Posts by Celeste Conowitch

The Rule of Cool emphasizes that the rules of a game are simply a frame to hold a fantastic creation, and the frame should never pull focus from the piece itself. Cultivating this kind of storytelling does take practice. When there aren’t specific rules written, it is much easier to say, “No, you can’t climb

We’re almost at the end of our little series here, so before we close this book, I wanted to chat about a pillar of good gaming that I hold very dear: the art of descriptive storytelling. I believe many of us who choose to run roleplaying games do so because we have fallen in love

A few installments back, I mentioned that I could write an entire article on pacing’s importance. So here I am, making good on that promise! In today’s post, I’m going to talk about ways to punch up the pacing to make your shows thrilling for both your audience and your players. I’ll talk about two

In this series, we have chatted a lot about the philosophy of how to run and promote games. Today I want to talk about something genuinely fundamental to starting a successful actual play show: selecting a cast. Gathering a diverse and complementary group of players is absolutely vital to producing an experience that people love

We’ve done a few articles now about the real-world strategies that support your game, so I wanted to wade back into a topic centered on spicing up your game content. Today’s article is all about how to make interesting NPCs! I’m going to go over two main strategies for building fascinating characters in your world,

In the last article, we pulled the camera back and chatted a bit about building support structures around your show (rather than altering your content directly). This time, we’re focusing on another critical aspect of said supports: social media.

Over the last few articles, we’ve chatted a lot about strategies to shape your show for mass appeal. This time, I want to talk about content creation that supports your show. There are a lot of elements to consider that don’t appear on screen or behind a mic. Let’s discuss a couple!

Last time, we chatted about some flashy showmanship to keep attention while running your games. This time, we’re looking at the bigger picture and talking about the benefits of using supplemental content when building your campaigns.

In the last article, we talked all about working with others to increase your show’s audience, so now we’re going to talk about how to keep that audience invested with stellar showmanship. Here goes nothing.