I agree with nearly everything in this post, save one point: that every encounter in your adventure has to further the plot of the adventure.
I’ll clarify my position by saying that every encounter should have a specific purpose, but I don’t think that that purpose must be attached to the current plot. [...]

It should come as no surprise that I’ll be starting up a D&D campaign soon. It’s a given. I’ve even got some players lined up for the big show. And that got me thinking about the classic conundrum of D&D: where do these guys meet, and why do they adventure together? [...]

Over at Treasure Tables, there’s a post about describing the death of a PC. The gist of the post is that when a PC bites the dust, it usually comes as a surprise to the GM and the group as a whole, and thus the GM probably has some trouble doing any kind of [...]

Treasure Tables posted an article, complete with lengthy commentary, on fudging die rolls. As has been mentioned in that article, the topic of fudging is something of a hot-button in the RPG world. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Why is it so important that other people game [...]

This Treasure Tables post puts me in mind of a session I ran way back when. I think it might have actually been the first 3rd Edition session I ever ran. It was a somewhat short-lived solo campaign, myself in the DM’s seat and my friend Mike playing a human fighter, accompanied by [...]

Martin Ralya over at Treasure Tables asked me to do a guest post expanding what I said in my last post. Anyway, here it is. Since being posted, it’s attracted a few comments; one in particular (from ScottM) got me thinking about how I avoid railroading my PCs with my adventure-creation approach.
My answer [...]

This Treasure Tables post got me thinking about what I do. I’ve never really used prepared dialog in my adventures; I don’t like to read off what an NPC says, just because my PCs would tend to interrupt and I’d have to start ad-libbing, anyway. However, I find myself often playing potential scenes [...]

In general, I like the stuff that gets posted over at the Treasure Tables. It’s a good site full of useful information for GMs. This article, in particular, embodies a large part of my GMing philosophy. I like to give my players as much power and freedom as possible (in fact, this [...]

From The House of the Harping Monkey:
Yes, good roleplaying should be its own reward . . . in a perfect world. However, you have to ask yourself which is more important: being upset that the world isn’t perfect, or using in-game tools to aspire to something that might one day approach perfection (or, at [...]

Once again, something I posted over on Treasure Tables bore repetition here. I’ll probably be doing this sort of thing from time to time.
Always, always remember that, as the GM, you are within your rights to cheat like crazy. In fact, it is absolutely your responsibility to cheat, provided that you’re doing so [...]