Leaving Questions To Answer [Backgrounds]

Getting your players involved in your setting can take work but an effective rule of thumb is, don’t answer all their questions. If you leave holes in the setting, players are going to ask questions about it.
Don’t answer these for them.
Instead, tell them you’ve deliberately left some things about the world vague so that they [...]

8 New Character Tips [Player Advice]

Whether it’s for a new campaign, a dead character or you just got tired of the old one, here are some tips for making a new character.

Create 2 secrets for your character. Give one of them to the GM to give to another player.
Think about those badass bad guys when coming up with a concept. [...]

4 Villains You Didn’t Think Of

Image via Wikipedia

Villains are a definite requirement to any story, whether it be an epic game or a sandbox campaign. No antagonist of any sort means no conflict and a game without conflict is just boring.
Here are some unique points of view on villains and 2 articles I recommend for advice on making them three [...]

Odd NPC Ideas

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

First up is a list of 23 movie characters and where would they be now? Ideas include Rocky Balboa’s Bar & Grill, Wall-E stocking a warehouse and Wolverine as a sushi chef. It spurred several ideas in my mind such as the sushi chef with implanted rippers and an attitude. [...]

Cars to Live In

Any post-apocalypse world will have some unusual housing solutions as people cannibalize anything that comes to hand to help with the survival of themselves and their families. And we produce cars like candy.
Here’s a list of 10 cars that would almost be more comfortable than my house. My favorite is the updated Dodge Minivan (pictured [...]

NPC Quirk: Pets

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Familiars for wizards are very… yeah, familiar. But NPCs rarely have much besides other NPCs, whether other allies or just hired guns. Make an NPC a bit more memorable by giving him a pet.
63% of the American population own pets and I’d bet numbers are similar for other developed countries. [...]

Modern NPC: Umbrella Thief

Image via Wikipedia

This man goes up to unsuspecting people who are carrying umbrellas and asks to borrow it for a small trip, promising to return it that evening. The umbrella owner is offered a business card with the man’s name and phone number on it so if he fails to return the item, they can [...]

Virii, Spreader of Memes

The RPG Bloggers Network Hero Meme
Name: Virii
Attributes: High Intelligence and Wisdom, Low Agility and Strength, Medium Constitution

Virii started as a mild mannered Office Manager but an incident with an out-of-paper printer transformed her from a donut-providing resource into a woman obsessed with spreading concepts and cultural themes to enliven the lives of bored people throughout [...]

Wolverine Art Appreciation

Superheroes tend to be iconic and sometimes rather flat and Wolverine, cool as he is – is no exception. So I was thrilled to see all this alternate art for Wolverine Appreciation Month over at Marvel.
As I looked over these pictures, I tried to imagine the personality behind them and once again realized how much [...]

Character Seed: Modern/SciFi

This character idea is for an X-Files/SciFi-Horror type setting. Below are a few elements to expand into a full-fledged character. This one is built around the possession.
Appearance: You have lustrous golden hair, grey-blue eyes and a bulbous nose. You wear black Hawaiian shirts.
Background: The youngest of several siblings, some odd event in your youth made [...]