LOST. Love it or loathe it, the thrilling television show has made huge impact on everyone’s screens.

Personally, I love Lost. I love the characters, the plot twists, the dialogue… The show deserves all the writing accolades it has received and then some.

I also love that Lost writers and producers aren’t afraid of death. In fact, they have no problem killing off characters. I find myself guessing which character is going to survive and which isn’t as I watch the shows unfold .

It’s refreshing.

Without fear of death, the fear of losing someone you’ve become emotionally invested in, the suspension of disbelief as the story unfolds becomes a little hazy. We become used to the fact that characters aren’t going to die in those life or death situations. There is no life or death situation to bite our nails over, really, because there’s only life.

The same often happens in RPGs. Characters develop an invincibility complex much like Boris Grishenko in Goldeneye. They take more risks, putting themselves in ever-increasing danger. Yet they ultimately survive, which means the game becomes unrealistic, as more fantastical creatures or convoluted dangers are invented to “challenge” the invincible character.

On the flip side, killing off characters runs the risk of encouraging a “disposable character” mentality – players don’t invest into developing characters they know are going to ultimately die or that they can toss the character out if they don’t like them.

And, of course, killing off characters tends to have a side effect of sometimes leaving you without anyone to play with. They’re all dead.

Death Becomes Them

So what do you do? How do you balance the need for a fear of death in your RPG or creative fiction while avoiding a slaughter field or an uncaring attitude about character development?

This is where Non-Player Characters (NPCs) come in. They’re usually not as fully developed as player characters, yet they’re often integral enough to the story for players emotionally invest in them. Just think of your favorite NPC in your particular RPG.

Now imagine how you’d react if your favorite was suddenly brutally murdered.

Done right, you can suspend disbelief for all players using fear of death – without killing off their characters. You can give them a very real reminder that bad things can (and do) happen. You may even get them to think about their own character’s potential death, which often lead to some fantastic role-playing.

Of course, if you’re really gutsy, you could always kill off one of your own characters. But that is a post for another day…

What about your RPG? What have you done to keep the fear of death alive?

About the author: When he’s not busy watching the latest installment of LOST, Marc can be found Hunting the supernatural at Escaping Reality. He also spends time rambling about RPGs on his own blog – grab the free RSS feed here.

Many of you are fascinated by writing because you love it. Many of you are creative writers, or role players, or gamers. Many of you have a passion for creating magical worlds and believable characters to roam and play within them.

So when Gamer Lifestyle opened their membership course and told us they’d added new features, a select few spots, and some exclusive offers for Men with Pens and Capturing Fantasy readers, we thought we should let you know about it.

First, a Recap

This program is all about helping you make money writing on something you already enjoy doing – namely, roleplaying, creative fiction and gaming. The two creators of this course, Johnn and Yax, have both earned some pretty serious money creating products around that passion.

Between them, they’ve founded a role-playing gaming company, written for gaming publications like Wizards of the Coast and Dragon Magazine, written nine books, and host three incredibly popular websites, RolePlaying Tips, Campaign Mastery and Dungeon Mastering.

They’re big advocates of the Gamer Lifestyle, and they want to help you make a living writing about something you love instead of spending all your time just writing for nothing but fun.

What’s New

If you’d like a recap on all of the great stuff that’s included in the Gamer Lifestyle, check out this post we wrote on Men with Pens when they first opened the course. It includes hundreds of hours’ worth of training modules – with new additions constantly coming in – task lists to keep you moving forward, how-to videos, and community forums, as well as one of the best guarantees we’ve ever seen:

They guarantee you’ll earn your first dollar using the Gamer Lifestyle in just three months, or your money back.

It’s a pretty sweet deal. And Johnn and Yax have upped the ante quite a bit with their new improvements. We were pretty impressed, because we frankly couldn’t see much to improve.

New Dynamic Checklist System

We all know how hard it can be to keep on top of our goals if we can’t see our progress. Yax’s brilliant creation fixes that problem. His checklist system lists all the actions you need to take to see income from your gamer lifestyle – and you can see your progress as you check off tasks with a percentage bar for each section.

