Johnn Four, Author at Roleplaying Tips

Johnn Four

Author Archives: Johnn Four

The Unification Event — How To Get The Party Together

Character backgrounds are key tools in your GM Toolbox. Mine them for plots, NPCs, and character motivation. However, it’s a struggle to get useful and game-full backgrounds from players. Often, you just get a couple paragraphs explaining how the PC became an orphan. Or, you might get the inverse. Pages of narcissistic background explaining why […]

Story Sparks — A Way To Improv Better

Ever make a fire from scratch, without matches or gasoline? Every material has an ignition temperature where a spark lights it up. The shirt you’re wearing probably ignites around 267°C or 513°F. Wood is about 300°C / 572°F. And what about our encounters? What ignites them? More on that in a sec. To start a […]

Need A Last-Minute Halloween One-Shot Adventure Idea?

I was chatting with new subscriber Ric Miller this week, and he inspired today’s tip that’ll help you prep and run an awesome Halloween adventure this weekend if you have not found one yet. The tip is simple, yet full of amazing potential: Just add Cthulhu. Flash Sale Alert Before I jump into today’s tip, […]

My Monsters Sucked Until I Discovered This Special Approach

I realized last month I’ve been in a rut slinging boring monsters. This troubled me because boring foes = boring games (h/t to Slapchop). In my Terror in the Badlands campaign, for example, we had a crazy battle in a ruined underground city against a white dragon. It was tricksy with its moves, actions, and […]

Making Monsters Marvelous – Monstrous RPT Gems For You

A Charter Member of the Adventure Building Master Game Plan asked me about monsters. Great topic. One might say there are three kinds of monsters: Constructs Tricksters Mirrors Constructs fulfill our System needs. Stats, abilities, xp/treasure. Tricksters serve our Story needs. Clue bearers, agents, plot twisters. Mirrors serve our Setting needs by reflecting darker aspects […]

Help New Players Have A Blast In Their First Session Banner

How To Help New Players Have A Blast With Their First Session

With so many new players (and GMs) joining our beloved hobby, there’s a lot of confusion out there about how to make sessions enjoyable and accessible for newbies. Sometimes your entire group is new. They don’t even have trope or game references to draw upon from different mediums such as video games. That’s what happens […]

Do You Plot Stories Or Dungeon Crawlers?

I just came back from vacation. We camped out in beautiful British Columbia. We have a camping trailer, so we were able to be self-sufficient and remain in isolation while enjoying nature and recouping our energy. I read a bunch and otherwise just tried to sit around and resist the impulse to be productive. While […]

Give Enemies Missions Too

Siema Johnn, A new RPT GM emailed me and said something that triggered a thought about how to better balance your encounters. Here’s a snippet of his email: “The guild gives them an easy base of operations and provides a simple way of offering up quests on a job board. It’s been going really well, […]

How To Level Up Players With Reward Systems

We’ve mused how motivating yourself to be a better GM makes you happier. Those who pursue intrinsic goals are happier because they control more of their destiny. Now let’s talk about our players, who are probably a mixed bag of intrinsic and extrinsic interests. I go along with live and let live and to teach by example. So […]

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic: The Cause of Your Gaming Woes?

Here’s something key to understand about yourself and your players. People are motivated by some combination and degree of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Learn what these are for each person in your group to better tailor your game rewards. Rewards that fit, like the right key to the right lock, help your game become a satisfying campaign. An extrinsic reward is […]

How To Stop Campaigns From Fizzling Out

Here’s an email from RPT GM Sam about campaigning: Hi Johnn! Glad I stumbled upon your stuff over the weekend. I am a gamer from Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been playing RPGs for about 12 years and I’ve been interested in GMing for about 5 years now. My biggest problem is this: I find creating stories […]

How To Create Wicked Rumour Tables

RPT GM Roy Winfrey asks: Love the rumour post you just posted. I was intrigued by the Knowledge Table. Any chance we might see an article about how to construct that? Thanks for the question, Roy. I first spoke about the idea of a Knowledge Table in my Adventure Building Workshop, which is currently on […]

