236 – The Force Majeure Tale

We have Adam Beltane on from the Force Majeure Podcast to talk about their experience with running their games, how they prepare, and how they got into the fun of Star Wars Roleplaying

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235 – The Escort Tale

We looked to a list of RPG plots and figured out many ways of making them work, from escorting NPCs to transporting items, to what happens when you find a ghost ship?

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234 The Variable Party Tale

We talk about the need of theatrics at the table and how and why the need grows the less you know the players at the table as well as how it can become harder to do at the table.

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The Trope Tale

Tropes get brought up quite a bit, we’ve heard it so much, from how a scene is hollow because there isn’t anything else attached to the trope to how some tropes repeated enough can be harmful to your own gaming table.

We talk about how this happens and how to deal better with tropes.

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The Writers Block Tale

Rissa ran into writers block and we go through a few ways of inspiration while doing a very good method of talking out what lead to the indecision.

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The Clue Path Tale

We talk with Leslie from Heroes and get questions about how to make sure your adventures don’t hit dead walls when giving players paths forward, especially with setting scenes and making sure that clues are actual clues.

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The Branded Tale

I got watching the Bumblebee trailer and then wouldn’t stop talking about it, so Rissa and I got talking about how to bring our more favorite franchises into being used in Genesys and Star Wars.

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The Environmental Tale

We look at environments and how to make them matter to your players who have taken talents and species that would make use of them. We also talk about how to lead the way in getting the most use out of an environment

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The Social Tale

We’re back and talking social skills, how we use them, how the intent of the rolls are a good indication of how they should be adjudicated, and how two skills can be used for the same roll

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The Single Shot Tale

Thinking about the one shots we’ve run, and how we’ve gone into preparing the adventures. We look at two vastly different styles of creating an experience for our players.

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The Road Ahead Tale

We talk about what 2018 has brought to the show and where we’re planning to take Heroes and Tales in the next year.

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The Charming Combat Tale

We talk about how big can one social check be in a combat action, especially one that has gone on quite long. From there we talk about types of actions that are easier to adjudicate and give some fun examples of how charm can be used to deflect combat from happening.

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The Present Player Tale

People aren’t always paying attention and can be distracted by a great many things, we talk about when it starts impacting their participation at the table as well as others.

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The Adding a Player Tale

We look at the difficulties in adding a new player and their character in the middle of an ongoing campaign and making it as seamless and as rewarding as possible.

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The Secret Society Tale

Secret societies show up in more places than we’d normally think. They are a very valuable story telling tool and we explore them in a fashion that makes them easier to use.

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The Group of Individuals Tale

We talk about a topic from the discord regarding mixed groups and how to make it feel that everyone is in the story, instead of just given simple tasks to do. From magic users and Genesys to how to get force users to constrain their powers, we have ideas.

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The Villainous Tale

We talk about villains in your game, from introducing them, how much different types of adventures bring a villain out to the players, and so many places in between. We have advice and tales of when things didn’t go right.

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The In Character Tale

From policing what or why your character would act a certain way to figuring out ways to make sure your split party compartmentalizes we have ideas on how to get your players and characters to identify closer to each other. We talk about how to metagame with a much freer conscience and a few simple ways GMs can gently push their players forward from planning to action.

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The Plotting Tale

Your players do weird things and will deal with situations out of the order in your head. We talk about some of our experiences with players going left when we’d have expected them to go right, and give a few ideas on how to deal with it otherwise.

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The Going into Business Tale

Ben has players that through paying attention to all the little throw away ideas he had have found enough parts to go into business for themselves as an arms manufacturer. This boggled his mind, so he asked Rissa for advice. Also there are tales of a wookiee rescue and commune.

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The Player Guidance Tale

Sometimes players get analysis paralysis and it gets frustrating for both the GM and the players alike. We have a few strategies to lessen the effect of it at the start of a session when the last session seems so long ago

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The Backstory Tale

Ben is joined by Heroes Kristine and Leslie to talk about character backstory and motivations. From informing the characters actions to providing hooks for the Game Master to propel the story along we dive deep in these concepts.

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The Lost in Space Tale

We talk about challenges we’ve had as GMs to get players engaged with the stories we’re trying to tell and some of the solutions we’ve had for when the players actively try to derail your plot.

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The Murder Mystery Tale

Rissa and Ben set out to talk a little about making careers in Genesys, that idea was a red herring apparently as they fall into the trap of making a whole murder mystery one shot for you to use.

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The Forgotten Skill Tale

From discipline to astrogation many skills are forgotten by the whole table. We talk about several ways to make them more valuable for you and your players.

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