When you hit 100% in a section, you’ll know that’s a portion of the Gamer Lifestyle that’s about to bear some very lucrative fruit. Instead of a passive system, you’re working with a guided tour to writing and gaming your way into a new income stream.

It also takes all the guesswork out of the lifestyle. You’ve read books that offer great ideas for how to create a business, but they don’t actually tell you what to do first and second and third. Yax’s system eliminates that problem. Simple steps, in order, tracking on your personal Gamer Lifestyle account. Talk about a motivator.

New Low Price

When Gamer Lifestyle first opened, it cost $450, and slots for the course filled up fast. But Johnn and Yax knew that price kept a lot of people out of the course, so they racked their brains for a way to cut costs. They did, by $200.

That’s $250, for a course that used to cost $450. They even offer a payment plan for those who can’t come up with the $250 all at once (3 payments of $97). It’s a pretty insane deal.

The best part? If you want to add coaching, it’s just $150 per session, and it’s exclusively you and Johnn and Yax. Get all your gaming questions answered instantaneously, with the focus strictly on you and what you hope to achieve with this new income stream. You can find out how they did it, and you can ask them how to get your own skills to the point that they can support you in the gamer lifestyle.

We loved this course. James practically lost it when he first saw it. And with that new low price point and the prospect of getting free coaching from Johnn and Yax personally, we can’t imagine what could hold you back.

You should get on it fast, though – they’re closing the course in just five days.

With the twin awesome guarantees – your money back if you haven’t earned your first dollar in the gamer lifestyle in three months; and your money back for any reason if you’re not satisfied in six months – it’s not surprising.

If earning a serious income stream from roleplaying, creative writing and gaming sounds like a dream come true to you, you should invest in this course. We’ll be expecting to see your byline in the next Wizards of the Coast.

If you want to learn how to write role-playing games for a living – and get PAID for it – then you need to check out this post at Men with Pens on theGamer Lifestyle Exclusive MwP Offer.

The Gamer Lifestyle course is one we’ve seen with our own eyes. It’s quality stuff, guys – and it’s damned good. The material clearly and easily walks you through exactly what you need to do to go from being a casual gamer or creative writer to someone who writes for places like Wizards of the Coast or World of Darkness.

What’s in the Gamer Lifestyle course? This program is all about helping you make money writing on something you already enjoy doing – namely, roleplaying, creative fiction and gaming. Learn more about it in this post or head straight to Gamer Lifestyle and sign up today or grab their free 70-page ebook.

The two creators of this course, Johnn and Yax, have both earned some pretty serious money doing just that already. Between them, they’ve founded a role-playing gaming company, written for gaming publications like Wizards of the Coast and Dragon Magazine, written nine books, and host three incredibly popular websites, RolePlaying Tips, Campaign Mastery and Dungeon Mastering.

The Gamer Lifestyle course is only open for a couple more days before the doors are shut and the offer ends. And we know for a fact – slots fill up fast.

Oh, and Johnn and Yax guarantee you’ll earn your first dollar using the Gamer Lifestyle in just three months, or your money back. Do you know what that means? That means in three months, you’ll be getting paid for your roleplaying talents.

That’s awesome. We’re in. How about you?

24. Arguably one of the most popular television series of the last decade.

The premise is simple, each one-hour episode depicts an actual hour in the main character’s life. That character is Jack Bauer and over the course of 24 episodes (or 24 hours), he takes on the bad guys and averts national catastrophe by the skin of his teeth.

One of the reasons the show is so popular is because Jack gets hurts. He’s been shot, blown up, beaten up, tortured, even infected by a killer virus.

And that’s just the physical side of the abuse.

The psychological scars run deeper. In many respects, the level of pain and suffering this man has endured reaches the realm of the ridiculous. Yet imagine how boring and short-lived the series would be if the writers were afraid of hurting Bauer.

This is what happens in a lot of RPGs. Players tend to play things safe with their characters as they avoid conflict and any other potential situation where their character may be harmed, physically or emotionally. It’s understandable, we all grow attached to our creations. The last thing we want as kind, caring and considerate human beings is to inflict harm on others.

