Over the DM's Shoulder

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Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2026

The Perspective Trick: Why You and Your Players Might Feel Differently About the Same Thing

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Recently, I had a conversation with a long time player of mine who's been gaming with me for ten years. I mentioned my reflection on wh...
Wednesday, January 21, 2026

What is the Role of Fantasy in D&D?

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Lately, I've been working with a lot of tabletop games beyond D&D. Most notably, I've been working with Geist: The Sin Eaters i...
Friday, December 26, 2025

An Argument for Open-Ended Stories

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For the years I have run this site, I have long argued for open-ended writing from GMs. I've argued that it prevents us from railroading...
Thursday, November 6, 2025

Reflections on Character Deaths

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Different tabletop games have different likelihoods of player character death (Call of Cthulhu has a particularly treacherous likelihood) wh...
Sunday, November 2, 2025

An Argument for Downtime

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I've been reflecting on my earliest days as a GM lately. It's been easy to, with nearly 18 years of practice and the benefit of hind...
Tuesday, October 28, 2025

What Exactly is a Tabletop Game?

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When I set out to write my Master's thesis (which included Dungeons and Dragons and Don't Rest Your Head , both tabletop games), I h...
Wednesday, October 22, 2025

What I Look for in a Player

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I have spent years writing on this site about how GMs can cater to their players. If there is a central argument to the 250+ articles here, ...