I’d posit that while social interaction is often the most thrilling or engaging part most RPG games, it’s maybe a difficult master to serve.
Genre Police: Combative Behaviour
The clash of weapons, the thudding of bodies into each other, the split second moments where it can get totally out of hand, the variations of wounds.
Genre Police: Benji Vs The D
It’s time to talk about D&D.
Genre Police: Character Study
When you have a small number of players who want to tell a slightly bigger story or a small group but lots of ideas, you can create a situation where people play more than one character.
Genre Police: Character Assassination
So why are we discussing a German Marxist playwright from the forties? Well, I think Brecht’s viewpoint is also relevant to RPG play.
Genre Police: Take The Power Back
Let’s talk about control for a minute. Any time one person has a kind of control over another, there’s a power imbalance. This is constantly true about RPGs.
Genre Police: Elsa Was Right
The heart of most RPG is a collaborative effort dictated by a conversation. The programming loop of most games is ‘player dictates own narrative, makes check, GM describes narrative until they are prepared to give it up, then they hand narrative back to players’, and it can seem jarring to deviate from that.
Genre Police: One More Time
You should always make sure that any session you design with time travel in mind should have a planned structure – a focused view rather than a wide angle.
Genre Police: Time After Time
These notes are for anyone wanting to use time travel as an adventure option but also to people who are planning a whole weird campaign where the point is to get lost in the river of time.
Genre Police: Time Stand Still
RPG tips on how and why speeding up, slowing down or even cutting up the flow of time can make you a better Game Master.
