Misdirected Mark Plays

We join the Children of the Shroud as they pursue Lowell Thorton and the magical Altoid situation

We join the Children of the Shroud as they pursue Lowell Thorton and the magical Altoid situation

Combat one. Combat two. Combat three. Combat four. We want no more. But your game is all about the fight so how do we get everyone having fun when fighting is the primary activity of MORE

We join the Children of the Shroud as they begin a new story. Starting with an academic decathlon, devolving into some teenage anger issues, a date, and a cold and honest conversation.

This rule just doesn’t work the way we want it to. So what do we do? Change it. Ok. So how do we do that without messing up the game? That’s what we’re talking about MORE

We join the Children of the Shroud as they continue their fight with the Lancaster Legends. We hope our Veil trainees can stop Brad and his goons and help Ike find the rest he wishes to find. Enjoy and let us know if you're enjoying the show.

We discuss a variety of examples and tools for how to get players to engage with multiple parts of a game

We join the Children of the Shroud as they enter Stiglmeier park to discover the source of the shrouds disruption. There’s magic, magical people, jerks, fighting, conversations about dating, really, a little bit of everything. MORE

Game Crush is a conversation between folks who love a game. Sometimes it’s with two people who just enjoy the game and sometimes it’s between a fan and the designer. Today Chris is talking with MORE

We love those side characters in our RPGs but how do you introduce many of them in one scene. That’s a large part of the discussion today along with some other advice on how to MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. It’s been a couple of weeks since Gunny awakened his powers and learned some truths. Now we get to meet the class in part one of Like a Rolling Stone before MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. It’s the epilogue of a Time for Change. We end our initial tale of magical high school swashbuckling drama as Gunny’s very windy day of school ends, we learn a bunch MORE

A simple walk in a park. A meal with your family at a diner. A drink in a bar with friends. Sitting around in class passing notes and listening to the teacher speak about the MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. It’s part 2 of the Children of the Shroud. We continue our tale of magical high school swashbuckling drama as Gunny’s very windy day of school and a song that just MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. We’re talking about one of the ways experience and advancement is provided in Cortex Prime and then we get into Tests and Contests. Two of the foundational play mechanics of Cortex. MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. It’s session 1 of the Children of the Shroud. We begin our tale of magical high school swashbuckling drama with a very windy day of school and a song that just MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. It’s session 0 of the Children of the Shroud. We delve into CATS, Safety, Setting, Character Introductions, and have some Character Background Information. Several of the questions we answered about our MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. Today we’re talking about stats or statistics in RPGs. That’s really it but to give a little bit more here’s a definition. Statistics Follow and Support

Welcome to MM Plays. Today we’re going through the Mods we choose for our Cortex Prime game Children of the Shroud. We also discuss why we choose them and have a bit of discussion about MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. Today we’re talking about collaboration and using the first episode of MM Plays as our primary example as we discuss how to collaborate to bring your ttrpgs to life during your MORE

Welcome to MM Plays. We’re gonna play a game but before we do that we’re going to build out a game setting and rules set using Cortex Prime. This is the first of a few MORE

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Today we talk about Layers in gaming on our lead up to episode 500. It’s another of our favorite episodes of all time redone for you. I mean who doesn’t like cake. Follow and Support MORE

Countdown Clock – An in-game timer that is tracking time passing towards some event, often represented by a circle with some number of ticks or wedges. Players may be aware of this clock or not. MORE

Storytelling is a pivotal part of tabletop RPGs that we all believe doesn’t get enough love. To help alleviate that issue we talk about story arcs in this episode, what they are, and some ideas MORE

How do you pick new games? We get into that topic with a few asides. Join us for this divergent and all encompassing conversation about picking new games. Follow and Support Misdirected Mark Productions Patreon MORE

Do you trust your players? Do you trust your GM? We explore that idea in this edition of off the cuff. Follow and Support Misdirected Mark Productions Patreon Misdirected Mark Productions Twitter Misdirected Mark Productions MORE