Even fictional ones.

But it’s time to be sadistic. Time to be cruel to be kind, because no one remembers the play-it-safe characters. No one cares about the sensible characters. They are far more interested in ones that take risks. The characters that excite them and bring them to the very edge of their seats. The ones that hang them over the precipice and threaten to drop them into the abyss.

So go out there. Do something that hurts. Break your character if you have to. And abandon the notion of the Disney-live-happily-ever-after nonsense.

When he’s not encouraging people to embrace the Dark Side and break their characters, Marc plays in the World of Darkness based RPG Escaping Reality. He also dispenses other RPG tips and advice over on his blog Ramblingbloggers.com

Many situations arise in a RPG where you are required to take control. You may need to lead a scene or you may be playing the villain, for example. The trouble is, taking control can easily escalate into powergaming.

And that is bad.

What is Powergaming?

Wikipedia describes it best by defining powergaming as “a particular way of playing in which the emphasis lies on developing a player character that is either as powerful as possible, usually to the detriment of other aspects of the game, such as character interaction, or violates roleplaying etiquette by either taking control of other players’ characters, actions, or the outcome of a game.”

My favourite example: Superman without Kryptonite.

This comes at a cost, the enjoyment of the other players, and it needs to be avoided. Nothing destroys an RPG quicker than a bout of powergaming.

It’s like Bruce Lee once said: “It’s the art of fighting, without fighting”. So how do you take control, without taking control?

Being Led around by the Nose

The key word here is lead. Think of it like walking a dog. Do it the wrong way and the dog ends up taking you for a walk. He pulls you in any direction he fancies and, if he’s a large breed, pulls your arms out of their sockets.

Pulling arms out of their sockets should be left to Wookies.

You’re not in control, the walk is a disaster and you are left feeling very frustrated. Furthermore, you start take less walks, the dog develops issues and destroys your house. Not good.

The same can happen in an rpg scene. If no one is leading or providing direction, then the players can end up feeling lost, confused, and very frustrated. The whole scene is a disaster, no one wants to write and suddenly you find yourself looking for a new home for your character.

Leading a Scene the Right Way
The proper way to walk a dog is having it by your side, following your direction and obeying your commands. This is what experts call a structured walk, and it is incredibly beneficial to both the dog and the owner because it fulfils an instinctual need in both.

Plus your house remains intact.

Scenes need the same structure. They need a sense of direction, a purpose, and guidance to keep them on track. They need a leader. Yes, even in character-driven plots.

A good leader will:

• use hooks to keep the players involved and motivated
• know the boundaries of the current scene, when to enforce them and when not to
• always provide the players with a choice, let them make their own decisions and even provide a way out if necessary

Avoiding Powergaming while Playing an Evil Character

This is where it can get tricky. As the protagonist, you’re supposed to make life difficult for the hero. After all, the Joker never took it easy on Batman, right?

The difference is you’re not writing a story involving multiple characters that you created. You’re writing a story involving other people’s characters. As such, you need to be prepared to have more of an open dialogue with your fellow players.

Talk to them, ask them questions, such as, “How would your character react if my Dark Overlord did this or that? Would you mind if my Evil Dictator did this or that to your character?”

Be prepared to reveal parts of your plot (privately, of course) if it helps put the other person at ease. Above all, you must provide a way out, a choice for everyone involved, through private discussions and in your story.

Conclusion

Ultimately, avoiding powergaming is about recognizing the elements you can take control of and the ones you can’t. Ask yourself, are my actions taking control of another player’s character? If the answer is yes, then it’s time to find an alternative course of action.

To all you leaders, GMs and storytellers out there: How do you prevent powergaming from rearing its ugly head in your games? Please share in the comments.

About the author: Marc is an avid roleplayer, a veteran with over ten years of experience. When he’s not playing his werewolf in Escaping Reality he shares his knowledge of RPGing on ramblingbloggers.com. Head on over and subscribe, you know you want to.

Your character Randy is chilling with friends at his house. They’re chatting, having fun, and then Randy has a suggestion.

“Hey guys. You wanna go hang out at the beach?

