#gming — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #gming, aggregated by home.social.
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Anecdote: my experience GMing Toast of the Town and Slimes in Blossom Grove for groups of total strangers (at game shops, online and at game conventions):
Half of all Joe Random RPG groups reach for violence at least once in Toast.
One-Third of all Joe Random RPG groups reach for violence at least once in Slimes.A brief thread on the details:🧵 [1/x]
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My hope is that this article will serve as a single landing-point for folks curious about what I mean by "High-Trust Trad" roleplaying, or HTT.
https://rolltop-indigo.blogspot.com/2026/08/whats-forever-for.html
But, I know about hope, and the Internet. 😁
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It was maybe 1989 or 1990 when I first started saying some version of the following in GMing conversations:
"When I prep, there's a likely version of the game session in my head, but anytime it actually goes that way, I feel a little pang of disappointment."
Delight at the PCs upending my expectations, to the point of (a little) sadness when they didn't, was a pillar of my GMing years before I had the tools or perspective I have now, but it's a clear antecedent. 😅
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No plan survives first contact
As some of you already know, the bulk of my gaming is with an online group that first formed when most of us met in college. As we graduated, grew up, and figured out life, we all ended up in different places in terms of geography, careers, and general arrangement. Some are married, some are not; some have kids, some don’t. One of our most steadfast regulars is an officer in the Navy and last week he got called on a temporary assignment, heading overseas for nearly six months. Incidentally, […]https://newwonkmedia.com/2026/06/15/no-plan-survives-first-contact/
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System Hack: Making a Useful Character Questionnaire
Character questionnaires aren’t new tech by any means; even before they started to be ingrained into character creation and session zero procedures, lists of key questions have been used extensively in TTRPGs to give players a starting point from where they could figure out who they wanted their character to be outside of mechanical determinants. In recent years, though, the character questionnaire has developed into a procedure all its own, with some interesting tech for making the process more specific to both TTRPGs in general and the given TTRPG a questionnaire was packaged with. One character questionnaire I’ve used recently, the persona generation questionnaire from the DIE RPG, is both powerful enough and generalizable enough that I want to break down what it does in an attempt to make writing a character questionnaire for your own session zero easier. […]https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2026/06/10/system-hack-making-a-useful-character-questionnaire/
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Today on my #RPG #podcast I discuss Daggerheart’s GM Best Practices. These will help you be a better GM, no matter what game you’re playing or which system you’re using.
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#TTRPG #GMing #advice #facilitator #GMless
Stop being the "dancing monkey" for your RPG group and discover how GM-less systems and decentralized play can turn a burnt-out Forever GM into a lifelong Player of Games.
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Gamemastering a tabletop roleplaying campaign is a lot like being a TV showrunner, I suspect - or at least, GMing the kind of campaigns that I run. I find myself recognizing plot arcs and twists in shows, and coming up with alternative or better options as I watch.
It comes from years of handling long-term story arcs and overlapping shorter-term stories with continuing characters. After a while finding new plot twists and arcs becomes second nature. I've been doing it so long that I do it in my dreams!
It's a little frustrating, because I have the skill...but I'll never have the option to make use of it outside of a roleplaying campaign.
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The No-Prep Gamemaster. a good book for GMs, an even better book for *non* GMs.
if you're in doubt whether you can run a game — this book is for you.
while the author claims the middle section is the core of the book, i actually think the extended preamble about what being a GM means is the true gem this book offers.
if you're debating GMing but think you aren't ready: read this book. you won't regret it.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/524180/the-no-prep-gamemaster-train-your-brain-to-run-tabletop-roleplaying-games -
@tabcreations.com Heh, this reminds me of the ski resort murder mystery I ran once...
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David and I have talked about this before, but it's funny how - in real-world games - I always sketch out my battle maps. I rarely use canned ones, or maps I created in Inkarnate.
But online? I feel ... obligated? compelled? ... to have nicer battle maps. #GMing #MapMaking #RPGProps
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Got to run a shop game tonight for an entire table of RPG newbies and I'm on that heady post-newbie-session buzz. So nice. 🥰
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The Ultimate Guide To Tabletop RPGS, Worldbuilding, and Folklore - Book Bundle
A very interesting mix of system agnostic RPG and mythology books.
