Old Skulling

Now for the last part of this preview of Good Referee Principles that will be part of the Running the Game chapter of the revised edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells to be published in the near future! For the first post go here , and for the second here . Surprise Them We all have expectations in our games. The majority of people who will sit down to play SS&SS with you have probably already played other fantasy roleplaying games, read fantasy books, watched dozens of fictional movies or even played hours and hours of fantasy games in their consoles or computers. And that means they have preconceived notions of what magic is, what a monster do, what powers a magic sword has and things like this. Surprise them. Make monsters do things they don’t usually do in the fiction. Makes what initially seems to be bad actually be good in the end. Make the magic sword actually work as a vehicle somehow. Take their expectations and turn them around. Adventuring is Perilous ...

Continuing with the previews of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells second edtion, now the second part of the Good Referee Practices I began sharing on this post. Set Them Free Let the players explore the game and the world as they please. Don’t force them into any path you think it's more appropriate or that you have prepared in advance. If you need to improvise something due to their choices, look into the practice above this one. Use random tables or use one of the thousands of ready made material that’s available either for free or for very reasonable price all around (look for the One Page Dungeon entries). Doing this will not only allow players to have fun as they prefer, but will make the game exciting and surprising for you too. Reward Exploration and Ingenuity This game has many ways to reward player characters, such as points of Luck, Coins, Daring and even the accomplishment of goals that are necessary to advance Levels of experience. Find a way to reward expl...

Artwork by Diogo Nogueira This section on the new edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is intended to function as a quick guidance reference for Referees that are unfamiliar with the Old School style of play, or even more experienced Referees that like to keep these practices in their immediate mind. This was inspired by many resources such as the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming by Matt Finch, the Principia Apocrypha by David Perry and the Referee Book for Lamentations of the Flame Princess by James Raggi IV. These principles outlined below are not absolute however. As the first principles outlines, this game is yours now, and you should play it the way you feel more comfortable and have more fun with it. If you don’t like one or some of them, just ignore them. Take what you want and leave the rest. Make the Game Your Own This game has almost everything you need to play adventures inspired by the pulp literature of sword and sorcery. However, your vision of how th...