Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #427 Props Contest Entries, Part 3 Here is the next installment in the series of props contest entries, with lots of great tips for enhancing your game with documents, plus advice on clay and food. Ancient Documents From Kate Manchester, Chris Torrence, Tim V E, Brett O’Reilly, Giorgio Vezzini, Nayamek A timeless […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #428 Character-Specific Drama Points From Hannah L. Many systems these days have drama points or plot points of some sort that let PCs do awesome things. The action points in D&D partly fill this niche, but don’t give players quite the narrative control that drama points do. If drama points aren’t purely […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #429 Props Contest Entries, Part 4 Last but most definitely not least, here is the final installment of the props contest entries compilation. Set the mood with lighting and music, make magic happen, spice up combat, and puzzle your players with these great tips. Lighting Candles and lanterns are classic choices that […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #430 How to Game Master at Conventions? From Kate Manchester With the convention season fast approaching, there are many GMs thinking about running a game at one. Here are a few helpful tips to help you successfully GM at a con. == Registering == Be An Early Bird GMs registering early get […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #431 Fantasy Job Postings From Adam Bragg, Steven R, Arlene M, John Wilson, Lara of Mir “I’d like to see what people could come up with for ‘job postings’ for fantasy. Things you might find on the town bulletin board.” We received many fantastic responses. Thanks very much! Here they all are […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #432 Villainous Escapes From Roleplaying Tips Readers In issue #425, we posed to you the following question: “How can bad guys escape? Players are effective at slaying all opposition. In most systems, the rules are stacked against the villains. Free hacks, different movement rates (Darth Vader is not exactly a fast runner) […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #433 Distilled Cultural Essence – Creating A Different Society From Mike Bourke It’s relatively easy to create a new culture for your game. Creating one that makes sense is more work, but also more worthwhile. Expressing the difference is even more work, and apt to be boring as hell unless you enjoy […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #434 So The Game Got Cancelled From Darren Blair It’s game night. You’ve been looking toward to it all week. You’ve got your dice and materials ready to go; all you need to do is confirm the time and location. When you do start calling around, however, you find out you’re the […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #435 Enhancing Roleplaying with Treasure Siphons From Editor Hannah L. Imagine this: your players have just slain the Mighty Dragon Silverclaw and burst into his treasure-room to find a horde of gold, gems, and priceless artifacts. But they don’t bicker over the loot, or begin scribbling down totals on their character sheets, […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #436 Introducing New Characters into an Existing Campaign It’s a situation that comes up often enough to have its own cliché: “Hello, good sir. You seem an honorable sort. Would you like to adventure with us?” Adding new PCs into an existing party is tricky for two reasons: in character and out […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #437 Running Recurrent Bad Guys From Sebastien Boily Just what is a Recurrent Bad Guy? He or she is usually a sentient enemy (or a common beast, but that’ll be harder) the players will face more than twice. Why not just more than once? In my experience, PC hatred for recurring baddies […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #438 7 Tips to Keep the Fear of Death Alive in Any Campaign From Pahl As GMs, we deal with the double-edged sword of healing and resurrection in virtually every game setting. Be it high- tech cloning vats in a sci-fi game, spells and items in a fantasy game, or the very […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #439 Ask The GMs: How to Handle NPC Networks From Mike Bourke Ask the GMs is a service offered through the Roleplaying Tips blog at campaignmastery.com where game masters can write in with advice requests and Mike and I post answers to the blog. The following request was recently received from game […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #440 Lessons Learned from behind the GM Screen From Scot Newbury As any GM will tell you, when you run a long-term campaign with the same group of players there are bound to be things you really liked and want to use again, and things that you’ll avoid at all costs in […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #441 Reduce Session Cancellations with An On-Call Player From Ike Traditionally, you play tabletop RPGs in person with a group of your favourite people. Therein lies some of the hobby’s greatest appeal, and also one of its most common stumbling blocks. I am talking, of course, about synching up multiple, overtaxed schedules […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #442 Choosing Your Next Science Fiction RPG: Reader Recommendations In Issue #428 I polled you to help me figure out what science fiction RPG I should try as my next game. Here is the original request: What Sci-Fi RPG Should I Play Next Year? My D&D campaign is slowly forming a plot, […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #443 15 Kinds of Camouflage From Ian Winterbottom There was a song once, “Camouflage,” which had the refrain, “Things are never quite the way they seem.” It struck me then and still does now that there was the germ of some good hooks and stories there. To this end, I started methodically […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #444 Five Tips to Create Game Room Atmosphere From Joel Fox Atmosphere while playing is an important consideration that is often overlooked. Sometimes other issues take the foreground, such as simply keeping everyone on-task, or handling the many facets of GMing. Ironically, focusing on these issues becomes unnecessary if atmosphere is correctly […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #445 4 Tips for Post Apocalypse Game Masters From Kate Manchester The future is a bleak place. Society, as we currently know it, has ended, thanks to some sort of apocalypse. Since there are very few post-apocalyptic gaming systems, how do you create a setting? How do you deal with weaponry when […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #446 Build Your Own Starship From Brent P. Newhall Many sci-fi settings involve the liberal and exciting use and abuse of starships; you board ’em, you fight with ’em, and you fight in ’em. You’ll probably be creating new starships, either as player character vehicles or as environments. So, how to make […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #447 How to Create Factions – 3 New Tips From Johnn Four I discussed in Issue #393: Have Fun with Factions how you can save a lot of time by combining world design with adventure design through factions. http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=393 Factions are such a useful game mastering tool I encourage all GMs to […]
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I’ve got a character problem. Maybe you’ve experienced it too? The rogue in my Barbossa campaign is being subsumed by other PCs and the emerging campaign style: Monk and bard are also good at stealth. The rogue is a halfling. So is the bard. Last session there was no combat. So sneak attacks became null […]
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Awesome RPT Patron Roel asked for my two cents on a couple of roleplaying house rules he’s thinking of for his campaign: When a player role plays a social situation well they can take +2 on social checks (diplomacy, intimidation etc) (GM’s discretion). This rule is to encourage players to role play conversations. The bar […]
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The better connected a character is to your world, the better the gameplay. Sometimes you can mine character backgrounds for all kinds of cool campaign stuff. Relationships with NPCs, for example, give you fantastic GMing options. Use these folks for quest hooks, plot complications, party resources, and roleplaying moments. However, some players don’t create any […]
Continue readingRoleplaying Tips Newsletter #448 8 Tactics for Mooks From Ian Winterbottom Encounters in the early days of campaigns are harrowing and exciting. Nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment that comes from overcoming a real threat by the skin of your teeth. As your PCs get more powerful, though, this old zest might fade. The joy […]
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