The Power of Choice

I don't have a whole lot of time to make a post today, as I'll be prepping for the climactic final encounter for one of the groups I run tonight, and that will eat up the bits of my day that aren't filled with my job. So today I'll talk about player choice, and how you can use it in your game.

A lot of DMs, especially beginner DMs, are nervous about letting the players choose their own path. What if they do something I'm not prepared for? or worse, What if they do something that breaks the story? This leads to what is called railroading: forcing the players onto the path you write for them, without a chance for them to make their own choices. Railroading is bad, except in specific cases where you know precisely what you are doing.

If railroading is at one end of the spectrum, then the other end would be sandboxing. This is a type of game where the DM has no pre-set story or plan, and lets the players do what they will. At its most extreme, this means that plot hooks are not given, and the players are left to hunt down possible adventures. This, like railroading, is bad unless you know what you're doing. So what do you do? Find a happy medium, and that's what I'll talk about today

Adding Horror to your Game

Today I'm going to talk less about procedural topics like campaign building or monster design, and instead I am going to talk about something that even I haven't worked out all the way yet: Being scary with your game. Turning a roleplaying game into a horror game can be tough. Like reputations, it takes a while to build up good horror, and it can be ruined with a single off-hand comment. To this end, I will share my experience with horror, and 5 tips to making it work in your game.