Order of the Stick hits 1 Million Dollars on Kickstarter
Rich Berlew is a pretty happy man. His Kickstarter to have one of the out of print Order of the Stick books reprinted was looking for fifty four thousand dollars. It went over a Million on February...
View ArticleThe GM’s Role
I was reading a post on a message board about the GM’s role in RPG’s. This was my reply. I though it was interesting enough to share it so here’s the posts that started the conversation by Michael...
View ArticleThe Chase Part II – Run em Down
(See Part I at http://misdirectedmark.com/the-chase-part-i-see-the-party-run/) You’ve escaped from New York, the boulder chasing you down the trap infested hall was easy to avoid, and even if agents...
View ArticleThe Dice
I’ve been reading the new Marvel RPG by Margaret Weis Productions, and I’ve found the dice mechanic to be interesting and engaging for the player. This is only conjecture as I haven’t seen it in action...
View ArticleFailing up
One of my pet peeves in a lot of games is when you fail. Why is a pet peeve? Because when you fail nothing happens. The game stagnates and change isn’t affected. When you miss in combat your action had...
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A Charged Encounter
This is a situation I came up with a while ago for one of the D&D campaigns I’ve been running. I thought I’d share the original idea with you and show you the break down of the encounter so it can...
View ArticleBang, now what do you do?
A bang is a situation you throw at a character or group of characters and watch how they react. There isn’t something to overcome, just a choice. Bangs are something I heard about on a podcast. Go...
View ArticleGaming as a Conversation
I was reading someones post as a referral from the Old School Gamers group on Facebook. I lurk there and read stuff but don’t say to much. In any case the blog post had some comments in it about skill...
View ArticleDon’t Fight the Police
There’s a saying Jim Rome of sports talk radio fame uses quite often whenever some athlete gets in trouble with the law. “Don’t fight the police because they have friends.” I’m sure your asking how...
View ArticleMy Love Letter to Pax
I had the fortune to attend Pax east this year. Now that I’ve had a week to absorb the experience, and deal with our largest local Gaming, Anime, and Fandom con, (AKA UBCon) I wanted to write about the...
View ArticleBeyond Skills
I always love those moments in stories where the main character looks like a beaten broken mess on the ground but they just keep getting up and digging a little deeper to keep going. It not because...
View ArticleFrom the Other Side – A Players Perspective
I GM most of the games I play in these days but a few years back I was playing in a weekly game and running a weekly game. It was pure bliss. All the while I was learning all kinds of things since I...
View ArticleWorlds of “OUR” Imagination
I’m firmly in the house of world building with your players. I hear tell of the “this is the GM’s story and the players are just following” mentality. Is that still a mentality? Do people still play...
View ArticleStorytelling and Pacing
This might take a second but I promise I’ll get to the gaming part of it in a sec. So I had two interesting developments occur today. The first was having one of my sit downs with my mentor/professor...
View ArticleBuilding Worlds One Character at a Time
I’m really into character driven stories these days and that includes plot and such. So plot is defined as being the events that make up the story and how they relate to one another. By a character...
View ArticleDoes System Matter?
I fall on both sides of this question so I’m going to split myself into Pro system Chris and Con system Chris. Opening Statements Pro system Chris: Systems are important in conveying the feel of the...
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Never Unprepared: The Test and Review
This weekend I ran another session of my longest ongoing campaign but the new twist was I used Never Unprepared, by Phil Vecchione, and published through Engine Publishing, to Prep for it. I’ll be...
View ArticleThe Idea and the Mechanic
I have a lot of discussions with a friend of mine named Drew about games, mechanics, how to implement them, what’s good, what works and why. Recently he was telling me about how one of the guys in his...
View ArticlePerpetuating the Hobby or Starting to GM
Last night I was chatting with a friend who has been running a Leverage game for us on Friday’s when we get the chance. This is her first go around at GMing and I’d have to say she’s doing a mighty...
View ArticleRed Herrings
The Red Herring A red herring, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a clue which is intentionally or unintentionally misleading or distracting from the actual issue. I’m not a fan of red...
View ArticleA Rant on House Rules
I was part of a comment string on Google+ (Once again G+ is not a wasteland) about Never Unprepared concerning the book’s value for games that were less traditional. The comments were very civil and...
View ArticlePuzzle Piece Mysteries
I’m currently playing in a Dresden Files game. It’s a lot of fun and has a very Dresden feel to it but has had a few snafus, mostly with the mystery surrounding the emerging story. The biggest problem...
View ArticleEntitlement
The Question: Are players entitled to the stories they want to tell in the games we play? Are GM’s entitled to the stories they want to tell? My Answer: I don’t think players or GM’s are entitled to...
View ArticleA Few GM Tips
I think I want to give you a peak behind my screen. Get that sick thought out of your head. That’s not what I meant. Ok. Now that we’re all on the same page I’m talking about some of the things I do to...
View ArticleMy 4e Dungeons & Dragons Playbook
I usually don’t do this because I try to keep my advice general but my friend Drew is running a 4e D&D campaign for some of his friends as his last hurrah for 4e Dungeons and Dragons before putting...
View ArticleNile DeLuxor by Minion Games
Recently I got a taste of Nile DeLuxor and by taste I mean I played four games of it. It’s a fun little set collection card game. The object of the game is to have harvested the most of a variety of...
