Roleplaying Tips

How to use spreadsheets to make GMing easier and speed up gameplay with note taking, map-making, and combat tables.

Meet Logan Horsford. He's a contributor to the e-zine and a big RPG fan. In a recent e-mail exchange, I learned that he games a lot, as both a player and a GM. He games so much, as I discovered, that he logs more hours each week at the game table than many people do at their full-time job! Intrigued, I asked Logan if he'd tell us a bit more about his enviable gaming lifestyle.

Roleplaying Tips readers submit their favourite movies for GMing inspiration.

Classic tips to help generate new ideas and organize your GMing.

What to put in the ultimate GM binder to help you run games faster and more efficiently.

Tips to convince parents that RPGs are fun, and how to run games in such a way that they stay appropriate for the age group you are playing with.

Tested advice for teachers and organizers for building a successful gaming club.

What and how to prep for your next game session.

Some good tips for game masters from a player's point of view.

Over the years, poker has come up several times as tips. This article links up various tips about using poker and gambling as mini-games inside your game.

Aimed at workaholic GMs who could use advice on how to coordinate players and ease the workload a bit.

A spectrum of GMing advice aimed to help new game masters.

Keeping your gaming group happy.

The roles of the GM

Making maps on the PC.

A nifty GMing tool and how to use it to encourage roleplaying.

When your players won't walk into the cave....

In-game solutions for the problems of unbalanced items.

Thoughts, formulas, and ideas about flying and levitation in the D&D universe.

7 tips on how to turn your campaign into a compelling soap opera.

Tips and advice for hanging your players.

A short piece with some good info on instilling fear into your players and their PCs.

How to tastefully run romance in your games in an entertaining way.

Using handheld and portable computers at the game table.

Covers who PBP/PBeM works, how to get started, and playing advice.

A survey my friend Colin whipped up before launching his D&D campaign in 2006. I thought his survey was excellent, and that you might find some ideas in it for your own surveys.

Numerous tips, stories, and comments about gaming environments.

Advantages and problems with diceless roleplaying, plus a few diceless GMing tips.

Pics of a Tips reader's organized game room.

Pics of another Tips reader's game room.

One of the DM's biggest tests is when the players don't follow the yellow brick road. Sometimes they veer a little, sometimes they completely go off the beaten path, and sometimes they've left the planet. You can't control when this happens; what you can control is how you handle it.

Several tips on making combat thrilling and fun through good description.

A strange idea should you forget your dice at home.

Free dungeon adventures using the 5 Room Dungeon template for fast and easy GMing.

How to use this simple mapping program to play via the Internet or to dynamically map face-to-face at the game table. Includes pics and examples.

A huge list of encounter ideas to flesh out your cities and inpsire urban game session planning.

Another great collect of wisdom and advice from Roleplaying Tips Weekly subscribers.

Too busy to plan for your upcoming game? This article tells you how to jam hours of preparation into a few minutes.

How to plan and organize random encounters for wilderness treks.

How to keep your character busy in a large town or city.

Tips on picking a setting for your fantasy, historical, horror, or sci-fi game.

Handling player roleplaying versus character charisma.

"I've been playing since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I've been a dungeon master for at least the last seven years. In all that time, the one thing that has really gotten under my skin is combat I don't think that it's ever been done right...."

Scripting adventures: pros, cons & advice.

How to use secrets and secret plots in your games.

Advice on preparing for roleplaying games and gaming sessions.

Players notice inconsistencies right away, and it's tough tracking information you make up on-the-fly, so here's some tips on how to do that.

What to do if you lose inspiration or botch an encounter during a game session.

8 bits of excellent advice on creating bad guys for your campaign.

Cliches of fantasy fiction and what to avoid in your campaigns.

How to use the structure of film and narrative to build your campaigns.

An 11 step guide to creating an evil organization for your campaign.

Tips and advice on drawing your world's maps.

A technical article that arms you with specific techniques for crafting names and documents in your campaigns.

A guide to using bureaucracy in your worlds and how characters can interact with it.

Religious Myths vs Religious Truths, and their impact on your game

Lists and lists of people, building, and places you'd find in an urban environment. Great for encounter setting ideas and city design.

A crafting system, including several fantasy materials, forged by a trio of GMs.

A rationale for permits and a guide to their usage in your campaign.

Cryptography for use in your campaign.

More cryptology information.

Magic from Hollywierd.

Silver dragon backgrounds and traits.

A detailed article about all aspects of disease, and a great resource for world builders questing for realism.

An interesting article on how to group and analyze feats in your D&D campaigns. This will be of particular interest to GMs who allow a lot of feats or who want to build worlds and need a good system to organize regional and cultural feats.

Gamemaster strategies and tips for gaming with all types of players and player styles.

A huge list (300+) of character development questions gathered from Roleplaying Tips Weekly subscriber submissions.

Advice on how to introduce munchkins and powergamers to a character-driven, story-based style of play.

How to bring in new players, make them feel welcome, and motivate them to participate.

Dealing with infighting in your games.

Another assembly of readers' tips from Roleplaying Tips Weekly submissions, this article gives great advice on how to help hackers become talkers.

Assembled from readers' tips from Roleplaying Tips Weekly submissions, this article gives great advice on how to deal with a potentially disastrous situation.

Interview with Brandon Hodge and Wolfgang Baur on creating and running adventures.

Advice on how to become an RPG freelance writer.

"D&D is enjoying the height of its popularity with an estimated 20 million players worldwide."

By Matt Forbeck. "A lot of people ask me how to get started as a freelance writer or designer in the adventure games industry."

• Wyvern Mountain Review for D&D 4e by Grant Howitt
• Citadel of the Corruptor for D&D 4e by Grant Howitt
• Forgotten Heroes Review for D&D 4e by Grant Howitt
• Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens Review for D&D 4e by Isaac Calon
• The Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn by Goodman Games for D&D 4e by Jamie Hetchler
• The Shrine Maiden for D&D 4e by Grant Howitt
• Fantasy Class: The Martialist by Rachael Kvapil and Ekon
• Fantasy Class: The Martialist by Grant Howitt
  
  
• Alpha Omega RPG Review - First Look by Patrick Irwin
• Alpha Omega RPG Full Review by Patrick Irwin
• Alpha Omega: The Encountered Volume 1 - First Look by Patrick Irwin
  
  
• Epic Words, Obsidian Portal, and MyDndGame Compared by Dave Schaefer
• Feature comparison chart for Epic Words, Obsidian Portal, MyDndGame by Dave Schaefer
• Epic Words - "Epic Words is an excellent resource for game masters to post details of their campaign..." by Jenette Downing a.k.a Silveressa
• Obsidian Portal - Is Obsidian Portal a useful tool for tracking a campaign? Yes. Is it perfect? I'm afraid not. By Brent P. Newhall
• Epic Words - "I will watch the site's progress with keen interest." by Chuck Durfee
• Obsidian Portal - 5 out of 5, by Lord Skudley
  
  
• Helix: The Post Apocalypse, High-Tech, Fantasy, Western Role Playing Game
  - 3.5 out of 5, by Lord Skudley
• Helix: The Post Apocalypse, High-Tech, Fantasy, Western Role Playing Game
  - so so but interesting, by Mark Bruckard
• Helix: The Post Apocalypse, High-Tech, Fantasy, Western Role Playing Game
  - 1.5 out of 5, by Jim Yee
  
  
• The World Book of Khaas - Legendary Lands of Arduin
• Ruins of the Dragon Lord
• Conan: The Roleplaying Game
• Conan: Road of Kings
• Ultimate Equipment Guide II
• HARP and HARP Lite