Adventure Design: Build From The Monster’s POV

When building cunning locations for your adventures and encounters, build out from their denizens’ point of view. Here’s a way you can do this in 5 steps: Step 1. Original Use Step 2. Who Built It? Step 3. Rooms Step 4. Map & Key Step 5. Recycle Step 1. Original Use Many locations have an […]

Celebrate Your Encounter Locations This Way

Make your locations memorable. And incorporate the story. Do those two things to make encounters even better. Here’s how: Features => Twist => Secret Let’s see what to do for each part: Figure Out The Special Features First, give your location a Purpose. Sometimes the game role for the location differs from the Purpose. This […]

The Three Word NPC Formula

Remember 3 Line NPCs? These are awesome. Quick to make, easier to GM, and great for improvisation. Campaign Logger even has a 3 Line NPC generator so you can spin up roleplay-ready NPCs in less than a second. But as I plan Hobo Princes and other campaigns, I want something even lighter. I don’t need […]

Power Your Plots With Simple Rumour Tables

The Keep is a monthly D&D campaign, just three sessions old, where the PCs have been shipwrecked on the mysterious jungle island of Barbossa. In session one, I used a rumour table to drop several plot hooks into play to give the sandbox immediate direction. Each player rolled a d20 and received their own rumour. […]

The Keep: Introducing My New Campaign

In Barbossa, the PCs are the monsters. Today I share some thinking behind my new campaign, which gets its second session tonight. I’m very excited! The group is part of a monthly drop-in D&D event run at a local cafe in my city. The first session went well, despite me forgetting to bring the adventure. […]

Three Strategies That Take Advantage Of The Damage Economy

Several great articles I’ve found lately talk about D&D’s Action Economy. An Action Economy is a measure of how many moves the PCs can make versus their foes. In D&D 5E it’s clear that the game favours the party. PCs often get two or three additional actions versus foes. If for every action of mine […]

Storymastery: More Examples of Bad Reveal Timings

Last Musing, we talked about how to stage your prophecies for maximum effect. Reveal your prophecy too soon, and players won’t be invested. They won’t care because they have not bonded with your campaign yet. And then even the best prophecy destined to hit your table will feel like a gimmick. There are other campaign […]

Do This One Simple Thing to Create Compelling NPCs

Gar was a beloved NPC. He was rescued by the party. He was mentored by the fallen paladin PC. He was brought back to life at cost to the players when killed by Orcus’s foul minions. Best of all, he was a stalwart companion ready to dive into the breech to save a comrade. But […]

How Do You Keep Things Fresh For Your Players?

RPT GM Mark Ariesen asks this tricky question and my answer goes down a dark path. Here’s his question: How do you keep things fresh for your players year-in-year out, when they have seen it all and done it all? One easy way to do this is design your own stuff. Build your own adventures, […]

How Do You Pace Game Sessions Well?

Long-time RPT Patron Eric Gosselin (thanks Eric!) asks about how to pace game sessions: Hi Johnn, I recently awoke to the concept of game session pacing, you know, how to put slow and fast scenes during a game session? I’m looking for advice on the topic. How do I plan my session? Do I make […]

Avoid This Nasty Description Trap GMs Often Trigger

I saw this writing tip from @ShawnMerwin and it applies to GMing, as well: Avoid “begin to” or “start to” unless those actions are interruptible. “You begin to hear a scream” is simpler as “You hear screaming.” Clearer and more concise is better. So it is for GM descriptions. And that can be a nasty […]

My Favourite NPC Move — Gain Leverage

My favourite NPC Move is Gain Leverage. I don’t know about your players, but mine will trust and be loyal to allies, be cautious around neutrals, and murder hobo enemy NPCs. It’s the enemy NPCs I worry about most. The neutrals too, if the barbarian is feeling frisky. What’s a poor NPC to do when […]

How To Do A Deeper Analysis Of Your GMing In 5 Easy Steps

In a past Musing I talked about pre-mortems. Anticipate problems before they occur and fix them in advance. Everyone wins. Players win by getting smoother gameplay and great sessions with fewer friction points. You get a double win. You not only have more fun at every game, but you create a systematic way to learn […]

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