View ArticleFinding Your Fun
I’m a narrative-gamist guy. Ok. So what does that mean? It means I like games which have a strong narrative component but have some gamist aspect to them. To break that down further it means I like...
View ArticleFraming
I think presentation is king, be it at the table or in the rule book your reading. When it comes to playing at the table I think framing is the best way to think about presenting the game. When I say...
View ArticleFate Core, a primer and review
Fate Primer I just want to hit a few thing before I get into my review because there’s some jargon in Fate that non Fate players might not be familiar with. If you are familiar with the game feel free...
View ArticleAmbiance is all about Presenation
So this post is my friend A.G. Smith’s post from over on the pinnacle forums. You can see the original post here. It’s a prefect example of how to use presentation to create the ambiance you want in...
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Plot, Character, Player, or Story Driven?
This post is based on a comment concerning Episode 98 Talking About Adventures: What do you mean when you say “story-driven” adventure/game? Are you trying to say “character-driven”? Can a...
View ArticleIntroductions to Words from Chris
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess I’m not an atypical gamer. I like playing D&D just as much as I like playing Dungeon World. I’m into everything about Pathfinder except Pathfinder itself. I...
View ArticleWhy I Think Improvisational is Better than Story
Last time I said, “I wish the gaming norm was collaborative when everyone seems pretty content with the dictatorship of the GM.” So I think that might be a little out there but then again it’s not. Now...
View ArticleFoundational Improv
Last time I mentioned it’s been over a decade since I ran a game that was a story I laid out. Since then I’ve developed what I call foundational prep which gives me the tools I need to improvise...
View ArticleDirected Questions
Last time mentioned I would get into directed questions as a the next part of my foundational improvisation so let us begin. Directed question are questions that are loaded to provide the player who...
View ArticleD&D – Inspiration
So Drew Smith, the MMP’s secret weapon, mentioned he liked the Inspiration mechanic and I wanted to talk about it with you guys a little more. I’m a fan of it but for those who haven’t read it I’ll...
View ArticleThings Coming in the Future – September 2014 edition
Hey Folks. Chris here from the Misdirected Mark Productions. I just wanted to throw info your way on what the next couple of months has in store for the network. The Misdirected Mark Podcast has been...
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MMP November Edition
Hey Folks, Chris here. A few things happened near the end of last week that I wanted to talk about and what’s coming for the rest of the month. First. The Misdirected Mark Podcast released Episode 135...
View ArticleAround the Bar #1
Hey Folks. So this is isn’t audio I’m hanging at the bar chatting up folks in the MMP house and getting all the information you can hopefully use to know about some of the things happening in the table...
View ArticleAround the Bar #2
Hey folks. Back again with the second installment of around the bar. A place where you can find some of the more happening things going on in the world of RPGs. First up is the Numenera Box set from...
View ArticleAround Bar #3
Hey Folks. Chris here and yes I’m back or at least a version of me is back. I have this three sixths number tattooed on my arm but I’m not quite sure what it means. Anyways lets get back to the chatter...
View ArticleAround the Bar #4
Hey folks. So it’s that time of the year again. The time for Evil Hats to decorate tree’s and Atomic Robo’s to dance merrily under mistletoe. In other words it’s Street Team Time. What does this mean?...
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Things you may have missed for the week of Feb 16th 2015
So lets just recap what happened on Misdirected Mark Productions last week. First we had Down with D&D #9 all about the Monk and putting some story into your leveling. Second there was a TKV Team...
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The Paranet Papers
So Carrie Harris from over at Evil Hat was kind enough to send me over a copy of the Paranet Papers, the next book in their Dresden Files RPG line. As I read through it I thought I’d post my thoughts....
View ArticleMisdirected Mark Productions Podcast Recap
Lot’s of episodes were released this week on MMP so here’s your podcast recap. The Lounge Game designer Natalia KN Granger joined me to talk about her games, LARP, and Read A Loud text adventures....
View ArticleMisdirected Mark Productions Podcast Recap for Oct 15th – 21st
Hey Folks. Here’s all the shows we’ve put out in the last week. On the TKV Team Podcast Tim goes out of his way to spoil the story in Halo 5 for himself, Karol walks us through some of the new Yoshi’s...
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MMP Round up for Oct 29th
Hey Folks. It’s been a slower week here at the Mark as I lovingly call Misdirected Mark Productions. Only two episodes out this week since we missed some Geekin’ Out last week but don’t worry. We...
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MMP Round Up for Nov 12th
So what has happened this past week on Misdirected Mark Productions. Lets get into it. On the Misdirected Mark Podcast we find out what’s been going on with Phil and Chris, talk about Relic Hunters,...
View ArticleGeekin’ Out – Supergirl: “Human for a Day”
I can’t stay quite anymore. I’m in love with what’s happening on TV these days. Specifically about what’s going on over on Supergirl right now. There will be spoilers so stop reading if you don’t want...
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She’s a Super Geek: Heroine & Fake Facts – Emily on Senda
Hey Folks, Chris here. Phil and I were fortunate enough to be invited onto the She’s a Super Geek podcast to play Heroine by Josh Jordan and those episodes started coming out today. Instead of just a...
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