Johnn Four, Author at Roleplaying Tips

Johnn Four

Author Archives: Johnn Four

A Horror Tip For Your Halloween Game

Horror is tough to pull off at the table. I don’t run scary games often, but when I do, I rely on one technique that punches through the beer and pretzels and gets players uneasy and scared. Deny Them Meaning When you have lots of clear information you feel confident. And confidence is the last […]

Instant Cyberpunk Gigs, NPCs, and Events

Arvind’s Maptober Do you like to create maps? Over at the Roleplaying Tips Community, Arvind started a daily mapping challenge for Maptober: Join us in the #maps-terrain-minis channel for a daily quest and to check out others’ creations: https://discord.gg/hqE6gfs5P Any map creation method is welcome! Instant Cyberpunk Gigs, NPCs, and Events My friend Ray, aka […]

Better Descriptions: d7 Ways To Steal Great Words

A CampaignCraft member recently asked me how to master the lexicon when running a new genre for the first time. The game mechanics and general narrative were no problem, but technical and insider details stumped her in certain cases. Describing vehicle manoeuvres, piloting controls, gear, and how NPCs interacted with their environment were a big […]

What To Do When Combat Stalls

The Quarry Pit Trap In a Basilica campaign session, combat in a quarry almost stalled out like an airplane losing speed and starting to drop like dead weight. I could tell the pace was slowing down, but when a player asked after a few moments of table silence, “Whose turn is it?” I knew the […]

3 Easy Fixes for Classic Adventure Pitfalls

I’m prepping for a Dragonbane game, using the campaign from the great boxed set. I love the campaign seed, which involves the game’s iconic powers, dragons and demons. The goal is to explore a valley and stop an evil plot centuries in the making. Dragonbane is based on the 1980s Swedish RPG, Drakar och Demoner […]

How Big Is The Shark?

Years ago in my Riddleport campaign I said this: “There’s a large shark circling in the harbour.” The characters went down to the docks for a closer look. The shark attacked. And on its turn it launched into the air, sailed right over the party, and splashed down on the other side. The shark jumped […]

Mythic Bastionland & A Simple Way To Get Into Character

I got a chance to play Mythic Bastionland on Sunday. Thanks to Mike for GMing. The game is quite different, especially from D&D-esque systems, and for that reason I recommend trying it out. As knights, we wander the realm, seek out myths, and earn glory. With enough glory, we get promoted up the knightly ranks […]

6 Players. 11 Deaths. Uh Oh.

Game Master Arvindh asked today in the Roleplaying Tips Community: Yesterday, I ran my first ever Shadowdark game… and MAN! WHAT A RIDE! So simple, so beautiful, so fast and so deadly! 6 players. 11 deaths. And they didn’t even start the damn adventure. Like not even get to the adventuring site! The hilarious session […]

Solutions For The Tough Academic Wizard Problem

A while back, community member Sir Tainley brought up a great world-building quandary: In a D&D type system, and a magic-rich setting where spells are taught academically, professional spellcasters inevitably gain high levels and unrealistically large hit point pools. Are there existing guides or workarounds to balance NPC levels so a typical scholar isn’t physically […]

The Prison Experiment

Over in our community, Game Master Bart shared a fantastic campaign report and premise: Had my first session of the campaign yesterday, it was a blast! We all agreed in session 0 to start in a prison. Players didn’t know what to expect beforehand, some thought it was just the escape to get going. But […]

When We Improvise Ourselves Into A Corner

“How do I get these 13 things I dropped into the game because I thought they’d be fun to now integrate and make sense?” That question came up in July’s GM Q&A call. Gameplay takes us in a direction where we start improvising, and afterwards we’re left with square pegs that need to fit the […]

Big Bang Events

Big Bang Events: How to Create Player-Proof Plots I’m very excited to announce GM’s Log #12 is now available. The topic is a core method I developed in the early 2000s that’s saved my Canadian bacon for over two decades now. A problem that hits my inbox and my coaching sessions on the regular is […]

