Featuring a foreword by gaming industry legend Monte Cook, Eureka contains 501 complete adventure plots usable with almost any roleplaying game, plus GMing advice and tools for making the most of every plot. If you game once a week, that's nearly 10 years of adventures, all right here in the largest collection of its kind ever published. Written by nine veteran game masters - the authors of the most widely read game mastering blog on the planet, Gnome Stew - Eureka is more than just adventure seeds. Each plot includes a hook to draw your players in, an outline detailing enough material for a complete adventure, generally in the form of 3-5 meaty encounters, and any game mastering notes, plot twists, and advice you might need to turn that plot into a fun night of gaming. Adventure hooks alone don't give you much to work with, but fully developed adventures can be hard to personalize and fit into an ongoing game. Eureka is the perfect middle ground: We provide the main ingredients, and you decide how to prepare them. Packed with ideas and inspiration, this massive collection is designed to be the ultimate adventure toolkit: * Fantasy, science fiction, and horror plots: 167 of each, all easily adaptable to multiple genres * Clear, concise game mastering advice: We show you how to adapt plots to other genres (effectively giving you 464 fantasy, 420 sci-fi, and 338 horror plots) and how to turn Eureka plots into full-blown adventures * The tools you need: Plots are grouped by theme, from "Revolt" to "Mistaken Jealousy," and categorized by tags like intrigue, exploration, and combat-heavy * Four indexes: Quickly find a plot for any situation by genre, tag, title, or author * No game mechanics and no proper names: These system-neutral plots are simple to use and easy to personalize to your game

Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters, EGP42001

Scott, Martin

Walt Ciechanowski

TROY TAYLOR

Phil Vecchione

Martin Ralya

Engine Publishing

John Arcadian

Patrick Benson

Matthew Neagley

Kurt Schneider

Written by the award-winning authors of the GMing blog Gnome Stew, Masks is now available in print and PDF! Just got done looking at a preview of @gnomestew's new book, Masks, filled with cool NPCs for any game or genre. Looks great! - Game designer Monte Cook (via Twitter) Playing a character is like putting on a mask: Slip on a mask, and you become someone else. This book presents 1,000 masks - non-player characters that are fun to play, and that your players will never forget. Featuring a foreword by gaming industry legend Wolfgang Baur, Masks is the ultimate NPC resource. Think of your favorite character from a game, book, or movie. What makes them memorable? It's not their Strength score, or how many hit points they have - it's who they are as a person: what they look like, how they act, their personality, and what drives them. Using a simple but powerful template that features Appearance, Roleplaying, Personality, Motivation, Background, and Traits, Masks provides the core elements of a thousand great characters. Masks NPCs are designed to be used on the fly, no prep required - but with enough depth to be used when planning adventures, as well. Within this massive collection you'll find the resources you need to portray vivid NPCs in your games: Fantasy, science fiction, and modern NPCs: 333 of each (334 in fantasy), all easily adaptable to any genre and any RPG Roles and traits: Every NPC has a role - villain, ally, or neutral - and is categorized by traits like famous, criminal, and warrior Clear, useful game mastering advice: Masks covers re-skinning NPCs to fit other genres, making your portrayals memorable, and more Handy tools: NPCs are indexed by trait, name, and author; an appendix lists groups like Tavern Patrons and Spaceport Denizens; and Masks provides over 1,900 names in an easy-to-use format No game mechanics: These system-neutral NPCs can be used in any RPG Masks is a standalone volume - you don't have to own our first book, Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters, to enjoy it, although they go great together. Masks is designed to be used both as a table book and as a prep book. At the table, it gives GMs a tool for portraying vivid, memorable NPCs on the fly - if your players show sudden interest in that bartender, you can flip to just about any page and find a suitable personality, backstory, and roleplaying cues to flesh out that NPC. During prep, Masks provides a solid foundation for everything from signature villains to steadfast allies, as well as neutral characters you can use as everyone else - or tip one way or the other and use as a villain or ally.

Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game (EGP42002)

Authors of GnomeStew

Whether you re new to game mastering or have been running the same campaign since 1974, Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master s Guide to Session Prep will help you prepare for games faster, avoid common pitfalls, and have more fun in the process. To our knowledge, this is the first book entirely devoted to the process of prepping for tabletop RPGs. Never Unprepared breaks game prep down into its component phases Brainstorming, Selection, Conceptualization, Documentation, and Review and provides the tools you need to make the most of each phase. If you hate prep, you ll find ways to make it more enjoyable. If you already have a great system for doing your prep, you ll learn how to make it even better. Ten years in the making, Never Unprepared is award-winning author Phil Vecchione s epic rock ballad to game prep. A project manager and veteran game master, he draws on extensive experience to present flexible systems for developing or optimizing your own unique approach to game prep. Phil s work has previously appeared on GnomeStew.com (silver ENnie Award winner for Best Blog, 2010 and 2011) and in Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters and Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game. Within Never Unprepared you ll find prep techniques, utilities, and tips that are applicable to any RPG: An in-depth look at each phase of session prep, from brainstorming to review Templates for sessions, scenes, NPCs, and combats that you can modify to fit your gaming style Practical advice on selecting prep tools, putting them to good use, and scheduling enough time to prepare for every session How to identify your strengths and weaknesses, as well as tips for preparing when you re short on time and what to do if everything goes horribly wrong A comprehensive index to make it easy to find what you need

Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep (EGP42003)

Whether you're an old hand or are new to game mastering, you'll find a wealth of tips and techniques you can put to immediate use in Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management. Odyssey is jam-packed with in-depth advice on starting, managing, and ending campaigns, including tips on structuring stories and making your campaign thrive, examples of good and bad campaign management, and advice on actively managing every element of your campaign. Odyssey's award-winning authors bring unique perspectives to the topic of campaign management. Phil is a project manager and wrote Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep. Walt is an improvisational game master with years of experience in the tabletop RPG industry. Both write for the award-winning game mastering blog Gnome Stew. To our knowledge, Odyssey is the first system-neutral book solely dedicated to the art of managing campaigns.

Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management (EGP42004)

Improvisation is key to running any roleplaying game. It s an essential skill for every game master and player, and can mean the difference between a good gaming session and a great one. Until now, there hasn t been a system-neutral book that covers improvisation for game masters from every angle. Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters is that book. An anthology of 23 essays by a diverse group of award-winning authors, designers, and experienced game masters, Unframed gives you the tools and inspiration to improvise better, wing it without hesitation, and get killer results. Inside this book you ll find advice on improvising dialogue scenes by Robin D. Laws (Hillfolk, Ashen Stars), a look at Just In Time improvisation from Jennell Jaquays (Caverns of Thracia, Dark Tower), advice on listening to your players by Jason Morningstar (Fiasco, Durance), tricks for handling curveballs from Jess Hartley (Changeling: The Lost, Geist: The Sin-Eaters), tips on improv in horror games from Kenneth Hite (Trail of Cthulhu, GURPS Horror), insightful essays by the authors of the ENnie Award-winning game mastering blog Gnome Stew, and many more.

Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters (EGP42005)

The heart of roleplaying is the gaming session, that point when everyone is gathered around the gaming table and exactly when so many of your game mastering skills are most needed. To the best of our knowledge, there's never been a system-neutral book focused on running great sessions. Until now. Focal Point: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions is that book. Written by award-winning authors Phil Vecchione, Walt Ciechanowski, and John Arcadian, Focal Point is the third volume in Engine Publishing s accidental trilogy of GMing advice books, which began with Never Unprepared and continued in Odyssey. You don t need those books to enjoy and make use of this one, although they do complement each other well (and we offer a special bundle price for the trilogy). Each of Focal Point s authors is a veteran GM with years of experience, and each of them excels at a particular aspect of GMing. John is an entertainer, a GM who loves props and drawing his players into the game world. Walt is a storyteller, an adventure-writer who makes his living in the RPG industry. Phil is a facilitator, an organized GM who specializes in helping his players work well together. These three roles entertainer, storyteller, and facilitator are at the core of Focal Point. From building sets for your gaming table, to using flowcharts to structure your adventures, to making sure everyone in your group feels comfortable during play, this guidebook addresses everything that goes into running an extraordinary gaming session.

Focal Point: The Complete Game master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions (EGP42006)

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