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The Tuesday Tip of the Week

To loot or not to loot? And this is a question I pose to the GM's; do you give great loot or do you go stingy with the loot? It's a hard question to answer. The hardest thing to deal with in a campaign is when you've unwillingly overpowered you characters with loot. It can be a lot of fun to create a great item that you think would be cool and then give it to your players, only to have them abuse and pervert the item within its set perameters. It can also suck when you give too many little, but useful items, and then nothing you throw at them seems to matter. The become like Batman with his utility belt, they have just the right gadget for every situation.

The flip side of the coin is not giving enough loot to your players. There is nothing more boring when playing that going game after game without finding anything useful. Playing an adventurer you want to find cool loot, so when you risk your life again and again for coppers, the game begins to lose its luster.

Finding the right balance is a nearly unsolvable problem. The real trick is to try and taylor your loot based on the players and their abilities. If you're running a game and your players are the kind of folks who just like the ride and don't think outside the box too often, then a powerful item could go unabused. If, however, your players are a bit more wild and unpredicatable, you'll need to keep your loot a little more restrictive.

You can't prepare for everything your players will do with the loot you give them, but you can try to keep your games power level in a range you feel is managable.

Tales From the Table!

This week I'd like to tell you the tale of a rather tragic Paladin. Many moons ago I played a Paladin in a first time GM's game. The game wasn't bad, for being a new GM, and we had a good sized group of people playing. The game was set in a world where this massive orc army was ravaging the noble lands, and there were few, if any, nobles left to lead.

Enter, ME! The GM had decided that my Paladin should be something special and therefor be of noble birth. So when I arrived at the first town and they saw who I was, they made me the new King! There was a feast and presents, and a huge party despite the fact that I warned them of the impending Orc army heading their way. They said they had guards posted and that they should be well defended. They were wrong. Their town burned and most if not all the people were killed and our little party of adventurers barely escaped with their lives.

We made it to the next city, they too recognized me as a noble, and my title of King. They wanted to celebrate my arrival. I wanted them to hunker down and fortify! I demanded it! I ordered it! They were epic fails, and their city burned too.

This cycle of death continued multiple times! I wanted to avoid people and cities. Eventually, I just offered my soul to the dark evil forces driving the orc horde, because playing the character was like playing the shadow of death. I figured he'd be of more use to the other side.

The Tuesday Tip of the Week

Hello once again, it is time for this weeks tip, and it goes out to the GM's, so listen up!

Do not play in any game that you are running.

It's that simple.

It is a common mistake for GM's to want to bring a tag-a-long NPC in to their player's adventuring party. These NPC's are usually thunder stealing pricks who just happen to always save the party from what is possibly, certain doom.

I hate them. Why?

Because we don't need a baby sitter. We don't want some asshole who isn't one of us jumping in and taking down the dragon just before it gets its breath weapon attack that will certainly kill half the party. When you put someone like this in your game, you are taking away from your player's role-playing experience. If they don't feel they are ever in danger because your character is there, then they become complacent and bored. Lord knows I do.

So please, keep your NPC out of the adventuring party! Let the characters live, and die, by their own efforts.

Tuesday Tip of the Week

Greetings fellow gamers, this is Coarey, and it's time for the Tuesday Tip of the Week!

This weeks tip?

Don't Over-Plan

Too often I find the GM's, including myself, over plan our game sessions. Is it wrong? Certainly not. But it can work against you if you're not a seasoned veteran. What exactly am I talking about? Well I know in my experience, most GM's like to create and will often time create their own scenarios. They will put in as much detail thinking their rats will explore every nook and cranny of their fine labyrinth in order to seek out all the goodies and dangers we have prepared for them.

But, often times in my experience running, my rats seem to over look significant details and obsess over things that are scenery. An example would be something like this.

GM: "You walk in to the chamber and standing in the center of the room is a waist high podium, the walls of the room are smooth and blank except for the far wall where a portrait of a woman with glistening eyes is hung as if observing the whole room."

