Adept Play
Adept Play
Category: Game Master
This is a legacy term (also, Dungeon Master, Referee, Guide, and others) which should not be mistaken for a fixed concept or role in play for all roleplaying. Different game designs present different ways to concentrate authorities and to conduct systemic tasks. It makes more sense to speak of “game mastering” in terms of this variety, in the understanding that the concentration varies in its extent and specific feaures.
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Breakthroughs in The Pool–Brooklyn + Mumblegore
I am playing one of the best games in my life right now. It is a game of the Pool, with influences from the mumblegore genre (Pop Skull, Creep, Baghead, House of the Devil). The characters are communists and drug addicts who are all vaguely connected through friends and a local epidemic of demonically multiplied…
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Slaying the “The”
There are a lot of great games happening among participants at Adept Play right now. I’m especially happy about specific observations: people who are playing games they’d never heard of or conceived they’d ever play; people playing with others they’ve met through this site and associated internet things like the Discord channel; people who’ve played…
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Presentation: Balance, power, spotlight, agency, talking
I initially composed this as yet another reflection upon the game of Undiscovered that I’m playing with Sam, Helma, and Lorenzo, but decided it was more generally relevant to bring into Seminar as its own thing. As a prelude, I’d like to repeat something I recently mentioned at the Patreon. It’s the marked contrast I’ve…
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Cthulhu called – was the keeper happy?
This was at a small convention some years ago (between 3 and 6, I would say), in the middle of nowhere, Finland. The game master and the other players were all strangers to me. There was maybe three or four players. I went in to fill the table, anyways, as I did with Savage worlds…
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Information, Pacing, Holding Back or Pushing
Hi everybody, at Ron’s suggestion I recorded a video conversation with the players of my recent Champions Now game. This kicked off as a text discussion, with Manu asking me after the close of the game if I had any insights, and me saying this: Hmm, insight I’m not sure about, but there are definitely…
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Thoughts on a Trollbabe session
I mailed Ron about an AP post I made on my blog, about a great Trollbabe session I played, and he suggested linking to it here. So, in case you are interested, here's the link. I describe some pivotal moments in the game, but I especially try to analyse what makes Trollbabe work as a…
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CON Man
aka the Games of Summer (a riff on Boys of Summer, you get the idea) Over the last three weeks I have run three convention sessions for three different RPGs. Preparing for a convention game can be a challenge. All three games are from big publishers (Chaosium and Fri Ligan), which helped with players being…
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First game of Circle of hands as a GM
Hello everyone ! I've finally GMed my first game of Circle of hands (yay me)! I will try and retell it and include the most interesting stuff that had happened. Please be nice, I'm still learning 🙂 Interesting thing that happened numero uno : one of the player described rape in one of his key…
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Monday Lab: GM Half Full
Looking at the topic of distributing GM-tasks all sorts of different ways, which we all know well, but maybe its widespread use doesn’t reflect enough of its potential. Anyway, although Champions Now is more visible, I’m also working on Cosmic Zap for Chaosium, and the GM-task technique is reeeeeally its own thing for that one.…