Johnn Four, Author at Roleplaying Tips

Johnn Four

Author Archives: Johnn Four

Online RPG With VTT: How To Engage Players Better

An RPT GM asked how he could help his player engage more and roleplay better after switching to online Virtual Tabletop (VTT) games. Several GMs wrote in with fantastic tips. Thank you! Here’s what they said.

Quick Plot Design: How To Create A Villain Plan First Draft

Been working on my campaigns and thinking a lot about villain plans. I like to craft a roadmap for how the villain can win their goal. I call this Villain Win-State. And that road map becomes my adventure outline for villain type adventures. So what are the first couple of steps for making an awesome […]

Adventure Building Tip: Must All Encounters Advance The Plot?

RPT GM Joshua asks: “Do all encounters need to advance the plot?” My answer is yes. But with a twist I’ll explain in today’s article. A session is made up of encounters. Encounters make up adventures. Adventures make campaigns. To speak about encounters I first need to speak about adventures. That’s one level up. We […]

How To Detail An Encounter In Less Than A Minute: Dangers, Discoveries, Impressions

Here’s an encounter tip for you today, pulled out of my Adventure Building Master Game Plan, which launches later this year. Once I get to the encounter building phase, I start digging into the details. I’ve got a Campaign Game Plan created, and an Adventure Game Plan built, by the time I reach this stage. […]

How Do You Make Encounters More Interesting? — Introducing The Chorus Line

What to do with NPCs in the background to make encounters more interesting? That thought came to me as I bumped into a random blog post on writing, and this snippet jumped out at me: One of the things to watch out for when choreographing a scene is the chorus line – any people who […]

Monster Design Tip: Take Away The Sun

Do you know how the eyeball works? It’s fascinating. Think about a camera for a moment. You point your camera at what you want to photograph. The shutter opens and closes to control the amount of light. A slow shutter action lets in more light. Great for dim conditions but poor for motion. Fast shutter […]

8 Ideas For Your Next Adventure

RPT GM and Adventure Building Workshop alumni Jesse Cohoon reached out and asked if he could help with the newsletter. Thanks Jesse! I asked him to come up with some adventure seeds, as game masters often get stuck for ideas. Here’s what he came up with for us: Fey Games A group of fey has […]

Customizing Common Races, Part 2

From Mike Bourke Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #291 Continuing on from last week, here are the final categories for you to consider fleshing out as you craft a racial profile that differs from official sources for your rules system. The monster race customization processes described in the following tips and those in last week’s article rely […]

6 More Monstrous Tips

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #292 In July, Roleplaying Tips Weekly ran a contest for monster related tips of all kinds. Subscribers responded with nearly 100 entries, and many prizes were handed out. Below are a handful of entries from the contest. May your critters live long and prosper! Filling A Niche From Sparrow You might want […]

Tips for Setting Up Pbems & Pbps

From Leslie Holm Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #293 Online Roleplaying is a huge animal, encompassing MUSHs, MUDDs, SIMs, PBeMs, PBPs…the list goes on. In this article, I focus on PBeMs (Play By e-mail) and PBPs (Play By Post, or forum based games). Roleplaying online is no longer just for people who don’t live near a gaming […]

Customizing Common Races, Part 3: Tooth & Dagger Rationalizing Orcs

From Mike Bourke Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #294 NB: The language used in this text has been rephrased from orcish original statements to remove incidental foulness of tongue. A Slice Of Orcish Myth Long Ago, the gods looked down upon the world they had made and some said, “It’s a bit of a mess. If something’s […]

Five Tips for Crafting Party Names

From Johnn Four Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #295 To Name Or Not? Does your group of players desire a name for their band of PCs? Do you want them to have one? The party name is a classic RPG element with roots in legends, fiction, and stories (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Knights of the […]

31 Questions to Define a Culture

From Mike Bourke Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #296 I often compile a checklist of questions to be answered when creating something new, be it a magic item, setting, or society. The more exhaustive and complete this checklist is, the better visualized and more complete the item in question will be. I recently had occasion to generate […]

Tactical Tips For Over-Resting PCs

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #297 These tips hail from a reader’s request in Issue #295: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=295#R2 Numerous folks generously wrote in with their tips and advice. In this week’s issue we feature 10 possible solutions for Diego’s problem. Thanks to everyone who responded! More tips coming in a future edition. Diego And The Narcoleptics From Telas […]

Face Off – How To Get Your Group Emotionally Involved

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #298 Face Off Loz Newman There are many ways to get a gaming group emotionally involved in a campaign. Good GMs look for elements players can relate to, such as when the PCs lose something and want to get it back. A straight “NPC X stole your whatsit” scenario lacks punch though, […]

Campaign Reboot Example: Murder Hobos

Readers asked for an example of a campaign reboot using my three step map. Rebooting My Murder Hobos Campaign (And Yours) in Three Easy Steps Here’s one using my current campaign, which needs new life injected into it as I prep Season 3. Step 1. Write a Story Summary The party tried helping the village […]

5RDs Go Fractal

You’re going to see me writing more about Five Room Dungeons. It’s because they are the best way I know how to master adventure building. Here’s why. As you might know, I’m creating a new product for you on the topic of 5RDs. In my upcoming 5RD Adventure Building System though, there’s three key concepts […]

My Top Monster Villains

The other day I read a blog about the GM’s Top 10 mastermind monster villains. I love this idea! It’s great inspiration. So today for fun I’m sharing my favourite monster villains with you. The requirements for my list are I can only list monsters I have GM’d or made adventures for. In some cases […]

Coax The Details Out

It all starts with a flaw. The item does not work as expected. This creates surprise, which makes great gameplay. After the surprise, it makes the item distinct and valued because it’s not just another +1 dagger. Design cost-value into your flaws and find that sweet spot where the penalty of using the item is […]

Manic Mystery Mayhem – Three Lessons Learned About GMing Mysteries

I had an interesting game on Wednesday. I made a couple big mistakes you can hopefully learn from. I’m playtesting the mystery portion of my Demonplague I: The Frozen Necromancer adventure, which releases in 2017. The PCs must find out who or what is behind disappearing villagers. During the session the PCs decided to knock […]

Your Villain’s Missing Ingredient

I loves me my villains. I believe every great campaign is powered by a strong villain the PCs hate. But something is often missing from the villains I read in adventure modules. Add this missing ingredient, and your campaign instantly improves. Hobos Reboot Before I get into that though, a quick thanks to Eddy Morrow […]

Trick Question For You – All Players Count

I had a great game on Friday. I’m a cleric for our Out of the Abyss campaign. A player complimented me for thinking outside the box. As I only had 9 hit points at the time, I assume he meant the box was a coffin. We all survived, fortunately, and found the stolen red dragon […]

D13 Magic Item Concepts from My Demonplague Campaign

I needed some minor mundane and magical treasures for my next DemonPlague game. So I made some and am sharing a few with you today. The party has a wizard, warrior, cleric, druid, and rogue in it. The first thing I did was make a table and a column for each class. That way I […]

How To Rock Your Encounters With This Monster Design Tip

Here’s a tip from Faster Combat: when you chose or design a monster, start with how you want the PCs to defeat it. I say “choose or design” because it doesn’t matter whether you’re picking the foe from the monster manual or homebrewing an original critter. The benefit is the same to your encounter. What […]

Rebooting My Murder Hobos Campaign (And Yours) in Three Easy Steps

Let’s talk about a campaign reboot. But before that, let me crack open the champagne and yell Happy Year +1! Alana and I had a great time visiting her parents in snowy Salmon Arm, B.C. We spent Christmas there, then flew back to ring in the changing of the calendar with dinner out and a […]

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