The Heart Monitor
Spooky Spaces: 5 Settings for your Spooky Season RPG Session
Location! Location! Location! In this latest episode of our spooky season series, we focus on some spooky locations for your players to visit. In previous blogs we have discussed some monsters and villains that you can use to ramp up the spookiness and, now, with these location suggestions–you can have the spookiest RPG session for this Halloween!
These Characters Live Rent-Free in My Head: 10 Characters I’d Love to Roleplay (Part 2)
Last week we talked about several characters I would want to play. This week we arrive at the top five characters I would like to play!
Story So Far: Why You Should Keep A Campaign Record
Running a campaign has many parallels with live theater. The show runs for a period of time, sometimes months, all the while entertaining its audiences. The cast of characters grows close and makes lasting memories. But eventually, the curtain falls for the final time, the cast and crew say their final goodbyes, the set is dismantled, and with that the story is over. The only thing that remains is our memories of the show, perhaps some photos, and a souvenir playbill. Similarly, wrapping up a campaign can feel the same; aside from some character sheets, there is often not much left other than the fond memories those who played in the campaign now share. This got me thinking about how I could preserve a telling of the story for myself and my friends that we could look back on in the future
A Diabolic Dissection of Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus
The party stood in the brimstone filled streets of Elturel as the river Chionthar reflected the warm light of the morning sun. They had succeeded where lesser heroes would have failed. They had redeemed a fallen angel, defeated multiple demon lords, and returned their beloved city from the nine hells to the material plane and most importantly, they were home at last…
This is how we wrapped up our campaign for Descent into Avernus this past weekend. I was very pleased with the results of an 18 month campaign and felt that it was a satisfying conclusion. This is actually the second campaign Open Heart Games launched and, due to scheduling, it was the first to wrap up. From here on out, expect heavy spoilers! Ye be warned!
Why I ❤️ Call of the Netherdeep
It has been over a year and a half since we launched our first campaigns and now those campaigns are coming to a close. . . .Next month, on August 21, we will be launching our next campaign Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep and I look forward to sharing this unique world with our community! I am excited today to share my spoiler-free thoughts on this module.
Five Ways to Improve Your Session Zero
I am a Game Master who has been running session zeroes for years and I have a process that I like to go through; however, I am always learning new things, reading about new best practices, and trying to improve all my sessions. In my opinion, session zero is the most important session as it either consciously or subconsciously drafts up a social contract, gives the players a roadmap of the campaign, and gives players and the GM the opportunity to discuss the hard and soft limits of any content they wish to experience within the campaign.
Late Campaign Tip: Loose End Checklist
Today I want to talk about how to prepare to wrap up a campaign, tie up those loose ends, and give your players the satisfying ending that will excite them and give your campaign the ending it deserves.
World-Building with Board Games
Today we’re going to talk about a unique way you and your players could work together to help build the world. . .It puts less pressure on the Game Master to have to come up with an entire world from the ground up, encourages the players to be creative and take a part in the fun world-building process and at the same time it encourages the players to buy into a world in which they helped create. Consider starting off your next campaign with a game!
The Mid-Campaign Check-In
. . .a Session Zero. . .is basically where the Game Master sits down with the players and sets expectations and ground rules for the session. The Game Master also discusses potential plot points, major factions, and other important details. So is it possible to do a Session Zero mid-campaign? The short answer is no, but I think it is possible to do something similar with a Mid-Campaign Check-In.
The “Blueprint” Heist
Picture this if you will. You are getting ready to sit down for your regular roleplaying session and you tell your players that they are going to help you prepare. With a smirk, you gently slide an outline of a building in the middle of the table. You tell your players that they are going to plan a heist and that the blueprint before them contains everything they will need to do just that. And with that, you turn it over to your players to ask their questions while you build the encounter around these questions and the answers.
‘Twas the Night Before Strahdmas
In mid 2020, as Open Heart Games was just starting to come into being, I began running a favorite campaign [that I had run several times before] in order to gain experience and playtest games online–D&D 5E: Curse of Strahd. About halfway through 2021, as the campaign began to wrap up, the players came up with a nefarious plan to turn one of their favorite NPCs into the dark Barovian version of Santa Claus. They used as many things as they could find from the campaign, including: a bag of holding, an arbalest stolen from the top of a castle, a hollowed out skull from Baba Yaga. Oh, and one of the characters inexplicably turned into a tree. . .you know. . . the normal stuff that happens over the course of a campaign. Before the final climactic battle I unleashed this poem, written by my wife and I, upon my unwitting players. Their response was nothing short of cackling glee. So in the spirit of the holidays, I wanted to share this story with you. Merry Strahdmas, everyone!!
I Need a Hero!
How do we as Game Masters facilitate this desire to be heroes. . .We must give the players something to fight for: a banner to carry, innocents to protect, or a quest to fulfil.
The Wild Wait is over! The Witchlight Carnival Awaits!
In a previous blog, I expressed my excitement and interest for the upcoming D&D module The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. In that blog I shared my predictions for this highly anticipated module. I am excited to share that today is the day to test my prescience! Without further ado, let's jump into the first prediction and see how close I was!
Curse of Strahd Post-Mortem
During the founding of Open Heart Games, in order to gain familiarity with Roll20 and playing online, I asked a group of friends to join me in playing this module. Why did I choose Curse of Strahd? . .Curse of Strahd is a fantastic module and one that you should consider running if you have not already done so. That being said there are a few things that I think could be improved upon. . . .
Life After Death: What Do You Do After a Total Party Kill?
When the entire party is defeated, it can be a very frustrating experience. . .this article [will] provide Game Masters with a few options when a party has a run of bad luck, bites off more they can chew and. . .well. . .bites it.
Avoiding Boring Combat
Combat should be the most interactive and the most intense of the three aspects of roleplaying. Right? Yet in many systems, especially D&D, combat can break down to a dice slog of: roll initiative, roll to hit, hit, now roll damage. . .and so it goes until the monster dies. . .hopefully. Surely we as game masters (and players as well) can do something to help inject some flavor and some fun into our combats to make them more interesting. But how?
“Hail and Well Met!” Joining an Established Campaign
It is no small feat to join an existing group and it can be very intimidating to say the least. In fact, I think one of the most challenging things one can do in a roleplaying game as either a GM or a player is to join an established group mid-campaign. Will you fit in? Will they like your character? How many inside jokes do they have? And the list goes on. I would like to posit that joining an existing group does not have to be all that intimidating if you know how to approach it. Let's talk about how to make it easier and discuss some of the perks!
Get Ready For A Helluva Good Time! Why I❤️Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus
Here we are again friends! A launch of another brand-new campaign. In just over a tenday, Open Heart Games will launch our second campaign, Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. In the same vein of our last entry, I wanted to give my initial thoughts and share with you my excitement as we begin our next journey into the world of the Forgotten Realms! This will be a spoiler-free preview, so please read on!
My Introduction into Roleplaying. Part 2: The Campaign
This week we will talk about the first campaign that I ever ran. It was, in a word, awful. . . But for me, the takeaway is that even though the campaign wasn’t the greatest story ever told, the players had a good time and I learned a lot. This campaign gave me the much-needed confidence to continue to run campaigns for years to come. And believe me when I say, they got a lot better.