My daughter, Emily, has begun the journey to being a new gamemaster. She has listened to my roleplaying sessions hosted at our house for years. She has played in a few D&D adventures with her mom and sister. Recently, I have been running her in a D&D 5e solo adventure. Along the way, she has asked lots of questions about being a GM and recently has decided she wants to write up and run her own adventure. She has already begun working on the map and populating her adventure. (I am such a proud gaming papa)
While she and I are discussing the art of gamemastering, I looked for inspiration for her beyond just my mentoring. Along with the wonderful Geek & Sundry’s GM Tips with Matt Mercer and now Satine Phoenix, I stumbled upon this new book from Kobold Press, The Kobold Guide to Gamemastering by Sean K Reynolds.
DECADES OF GMING EXPERIENCE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS!
Whether it’s advice from grognards who were running games at the dawn of RPGs, or suggestions from the new generation of game designers, these 21 essays by experts are here to help you improve your GMing skills and create fun, amazing, memorable campaigns that’ll be talked about for years.
In this book, master GMs and storytellers give you advice about solo campaigns, shy players, cell phones, and making rulings on the fly. Are you unprepared for the game you’re running half an hour from now? Did you accidentally kill all the PCs? Do you want to run a game for kids? Did the plot take a sudden turn and the PCs have gone into uncharted territory? We’ve got you covered.
Complete with discussions on highlighting player strengths, tips for new and veteran GMs, and character romances, you’ll find useful advice about making your game more welcoming, more engaging, and more fun.
Featuring essays by Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Shanna Germain, Monica Valentinelli, Steve Winter, and many other game professionals.
Kobold puts out amazing gaming books, and this is a wonderful addition to their library. Whether you are an old GM like me or a new one like my daughter, this book has great advice and reminders for being a Gamemaster. I highly recommend picking this book up if you have friends or family thinking of telling their first roleplaying stories.