The other players reply, and their characters say, “Sure, that would be awesome. Let’s go!”

But no one moves. Until Randy says, “I’m going!” and walks out the door.

What happened here? Why didn’t anyone move until Randy did?

Leading and Following

In a roleplaying game, a leader is someone who keeps the scene going. A follower always waits to see what the leader does before moving his or her characters. Leadership should flow from player to player as each takes a turn.

But very often, that’s not what happens. A player finds himself in the leader role, and somehow never quite gets out of it. It ends up feeling like his job is to make something happen all the time just to encourage other characters to move.

Should it be this way? No. The game becomes work. It takes the fun right out of it.

Someone always has to lead a scene, of course, but when someone is always the leader, that leader can’t have fun because there’s no unexpected action to respond to from the other characters. The leader is the only one causing action.

Leaders are rarely surprised, and game play isn’t impromptu.

Followers don’t really help. Someone who always follows and never leads affects the high of game play a great deal. If you’re a follower, what fun is it to always sit back and never get scenes moving where you want them to go? You’re always wait for the other player to do something so that you can follow along.

Your character could end up sitting around waiting for a long time.

Also, being a follower sometimes holds the game up. You aren’t sure what your character should do, so you wait and do nothing at all. That means the scene and the story won’t move forward without someone causing some kind of action. This gets tiring. Everyone starts to get bored with the scene.

Where’s that leader when you need him?

Evening Out the Lead-Follow Balance

You don’t have to suddenly become a leader if you prefer to follow, and you don’t have to stop leading if you enjoy taking charge. But there are ways for each type of person, both leader and follower, to even out the balance between the two extremes. Here are some tips to get started:

If you really aren’t sure what to do with your character, have your character ask others. “Hey, are we leaving now? Cause I’m ready to go.”  That signals you’re ready for action – and that you’re about to take it.

Tell other characters what you’re doing. Don’t wait to be asked. “Naw, man. I think I’m gonna sit this one out.” Then your character is free to move on to another scene and other players are free to move their characters on as well.

Be active and proactive. Change up the scene.  Have your character cause some trouble or do something off the wall for the hell of it. Don’t wait for something to happen. Be the one who makes things fun for you and everyone else.

Want more quick tips? Hurt your character. Have him fall or bang his head. Get angry and shove someone. Start a fight. Laugh out loud. Do something unexpected and different, just because you can. Take a chance. Play the game. Don’t let others always tell you what your character should be doing.

Think about give and take. Give something to other players to play with, and take what’s fun out of their posts to make more happen. All you need to do is step out of your usual role.

About the Author: When not industriously studying towards her degree in web design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Tracy Bradshaw steps out of her player role to write about RPG.

Okay, picture the scene. It’s the weekend, you’re a hot guy. You walk into a bar and spot the woman of your dreams, so you make eye contact, she smiles back.

She’s interested!

You buy her a drink and sit down beside her. Then what? You smile at her, then smile at her some more and wait for her to tell you what a great smile you have and launch into scintillating conversation, regaling you with an animated account of her life story?

Sadly, no. In all probability she’d most likely drink up and then disappear into the night musing over how such a hot guy could be so dull and boring.

Now, picture this scene in a fantasy RPG:

You’re a hot guy. You meet a beautiful siren in the forests outside of town. A group of orcs is attacking her, so you swoop in, decapitate them, and save the day. She immediately falls in love with her knight in shining armor and rides off with you on your white charger.

Get the analogy?

No matter whether it’s a bar in anytown USA or a mystical world in your favorite RPG, the basic concept remains the same, you have to engage and interact with those around you if you don’t want to end up all alone playing with yourself; so to speak.

Everyone needs something to work with.

You can’t simply lurk in the background looking all coy, belligerent, disinterested or whatever and expect folks to read your mind, do all the work, and carry the scene forward. Real-life doesn’t work that way and neither does RPing.

You have to put some effort into it to get enjoyment out of it. Be it a hot chick in a bar or a beautiful siren in the woods, you need to give them something to work with. What you need to leave is a hook.

