by Samuel Jones

Created on: May 03, 2008

There is a vast wealth of player-generated material for all role-playing game including Dungeons & Dragons on-line, available free simply for the looking; to find these resources is the work of moments.

To me, and indeed to any experienced Games Master, the primary resource for free material is your own mind. Part of the joy of role-play is the exercise of one's own imagination, and this is a pleasure in which the Games Master takes the largest share. The player is restricted to a single character, while the GM (sometimes DM, or Dungeon Master) is free to create an entire world, populate it with heroes, monsters and villains, and then subject his hapless players to the full horrors of his imagining... what possible reason could exist for depriving oneself of this by relying on other people's material?

Granted, the inexperienced Games Master is usually wise to use material produced specifically for the system in hand, while it may be difficult to separate the good free resources on-line from the bad, nevertheless... familiarity with the system and knowledge of what constitutes a good adventure are part of the Games Master's trade; he is, after all, the Master of the Game, and should be able to prove it.

The best way, by far, to obtain good free adventures, rules, and other material for any role-playing game is to write it yourself. Learning how to do this is an adventure; actually running the adventure for a group of friends is the test of a Games Master's skill. That might seem strange to someone unfamiliar with Role Playing Games, but within the fraternity (and Role Playing Games are an oddly male obsession), the ability to write an absorbing, coherent, detailed and yet non-linear story is the chief skill of the Games Master. The player does not need it, but he must trust his GM to possess it. A bad adventure can ruin a session, kill a campaign, see the GM deposed in a player-mutiny and potentially spell the end of the Role playing Group. All of these dangers attend equally upon purchased resources, free resources on-line, and GM-generated material, but it is the Games Master's responsibility.

If a GM lacks the necessary skills to research and devise his own adventures, he is not sufficiently adept to judge other resources written by fellow Games Masters on-line. Therefore, even finding such resources and judging them is the sole job of the Games Master, and to seek aid is a sign of uncertainty. As any experience GM will tell you, players can smell uncertainty, and will take it as a sign of weakness. If a Games Master hopes to keep his players in line and exercise sufficient control that they will put yet more time aside from their real lives to attend future play-sessions, he should be strong, brave, assertive, reasonable, and above all... He should write his own material. Only then will he be original, and only originality will keep the player's attention for long.

Learn more about this author, Samuel Jones.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.