Sandbox vs. rail games

Sand­box and rail games are a bit like all that stuff about winging it or planning ahead. But instead of being about…

How I ruined a game without actually doing anything wrong

The Crisis System

Some systems lavish a lot of detail on combat and provide only bare-bones rules for social or mental tasks, while others have…

NPCs in combat

Depending on your story and your players, you may wind up with NPCs hanging around during combat scenes. How you handle them…

New game starting tomorrow!

Hello everyone! This is Erica and it’s time for my first post here on The RPGuide. I’m an author, Aron’s…

What is a role-playing game?

We get asked that a lot. Erica and I like to go out and grab some food after game, and when asked what we’ve…

What makes a good RPG story?

In a word, conflict.

If your whole fantasy world is working together all hunky-dory, then there’s not much for anyone to do. If you want to run a game about everyone getting along and going about their perfectly happy lives, have fun. I just don’t have…

The carrot & the stick

Role-playing is a collaborative effort, and the choices that players make determine a great deal of the tone and…

NPCs: Authority figures

Chances are good that, in most games, the players will start with characters on the low end of the social hierarchy…