Category: Articles

Dead in the Water – Act 2, Episode 1

Mutiny! Following an attack by a newly purchased protocol droid, Neema, Teevee, Kith, and Matu find themselves trapped in a conference room aboard the Alliance starship Shadow Raptor. With the situation growing more dire by the second, the squad must learn how far this droid uprising goes and take whatever steps are necessary in order to protect the Raptor‘s crew.

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The Brave Sir Robin Tale

A question arose about hinting to your players that it’s time for their characters to run away. This is our answer, and we give a few ideas on how to make baddies even more present in your adventure. Tess, David, and Ben all have some wicked ways to make your players realize their characters are about to die.

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Dead in the Water – Act 1, Episode 3

Having secured their cargo of droids, the task before the squad is simple: find a way to transport them safely back to the Shadow Raptor. With an ancient tug, a grumpy Wookiee captain, a tactical droid who won’t stop complaining, and no coordinates for the Raptor, perhaps this task isn’t so simple.

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The New GM Tale

Every now and then we get asked by new GMs how to I get started, I love the universe but this RPG thing scares me. This is David and Ben giving a few pieces of advice and telling a few tales of how they learned to use the dice. Continue reading “The New GM Tale”

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Dead in the Water – Act 1, Episode 2

As the squad searches Port Tooga for their Rebel Privateer contact, Captain Oglerk, and her cargo of droids, Matu learns an important lesson: it’s not wise to upset a Wookiee. Continue reading “Dead in the Water – Act 1, Episode 2”

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The Diplomats Tale

This week we talk about the kinds of campaigns that a diplomat would excel in. From negotiating treaties all the way down to keeping two rebel groups working together. David and Ben give ideas for several campaigns and scenes for you to use and give a few spins on dealing with interpersonal relationships that a GM might not always think of.
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Dead in the Water – Act 1, Episode 1

In the premiere episode of Heroes of the Hydian Way, a squad of misfits: the Mandalorian warrior Matu Ordo, the dispirited tactical droid TV-93, explosives expert Kith Ursi’bek, and Lieutenant Neema Talemy are assigned to the frigate Shadow Raptor in order to take possession of a large shipment of droids. With four million credits in hand and a Hutt controlled station, what can possibly go wrong? Continue reading “Dead in the Water – Act 1, Episode 1”

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The Downtime Tale

We talk about how your characters got their first experience and a give few ideas how they spend time between campaigns. From ways to give out experience to ideas for training montages we give you many ideas for passing the time between and before your main adventures. Continue reading “The Downtime Tale”

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Heroes of the Hydian Way Teaser

We haven’t said much about the Heroes of the Hydian Way yet. We record the first actual session today, we’ve had a session zero to get a feel for each other and work out most tech bugs. To give an idea of what Heroes is Ben answers here some of the questions that could be (and should be) poking up about the new podcast. Continue reading “Heroes of the Hydian Way Teaser”

The Real Force Tale

We talk of how the force can guide your view of the galaxy and how it makes your character deeper to have few beliefs behind the reason they step out into the galaxy.

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The Forged in Battle Tale

Ben and Joshua talk about Forged in battle and tease out some very interesting rebellious ideas for players to bring to the table. From the stealthy Trailblazer to the Vanguard that’s in your face we bring some very militant ideas to the table Continue reading “The Forged in Battle Tale”

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The New Sam Tale

We sit down with Sam Stewart to talk about Endless Vigil and discuss some of the themes in the book and the Force and Destiny line in general. From play testing to space rogues we have a great city based episode for you this week

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Eyes Up: The Story Thrust

There is a concept that I’ve seen with GMs and systems that can lead to a muddied role playing experience. This is a gaping problem I’ve found with what’s become called on the podcast and elsewhere as Session Zero. Using these systems and methods we can create vibrant settings for our players to interact with and there can be a multitude of options for what story element gets spun into the narrative that moves the group forward. Continue reading “Eyes Up: The Story Thrust”

Eyes Up: GM Focus

As a player I’ve seen many GMs get distracted by the seeming whims of a player. The plot wanders all over until the GM finally gets inspiration and starts asserting their creative direction on the narrative. It isn’t enough to come up with a setting and then thrust players together to get moving themselves, as a GM you’re at the table to provide guidance and narrative shove to the player characters. Continue reading “Eyes Up: GM Focus”

Eyes Up: Preparation

I’m an improvising GM. I know that this hurts my games in some ways, but I work to even these issues out. I’ll go through my preparation stages to give a few windows into how I work out what happens in a session as well as how some of my bad habits can be overcome by other methods of pre planning. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Preparation”

Eyes Up: Where the Heck are We Going?

