Adventure Building & Campaigns Archives - Page 3 of 6

How To Create Five Room Horror Dungeons

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0870 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 […]

Are You Keeping Too Many Secrets?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0864 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 […]

How To Make Skill Items As Treasured As Magic

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0854 Reward players with treasure that enhances their skills. Sometimes we get focused just on just combat-related rewards, or treasures that grant cool powers like invisibility. Mix things up by offering skill items. Here’s how. Step 1: Make A List Run through the skill list of your game system and make a […]

The Mad Lib d12 Random Quest Generator

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0849 A bit of fun inspiration for your campaign today. RPT GM Tony shares a random quest generator in Mad Libs format. What I like most about his plot generator is it creates a named and enumerated quest purpose. You could use this template to create legends, world wonders, artefacts, Spikes of […]

7 Essential Encounter Ingredients

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0845 Here’s a fun reader tip from GM Barky on how to build your encounters. It’s definitely food for thought. Johnn, Here’s my recipe for encounter creation using a food metaphor: Meat Meat is the protein, the basic building block of life. In an encounter, it’s the enemy leader. Example: my players […]

Sandbox Adventures – 5 Essential Ingredients

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0842 I got my first taste of sandbox play in B2: Keep on the Borderlands. The PCs based themselves in The Keep and forayed into the Wild. A crazy hermit shared the location of several caves nearby, confirmed dangerous, rumoured with riches. As the party crested a hill, a horseshoe valley stretched […]

Quick Plot Design: How To Create A Villain Plan First Draft

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1115 Been working on my campaigns and thinking a lot about villain plans. I like to craft a roadmap for how the villain can win their goal. I call this Villain Win-State. And that road map becomes my adventure outline for villain type adventures. So what are the first couple of steps […]

Adventure Building Tip: Must All Encounters Advance The Plot?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1114 RPT GM Joshua asks: “Do all encounters need to advance the plot?” My answer is yes. But with a twist I’ll explain in today’s article. A session is made up of encounters. Encounters make up adventures. Adventures make campaigns. To speak about encounters I first need to speak about adventures. That’s […]

How To Detail An Encounter In Less Than A Minute: Dangers, Discoveries, Impressions

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1113 Here’s an encounter tip for you today, pulled out of my Adventure Building Master Game Plan, which launches later this year. Once I get to the encounter building phase, I start digging into the details. I’ve got a Campaign Game Plan created, and an Adventure Game Plan built, by the time […]

Monster Design Tip: Take Away The Sun

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1110 Do you know how the eyeball works? It’s fascinating. Think about a camera for a moment. You point your camera at what you want to photograph. The shutter opens and closes to control the amount of light. A slow shutter action lets in more light. Great for dim conditions but poor […]

8 Ideas For Your Next Adventure

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1109 RPT GM and Adventure Building Workshop alumni Jesse Cohoon reached out and asked if he could help with the newsletter. Thanks Jesse! I asked him to come up with some adventure seeds, as game masters often get stuck for ideas. Here’s what he came up with for us: Fey Games A […]

Campaign Reboot Example: Murder Hobos

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0754 Readers asked for an example of a campaign reboot using my three step map. Rebooting My Murder Hobos Campaign (And Yours) in Three Easy Steps Here’s one using my current campaign, which needs new life injected into it as I prep Season 3. Step 1. Write a Story Summary The party […]

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5RDs Go Fractal

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0753 You’re going to see me writing more about Five Room Dungeons. It’s because they are the best way I know how to master adventure building. Here’s why. As you might know, I’m creating a new product for you on the topic of 5RDs. In my upcoming 5RD Adventure Building System though, […]

Rebooting My Murder Hobos Campaign (And Yours) in Three Easy Steps

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0745 Let’s talk about a campaign reboot. But before that, let me crack open the champagne and yell Happy Year +1! Alana and I had a great time visiting her parents in snowy Salmon Arm, B.C. We spent Christmas there, then flew back to ring in the changing of the calendar with […]

Cool Idea: Skill Treasures

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0760 Here’s a simple way to make awesome magic items customised for your players. The idea occurred to me the other day, and I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before. I’ll outline the recipe in three steps because I loves me my GMing recipes. 🙂 Step One: Skill Hunting […]

Idea: Living Spell

Here’s a cool Wednesday idea for your game sent to me by Aramax over at Strolen’s Citadel. What happens when a spell goes awry? Perhaps it’s a miscasting? Maybe a foe warps three simultaneous effects cast upon him. Maybe it’s a research mishap. Of the many ways spells could change and twist unexpectedly, a few […]

Resonance Part II: How to Create Resonance

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0756 Last Musing we talked about how to get apathetic players to care about your adventure by using Theme and Resonance. Theme is about choosing, designing, and introducing gameplay elements that focus on your campaign goal. Resonance is about choosing themes that will draw your players in and make them care deeply […]

Mad Lib Template for Hook, Line & Sinkers

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0780 The other day I talked about a classic GMing technique called Hook, Line & Sinkers. Use this three-part method to generate encounter skeletons fast. I remember first coming across this method in the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine. Each issue would have a few to inspire your game. Victor Diaz […]

The Hook, Line & Sinkers Method Will Inspire Your Encounters

Here’s a great way to create encounter seeds for your next game via RPT Reader Victor Diaz. It’s called the Hook, Line & Sinkers method. From the RIFTS Adventure Book, page 38: Hook, Line & Sinkers ™ is the popular Game Master’s tool created by Jolly Blackburn. The idea behind it is simple — give […]

The Phantasmal Pessimist and Other Living Spell Examples

A couple weeks ago I offered a tip on creating Living Spells using a three step recipe. At the end was a challenge to use the recipe and create your own Living Spells. In today’s Musing I share with you four Living Spells, crafted by your fellow readers, that caught my eye. Here’s a link […]

A Slick Three Step Wandering Monster System

Ever since running B1: In Search of the Unknown I’ve enjoyed wandering monsters. As PCs quested for the legendary treasure of Roghan and Zelligar, I’d roll and run all sorts of monster encounters. It gave me yet another opportunity to be creative during the game. This month’s RPG Blog Carnival hosted over at Moebius Adventures […]

What If?… Plot Seeds Generator

Last Musing I answered a question from Anon GM about what hooks are and why you want to use them. Today let’s dig into part two of their question: What are seeds? In my lingo, a seed is an idea not fleshed out yet. For example, good drow running from evil kin. Or, magic armour, […]

What Are Seeds And Hooks?

Anon GM wrote in with this request about seeds and hooks: I need your help with something embarrassing. I have been DMing for years now and realized there is something that seems to be foundational to game play and I kind of don’t know anything about it. I have read your tips and have read […]

The Quarantine

Here’s a great campaign seed from Danish Roleplaying Tips GM Alexander Aubert: A quarantined city where a magical disease is turning everyone, including the PCs, slowly into monsters. These days, when I come across ideas for adventures I do something new. It’s a quick action borrowed from Dungeon World. And it’s part of this bigger […]

Pcs Versus Everything

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #706 The picture above is hex biscuits my wife Alana made last night to go with chilli. A pretty awesome surprise. Thanks wife! The daily writing continues to go well. Even better, I’m getting positive feedback on the shorter emails I’ve been testing out. It’s a joy writing them, and so far […]

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