The Merchant Says No, But…

The gear and equipment tip the other day drew a large response. In the Roleplaying Tips Discord, for example, Game Master Ian offers this idea: re: Double prices then mine their gear. I think a better way is not to change prices but availability. There’s a system in ACKS that restricts the number of items […]

Double Prices Then Mine Their Gear

Hola Game Master! Here’s a callout to a tip buried in the recent How to Make Haggling Fun piece I did: “Players’ Guide price is the floor, street price is double that.” Raise your merchant, equipment, and services prices to give you haggling room and siphon more party treasure. Game Master Rafael sent me a […]

8 Things Worth Starting a Dungeon War Over

Just picked up Level Up by Courtney Campbell. It’s a small book of tables on random topics. And the first table I started reading spawned an article idea. The table is titled “Top Ten Dungeon Resources” and has this description: Well, you’ve got a dungeon. And you’ve got all these factions. Apparently they all live […]

Know Of Any Good Mystery Resources?

Over on ze Discord, Al Dente wants to noodle on mystery resources: Hey! I’m trying to get better at designing mystery scenarios for investigative games like Call of Cthulhu. I was wondering if you guys could suggest any resources i should check out @Loz replied: GURPS Mysteries could be a good source. I remember their […]

Handling Noise At Cons

Game conventions too loud to hear? Old Man Masha asks about this on the Discord: I recently ran a convention with 15 tables. I spaced them so that the chairs would be 4 feet apart after people sat down. But many folks complained about the noise. Can anyone here give me tips on how to […]

Everything You Need to Start D&D 5.5 For Free

How can you get started with D&D 5.5/2024 without spending any gold pieces? New community member GW asks: Hi everyone. I learned about DnD but thought it was going to be too hard way back in about 8th grade, so that was like 1989. The books and the rules were very different than they are […]

Never Trust a Kenku

My friend in high school tricked me one time. He was GMing me 1:1 in a new campaign. I was following a Kenku. We played for an hour and he described the desert. And nothing happened. Just following the kenku. So, finally, I say something along the lines of, “This is boring.” My friend cracked […]

How to Make Haggling Fun

“I despise haggling. I’d much rather have a bot handle it.” – A GM on the RPT Discord I hear that. Yelling numbers at players isn’t fun. I’m not sure when, but I stopped haggling for transaction purposes. Now my merchants want information instead of gold. It’s partly how I make villains seem three steps […]

Do Easy Prep While Walking

The Tiny Prep group hit a milestone the other day. We’ve got a streak going of 150 consecutive days! Congrats to the GMs getting their campaigns ready for next session, five minutes at a time. Speaking of Tiny Prep, I saw this question on the Discord from Game Master EwokTaintPuncher (ahem): Doc recently told me […]

Weaponize Encounter Weather With The Beaufort Scale

Use the Beaufort Scale to help make wind and storm rulings easier. I grew up on a street called Beaufort Avenue. When we moved there, it had no curbs or sidewalks. And it dead-ended a few blocks down the road. And we had some fantastic wind storms. The walnut tree became weather’s weapon during gales. […]

Crafting Legendary Magic Items

Hola Game Master! GM’s Log #9: How to Build Legendary Magic Items was just published, and it cloaks my atomic unit of prep in the guise of juicy loot. What started as a quick way to outline NPCs in the 2010s has become my universal GM tool for instantiating any kind of game piece: NPCs, […]

The Minnie Haul GM

So I’m a cheap bastard. That’s number ten on The Gamemaster’s Hall Of Shame: Monty Haul’s Top Ten Cousins all the way back to Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #3: 10 Minnie Haul Players in previous campaigns joke about it. I like to pretend there’s no treasure chapter at all. Mice must’ve eaten those pages. But the […]

Balancing Magic, Bears & Hit Points

Happy Canada Day! While swatting mosquitoes and sipping cool bevvies, let’s look at a dilemma that community member Sir Tainley poses about explaining the strength of commoners in certain game systems: I’m designing a world for a D&D 5e clone. I want magic to be reasonably common, and taught in the universities. But, powerful enough spells […]

1 2 3 … 67 Next »