Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #393 Have Fun With Factions From Loz Newman Here’s a bit of help for GMs who get bogged down in campaign creation: don’t sweat the small stuff. Economise your creative energies to avoid nasty pitfalls. An example of this is factions. When I create a campaign world, I know a big part […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #394 Court Etiquette: Do’s and Don’ts From Stephie How many plot lines or quests has a DM or player dealt with that were nobility-driven? When dealing with nobility and court settings, players sometimes skip the roleplay aspect and jump straight to behavior such as, “I bow, greet all in the court, and […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #395 Mapping Tips For Inns, Taverns, And Restaurants From John Simcoe and Johnn Four The following mapping tips are from my recently released book, GM Mastery: Inns, Taverns, and Restaurants. For more information about this book, see the end of this e-zine. http://roleplayingtips.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=51416 Basic Layout Features Restaurants, taverns, and inns require simple […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #396 Start Campaigns With Unrelated One-Shot Adventures From Hannah L. My first D&D character was a mage who didn’t know the spell Magic Missile. As laughable as that sounds, I’m sure most gamers have been in a similar situation: you’re building a PC for a brand new campaign, and, not wholly clear […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #397 The Spiral Method of World Building From Hannah L. One of a GM’s biggest investments in a campaign is world- building, and with all of the advice out there, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. A complete world needs a social structure, a culture, a map, weather, a currency system, an ecology, […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #398 Why Use Inns, Taverns, and Restaurants? From John Simcoe and Johnn Four In addition to providing characters with food, shelter, and a place to party, inns, taverns, and restaurants are wonderful player and GM tools. We GMs sometimes fall into the trap of running the same variations over and over. We […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #399 The Rule To Making Good Rules And Other Useful Tips From Tony Reeves Published with permission from Dragonsfoot.org This article originally appeared at: DMTips The following is an article I wrote for new DMs based on my own observations as a player and DM over the last 20 years. As a […]
Continue readingHow do you run and portray factions in your campaign? Are your factions full of life and rich gameplay? Or are they vague mentions in your world? You can tell how well a faction gets roleplayed by how much interest your players show in interacting with the group. For example, three signs players don’t care […]
Continue readingRPT GM Duane V. asked me this interesting question about the responsibility of the GM: Hi Johnn. I was reading your latest DM Tips and a question that has bugged me for a while popped into my mind. In politics, we blame the leader if things go badly; in sport, we blame the coach; in […]
Continue readingBeen watching a lot of history videos on Youtube lately. I especially like the short ones with time lapse maps of changing settlements and populations. For example, this one on Europe from 400 BC to present. It’s fascinating to see how countries grow, shrink, migrate, and disappear. On a similar note, my civilization schema for […]
Continue readingBrief word: Roleplaying Tips Monthly Round-Up — October 2019 Here’s a simple world-building method from Reddit user MordecaiKravits. [OC] Finally developed a world building method that appeals to my love of hexagons and straight lines. This a relationship map he created that illustrates the technique: In his words: I’ve been trying to create a sleek […]
Continue readingI hear many GMs fudge rolls and regard every rule as changeable on their whim. Here’s my philosophy, which has changed over the years, and is now at a place I think makes for better gaming with my friends. Law vs. Lore First, a couple of RPT definitions. Law Law is the rules. It’s the […]
Continue readingI like this list from Cheka Man in RPT#461. It speaks to me of archetypes and story roles. And I like those because they are reusable containers you can fill again and again. For example, The Idealist. They’d rather be somewhere else. By being someone else. Tough gig. In one plot you can make this […]
Continue readingToday we talk about playing at a different level than your players to make your adventures more challenging. We begin with RPT Platinum Patron Mark Aston asking a great question about players using a local knowledge type skill: Hi Johnn, I have never really got to grips with how to run the skill Knowledge (Local), […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #400 Mystery Game Tips From Danny East Mystery Games are gaining popularity, as much for the challenge of GMing them as for the challenge of playing. Intrigue, deceit, and evidence were easy enough for Sherlock Holmes, but outside of a good module or the RPG translation of a popular movie or book, […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #401 Keep The Peace Part 1 From Joel Fox 10 Tips To Bring The Party Back Together and Keep It That Way Characters in the same party often fight each other; it’s sad but true. They disagree on tactics, faith, politics, and an infinite number of other things. The task of keeping […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #402 Keep The Peace Part 2 From Joel Fox 10 Tips To Bring The Party Back Together and Keep It That Way Last week, in part 1, we discussed the different expectations and backgrounds of the players sitting down at the gaming table. Conflicts arising from these issues are easiest solved at […]
Continue readingTo celebrate the Demonplague campaign launching on Amazon, I’m holding a fun giveaway. You could get a 3D printed mini of the campaign’s demonic villain, Xancrown. Here’s a picture of the mini: Imagine your players’ faces when you introduce this guy to the table: How to Enter the Giveaway The giveaway is open to any […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #403 15 Holiday Adventures From JL Hatlen Linnell. You can catch part Part 1 at: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=344 The Great Eel-Culling Black Harbor is a vibrant trading community built on the mouth of a large river and the open end of a busy harbor. The harbor itself has only a narrow passage to the […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #404 Creating Memorable Enemy Groups From Danny East Most campaigns have not one single enemy, like a Tekken or Street Fighter video game, but have a boss enemy at the end. Such boss type games are more akin to fighting King Bowser after jumping on all the Goombas. Here are a few […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #405 Campaign Settings: Fantasy Greek and Roman A New Kind of Classical From Hannah L. If there’s one thing nearly every gamer has in common, it’s that we’ve all fought against evil in one medieval-esque world or another. Be it the Forgotten Realms or some homebrew setting, the average gamer spends about […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #406 Easy GMing With One Sentence NPCs From Johnn Four Chatty DM recently wrote on his blog about 10 word adventure synopses, which is a great idea. It forces you to pare plots down to their essence. This makes writing them faster, with practice, and makes GMing easier because you have a […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #407 One Sentence NPCs, Part 2 Categories of NPC Characteristics From Johnn Four Part one last week mentioned that useful and interesting one sentence NPCs have three characteristics, including one that is at odds with the other two. Fortunately, there are several categories of characteristics, and you can choose from three different […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #408 Near Future Campaign Settings From Kate Manchester There are many types of campaign worlds, mostly falling into the genres of fantasy, modern and science fiction. Skating the fine line between the modern age and science fiction genres is what can be described as the near future. The near future is a […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #409 How to Add Atmosphere (Without LARPing or Bank Loans)? From Danny East Remember in “The Never-Ending Story” when the store owner Mr. Koreander asked young Bastion, “Listen. Have you ever been Captain Nemo, trapped inside your submarine while the giant squid is attacking you?” and then “Weren’t you afraid you couldn’t […]
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