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Category Archives for "Adventure Building & Campaigns"

Map, Monster, Chest: The Golden Trio of Adventure Design

The Golden Trio of Adventure Design RPT GM Benjamin asks: For an anxious and inspiring GM that tried to learn way too much for what is actually needed, how do you just sit down and say, “I’m doing this random plot, with random PCs, and keep everything afloat and fun?” My brother can improvise anything […]

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Unlock New Adventures: 5 Room Dungeons With a Twist

Today’s tips come in the form of a 13 minute video. When I sent out a recent invitation to my Master of the 5 Room Dungeon Workshop, several GMs responded that they didn’t like the method. Fair enough. There are many ways to craft an adventure! However, some readers mentioned that the five rooms get […]

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1d12 Most Common Encounter Mistakes

1d12 Most Common Encounter Mistakes nuqneH TEST! I don’t generally dwell on the negative. We’re here to have fun at every game, after all. However, sometimes it’s great to review a list of gotchas and see if any resonate. If some do, we can then take action to fix. So today I have 1d12 mistakes […]

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Surprise Your Players: Betrayal Twist Mad Lib For Your Encounters

You know I’m a huge fan of adventure plot twists. That’s what Room V is all about. But we should try to add encounter-level twists, as well. Then we get to surprise and delight our players several times during sessions! Here is one of my favourite types of twists and d12 examples to help you […]

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Why Homebrew Adventures Suck

I’ve suffered through my fair share of homebrew disasters. For example, there was The Session Where Nothing Happened. The GM had been bugging me all week, bursting with anticipation of how awesome Saturday’s adventure would be. The weekend comes around. We roll up characters and started off in an infinite plane. We walked and walked, […]

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How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1223 How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways How do you make dungeon crawling perpetually interesting? This was a frequent tip request made in December’s Dungeon23 poll. I struggle with this too, whether it’s an endless series of rooms in a megadungeon, a series of 5 Room Dungeons, or just a […]

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A Way To Make MegaDungeon Rooms Interesting (Have Your Dice Ready)

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1222 A Way To Make MegaDungeon Rooms Interesting An RPT GM asks: Facing the Dungeon23 challenge, I wonder how to come up with different rooms instead of falling into tired tropes or ending up with repetitive floors. My answer: roll for it! First, theme your megadungeon and its levels. Next, make yourself […]

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Turn Travel Into Fun Setbacks – 3 Ways

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1219 Brief Word From Johnn We played session #5 of Basilica yesterday. The old memory muscles for Basic D&D slowly return, as does the OSR mindset, which I’m really enjoying. It’s wonderful not turning to the rulebook every time to figure out what to do or how to adjudicate a player action. […]

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3 Alternatives to PC Drinking Contests

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1217 3 Alternatives to PC Drinking Contests Last weekend we played session #04 of my Basilica campaign. We’re using Old School Essentials and my homebrew world of Duskfall. And this session we did a new thing called Stars & Wishes. I got this technique from Jonathan, who wrote today’s ideas for fun […]

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11 Ways To Make Mysteries Magnificent

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1211 Brief Word From Johnn Check out this cool session pic from Platinum Wizard of Adventure Nemsoli: I asked Nemsoli what I was seeing, and he replied: What you are looking at is a Dwarven Forge 3d model my GM bought and painted. The two minis are clockwork owlbears he printed and […]

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1d6 Ways To Create Urgency In Encounters

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1212 Brief Word From Johnn Biggest Eruption In Over 100 Years Did you hear about the volcanic eruption that happened at Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai last January? It’s probably the biggest eruption that’ll happen in our lifetime – the biggest since Krakatoa in 1883 – but due to its remote location it […]

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How To Build Encounters On A Budget

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1210 Brief Word From Johnn I just returned from a two week camping trip that was a great and relaxing time. I know I’m stressed when my notebook gathers dust and doesn’t get any new ideas. That was the story of my 2022 so far. But after a few days sitting around […]

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6 Tips On How To Tie Dungeon Encounters Together

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1203 Brief Word From Johnn Last night I found a great course on Udemy about video game design. In part, it dives into the tension between player agency versus game designer agenda. Open world games versus plotted story paths. This is old hat for us though. The first moments behind the screen […]

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Tips For Lunch Hour Games + Personal Announcement

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1198 Big news to share with you this week. I have embarked on a grand adventure. Two adventures, really. The Great Resignation First, I’m going fuller-time with Roleplaying Tips! I’m thrilled but nervous and can’t wait to begin this new journey. I gave notice at my day job last week and I’ve […]

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Wow Your Players With Monster Hunts

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1189 5 Room Dungeon Template When I invented the 5 Room Dungeon in 2003, I first thought of it as a physical adventure framework. Five literal encounters. This method still works brilliantly, but we can advance it for great monster hunter storytelling. After reading a bunch of work by American professor Joseph […]

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Encounter Mapping Software – 3 Tips For Choosing The Best One

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1182 A great conversation came up in the monthly Wizard of Adventure chat Saturday on what encounter mapping software to choose. (Wizards of Adventure who could not make the call, here’s a link to the recording.) From DungeonFog to HexKit to Campaign Cartographer, and a bunch of others, how do you pick? […]

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4 Ways To Surprise Players Who Know All The Monster Stats

From Jonathan Hardin, sojournersawake.com Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1178 Hello Sojourner! My players know all of the stats for every villain I place in their path. Through searching on the internet, hours studying monster manuals, and good old fashioned wits, my players have found a way to circumvent the wonder of being surprised in battle. As […]

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3 Easy Ideas To Generate Instant Adventure Ideas – Plot Factory Tutorial Part II

From JohnnFour Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1175 Last week we talked about Plot Factories as a tool in your GM Toolbox. Think of them like spawn points in a video game. Foes keep emerging to assault your character until you destroy the spawn point. In our adventures and sandboxes, we do the same via Plot Factories […]

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