Much to my dislike, I had to skip a day. It happens. But at least now I get to wrap up the #RPGaDay2025 event with a nice pairing of prompts: Experience and Reward.

I started this blog about a month ago, coinciding with this challenge. The reason for this was a desire to talk about TTRPGs that I enjoy, that I’m working on, that excite me. And while I missed the first few days of RPGaDay, I got caught up quickly and have been using it to post something every day.

I tried to draw from my own experiences with the hobby–from running games, to interacting with design, to the social aspect if it all. I didn’t want to just talk about things that happen within a game, but wanted to be meta, approach it through the eyes of someone who wants to create within and around TTRPG. Share my insights, knowledge, experiences, and struggles.

And here we are now. I found this experience quite rewarding. I used to write a lot some years ago–a few finished(ish) manuscripts, some shorter stories, and so on. But I fell off for some reason or another, focusing my creative endeavors more on running games, prepping and making up stories. Which has been just as rewarding and fulfilling, to be fair, but damn, I always wanted to get back to putting words down. Find and improve my voice. My style. And this blog is part of that ambition. And this challenge was a great way to kickstart it all.

This is all still new, and my reach is virtually zero, but, if you’re someone who read along throughout the month: Thank you.

In the coming months, I hope to dig more into actual game-related posts. I’m sitting on a near-finished draft of a celebration and deep dive into one of my favorite games, Spectaculars. I also want to dig into some other games that strongly influenced what kind of GM and player I am. Plus lots of other stuff I want to try out. And, of course, I want to talk more about Project Star Quest, as well as some other unrelated game design ideas I have.

So, yeah. To wrap this up, let me say that #RPGaDay2025 has been a quite rewarding experience. Which is kind of poetic, no?

TTRPGs are inherently social engagements. More so than they are about rules, about setting or genre, about the characters or their stories. They are about us, the people playing them. Spending time together once a week, a month, whatever it takes, for several hours. Talking about them between sessions. Dreaming and arguing and just hanging out around this hobby, this shared entertainment. Yeah, they’re just games, but the time we carve out from our hectic lives, that’s real. That matters.

Back in my day, we would decide to get together to play games (sometimes on a whim the day of). What we would play and who would run would be decided after we got together. It’s just one of the things we did, like going to the bar or seeing a movie. These days, in my anecdotal experience, it seems like games are often more structured. There’s a GM or two who always run, there’s a set date or dates, and the group meets to play for a a few hours before logging off again. Then again, I’m exclusively playing online now (for reasons), so by view may be skewed a bit.

One thing I’ve learned in recent years just how important it is to maintain your connections and relations with the other players. To me, running and playing games is still very personal, despite the online-only nature of it. When we get together to play every Sunday at to 2pm local time, I’d like to feel like I’m hanging out with friends. That it’s not just a time slot being filled for another online game. To that end, I’d like to surround myself with people that’d like to be part of a group, as well. Not an easy thing to do in general, let alone online. But it’s worth trying, I think.

And it’s work, not going to lie. Whenever I’m looking for a new player, which happens on occasion as peoples’ schedules shift, I try to have a long, honest conversation with whoever shows interested in my pitch. I try to make it as clear as I can that I’m looking for someone to join this group, not just a single game for a few hours. Like joining a team, I guess. It’s a tall order, for sure. Joining an established online group as the new person, it’s intimidating. But I try my best to establish some connection ahead of time. Find common interests, talk about our experiences with games, with the hobby. And I always offer a straight up mulligan–we reserve the right to just say “Thanks, but it’s not working,” if things indeed aren’t working out after a few sessions. This, instead of ghosting or starting drama. Set expectation for each other. Most of the time, it works well, even if it’s not working out in the long run. Sometimes, there’s still drama, but at least we tried.

These days, we hang out on our personal Discord server. I’m the admin, and I organize most events and schedules. But I try not to be in charge if I can help it. I don’t tell people what they can and can’t talk about, unless it’s toxic in some sense (which doesn’t really happen). I do my best to make it feel like a community, a bunch of friends hanging out. And I think it’s working. People chat, hang out. They are getting excited about upcoming games, argue over movies, even play video games together. Whether I’m there or not.

But it is work. It’s a constant effort to keep people involved, engage each other. Luckily, I’m not alone. Some of the members are more active, more chatty, keeping this small, private server alive. And all I can do is be grateful for that. For my friends.

I never want being part of this group feel like a chore. I always reassure everyone that they never need to give a reasons if they can’t make a game. Just a heads-up that they won’t be there. No excuses, no hard feelings.

Don’t take your gaming friends for granted. Even if they’re just words and voices on the other end of the internet. They’re real people, with real feelings and aspirations and problems. Treating online games like they’re just a time slot you fill to play another game might work for some groups. But playing with actual friends, on and offline, can deepen the experience. Make it more personal. More real. If you’re willing to put in the work.

It’s a social hobby, after all.