My name is Ben, and I’m a GM. There isn’t a way on this planet that you could get me to change this.

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Confession of a Newb GM: Heroism at the Table

When we sit down at the table we tell tales of daring do larger than we think we could normally accomplish. I saw a tweet the other day that makes me wonder how we can encourage heroics at our tables. This brings me to musing about what makes a hero. Why are characters that would normally be the epitome of heroics be so hard to play in practice? Continue reading “Confession of a Newb GM: Heroism at the Table”

Eyes Up – A Most Dangerous Dungeon

I came across an article about the Yucca Mountain waste facility and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) when the warning labels that they are trying to put in place for radioactive waste jumped out at me. This could be the label sitting over the enclosed domain of a lich or a warning for a great evil. It’s started to make me very interested in these ideas of how to best keep people out of an abandoned, and dangerous, facility. This is a very realistic but grim view of how people design these facilities.

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Eyes Up – Starting to the Side of Things

Something weird happened with the last Eyes Up, people asked questions and commented. Here’s one that I knew would take me longer than a 5 minute response to have the answer be any sort of use.

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Confessions of a Newb GM: Vary Your Encounters

Few things leave me as bored as a GM or player than two sets of characters sitting at the opposite sides of a map running at each other. When several of these instances are chained together I start to wonder if I’m playing chess. I generally prefer chess in those situations. Those people can party like you’d never believe. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Vary Your Encounters”

Eyes Up – Diamonds in the Rough

Here’s something I’ve been dealing with lately that keeps jumping to the front of my mind. How can I deal with a published adventure that has significant problems with it but has a single diamond in the rough that will drive some great sessions?

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Confessions of a Newb GM: How to Not Win an RPG

In Dungeons and Dragons I was able to game my DM because we never went up against a group of NPCs that were smart enough to attack the real healer. Every single one of the NPC groups had an INT score high enough to go for the healer, I just made sure I wasn’t the first one to heal. They would never retarget after the other healer stopped and I started. This realization allowed me to win D&D. Winning any RPG is one of the most pyrrhic things I can think of doing. It’s boring and you should never let this happen to your group. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: How to Not Win an RPG”

Eyes Up – Taking the Boring out of Randomness

GMs have to strike a weird balance in ongoing campaigns. Don’t do too much preparation; so that when players go off the blazed trail you aren’t starting the nights campfire with your notes. But, also have enough structure so they aren’t just spinning on the log flume again and again going nowhere. All while having a little bit of fun while doing it. Many people look to random tables to solve the preparation issue to avoid burning out from creative fatigue. The problem with that is many of the encounters I’ve seen using encounter tables have been horrible; worse than just throwing a dart at the index. There is little life to the encounter and the GM doesn’t understand how the monsters are to be utilized in the scene.

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Confessions of a Newb GM: Game with a Difference

The other day my former DM told me what I missed in the last session. He told me told it was two combats and two skill challengesas an example of how quick the session was moving. Hence why he’s my former DM. I know my new DM cares much more about having fun than winning D&D. Continue reading “Confessions of a Newb GM: Game with a Difference”

Eyes Up – Directing Your Campaign

You need direction at the table. If you’re reading this I’ll assume you aren’t trying to flesh out your Imperial Assault or Descent games just for that little extra bit of story. I mention this because the standard villain of the week approach is boring. It’s boring on TV and it’s boring on the table. A campaign has structure. A campaign needs structure, even if it’s loose, otherwise you and the players will spin your wheels after a while and people will drift away.

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