Let’s go back to our first analogy example. What would happen if you were in that bar, you sat down next to the beautiful woman and all you did was think of how hot she was? You didn’t smile, you didn’t say hello and you barely glanced at her. How is she going to know if you’re interested or boring and dull before she leaves the bar?

She’s won’t, because you just sat and did nothing. You showed no interest. She couldn’t read your mind, and you didn’t give her a hook. She has nothing to respond to.

Role-playing works the same way. We don’t want to know what happens if your character does nothing.

So what do you do? You leave hooks, something for the other players to grab onto and go with. It’s give and take. When you give them a hook, the other player takes it, uses it, and gives you something back.

What kinds of hooks can you leave?

Hooks can be anything from asking a question, making a snide comment to get someone’s anger flared up, or performing a physical action to make someone look your character’s way. It’s not so hard.

If your character thinks something is funny, don’t just have him think it’s funny. Have him laugh aloud, or even laugh so hard he falls off the bar stool.

If your character sees something that makes her angry and you have her stand with her arms crossed and with no expression on her face, don’t think someone is going to care. Have her make a face at the person or object. Have her yell or stir up some trouble to grab attention.

There’s always something to do. Your character just has to do it.

If you don’t leave hooks for the other players to respond to then sooner or later they could get frustrated and either write their characters out of the scene or just ignore your character altogether.

Players who show a consistent lack of give and take when it comes to hooks are missing out in the long-term too, as fellow players end up reluctant to get into future scenes with them.

Did you find any hooks?

One of the most frustrating, demoralizing things in an RPG is when you write an interesting good-sized post, only to get a two-sentence response back that indicates your character is being ‘ignored’.

Ignoring a character or situation is fine, as long as it’s within context and designed to provoke some kind of reaction. To ignore a character due to lack of time or motivation is a cop-out.

Maybe you missed a hook given by the other player or maybe their hook wasn’t clear enough for you. Maybe it wasn’t there at all. What if the other player sounded bored and therefore put no effort into the posts?

This can happen. If it does, then take a little time to PM the person and ask questions. Ask them to point out their hook just in case you missed it or ask them to make their hook clearer to you. If you didn’t feel like there was a hook, ask them if they would please add something for you to work with.

Also, you can ask them if they are bored with the scene. If yes, then ask what you can do to make scenes more exciting for them. Communication is the key here; use it.

If you can’t find a solution and nothing works, just move on. Take your character elsewhere. Start your own thread or join an existing one. Just remember to have fun.

Did you leave any hooks?

Make a comment, ask a question, slay a dragon, slip on a banana peel and end up on your ass looking like a klutz… just say or do something. Provide a hook for other characters to grab and respond to or they may end up leaving you in the dust to play with yourself.

Sites like Escaping Reality invite role players around the world to do more than play with yourself, and there’s no escaping the reality that back-and-forth, witty conversation and interaction between characters is as essential in RPG as it is in real life.

The bottom line is that you can be the most talented writer in the world but unless you have something interesting to say and are prepared to interact with others in the game, no one’s going to want to play with you.

About the Authors: When not scattering hooks around for people to pick up, Tracy Bradshaw and Carole spend their time writing together, plotting what to do next and stirring up a heap of trouble – the good kind.

Storytellers create a world for us to play in – but they certainly don’t expect players to know everything about their world or their game. That’s why they tend to have information on their site to help, like posts at the top of the main page that answer most questions players might have. They offer setting information, story and character information and the main rules of the game.

Storytellers try to cover all the bases, but they also know they can’t. They don’t expect every question you might have has a posted answer… so that means you have get your answers from them.

You have to ask questions.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

Storytellers are there to help. They’re there for players and are willing to listen and assist when needed. But too many players don’t ask questions, because they’re afraid – of what, I’m not sure, but I do know many questions never get asked.

If there is a place on the site or a thread in your game forum specifically intended for player questions, then that’s a great place to start. Storytellers watch these locations, see new posts go up and are able to view your questions there. You may even see some other questions from other players that spark your interest or give you the answers you need.

If you’re too shy or feel you can’t ask questions in public or on the boards, then send Storytellers a private message. It’s just between you and them, and they’re more than happy to reply. Most Storytellers will be able to get back to you within 24 hours, too, but if not, they always do their best to get back to you as soon as they can.

