From: James Edward Raggi IV Success and Failure The most important thing to remember when constructing an adventure is to not assume that the PCs will succeed at any point during the adventure. As a referee, your job is to be completely impartial during game play. You have absolute power at the game table and […]
Continue readingWelcome to the final part of the superheroes tips series. This week features a number of individual tips from readers who write in response to a request made in Issue #472. Prepare NPCs and Locations, Not Encounter Sequences From: Jolle Lont In a superhero campaign, the players have absurdly strong powers. They will use them […]
Continue readingFrom: Scott J. Compton I’d like to talk to you about a touchy subject, which I’m going to call, “the cheating player.” Have you ever stopped to think about why some players will go to great lengths to cheat in a role-playing game? They use older or weighted dice, forget to remove hit points, play […]
Continue readingFrom: Johnn Four Law enforcement in fantasy games presents GMs with a dilemma. a) Do you let the guards do their jobs, which means most PCs will soon get into trouble and must duck and cover or fight the guard at every turn? b) Do you let the PCs run rampant, causing murder and mayhem, […]
Continue readingFrom: Ria Kennedy 1. Create Events and Timeline Designing a campaign can be so overwhelming that GMs prefer to make it up as they go and hope they can somehow hold it all together. I have found simple tricks to make a light, simple campaign that is elegantly flexible but fleshed out just enough to […]
Continue readingFrom: Kate Manchester PC Histories are one of the most ignored parts of a character sheet, but for a GM, it can prove to be one of the most vital. Here are some ways to get the most value from a PC’s biography. 1. Require A Background Require all characters to have a background story. […]
Continue readingFrom: Hannah Lipsky There are tons of tips for how to be a better DM. Most of them involve a lot of time: carefully planning out encounters, documenting plot threads, tracking down the perfect NPC portrait. But even the least prepared DM has still invested a fair amount of time into the game. Many suggestions […]
Continue readingFrom: Johnn Four 1. Give City Encounters a Backstory To make an encounter compelling it needs a backstory. Create a layer behind what the players see, which they can peel back and discover if they so choose. This adds depth, exploration and player control to your urban games, while keeping things manageable behind the screen. […]
Continue readingFrom: Hannah Lipsky You might have noticed that I haven’t been around for the past couple months. That’s because I’ve been in the process of uprooting my entire life and moving it from one edge of the continent to the other. I did this in the most relaxing way possible, by which I mean taking […]
Continue readingFrom: Johnn Four A long time ago, reader Casey Dare asked for tips on romance in games. Romance adds another dimension to your games with new plots and character possibilities. The topic gets tricky in RPGs though, because of the interactive nature of the game. Hopefully the tips in this week’s issue will be of […]
Continue readingFrom: Johnn Four The idea of making the maximum use of character history was covered recently in the newsletter by Kate Manchester. Thanks Kate! http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=494 The topic has also been touched upon in issues before that. However, as I was editing Kate’s article, several more tips came to mind, and I present these below. Backgrounds, […]
Continue readingOver 720 entries were submitted to the City Encounters contest. That smashes my goal of 500 to celebrate that many issues – thanks to everyone who entered! Winners have been contacted and prizes distributed. All entries will be available for download soon. In the meantime, I have sifted through and picked 100 entries that I […]
Continue readingThe final batch of my top 100 contest entries. View the first batch at the website: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=500 To inspire your ongoing, check out these files and tools: Random City Encounter Generator. This takes all the entries and randomly picks them for you. A great way to cure GM block or find inspiration in the middle […]
Continue readingThis week’s feature article is inspired by three things. First is a couple of reader requests that I’ve been neglecting about getting PCs together for the first time and kicking off campaigns. Apologies to James S., Patrick R. and Matthew I. for the delay in these tips. Second, last issue I rambled on about encouraging […]
Continue readingFrom: Mark Moncrieff When a new player joins my group and we are beginning a campaign I’ll say, “Okay, let’s start designing the party.” I can see the new guy looking at the other players as if I’m mad. Much of what I’m about to write will seem like heresy. But it works and has […]
Continue readingFrom: Joel Fox The heist is a classic scenario in fiction that, while prevalent in film media, is rarely found in pen-and paper games. The reasons for this are many, but the most important one to me is most people just don’t know where to start. Everyone knows what a heist is – most people […]
Continue readingWe finish the series, at least for the moment, about kicking off your campaign in interesting ways, with examples from RPT readers and GMMastery Yahoo! Group members. There is a nice mix here of action and roleplaying starts, so there should be something for every GM. 1. Last campaign I played in had an interesting […]
Continue readingFrom: Curn Bounder Amongst tabletop roleplayers, it is often said that nothing brings a halt to a suspenseful narrative better than “Roll for initiative.” However, there is little that can be done about it. Most games people play, including the controlled chaos of a football field (or pitch depending on how you just read football), […]
Continue readingBy way of introduction, my name is John, I’m in my thirties, I live in Germany and I’ve been a thankful reader of this newsletter for quite some time now. I started role-playing at the age of 14, and my preferred system is the Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game. As with probably some of you, […]
Continue readingIn RPT#507 GM Josh asked for zombie tips. And boy, did RPT readers ever respond! This issue is dedicated to every GM dying to run a zombie campaign. I say knock ’em dead. Shift Combat Focus From: Mark of the Pixie Most RPGs focus a lot on combat (it’s fun and exciting), but with zombies […]
Continue readingFrom: Josh Sigafus Before I had a lot of GM experience I would sometimes encounter game sessions that did not go so well. Sometimes sessions were spectacular…but there were always those sessions where it seemed like the players were not as interested, the adventures were not as fun, and the challenges just didn’t do it. […]
Continue readingBartering to knock gold pieces off a merchant’s price often happens in my campaigns. The GM trap comes when it gets boring. Each side dickers closer to a meeting point. Then payment. Done. But this gets dull after a while. The novelty dries up. Today, let’s dig into three solutions for how to make bartering […]
Continue readingI call one of the most destructive events that can break your campaign the Time Bomb. It’s an inconsistent detail that breaks your game’s logic: Forgotten fact from a previous session Contradictory world detail Wrong name, NPC, or location Missed rule Bad rule interpretation Authors and screenwriters have it easy. They can go back and […]
Continue readingPlayers love it when their characters get special side plots built just for them. Side plots hook your players and get them involved in your campaign. Side plots allow PC growth and development in ways character sheet upgrades cannot. And side plots make your campaigns feel deep and personal. Problem is, with one side plot […]
Continue readingRPT GM Sebastian has seven players and asked me for tips on how to handle large groups. My article Handling Large Groups: Keeping Players Busy has good advice. But I have a different tip for you today. One not shared before. And this tip applies to every party size — especially large groups. We’ve covered […]
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