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Focal Point: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary SessionsClick to magnify

Focal Point: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions

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The heart of roleplaying is the gaming session, that point when everyone is gathered around the gaming table — and exactly when so many of your game mastering skills are most needed. To the best of our knowledge, there's never been a system-neutral book focused on running great sessions. Until now. Focal Point: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions is that book.

Written by award-winning authors Phil Vecchione, Walt Ciechanowski, and John Arcadian, Focal Point is the third volume in Engine Publishing’s “accidental trilogy” of GMing advice books, which began with Never Unprepared and continued in Odyssey. You don’t need those books to enjoy and make use of this one, although they do complement each other well (and we offer a special bundle price for the trilogy).

Each of Focal Point’s authors is a veteran GM with years of experience, and each of them excels at a particular aspect of GMing. John is an entertainer, a GM who loves props and drawing his players into the game world. Walt is a storyteller, an adventure-writer who makes his living in the RPG industry. Phil is a facilitator, an organized GM who specializes in helping his players work well together.

These three roles — entertainer, storyteller, and facilitator — are at the core of Focal Point. From building “sets” for your gaming table, to using flowcharts to structure your adventures, to making sure everyone in your group feels comfortable during play, this guidebook addresses everything that goes into running an extraordinary gaming session.

Like every Engine Publishing title, Focal Point includes four versions of the book: DRM-free, bookmarked, hyperlinked PDF plus EPUB, MOBI, and plain text.

Want to try before you buy? Download a free 19-page PDF preview of Focal Point and read more reviews on the Engine Publishing website.

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Reviews (4)
Discussions (3)
Customer avatar
Brian V March 07, 2019 5:48 am UTC
PURCHASER
The ZIP file contained a PDF of the book, and a readme.txt, but it didn't have an EPUB or MOBI version. Never Unprepared had a PDF and an EPUB, along with a readme.txt, and Odyssey had a PDF, EPUB, and MOBI along with a readme.txt.
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Customer avatar
Martin R March 07, 2019 6:11 am UTC
PURCHASER
The main ZIP file contains the PDF, a readme file, and two ZIP files: one with multiple ebook versions, including epub and mobi ("Ebook Versions.zip"), and one with plain text files. Just to verify that the ZIP file here matches the one on my hard drive, I sent myself a comp copy a moment ago; they match, and the ebook versions are present.

It's possible something went wrong with your download, so I recommend visiting your DriveThruRPG library and downloading the Focal Point ZIP file again. If that doesn't work, just shoot me an email (martin enginepublishing com) and I will send you a copy directly.
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Customer avatar
Brian V March 07, 2019 3:18 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for the quick response. It turns out the ZIP files are fine, and just as you describe.<br>
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I was using an ebook reading app that, conveniently, displays documents in a ZIP file, but doesn't list files it can't display, like ZIP files inside ZIP files. So I mistakenly assumed I was seeing the complete file list, but I wasn't. I looked at them with a different app, and everything was there.
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Customer avatar
Martin R March 07, 2019 3:20 pm UTC
PURCHASER
That's good to hear! I'll keep it in mind as a possible solution for others who mention having ebook issues. I'm glad all is well. :-)
Customer avatar
Jonathan C March 23, 2016 11:37 pm UTC
Will there be a print edition of this?
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Customer avatar
Martin R March 23, 2016 11:44 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I don't have plans to set up a POD edition of Focal Point here, no. (None of our books have a POD option here.)

It's available in print from the Engine Publishing website, other online retailers, and local hobby stores worldwide.
Customer avatar
Colbert R September 06, 2015 4:26 pm UTC
Any thoughts on this? I thought out of engine publishing library this one would take off the most but seems pretty quiet. Thoughts ?
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Product Information
Platinum seller
Pages
232
ISBN
978-0-9836133-5-0
Publisher Stock #
EGP42006
File Size:
40.39 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
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Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
August 17, 2015
This title was added to our catalog on August 18, 2015.