Roleplaying Tips Blog

The Four Levers That Inevitably Pull Players Through Your Adventures

I’m writing right now in my Guide to 5 Room Dungeons about Push versus Pull. Push GMing means forcing players in a certain direction. But players are their own beings. They think and act independent of your wishes. You cannot control another person. Therefore, you cannot control your players. If you try, everyone just gets […]

What Surprises Lurk in Our Fog of War?

Let’s talk about the unknown for a minute. We instinctively fear the dark. Yet, we can’t help but wonder what’s there. Use this tension between darkness and light to fuel curiosity, wonder, and excitement for your games. We Sit in The Middle What might not be obvious is there are different depths of shadow within […]

The Subtle Gap You Should Close for Better Storytelling

When A Door Is Not Just a Door — The Technique of Transitions How your players go from one Room to the next will make or break your 5 Room Dungeon designs. If players have no choice, then that gets frustrating fast. If you give players choice, then what if they take an unexpected turn […]

What Roles To Build For A Grand Cast Of NPCs

It’s fine to have a big Cast of Non-Player Characters whipped up, but that does not get us all the way to a campaign filled with intrigue, roleplaying, and twisty-crazy developments. You want some specific story roles filled to make that happen. Use my quick 3 Line NPC creation method and build one NPC for […]

Create Your Special GM Moves

Adventures get repetitive and boring. “Bring me another 10 scorpion tales!” Even megadungeons and campaign paths can grind you down. I received an email from a subscriber who asked how to keep players engaged. He caught one player even playing video games on their phone during sessions. The best way I know how to keep […]

When Do I Peel Back The Cosmic Curtain In My Campaigns?

Sveiki %FIRSTNAME%, Grand campaigns take characters from weaklings to near demi-gods. Intrigue campaigns have shadowy layers with a central truth hidden deep in the core. Mega-plot campaigns have a pyramid of villains and factions piled atop each other like an Ikea storage unit. How do we know what truths to reveal? When do we reveal them? I’ve found […]

Evil GM Tactic: Make PCs The Villains

Imagine you have a party of PCs who insult nice people with their insensitivity, who take actions without care for the consequences and effects it has on others, who murder hobo without remorse. I know. It’s a stretch. But just try imagining characters who are like that. Here’s how to turn the tables. And how […]

Monsters Are NPCs Too – A Short Monster Personality Stat Block

When monsters become meat bags you lose a big opportunity for roleplay and storytelling. I’m guilty of queuing up encounters with 2d6 orcs in a 10′ x 10′ room. Big time wasters. Pointless. And boring. I know players love to use their characters’ powers. And crushing a foe is fun. But after a few times […]

A Confidence Hack For Better GMing

Great GMing means making great decisions. In the heat of gameplay we have a lot going on in our foggy noggins. (Say foggy noggins ten times fast.) We’re doing some math, picking NPC words, choosing foe tactics, observing players, drawing maps, conjuring details, thinking three seconds into the future, and on and on. I love […]

World-Building In Five Steps

RPT GM LadySeshiiria asks a big world-building question. Good timing, LadySeshiiria, because I’ve just started planning out my realm called Duskfall for season three of Hobos of the Apocalypse. So I can hopefully help today with a high-level overview of my world-building recipe. Here is LadySeshiiria’s question: Johnn, What is a good way to organize […]

An Example Of The Creature Feature For Your 5 Room Dungeon Designs

Without a key idea or theme, our adventures can feel like an uninspired assortment of random ideas. Our adventures fail to make an impact and they fall apart. One awesome solution is to create a Feature. Before you begin adventure design, choose a Feature. Pick a central idea and build your five rooms out from […]

Use The Feature Method To Make Adventure Design A Whole Lot Easier

Before you put pen to paper designing your next 5 Room Dungeon, do this one quick thing to greatly improve your design. When I build 5 Room Dungeons I often find it’s a struggle to make them more than just an assortment of encounters. Make It Pop A designer I worked with had a massive […]

