Archive for the ‘player tips’ Category

101 Questions to Help Create Character Backgrounds and Personalities

A character needs to be more than just a few scores and abilities and possessions.  There are so many ways to make your character more memorable and most of them don’t take much time.  Below is a list of 101 things to consider when creating a character.  You certainly don’t need to answer all or [...]

September 7, 2010 ·  · No Comments
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Top 5 2008 Essays @Inkwell Ideas

A day has already passed into the new year so before it gets too much further allow me to highlight a few of my favorite essays here from the past year. One of my most popular essays (and in this case it links to a full 4000+ word article) based on traffic is Worldbuilding: Religion [...]

January 2, 2009 ·  · No Comments
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How Much Borrowing Is Too Much?

Recently in a game session, our characters encountered a room with a magical energy pattern drawn on the floor.  As anyone who is familiar with Roger Zelazny’s Amber books knows, sure enough once a character stepped on the pattern he had to complete the pattern and every step was a test of willpower.  Once the [...]

September 10, 2008 ·  · No Comments
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RPG Play By Message Board Best Practices

I’ve moved one of my campaigns to an on-line message board due to real life getting in the way of many group members.  The campaign has been running on the message board for over a month.  Here’s a list of “best practices” we’ve discovered: Create a separate thread for tracking PCs’ conditions and memorized spells. [...]

May 7, 2008 ·  · One Comment
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Top 10 Things a Wizard Can Do After Running Out of Spells

Assuming you don’t have any good combat magic items that you want to use… 10. Make a ranged attack with a sling or other weapon you (the wizard) can use. If you are in the front a melee attack is possible instead, but hopefully you stayed in the back of the party. (Don’t worry, the [...]

April 13, 2008 ·  · No Comments
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Fleshing Out a Character’s Background

A few easy choices and a little help from a game master can bring your character to life. There are two primary ways to flesh out your character’s background. The first way works well if you have a character background already in mind: jot down the key points of your character background idea and keep [...]

January 20, 2008 ·  · No Comments
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