This edition of Off the Cuff is about players and some thoughts concerning doing what you can from the players spot to help enhance the game for yourself and the others at your table. Follow MORE

It’s short and to the point this week. A long while ago we found a bad take on twitter and decided to discuss it. There’s also some commentary about Spelljammer and the adventure found within MORE

We’re talking inspiration, experience points, and multiuse currency along with a bevy of other topics about house rules. We got most of the ideas from our slack community along with a sprinkling of some of MORE

What is Just In Time Campaign Management? I was wondering the same thing and then Phil let us know what it was all about so we could tell you what it is. I’ll give you MORE

I love Star Wars, Star Trek, the Cosmere, Middle Earth, Marvel, DC, and a bunch of other existing worlds out there that wonderful stories are told in. But when it comes to playing RPGs in MORE

Settings are a part of all ttrpg’s and the majority of storytelling forms that exist in the world. But I wonder if yours is a living breathing world that moves and functions even if your MORE

What made those amazing moments in games so amazing? That’s the question we broach today as we talk about some of those moments and get into what made them so great for us. Then we MORE

Something a little different today. We had a week off so in this episode you get an MMP off the Cuff about metagaming and then Chris gives his first ever campaign conversation about his Spelljammer MORE

How a campaign ends will have an effect on how the players and GM feel about the campaign overall. If it ends well, there will be good feelings and often the story everyone created will be discussed by the group for years. If it ends poorly, it can lead to dissatisfaction with the game and gaming in general. On this episode we discuss getting your campaign to an ending everyone is happy with and how to achieve them.

Characters. They’re the focal point of stories. They have a lot of time and attention paid to them in every other medium of storytelling, even before any scripting, writing, or acting in front cameras begins. MORE

No matter how good people are at scheduling their games, there are times when life intrudes. It’s nothing new, and that means we miss a game here and there. But I have to ask – MORE

We’re talking about tricks, tips, and ways to use adventures and campaign setting stuff in your tabletop roleplaying games. Follow and Support Misdirected Mark Productions Patreon Misdirected Mark Productions Twitter Misdirected Mark Productions YouTube Channel MORE

This episode discusses ideas about how you can use the dungeon to help you tell stories reminiscent of the ones you see in movies and novels. Follow and Support Misdirected Mark Productions Patreon Misdirected Mark MORE

One part cosmic horror, one part steam punk, and a sprinkle of SciFi. What does that get you? Listen to this installment of MMP and find out as we talk all about Genre Blending. Follow MORE

Not every team of adventurers operate alone. Sometimes the heroes need a reliable group to call on again and again to help them in their missions. These recurring characters assist the party by providing additional MORE

For years we’ve been pondering this idea. The kinds of adventures that exist and their hidden pieces. The elements, the design structures, the interludes, obstacles, and moments of certain types of scenarios. Now we take MORE

Why do we GM? There has to be a reason we put in that extra work, especially when our outside lives conspire to make things more difficult. That’s today’s topic. Why we GM and how to MORE

Many RPGs pit the heroes against an adversary they can defeat by brute force or direct confrontation. However, fiction is full of enemies that are above the law or behind too many layers of protection. MORE

There’s an excellent action flick on Netflix called RRR. We all watched it and wanted to tell you why we liked it so much. This is normally after show content but we’re on vacation this MORE

Did you know we have far more neurons dedicated to visual processing than audio processing? It got us thinking. How do we use visuals to help us at the game table? What kind of visuals MORE

The What’s Going On document contains the NPCs, background, motivations, and events that would occur in the session, if the characters did not intervene. In this episode we talk about this document, how to use MORE

Lore is the backstory to your setting. You could have zero lore or a novel worth of the stuff, but no player will care unless it comes into play within the game. But the question MORE

Evil Organizations are a staple of action adventure stories. They’re expansive, multi-headed groups that heroes fight against again and again. The villains are many, the schemes are devious, their reach is long. Today we’ll be MORE