A Quick Way To Make Awesome Rewards

Saw a great tip on Twitter from Mike Shea the other day: Adding a daily spell to a magic itemis a great way to make it boththematic and mechanically useful. This is an awesome method to customize and enhance treasure. You could also surprise players with cool boons like this. The magic pool, mysterious portal, […]

How To GM Genius NPCs

I wrote this Bonus Musing for you on the weekend in response to a question from RPT GM and Patron Andy Fundinger. Andy asked me how you draw on an antagonist’s high IQ to build clever plans. Here are three ways. Think Ahead I was talking to folks at work about a plan they were […]

A Quick Tip On Session Prep

I got this tip while reading The Index Card RPG by Rune Hammer Games. Treat every session like you were prepping for a one-shot. If you’ve ever run a convention game or organized play type game, you know it’s a bit different than your typical campaign prep mindset. No one expects to play again after […]

Create Your Memory Dungeon

I recently read about a memorization technique called Memory Palace, also called Method of loci. It helps you memorize lists and facts. Dungeons are more my style than fancy palaces. So today let’s look at how this quick memory hack can help you prep faster and run adventures better. We Think Story Our brains are […]

What Makes A Player Valuable?

Last Starfinder game I felt valuable when I came up with a good idea about talking to the Starfinder Society office greeter. That person would see the comings and goings of everyone and might get us a lead on the employee we were investigating. It’s awesome feeling valued. I was thinking about this when I […]

Building Encounters On The Fly

Roleplaying Tip GM Dario asks, “How do you create encounters on the fly? Do you just have the DM tables at hand, roll a d20 a few times and voilá? Or do you have a specific procedure?” Thanks for the great question, Dario. I have a few tools for improve encounters: GM Agenda The first […]

A Three Part Quest Template

Roleplaying Tips GM Iona asked me how to kick off new campaigns: I am going to run a semi-blank character sheet game. The game concept is that players are normal humans kidnapped from Earth and sent to a planet where they can gather magical skills Pokemon style. I am unsure on what to run as […]

New Mad Lib: Instant Magic Items

Got another Mad Lib for you today. This one is for special item creation and is inspired by the Perilous Deeps book for Dungeon World. Just fill in the blanks to make an interesting item: This item [DOES ACTION] [TO A THING] and the wielder [CAN CONTROL IT] which [CAN BE USED SOMETIMES]. For example: This item allows for communication with predatory […]

Creating A Sandbox Campaign – 7 Steps

Here’s a quick recipe for building a sandbox campaign. The point is to not do a whole lot of plot prep in advance. Be an Agile GM. Only plan deeper once players have chosen a hex, path, or entrance. Step 1: Sandbox Campaign Structure First thing I’d do is decide on the overall structure. This gives you […]

Do This Often To Keep Your Players Engaged

Questions are the best way to get your players tuned in, roleplaying, and thinking about the game. However, not all questions are equal. GIGO applies here. Ask a bad question, get a garbage answer and no game lift. But ask the right question at the right time and you reap all kinds of game table […]

Use Initiative To Keep Players Engaged

Here’s a great tip for speeding up combats from RPT GM Gary Martin: I’ve found one of the huge culprits at our table is the player zoning out while waiting for their turn. Even if turns are slow, it makes them five times slower when you have re-explain what’s going on. What I started doing […]

How To Create Five Room Horror Dungeons

Hola %FIRSTNAME% Roleplaying Tips Patron Jeffrey asks how to create five room horror adventures: Johnn, been reading for a long time, and always figured that I would one day have a question worthy of asking… I guess that day is today. How would you use a five-room dungeon to run a horror game? For readers […]

Are You Keeping Too Many Secrets?

It’s better to give players lots of good information instead of keeping it all behind your screen. RPT GM Leigh wrote me and said, “The tricky bit is breaking the bad habit of keeping info secret.” How true. I remember often thinking, “Wow, it’s going to be so cool when I reveal this info. My […]

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