How To RPG: This Is How It's Done

If you need another ongoing series of examples of how to run a tabletop RPG campaign properly, the folks over at Castalia House have your back. Their ongoing features document a Traveller campaign, and now a Gamma World campaign, with all of the foibles and victories included. The most recent post (as of this post) is from the latter campaign, and you can read it here.

For you folks far more used to linear Adventure Paths and other piss-poor adaptations of what videogames do far better, reading these camapaign blog entries is a great way to get a sense of how the original--proper--paradigm works in practice. If you take the time to follow Jeffro Johnson on Google Plus, you'll find that he links to other campaign blogs on the regular. Read those at your leisure, and start noticing the patterns of practice across all of them; that's where your gameplay structure builds from.

You will find that the core that drives Dungeons & Dragons does cross over to other RPGs: no linear paths, show up with a plan, sandbox gameplay produces superior results. Yes, even in campaigns that are more mission-focused (e.g. Robotech, Spycraft), because once in the field you're on your own to handle things as you see fit.

This is how it's done, folks. You don't dictate a narrative. You don't run a railroad. You don't sit there and react to events. You have to be pro-active as a player, and as the Game Master you have to be Crom- unyielding and uncaring, favoring none and letting fate play out as it will. Death of a PC isn't anything to cry about; shrug it off, get a fresh sheet, and get on with rerolling a new guy. When players earn their wins, let them have and enjoy them; villains and monsters are there to be slain and looted, not mourned or complained about. Let the survivors tell the tales; the play is the thing at the table- not any pre-determined events or outcomes.