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”

The Endless Vigil Tale

Ben and Joshua discuss Endless Vigil. From pod racers to detectives this book brings so much to the fore. The character ideas that get flung around and the possibilities that make us want to play new characters inspired by this book are overflowing in this episode Continue reading “The Endless Vigil Tale”

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”

The Railroad Tale

Ben and David talk about railroading players, how to not do that, and how to start a cascade of bad player decisions that will be a GMs bounty after enough time has gone past.

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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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The Droid Tale

We look at the humble droid and how Star Wars plays with the idea of a mechanical being. From droid pcs who are looking to become more than the sum of their programming to droid tools that bridge the divide between alive and not we look to see some story possibilities in our mechanical friends. Continue reading “The Droid Tale”

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”

The Horror Tale

We talk about Halloween and how to use some of the themes in it to make your Star Wars game much more interesting. From using fear, to showing your players the wicked path they’ve wrought the theme of Halloween and horror can be powerful motivators. Continue reading “The Horror Tale”

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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The Gifted Gear Tale

Gear is always an issue, finally Ben asked Joshua and David how they deal with it. We talk about how to use gear in your game from giving out credits and gear to giving a few ideas on how to get the players to keep it at base. Continue reading “The Gifted Gear Tale”

The Seeking Tale

We talk about Savage Spirits and some amazing stories that can come from the specializations and species in the supplement. Going from the coldness of the Executioner to finding great stories that fit the Hermit we bring you a new perspective on the Seeker Sourcebook Continue reading “The Seeking Tale”

The Astounding Conflict Tale

Ben David and Joshua talk about conflict and the dialogue that opens up from using it. From how to do it badly to how to make things much more interesting.

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The Deadly Space Tale

We talk about what in space can cause your players a hard time and how to make it more interesting in an adventure and story. From the terror of a black hole to the raw power of getting close to a star being in a starship can be fraught with danger. Continue reading “The Deadly Space Tale”

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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The Disastrous Tale

What do you do when you’re planning on throwing your players into a disaster? Why are there certain tropes to use and to avoid? We look to some that come up and many of the research you can use to make your game feel even more amazing. Continue reading “The Disastrous Tale”

The Exploration Tale

We talk about exploration and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that are so easy to come up against when bringing this to your players. From having a place be devoid of life to not remembering to have a goal once the players get to a new place we give a few ideas on how to make your exploration better. Continue reading “The Exploration Tale”

The One Shot Villain Tale

We talk of Thrawn and grand villains as well as thugs that are easier to completely defeat. The discussion goes from why you want to use them and how you can frame long term villains within their own narrative for how they got there.

This episode would not have happened without the article posted on Eleven – Thirty Eight

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The Analog Tale

We talk of Star Wars and how technology should be a support for your story unless it becomes the complete centre of it. We go from discussing the tech and some of the oddities to discussing how to use it at your table in ways that move the story forward. Continue reading “The Analog Tale”

The Atypical Campaign Tale

We talk about adventures without combat in this episode. And look at many different ways of creating a dramatic narrative without forcing the players to pick up a blaster.

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The Deep NPC Tale

We talk NPCs and how to make them and your base interesting in an Age of Rebellion setting, as well as the varried locations you’ll run across in Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny. Continue reading “The Deep NPC Tale”

The Hard Crime Tale

We go looking at new ways your players can slip deeper into a crime lords grasp and how you can give the players two choices that they don’t want to take. Ben and David talk about how crime in fiction isn’t always happy go lucky and can be a huge moral quandary for those involved. Continue reading “The Hard Crime Tale”

The Crossed Personalities Tale

We talked about The Crossroads Sector last week. This week we populate it with a family with a dark secret, a desperate criminal with a heart of gold, and a ghost ship that holds a terrifying secret. Continue reading “The Crossed Personalities Tale”

Eyes Up: Messing with Money

Creating a story out of, or imposing a story upon, a roleplaying group is a very daunting thing. Taking a look at what The Angry DM has written this week got me back thinking about why we use anything at the table, from an NPC to a blaster pistol. There are so many different levers you’re able to use to get to the same place whether it’s character power or world based. Continue reading “Eyes Up: Messing with Money”

The Crossroads Sector Tale

Wow, we made it to 100 episodes of Tales. We’re celebrating by giving you a huge gift of a new sector with interesting planets and some dangerous places where the profit can be bigger then a smuggler can imagine. Continue reading “The Crossroads Sector Tale”

New Site Announcement

We now can be found at TheHydianWay.com where you can find links to as much of what we talk of as we can find, as well as all previous episodes and some bonus content for our loyal followers.