Table of Contents
• So what is an RPG?
• Participants
• Mechanics
• House rules and homebrewing
• Character sheets
• The line between player and character
• So you want to be a . . .
• Decisions, decisions
• Finding flavor
• A matter of leverage
• Team players
• PvP(ish)
• Older and wiser (or at least more experienced)
• In medias res
• Balancing act
• Keeping up with the Joneses
• How does a game work?
• The language of gaming
• No takebacks
• Serendipity
• Metagaming
• IC and OOC
• The character lens
• Trust me
• Trust each other
• When the bough breaks
• Shared delusions
• Costuming
• Keep it moving
• Different challenges
• Hack ‘n slash
• Character death
• Exit strategies
• Preserving agency
• Questions of consent
• Coping with failure
• When failure is the only option
• With great power
• GNS
• So you want to run a . . .
• Our intrepid band of heroes
• Game planning 1: Arcs, acts, and chapters
• Game planning 2: Sessions and scenes
• Breathing room
• Best-laid pans
• Open doors and brick walls
• Backseat Gming
• Game hangover
• The secret life of game junkies
• You had to be there
• Ephemerality
• The magic of wikis
• A story in song
• Other relics
• RPGs as ritual
• Appendix: Adapting games into fiction

About the Author: Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for inspiration. She recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to The Night Parade of 100 Demons and the short novel Driftwood, and together with Alyc Helms as M.A. Carrick, she is the author of the Rook and Rose epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with The Mask of Mirrors. The first book of her Hugo Award-nominated Victorian adventure series The Memoirs of Lady Trent, A Natural History of Dragons, was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her other works include the Doppelganger duology, the urban fantasy Wilders series, the Onyx Court historical fantasies, the Varekai novellas, and over seventy short stories, as well as the New Worlds series of worldbuilding guides. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.