Gamemaster’s Guidelines - Beyond Fomalhaut

Heavy is the head that wears the crown! In role-playing games, the position of the gamemaster carries the most responsibility, as it is a formidable task to entertain and challenge an entire group of players from session to session while preserving the game’s continuing appeal and mystery. Fortunately, the tricks and techniques required for gamemastering are easily learned with a little practice, and perfected through continuous play. All it takes is a lively imagination, sound judgement, and a pinch of ambition.

This volume provides guidance and time-tested techniques emphasizing the practical side of gamemastering to assist in fulfilling these ambitions. Building on the philosophy of classic adventure gaming, and focusing on player agency, gamemaster creativity, and fast, open gameplay, it offers comprehensive guidance for running old-school games, and designing adventures, campaigns, and game worlds. The book provides not only advice, but also a rich toolset to help both during preparation and at the table: procedures of play to facilitate a smooth game experience, a broad selection of monsters and magic items, as well as a large set of random generation tables to inspire gamemastering creativity.”

A 292-page hardcover supplement providing comprehensive, easy-to-follow guidance on creating and running old-school adventures and campaigns, from basic philosophy to tested design methods and a whole lot of supplemental material (including optional rules, monsters, treasure, and random generation tables). The book should be useful for beginning gamemasters and old hands alike.

It includes the following materials:

• A primer on Classic Adventure Gaming, notes on swords & sorcery, and a list of selected inspirational material.
• Basic and advanced gamemastering techniques, from effective descriptions to harnessing random rolls for creativity.
• Intuitive and modular optional rules from a simple mass combat system to experience, survival, poison, and disease.
• Adventure and campaign design advice, including dungeon, wilderness, city, and situation-based adventure types, as well as guidance on constructing and running rich sandbox campaigns with ease.
• Guidance on designing game-friendly fantastic worlds, including understanding their assumptions, dealing with the gods, and adopting the game to other genres.
• Simple domain management guidelines.
• A selection of 255 monsters, NPC types, and a large, complex set of encounter tables.
• A treasury of magic items, technological devices, and treasure generation charts.
• A rich selection of random inspiration tables to help in adventure design.