A game is a piece of art, crafted with care, wrought in the fires of both the GM’s and the player’s minds. It is the interaction between both the GM and the player that forge the world in which they play. A game should not be to kill, grab the treasure, then move along to the next battle, and the plot used as filler in between. The game is something that should be as vivid and as real as everyday life.

I say this unto you, the GM, that you must be the player character’s eyes, ears, nose, and the very flesh that they live and breathe in. It is you that paints the world for them, and like a painting, it needs color, mood, texture, perspective, illumination, and scheme. Like a song, it needs cadence, rhythm, pitch, tone, and melody. A Gm needs to give a tavern meal its flavor and aroma, dark allies its menace, the sky its rain, thunder, and sun. It is the GM that gives the snow its icy sting, the sunrise its rosy tips, and the desert its dry, empty, dusty breath. This is a lot of work, but it must be done.

Plots should be kept simple for ease of play. Simple plots do not mean minimal story, but a design in which the series of events that lead from one point of play to the next are clear, concise, and easy to follow. It is from here that the GM can plug in subplots, and little flights of fancy. A plotline is hard to maintain within an interactive setting like a role-playing game, as characters (and people) come and go, and sometimes the players do unexpected things. It is easier to adjust a plot if it has a skeletal frame as opposed to one drawn with minute detail. Such detail should be left to describe each scene, and not complicating the series of events that unfold upon the players.

A GM has to spend much more time than the players for the campaign. It is a lot of writing and rewriting, and a GM has to talk almost constantly throughout each session. It is a worthwhile thing, as the visions you have of an RPG world come to life, through your words, and through your players.

I say unto you, the player, that you must make thy character live. Does he feel fear? Does she feel disappointment? I gather that they do not. Alas, they should, and a hundred other emotions that scream across the sky like ST. Elmo’s Fire! Your characters should have goals, moods, passions, and a whole array of tangible and intangible qualities that make them much more than the sum of their weapons. They are your children, the scions and daughs of that which is of your own imagination. Does your character have a history and not something like that out of a comic book? I ask of you, what does your character like to eat? Drink? Does he dance, does she sing? Are they rampant, homicidal maniacs? Are they paragons of honor, virtue, and valor?

New OCC’s and RCC’s, spells, skills, and weapons are all nice little additions to the game, and can customize a character completely to taste. What is fundamental about character design is not all the external qualities that he or she has, but the qualities that make the character unique from any other. It is easy to play a combat monster that gets a wood everytime there is battle and bounty, but what drives this maniac to kill and loot? Such characters are of a one-dimensional, sometimes two-dimensional, design. While high on style, they lack substance, the third dimension. The quality of substance can lie within a character’s history, or developing a personality, but ask yourself, "Why does my character exist, beyond just getting loot and shooting people? What are his/her motives?" It is when you follow this road that your character gains some measure of worth. This goes beyond the normal process of selecting an alignment, creating a history, developing a personality, etc., yet it is a process which makes your character enduring.