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Wes Baker

Gamer, RPG Referee, Painter, Reader

Tabletop gamer, RPG referee, and miniature painter based in Fredericksburg, VA. I play board games obsessively, referee tabletop RPGs for anyone willing to sit at my table, paint miniatures with varying degrees of success, and read more books than I probably have time for. This is where I write about all of it.

Recent

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 31: Experience

·1 min
What keeps drawing me back to RPGs is the experience they create with other people. They combine story, flexibility, and shared play in a way that board games never quite managed for me.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 30: Portal

·2 mins

The most common form of a portal that your players will experience is a door. A door by itself is boring, it has a knob and it divides rooms from other rooms and hallways. However, that door breaks up the dungeon into individual segments that can be processed one at a time by the players. The GM may not be so lucky if the players are making a lot of noise, they’ll need to keep track if whatever is on the other side is aware of the players.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 29: Ride

·1 min
I usually handwave long travel, but the ride itself can still be worth focusing on when it’s fun enough. The dinosaur race in Tomb of Annihilation is a great example of travel that stands on its own.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 28: Close

·1 min
Some of the best RPG moments come from close calls: fights barely won, clues found in time, or villains stopped at the last second. Those scenes are memorable, but it’s just as fun to let players completely outplay a situation when they’ve earned it.

#RPGaDAY2020 Day 27: Favor

·1 min
If you’re looking for an adventure hook, somebody always needs a favor. A small request can turn into travel, danger, betrayal, or a larger obligation with very little effort.