Your Fellow Players Are There to Help

Other players are there to have fun with the game just as you are. They often have great advice they could share, they may have been around longer, and some have experiences in gaming you could learn from.

They want to write with you as much as you want to write with them. Having more players participating makes the game interesting, and characters have more people to interact with. More experienced players also want you to know the answers so that the game proceeds more smoothly – not just for them, but for everyone. .

If you don’t ask questions, then you get lost and confused come time to play. For example, how will you know where to place your character if you aren’t sure which threads are available to play in? Other players are willing to help you figure out the best place to start playing. They just need you to ask them for it, so you can bring your character on board and join the fun.

Remember, also, that other players have probably asked the same questions you have and already know the answer, so they’re able to help you out quickly and easily. This comes in handy whenever a Storyteller isn’t available and they are.

And If They Don’t Know, They May Want To

The question you have might be one that another player was wondering about as well. Or, that person might not have thought of asking your question and realizes it’s a good one – he wants the answer too. Even players who’ve been around for a while don’t know everything.

So use that “ask a question” section. Help yourself, and help others out too. If your game board doesn’t have an “ask a question” section, why not contact the Storytellers and ask for one? It’s in their interest to create one, as an “ask a question” section helps them out by letting other players answer questions or informing many players of an answer all at once.

Who knows? Maybe you can answer a question or two that gets posted. Or maybe someone else’s question and the answer gives you a great idea for your character. Maybe you get some helpful advice and become a better player. Maybe you make new friends, even.

Everyone in a game is there to help keep the fun going and make it a better game to play. The other players and the Storytellers are always there to help as long as the game is going. So don’t be afraid to ask. You’re there to play and have fun, and there to participate with other people who want to have just as much fun as you. There is no such thing as a bad, or stupid, or silly question.

Asking questions is how we learn, and it’s great when we learn from each other. So tell me – what question are you going to ask today?

About the Author: When not asking questions of the Storytellers (yes, you can have a cabin; no, we don’t care which one) or writing her character’s reactions, Tracy Bradshaw industriously studies towards her degree in web design at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh – and yes, asks plenty of questions.

One of the most complicated aspects of online role playing is knowing what time it is. You could be confused about the time in someone else’s thread, or you could even have lost track of time in your own.

We’ve all been there, I’m sure.

Some players say that time doesn’t matter, that you should go with the flow – but what happens when you want your character to interact with that character over there? Are they in the same time zone? Is it even possible to interact? Or are they hours apart?

And what time was it again, anyways?

Then of course, there’s the perception of time – we each see the world and events in our own way, but that can become problematic…

Jason: I’m confused- you had Biff join our thread after killing the Dervish, but that killing happened after lunch and the thread our characters are in is still before lunch.

Sarah: I don’t think so. Remember Arnor said that your group was stopping to eat just before the giant mollusks from Ecuador attacked? I figure about an hour for the battle, which puts us in the same general time frame.

Jason: What? No way. We were stopping for a second breakfast, not lunch, and the battle was only fifteen minutes… how did you figure a whole hour?

You get the idea. Even after the “who’s right/who’s wrong” discussion gives way into the “does it matter/let’s split the difference” compromise, you’re still looking at time problems. The time estimate is still off, a few feathers have been ruffled, and someone invariably walks away unsatisfied with the outcome.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Well, yes, actually, someone does. There are probably one or two players in your group who are pretty good at keeping tabs on time in at least their own thread and possibly the other threads as well.

There really is one in every crowd

One of them might even be willing to help track time for the game. What a noble soul.

But let’s say there is no noble soul who rocks the stopwatch in your group. How do you keep track of time in a fluid game? It’s all in the clues.

Watch for Markers

Markers are a timekeeper’s delight. Here are two examples, inserted unwittingly into the game by various players:

He glanced at his watch. 10:15, it read.

She walked into the diner just as the sun began to dip below the horizon.