I think the trick to introducing true suspense in a game is threefold:

Player buy-in is probably the most important part. If you want to run a game that relies on misinformation, lies, deception, and incomplete knowledge, the players should be settled on that ahead of time. Some games aren’t really made for mystery or thriller type games, so players might expect that they can ask questions and roll dice until they get a full picture. Telling them upfront that you will leave things hanging a lot, fade out of scenes right after a shocking discovery without a chance for them to interact with until they exhaust their options, that’s a crucial step to make true suspense feel cinematic and grounded.

Which brings me to second important part: leave things hanging. Suspense is built on not having all the answers, on leaving gaps. On pieces of information that don’t fully line up. Even dice rolls shouldn’t always yield all the answers, with the exceptions of whatever version of critical rolls the game provides–those should lead to breakthroughs. True information, dramatic reveals.

And that’s the third part, then. Some clues must just be given. They must be complete, true, and sensible. You can’t gate all information behind skill checks and luck. If a character would be able to learn something useful based on their background, learned skills, or other factors, just give it to them. No roll. No random luck. Don’t even wait for them to ask a question. Just make them feel smart for having chosen certain aspects of their character that now give them unique insights.

These three parts: Buy-in, Obfuscation, Revelation, are the key to good suspense. Juggling these, finding the balance between the lies and the truths, that’s a bit of a vibe. My advice would be to keep things short, unfinished, when you’re unsure whether characters should figure something out or not. Rely on dice in that case. Or be upfront without circling the subject too much, in a case where their characters should know something. Remind them. Help them.

Part of the buy-in is also player trust. If they have good ideas as they talk through their findings–in or out of character–join in the conversation. Reassure them of things that they know for sure are true, closing some of the distance between the facts of the story and what players might understand. Likewise, remind them of the uncertain elements, tease them a little. Make up some possibilities their characters might guess based on the same character aspects as giving them facts. Lead them down some train of thoughts. Manipulate them, even. And, of course, never confirm or deny anything that their characters can’t fully know–create contrast between the facts and the speculation.

I’ve been posting about RPGaDay most of the month now. Missed the first few days, but it’s been steady ever since. Lots of thoughts and ideas on running games, on game design, rules, concepts, as they relate to the daily prompts.

Truth be told, though, I don’t have a plan here. Every day brings a new prompt, and every day, I just sit down and write something that comes to mind. Often, I don’t even know what to write about until after it’s done. No plan, no tactic to the challenge. Just winging it.

That’s how I run my games, too. One session at a time. See what happens. Let the players lead me along with their ideas, react by solving their solutions to whatever problem is in front of them, then let their reactions inform my next step.

Now. That’s not to say I don’t have a vision. An ideal ending, a final destination. A goal to reach. I think that’s a writer thing? The planners and the pantsers–one plots the the whole thing they want to write, the other finds out as they go. Flies by the seat of their pants. That’s so totally me, for sure. I have some ideas of what should be coming up, which story beats I think are neat. Character reveals, twists, betrayals, all that. But I never really know when, where, how, why, what.

Running tactical games is a little different, of course. For that, I will seek out maps, plan encounters, balance and set up fights. In fact, it’s the most time I spend on planning my current games of Draw Steel. Because, I think, it’s important to have these things sorted out. Combats are complex, they take time, and there’s lots going on, so I make sure they’re designed well enough to keep it fun and interesting.

Story, though, it’s a lot more loose. To me, there are no facts until it’s said out loud in game. Maybe I had an idea for an NPC’s motivation toward the party. But if I have a better idea later on, based on more ideas and events, I will just change it. Most often, the players won’t know the difference, as they don’t see any notes I might have. I adjust narrative facts as I see fit, while respecting what’s established. Even if things have been established, things can be changed later within the context of the goings-on.

I have this tendency to throw in story beats, twists, reveals, which I never thought of before in the heat of the moment. Just a cool line of an NPC that doesn’t fit any of the things I jotted down up to this point. And then I will spend a week trying to square that circle, often pacing back and forth, or spending another sleepless night dreading about it. About why the fuck would I have done that in the last game?! And, pretty much all the time, I have these breakthrough moments. These ideas that just make it make sense. Using random prompts can help me get there, too. And if everything goes well, I can introduce these new ideas the next time–hopefully before I add something else unexpected I must deal with later. Ha.

The reason I’m telling you all of this is because I want to reassure everyone that it’s fine to just make shit up as you go. Here’s the secret: know your goals. Have a vision. Have an idea of where you want to land, without thinking about how you’ll get there. The game is the journey, after all. Players will pull and push your plans in every possible direction. No plans can withstand the, erm, creativity of player imagination.

Sly Flourish has a lot of good insights into running games in his Lazy DM series. Probably the best advice is to have a list of possible secrets the players could learn during the course of a sessions. And secrets could be all sorts of plot-related information. Just have that list of things you want them to learn, and insert them whenever it would makes sense. Whenever it feels right.

If there’s any tactic to running games, let it be this: Let it go. Know where you want to end up, and enjoy the ride there.