Some people I know are really good at handling massive player groups and making sure people have a great time.

Ever notice that the dynamics of your campaign can change?

While it is useful to recognise those skillsets and use them to add extra elements to your game, it is easy to overlook the other skill set that people bring to your table: social roles.

Players are maybe the best hidden resource the Role playing game format has.

We’ve been discussing safety for a while now, and while it pains me to say it, it is likely that at some point, there will be a moment when a game goes somewhere you didn’t expect, or you make a mistake about safety.

During the conversation, the player said to me ‘you know, looking back, I realise I wasn’t really comfortable with some stuff in the game’. Even though most of it was related to a single players actions, that was hard to hear.

So what can we conclude about safety tools? They are a necessary element, but they need to come as part of a more holistic approach that involves making the table a safe space for all to play.

This time we’re going to look at a mechanic that changed the way I look at the process of character creation: the playbook.

The process of character creation is a framing device. It shows us as players what the game cares about, how we are supposed to navigate it and what is likely to be important going forward.