In the first example, the reference point is obvious – the player wrote exactly what time it was in his post. The second example is less obvious, but it does give a good indication of the time of day. With a little Google help in regards to what time the sun sets, the timekeeper can narrow down that clue into nearly precise minutes.

The important thing about is that it gives a reference to jump off from, and all else that follows relates to that moment in time.

Extra Time Factors that Count

There are extra clues you can watch for to help you stay on time-track:

A good jog to the castle would help her work out her anger.

He threw the spaghetti on to boil as he opened the can of sauce.

Richard showed her around the house before offering her a drink.

Activities take time. Again, Google is your friend: The average person walks about 3 miles an hour, so if the castle is about three miles away, you can craft a decent estimate of the time of arrival. An average takes 20 to 45 minutes to prepare – spaghetti even less. And how big could the house be? Say 15 minutes to do the tour, tops.

Don’t get too caught up in other factors that influence time, like how fast she was jogging or whether her legs were long or short. That sort of attention to detail doesn’t help keep the game moving, and it becomes a frustrating task to calculate every little factor into the clock.

Too, you could save yourself some time by figuring out “time blocks” and slapping them up each time you see a trigger. For example, decide that every meal takes 30 minutes to prepare, then each time you see a character start to prepare a meal, slap that 30 minutes into the game.

The important thing here is that you can establish some known factors to use in your time keeping.

When All Else Fails… Guess

Yes, yes, if you want to be picky, even Markers and Factors are still guesses. But what we really mean by guessing are those moments when you really need to take a shot in the dark.

She fell asleep on the couch and started to dream…

They sat on the dock and looked out over the bay…

He loaded his guns and waited…

These are the bane of a timekeeper. How long did he wait? How long did she sleep? How long did those people sit on that damned dock?

Throw me a bone, people!

You really only have just a few choices, here. You can take a stab at it, throw some arbitrary minutes at the clock, or ask, “How long are you two your characters going to make out for?” Or, you can sit and wait until characters come back to life and interact to give you a Marker or a Factor.

This actually happens often – just leaving the timeline alone until something happens to help pin down the clock on the action.

Ultimately, that offers a lot of freedom, too. If a player wanted to interact in a thread that was several hours ahead, who’s to say that in his current thread, he didn’t sit there waiting with his gun loaded for hours before hopping right over?

No one can argue it, and off the character goes to join the group.
The bigger fact is that time-keeping in a game is not about enforcing or creating limitations. It’s about offering a service to players that allows the game to stay organized, flow well and move along smoothly with no hitches.

Does Anyone Really Care?

If time-keeping isn’t about enforcing limitations and telling people what they can’t do, and it’s all generally good at the end of the day, does it really matter? What difference does it make what time it is?

Sometimes time does matter.

If you play a vampire and it’s close to sunrise, that time could have significance to the character’s life expectancy. Or, there may be an in-game event scheduled at a certain time, and if you want your character to participate, you’d better not have him off in a dream sequence when the time to be off comes around.

Or perhaps your character has a rendezvous with a special someone. While it’s perfectly acceptable (from a gaming perspective) to miss that date, your character is certainly going to have some ’splaining to do!

So how do you know if the time of your thread really matters? Ask yourself these two questions:

• Do your character’s current actions influence the environment of the game?
• Do outside events in the game influence the environment of your character?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you might want to glance at a clock. Otherwise…

You Risk Unbalancing the Game

The key to all time is balance. Players want a balanced game, one where they feel there is at least enough predictability that what they do matters and that they can plan their characters’ next actions without feeling they’re at the whim of the gods. We expect some level of predictability, too. (Vortexes and chromos anomalies the exception of course.)

If you’re a game master or a storyteller and your players spend too much time arguing over the hour or if your character showed up at the graveyard just a little too late for the stakedown, consider adding a timeline thread to your site.

Look for a volunteer willing to take notes on the other threads. Giving a nice title to the person helps for morale. Cash is even better

But mostly, just be supportive. Pay attention to the timeline once in a while and make sure it syncs with your perception of time in the game. There is nothing worse for a volunteer Time Lord to have a player catch a three-week old mistake, which requires calculating reconciliation.

