GMs Have Secrets Too
There’s an advantage to letting the GM keep some secrets from the players. And a good game designer should help the GM keep stuff hidden.
Crafting Disappointment
It’s time to look at the crafting problem from the GM side of things. And to figure out what a good crafting resource might look like. And to disappoint everyone who was hoping I’d create a good crafting system.
Sitting Through Character Generation with Angry
With a crappy, generic pitch sold to my players, it was time to let them generate their characters. The problem was, they couldn’t do it on their own and I had to be involved. Ugh.
Crafting Away from the Table
It’s time to actually start building a crafting system. And that means figuring out what the system should look like. Abstractly. Conceptually. Without doing any real work.
You Say You Want a Resolution
It’s time to look back at the year what was and figure out what I can do next year to run better games. For starters, I could actually run some games.
Let’s Fix Inspiration AGAIN! … But Not Really
Thanks to a couple of unrelated experiences and some psychobabble, I’m looking at D&D Inspiration again. But that’s just an excuse to tackle a bigger issue. And to write a really upsetting Long, Rambling Introduction.
Three Stories
When one of my articles start a lot of fights, I like to keep the fights going with a follow up. Unfortunately, this time, the follow-up would be too short. Fortunately, I’ve got three different follow-ups.
A Very Special Adventure
One of my least favorite holiday traditions is the one wherein I get bombarded with requests to explain how to write a good a holiday adventure. Or at least outline one. And I can’t fight it anymore.
Acting on the Edge of Your Seat
It’s time for some rambling naval gazing again. This is about dice systems, action resolution, and pacing.
Neither Random Nor Encounter: Redesigning Random Encounters (Part 2)
Figuring out when to fling a random encounter in the path of your hapless is the easy part. The hard part is designing good random encounters. Which are neither random nor encounters. Except they are encounters. Just don’t call them that.
Always Tell me the Odds: Redesigning Random Encounters (Part 1)
Lots of GMs have given up on random encounters. And I can’t blame them. Random encounters suck. But throwing them out completely means throwing out a lot of useful stuff. Maybe we can build a better system instead?
Angry’s Post Gamehole Show
I went to Gamehole Con. Which means I didn’t write an article. So here’s me passing my recap of Gamehole Con off as an article.
More Like Session Negative Ten
What do you do when you’ve got nothing? Figure out how to make nothing sound like something, send it out, and deal with the fallout later. And that’s exactly what I did when my Session Zero for my new campaign fell apart.
Who Plays Vanilla WoW Anymore: Angry Starts a Campaign
For the first time in three years, I – Angry – am running an actual, real-life, regular campaign. And it’ll provide a great example of how to cobble together a campaign you don’t have time to plan or run in a system you haven’t used in years. At least, my Patrons think it will.
Welcome to Corneria: Establishing without Expositing
Every settlement in an RPG has its own tone. It’s own flavor. At least, it should. If you want it to be good. But how do you convey that tone without just telling the players what it is?
You Down with PPP? (Yeah, You Know Me!)
Let’s talk about PPP and the crazy, brain-cancerous way many GMs deal with it.
Time is an Illusion, Downtime Doubly So
Does time exist in role-playing games? No. It does not. And that’s a problem. Currently, one without a solution.
King Angry and the Holy Grail
Epic quests for legendary treasure the pretty much the bread and butter of fantasy RPGs. But let’s not talk about that.
Angry’s Question of the Week: Martial Archetypes
If you’re so smart, maybe you should come up with the ideas and I’LL judge YOU for a change. Go ahead. Answer Angry’s Question of the Week. If you dare.
Minimum Necessary Boredom
Playing RPGs is exciting. Being creative is exciting. You know what isn’t exciting? Absorbing information someone else created. That sucks.
Setting Your Campaign Up to Succeed
It’s time to finally talk about world building and setting creation. Which means it’s time for the obligatory, overly long semantically discussion about the definition of the thing I’m talking about. Enjoy.
Conflicted Beliefs: Fluffy Story Bulls$&%
You asked for it. You wanted the fluffy, story bulls$&% to go along with the useful, systematic mythology-building thing I already posted. Here it is.
Angry Maguire’s Angry Manifesto
The Angry GM: The Website: The Book: The Kickstarter was a rousing success. And so, before I’ve even finished printing and mailing out the book, people are already asking me about The Angry RPG? Well, I’m not ready to design that thing yet. But I am ready to talk about why you need The Angry RPG in your life. Mainly by claiming to be smarter than everyone else in the industry.
Conflicted Beliefs: Building a Perfect Five God Mythology for D&D
A well-build mythology can drive stories and create a fantastic world. Unfortunately, D&D doesn’t provide such a mythology. But you can make your own if you understand thematic conflict.
An Angry Guide to Practical Cartography
People keep asking me how to draw good maps. Well, I can’t teach you how to draw pretty maps, but I can teach you how to draw useful maps. The trick is to stop trying to draw maps and start presenting information instead.
The Angry GM on Table Top Babble
James Introcaso of Don’t Split the Podcast Network invited me to talk with him on his show, Table Top Babble. You should listen to the podcast. And then check out James’ other stuff too.
Ideological Wars: Themes, Conflict, and RPG Settings
You can get a lot of mileage out of themes. Especially when you set up some thematic conflicts. You just have to know what themes are and how to set up their conflicts. And why “good versus evil” doesn’t count as a conflict.
Narrative Structure for Advanced Morons
Having developed a nice list of story turning points in previous articles, it’s time to turn our attention to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth and see what additional turning points he’s got to offer. And to see if there’s anything MORE IMPORTANT people overlook when talking about Campbell. Hint: there is.
The Big, June, Pre-Kickstarter Update: What to Expect at TheAngryGM.com This Month
There’s just one week until the Angry Book goes live on Kickstarter. Here’s what to expect in terms of my normal content release before, during, and immediately after the Kickstarter.
Fanservice BS: Dungeoneering in the Great Outdoors
This month’s Fanservice BS is all about how to build a wilderness dungeon. And the answer is as disappointing as the topic.