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Stranger times, new worlds
No matter the size of your house or apartment, being confined to it for a long and undetermined period of time is never easy, whether you are alone or with your family. As an incentive to make the best of it, you’ve finally decided to open up the door to a world you were always curious about but never took the time to discover. Maybe you are an experienced Dungeons & Dragons player who never tried another flavour of pen & paper adventures, or you always felt safe playing boardgames but were afraid of the possibly more complex requirements of...
Rolling a 20 with a joypad
What defines a good tabletop role-playing session is its ability to put you right at the centre of exhilarating fantastical adventures through shared storytelling. It’s a social pastime where the only requirement is to have fun. The rules are interpreted as the game master sees fit and in a way that suits the play style of the entire group. Sometimes, a session will be cancelled or maybe your fellow gamers will not all be able to meet for a planned evening of dice rolling. When life gets in the way of certain hobbies, we often resort to substitutes to get...
Storytelling Building Blocks
Tabletop role-playing games can be played in an infinite numbers of ways. When you are in the Game Master’s chair, your role is to describe the situations the players find themselves in. You play the roles of every creature and non-player characters (NPC’s) they encounter. Together you unravel the story and, as a group, you will all determine how it unfolds. Running published adventures is a great way of learning the ropes and understanding the role of Game Master. Some of us will, eventually, want to create our own worlds and the adventures that players will be having. This month,...
Taking the Time
“Bystanders were enjoying the performance and their cheers doubled when the band started another tune. Each of its members demonstrated an exceptional mastery of their respective instruments. Next to the drummer, a middle aged ogre, stood a frail elven woman whose gentle voice seemed to fill the great hall. Agatha looked around and felt truly enchanted by this uniquely odd place. For a while, she forgot about her weariness and the perilously long trip that had brought her here, to Snowkeep, to find the storyteller. Jerrik. At the Golden Bear. She hadn't forgotten, she only merely strayed off, for an...
One more rulebook
While on tabletop gaming adventures, the actions we take and the way we resolve encounters, conflicts or other situations requires the use of directives that help us determine their outcome. Depending on the game or the way we play, they can be interpreted loosely, as guidelines, or strictly, to the letter. Regardless of how they are applied, the word we use to describe them feels constrictive and stiff: rules. As you may well know, this means they can, or are meant to, be broken. But before you do that, you should always make sure you learn said rules and fortunately,...