of the usefulness and wildness of old-school encounter tables.
- Spilling sand in the sandbox: tying up loose ends
- How do you maintain consistency in a “plot” that is not under your control?
- Two lessons from early dungeons
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Palace of the Silver Princess and my own Isle of Mordol were two of the very first adventures I ever ran. Because of this, I remember them both more than other, later adventures, and they influenced me more than other, later adventures.
More Information
- The Other Side of the Screen
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“Tips from Bill Cavalier on transitioning from player to Dungeon Master…”
- Ten Tips for Beginning DMs
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“… if there are no stakes, then there’s no real victory… The best campaigns are based on the players interacting with the environment, and if they have no real choice, then there’s no real interaction.”
