I was taxing my brain trying to come up with a topic for today, so I'm going to repeat a recommendation that I made a while back: if you run role-playing games regularly, you should read The Angry DM's Gaming for Fun: Eight Kinds of Fun.
It's a good read because he identifies the eight different kinds of fun; the eight reasons why someone might play a game. In short, they are:
- Senory Pleasure (engaging your senses, primarily sight, sound, and touch)
- Fantasy (immersing yourself in a fictional world or setting)
- Narrative (enjoying the structure of the story as it unfolds)
- Challenge (seeing the game, and possibly other players, as obstacles to overcome or opponents to be beaten)
- Fellowship (spending time with and interacting with others)
- Discovery (exploring and learning new things)
- Expression (expressing yourself creatively)
- Submission (disengaging from the world and losing yourself in something that's not mentally taxing)
If you can identify what kinds of fun your players like to have, then it can help you design better campaigns and encounters for them.
I'll have more to write tomorrow. I'll prove it by teasing the title of the next article: it starts with "G" and it's a major gaming convention in August…