It’s every GM’s worst fear: a combat scene that drags on forever as players lose interest. What are some tips for keeping combat scenes focused and interesting? Andy and Chris are joined by Caitlin Sanders to share their thoughts and experiences.

Have you ever run a game for just two people–or a group of ten? Does your game group size fluctuate from week to week? Jessica Snyder joins Chris and Andy to discuss the challenges (and fun!) of running games for groups of varying sizes.

Continue reading "Episode 5 – Bringing Elements from Other Game Systems into Your Game (with Mark French)"

Have you ever imported a rule or system from a different roleplaying game into the one you’re running? Andy and Chris are joined by Mark French as they discuss GURPS-eating rabbits, which games model recoilless rifles, and also the topic at hand.

Episode 5 appendix:

• The infamous GURPS-eating rabbit.
• GURPS Special Ops, the game sourcebook with rules for occupying and defending oil rigs.
• The World Wide Wrestling RPG by NDP Design.
• How Rolemaster was originally used to replace the combat system in whatever presumably inferior game you were playing.

Continue reading "Episode 4 – Props and Handouts and When to Use Them (with Kyle Latino)"

What do props and handouts add to a roleplaying game session? Special guest gamemaster Kyle Latino joins Chris and Andy to discuss the pros and cons of using handouts in your game.

Episode 4 appendix:

• The Dragon Ball Z roleplaying game, which served as Kyle’s entry into the roleplaying hobby.
• The Savage Beard of She Dwarf, Kyle’s online comic.
• Kyle’s Tomb of the Exquisite Corpse crowdsourced dungeon experiment.

Continue reading "Episode 3 – How to Use a Dungeon Master’s Screen (with guest Matt Wilson)"

What makes a good DM screen, and what do they add to the game? Special guest gamemaster Matt Wilson joins Andy and Chris to talk about how they do (or don’t) use dungeon master’s screens.

Episode 3 appendix (AKA things that got mentioned):

• Eternal Lies, a Trail of Cthulhu campaign that Matt is preparing to run with the Gumshoe Quickshock system.

Hosts: Chris Salzman and Andy Rau

[opening music]

Chris: Welcome to _Roll for Topic_, a podcast about GMs discussing issues at the table. My name is Chris Salzman…

Andy: …and I’m Andy Rau.

Chris: And we are joined this week by Matt Wilson.

Matt: Hi, how’s it going folks?

Chris: We wanted to bring a guest on just to get some other opinions and also just be able to talk to some of our friends about some things that they’re thinking about at the table as well. So, Matt, can you just give us a quick rundown of what games are you currently GMing? What’s your brief history with running games?

Matt: Gotcha. I’ve been running games for quite some time, since I was in middle school, which was, oh, 20-25 years ago now. I’m a one game at a time sort of person. Currently I am in — towards the later stages of — a long running _7th Sea_ second edition campaign that Chris actually is a player in.

Chris: Yes.

Matt: And I am prepping as we speak for the next game I’m going to run, which is going to be a remixed version of Pelgrane Press’s “Eternal Lies” for _Trail of Cthulhu_.

Andy: Oh, fantastic.

Chris: Very fun.

Matt: Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve had it for a while, I backed it, talked to Simon about it. It sounds… it’s got a really great response from the community of Cthulhu GMs, and I’m looking forward to put my own spin on it.

Andy: Are you running that with the GUMSHOE system?

Matt: I’m actually going to use the GUMSHOE Quick Shock system. It’s not really a second edition because they’re going to keep them both around, but it’s a many-years-later refined version of the system that Robin Laws put together for the _King in Yellow_ role playing game which is coming out in a couple of months.

Andy: Oh, nice.

Chris: Interesting. Do you know what are the major changes with it?

Matt: From my perspective, and we talked about a little bit about this beforehand, but I’ve been looking to streamline the mechanical engine of the system. And as Chris well knows, I, at this point in my GM career, *hate* rolling dice.

Chris: Yes.

Matt: I’