Improvisational Game Mastering, Part 1

I don't prep. With a teething infant, a large roster of guitar students, a small graphic design business, and a wife who feels the creative urge as strongly as I do, I don't have much spare time. The small quantity of time I'm able to steal from the rest of my life is going to be spent painting, or composing a song, or writing an article for an awesome gaming blog, not prepping for a game.

I'm an improvisational game master. I play by ear. I fly by the seat of my pants.

I don't go into a game blind, however. When I sit down to run a game, I have a bandoleer of tools and techniques that help me and my players create a story out of nothing. They pretty much amount to this: let the players do all the work for you.

Smiling Jack's Bar and Grill, Episode 01: Savage Worlds Design Philosophy

Smiling Jack's Bar and Grill launched it's first podcast episode last week, and I personally think they knocked it out of the park. If you haven't heard about this podcast, it's a new, monthly venture from The Game's the Thing's Ron and Veronica Blessing that's dedicated to Savage Worlds.

RPG Bloggers Network Membership Cancellation

Due to differences of opinion in what qualified as RPG content, The Dice of Life has cancelled its membership with the RPG Blogger's Network. To summarize, we felt our fiction posts were an integral part of our content and qualified as fluff/inspiration for the RPGBN, but such content was not approved for distribution through the RPGBN's feed. Additionally, we felt the RPGBN requirements constrained how we operated our own blog.

If you look for our content via the RPGBN's feed, you'll want to subscribe to our independent feed instead. Additionally, you might see some changes to our labels as we are no longer required to comply with the RPGBN's labeling scheme. We apologize for any inconvenience this might create for you.

Quick and Dirty: No time for prep? No time for rules? No problem.

Anthony came over to play with us one afternoon. He'd played D&D as a kid, and his parents still played regularly, but he hadn't rolled the dice in years. I was worn out from work, and it was kind of impromptu thing, so of course I didn't have anything prepared. No one wanted to spend an hour or more rolling up characters for a one-shot, so I did what I do best: I improvised.

Brennen: An Introduction

The Dice of Life has a new member of its team, Brennen Reece. Brennen's our new indie/small press RPG enthusiast, and this is his story.

Gaming with Picasa Web Albums

In Gaming with Blogger, we discussed using Google's Blogger to maintain a campaign or character journal. This week we'll add some images to the mix with Picasa Web Albums. With Picasa Web Albums, players and GMs can share character portraits, maps, illustrations, MapTool screenshots, tokens generated from TokenTool for use in MapTool, or photos of your face-to-face gaming session.

Editorial: The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men...

Last week, we were all ramping up for a second session of a Hellfrost campaign (played via MapTool). I was only able to observe during the previous game, but this week I was joining in on the fun and bringing my friend Eugene along for the ride. We even created two character that were twin engros, mine actually being a frostborn hrimwisard. We were excited; Hellfrost is a great setting with some fantastic, frosty features! When it came time to play, however, things didn't work out. Rather than get upset and do nothing, we still had fun with it.

Editorial: Health Check

I was browsing through the forums today at Triple Ace Games when I found a thread titled "I have diabetes..." It was like a slap in the face. My mother had diabetes almost all of her life, and I'm at risk given family history and my general health. (I'm trying to change that now, which is what inspired these health-related articles.) I opened the thread and read the original post.