The players then proceed to inspect the podium in the center of the room for half an hour for secret compartments, magical properties, and they'll even try to move it if at all possible. Then will only give a cursory glance to the painting before abandoning the room all together. Frustrating? Yes. Entertaining? I just sit back and laugh on the inside. I like making my players work their brains to achieve a goal. For me there is nothing worse that a game that's on rails. A game where the GM hands your everything, lets you overlook nothing, and is afraid to put your character in mortal danger. But I'm getting a little off topic.

As a GM you should be capable of improvising when your players do something outside of what you planned, and that improvisation shouldn't be a punishment for the character's straying outside your finely devised plans. And if they miss a trap or treasure that your were anxious for them to encounter, let them miss it. Don't spoon feed your players things because you planned it that way. If they miss it, put a revised version of the event in your next adventure and see what happens. The long and the short of it is this: You'll never be prepared for everything the players will do, and they will never encounter everything you have devised, so be flexible and leave room in your plans. You'll be a better GM for it.

It's Thursday, time for a Tales From the Table!

Hello one and all, this is Coarey, and I'd like to introduce you to our new weekly segment. Tales From the Table will be a chance for the people in the role-playing community to share stories from their gaming sessions.

I'll kick off this week telling you a very old story from early on. Way back in the 80's there was a cartoon called Dungeons & Dragons. For those who have no idea what it is, I'll give you a brief description. A mix-matched group of kids, aged from pre-teen to teen ager, got transported to the realm of Dungeons & Dragons by riding a amusement park ride of the same name. Each week their efforts were focused on trying to find a way back home and it took them on many adventures.

In one such adventure, they encountered a beholder that lives in a desolate wasteland. In the episode a cowardly night, was aiding them and at one point had been given a flower that he wore on his vest. Well during the climax of the show, the coawrdly night is being draw in towards the beholder, when it suddenly sees the flower. The overwhelming "beauty" of the flower drove back the "beast" and I think destroyed it.

Fast forward a couple of years. I am playing D&D and encounter my first beholder. I ask the GM if there are any flowers around. He says, quite confused, yes. I let him know that I run over and grab one and walk right up to the beast and show it to it. At this point I am disintigrate by one of the beholder's eyes. So the moral of the story is, if you plan on using player knowledge, check your sources. The Dungeons & Dragons cartoon (still one of my childhood favorites) is not the most reliable source of credible knowledge on the topic of slaying just about anything in the actual role-playing game.

That's all for now. Please feel free to leave your own story in our comments section, and check back tomorrow for our second podcast Crocodile Tears and Kobold Poets!

The Tuesday Tip of the Week!

Hello one and all, this is Coarey for the GameKnights-Podcast! Each and every Tuesday I will attempt to scour my twenty-five plus years of role-playing "wisdom" to extract some pearls that may, or may not, enhance your role-playing sessions.

This Tuesday's tip of the week? Know your GM.

Now what do I mean by "Know"? This does not mean be his friend (although an admitted plus), or to "Know" them in the biblical sense. What I am saying is know his role-playing boundries. See what they will let you get away with at the game table. So this tip could be in essence called "Push your DM's boundries." Because, if you don't, you'll never know what you can and can't do. Try asking if you can play something else other than a standard race, see what races they will allow. Try to create role-play off the game's designated path. A good GM should be able to improvise with you, other GM's will shut the game down if you deviate. Remember it is ROLE-playing not ROLL-playing, it's not all about the dice. You should be able to bring your character's personality in to that world and follow their motivations. However, you do need to know when you've pushed far enough. (This is not always easy to gauge, I'm know this personally). You don't want to piss off the GM running the game, but at the same time you don't want to be sitting at a desk under the very strict rule of some tyrannical school teacher. At the end of the day Role-Playing should be a tandem effort at creating fun, you should bring almost as much to the game as the person running it. So know the GM, and make sure they are the creative person you want to play with.

Remember tomorrow is the debut issue of our web-comic, so check back with us then!

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