And if you’re the volunteer keeping time? Be flexible, flexible, flexible. Don’t defend your timeline calculations to the death, or the good-natured game might just go down with the ship.

It doesn’t matter if you’re 100% confident that Arnor did stop 15 minutes for a late snack. So what? Relax. Check with the gamemaster or storyteller for approval and set back the clock to keep peace.

Don’t be afraid to confirm your thoughts with other players before updating the game clock, too. Just ask, “Did Joan stay out of it for about an hour, you think? Or more like two?”

For those very rare times that it does matter who’s right, time stamp each version of your timeline and keep an archive to help you sort out the issue. You never know when you might have to refer back to the records you originally had.

Most of all, though, remember you’re offering a service to other players, and that the main goal of it all is to facilitate the fun and help create a better game.

About the Author: When not creating chaos as the Time Lord over at Escaping Reality, Ed Thompson works as a J2EE Software Architect in Charlotte, NC, where he lives with his wife and two teenage sons. He doesn’t Twitter, though, and saves all his reallygood one-liners for his Facebook friends

This guest post comes to us from gamer and writer, Marc Pieniazek. Enjoy!

The bad guy. We hate him and yet we all want to play one. And why not? Bad guys get to say cool lines, they have vast amounts of power and they stir up a whole load of trouble.

Now, I’m not talking about the stereotypical baddie here – no evil aliens intent on wiping out the human race, no robots gone haywire or any two-dimensional villain from a cheap B movie.

I’m talking real baddies, villains including famous great ones like Darth Vader, Gollum, Mrs. Danvers, and Count Dracula. (Béla Lugosi anyone?) Those kinds of bad guys.

So how do you roleplay one, and how do you create the kind of bad guy that everyone loves to hate?

The Secret to Being a Good Villain

A good villain has one defining characteristic that all the above bad guys listed share. It’s rather straightforward and a common trait, too: The best villains are convinced that what they do is for the greater good.

In fact, for many villains, it’s the literal corruption of their innate ‘goodness’ that makes them such wonderful antagonists. Would Anakin Skywalker have become Darth Vader if he didn’t love his wife so much? Maybe. And then again, maybe not.

When you roleplay an evil character, don’t be evil for the sake of being evil. Be evil for the sake of ‘doing the right thing’. Ask yourself questions about why your character is the way he is. Why is he evil? What kind of person was she before she turned to the darkness? What corrupted his beliefs? What beliefs does he hold now?

Despite the existence of truly evil characters in literature, a person is never born evil. Events shape each of us into the people we are today, and that goes double for villains. Be sure to explore those events and maybe even write them out. Nothing makes for a good story more than a character’s fall from grace.

The Villain Pitfalls to Avoid

If you decide to play a villain, there are certain pitfalls to avoid. Falling into them quickly ruins your character’s credibility, and it ruins the fun of playing for other people as well.

Power-gaming

This is the biggest and easiest trap to fall into headfirst when playing a villain. Power-gaming is the process of building an overly-powerful character, like Superman without Kryptonite. The villain has to have the strength and resources to rival the hero, to be the person that provides a challenge, but he can’t be invincible, else the game’s balance between good and evil skews and becomes no fun at all.

Power-gaming also refers to violating roleplay etiquette, such as taking control of other characters. Abusing the control of characters that aren’t yours is a strict no-no. Find other ways to take control, such as seeking your fellow players’ approval and co-operation behind the scenes before roleplaying an action that might remove ability to react.

Meta-gaming

A baddie is all-powerful, right? And they say knowledge is power, so it stands to reason that the villain knows things that other characters aren’t privy to. Meta-gaming is applying the knowledge that you, as a player, have access to but that your character doesn’t.

A player may know that the villain murdered your character’s best friend, but your character can’t go making any accusations until he’s learned the facts himself. And while the rules can sometimes be bent when it comes to the villain’s knowledge, even a bad guy should have clear gaps in what he knows.

Bear in mind that the greatest baddies are the kind that are distinctly human. They have flaws, weaknesses, fears and emotions. That means the best tip to playing the ultimate villain is to maintain your evil character’s humanity.

Now go on. Create a villain and wreak some havoc!