GM Toolbox

Generic material collected over decades of running games. None of it belongs to any one campaign, and most of it is system-agnostic. Much was gathered off newsgroups, mailing lists and roleplayingtips.com long before any of us worried about attribution; where I know the source I have said so on the page.

Running a Game ¶

Adventure - building one, and the shapes they come in.
Plot - plot structures, twists and why they stall.
Encounters - designing them; making them more than a fight.
Events - things that happen whether or not the party is there.
Rumors - what the party hears, and how much of it is true.
Weather - weather generation and why it matters.
Party Origins - reasons these people are travelling together.
Player - handling the people at the table.
Rules - rulings, house rules and mechanics I liked.
Master - running one-shots, conventions and pick-up games.

Checklists ¶

Run through these when prepping; they are the questions I kept forgetting to ask.

NPCs and Villains ¶

NPCs - giving them motivation, voice and a reason to exist.
Villains - the ones worth building properly.

Magic and Items ¶

Magic - systems, flavour and how it shapes a setting.
Items - magic items that are interesting instead of numeric.
Bonewitz Magic Laws - the classic laws of sympathetic magic.
Tarot Magic - using a tarot deck as a magic system.
Curses - curses that are more fun than “you are dead”.
Staff of Kayzar
Book of Trade
Fillippos Magic Items
Slavic Herbs
Magic Qualities of Herbs

Tables and Inspiration ¶

Random - assorted random tables.
Creatures - monsters, and making familiar ones strange again.
Mythology - building pantheons and religions.
Flavor - names, sensory detail, the small stuff.
World - worldbuilding notes; cities, cultures, geography.

Odds and Ends ¶

Thought Pile - the unsorted remainder.
Bookmarks - a link dump, mostly of dead sites, kept as an archaeology record.
GameStorm 2003 - convention notes.

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