Players & Characters Archives

Why Players Get Bored With Our GMing (But Might Be Afraid To Tell Us)

Why Players Get Bored With Our GMing (But Might Be Afraid To Tell Us) As a player who gets bored easily (thus I am a forever-GM :), here are three reasons based on my experiences why a GM can lose player attention and participation in a game. Hopefully these tips help keep your table engaged. […]

d12 Ways To Surprise And Delight Your Players And Their Characters

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1221 d12 Ways To Surprise And Delight Your Players And Their Characters Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were great. I spent mine eating way too much delicious baking. I wish I’d asked Santa for a bigger belt. The New Year always feels like a fresh start. So I am curious […]

How To Keep Players of Unconscious & Dying Characters Engaged

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1214 How To Keep Players of Unconscious & Dying Characters Engaged When a character drops in combat, the fun stops for that player. While they can cheer their friends on, they can no longer join the fun. Different systems have different rules around death and dying. Regardless of ruling, here are some […]

How To Welcome The New Player

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1208 A Brief Word From Johnn Ahoj Johnn! I read an interesting article last night that asked the question: What’s more important, the player or the character? In the real world, it’s the player, of course. Because the characters aren’t going to drive themselves home, right? Joking! But in the game, it’s […]

How to Motivate Your Players – Part II

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1207 By Jonathan Hardin, sojournersawake.com [Comment from Johnn: this is part two of a series Jonathan started here with How to Hook Players Easily Into Your Adventures.] The Power of a Motive Begin your game by highlighting why the player characters choose to adventure. Is it for glory and fame? Wealth and […]

d6 Tips For a Player’s First Session

By Johnn Four Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1206 Doing something new is scary. Add in strangers, characters, someone called a game master, roleplaying, and weird dice, and stress levels rise. To help give you more confidence going into your first few games as a player, here are a few specific things you can do ahead of […]

When Players Go Feral — How to Clarify Actions of Misunderstood Players

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1200 Brief Word From Johnn Today’s tips from Jonathan cover a problem I’ve experienced many times, especially at conventions. What do you do when one player goes off the rails? I especially like the example of the ranger who seemingly isn’t on the same page as the party and wants to ask […]

3 Ways Your Players Can Help You Out Next Session

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1197 A Brief Word From Johnn Do you allow players to change their characters during level-up or between games? I received a nice tip on the weekend about this from RPT GM Paul M: I offered to modify the ability scores of the barbarian in my friends and family game to more […]

What To Do When Players Miss The Clues?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1193 Brief Word From Johnn A false spring sprang here in Beaumont last week. It got warm (only -4), sunny, and melty. I’m trying to warn folks new to town that it’s just Room III: Trick and Setback. Because the groundhog doesn’t lie and more winter’s coming. But methinks inevitable frozen tears […]

New Players – New Group – New Campaign

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1190 RPT GM RF emailed me this question: Johnn, I’m about to start a brand new group in my AD&D 1e campaign I call ‘In a Handbasket’. All players have Dungeons and Dragons experience, but most have never played 1st Ed. I have run this campaign twice before. Once for my kids […]

d10 Things You Can Do With a Dead Character

By Johnn Four, patreon.com/johnnfour Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1191 It sucks when a character dies. To avoid discomfort or upset players, many GMs end up supporting Mary Sue PCs. Or we provide plot armour so thick we earn no drama from combat, traps, and hazards. I support character death as a result of fair gameplay. This […]

Keep Players Intensely Engaged With the 3 Conflicts

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1151 Character arcs tell the story of how characters develop by overcoming foes and challenges in pursuit of their goals. This is the ambition of campaign play: to develop cool character story arcs. Such arcs keep players intensely engaged in your games. Why? Thinking about armour, health points, personality scores, and other […]

Players “Checked Out” When Campaign Switched To Virtual Online

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1125 RPT GM Hornick switched his game to virtual and now has trouble getting his players to roleplay: My players have started to outgame-play the sessions with little ingame interactions. Maybe this is due to the medium of Roll20 and Discord. Do you have any ideas on this besides talking to them […]

The Unification Event — How To Get The Party Together

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1136 Character backgrounds are key tools in your GM Toolbox. Mine them for plots, NPCs, and character motivation. However, it’s a struggle to get useful and game-full backgrounds from players. Often, you just get a couple paragraphs explaining how the PC became an orphan. Or, you might get the inverse. Pages of […]

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How To Help New Players Have A Blast With Their First Session

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1127 With so many new players (and GMs) joining our beloved hobby, there’s a lot of confusion out there about how to make sessions enjoyable and accessible for newbies. Sometimes your entire group is new. They don’t even have trope or game references to draw upon from different mediums such as video […]

Do You Plot Stories Or Dungeon Crawlers?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1122 I just came back from vacation. We camped out in beautiful British Columbia. We have a camping trailer, so we were able to be self-sufficient and remain in isolation while enjoying nature and recouping our energy. I read a bunch and otherwise just tried to sit around and resist the impulse […]

Monday Inspiration: Character Perks – Several Interesting PC Development Ideas

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0977 Today I have a few interesting character development ideas for you as a follow-up to the A Cool Twist For One Of Your Players Musing I published in February, 2017. The idea is to make each character special in some way to not only create great player engagement but to give […]

A Cool Twist For One Of Your Players

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0763 Was chatting with the paladin before a game the other day and he gave me an idea. A core theme of fantasy is discovering you are amazing. Bullied boy or girl in small community learns they have magical powers or are gifted with sword-fighting or some other skill. This resonates with […]

Resonance – Part I: How Do You Get Players to Care About Their Characters and Your Plot?

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0755 How do you get players to care about their characters and your plot? This is in the top 10 questions I get asked all the time. It’s tough to do. Today I’ll share one approach to encounter building that’s part of the 5 Room Dungeon product I’m working on that helps […]

The Pain of GMing a Perfectionist Player

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0712 An RPT Reader asked for tips on how to deal with a perfectionist player. Someone who “enjoys really thinking out moves and plays to make sure they picked the right one.” The player also has the “classic new player fear of doing it wrong.” “The new player part is not what […]

My Players Are Crazy! They’re Destroying Treasure

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0713 Last night I could only stand there and shake my head in disbelief. I saw them destroy not one, but two unique, custom treasures I had made for specific players. The first was a quartz horse. Chipped and scarred from abuse, the item does not look like much. But press a […]

My #1 Learning from Last Game

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0719 My #1 Learning from Last Game Last week I talked about listening to my players better. It turns out listening is HARD. I GM’d last Friday and here’s how it turned out. First, a recap of my GM Quests for the session: And here’s how it went: A poor showing overall. […]

My Experiences With Milestone XP

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1105 A while ago I switched my campaigns to milestone XP. You can take this approach with non-D&D games too, if it’s not already baked in. And today I wanted to give you an update on how that’s going. Whether you realize it or not, the reward systems you use have heavy […]

Let Players Relive Their Finest Moments

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0814 Hola %FIRSTNAME% Nick V. wrote in with this great tip about session pacing and letting players revel in their own glory: Studying for TV writing taught me a lot about narrative structure. I learned that balancing fast-paced, action-packed scenes with more relaxed, role or plot-oriented ones is critical in maintaining a […]

Dealing With High Level Characters

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0824 My Demonplague campaign has been on hiatus over the summer. I’ve now resumed prepping Season III and am giving thought to how I’ll challenge the PCs, who are now at level 10. Here’s three ideas on how I can challenge the Hobos that might work in your campaign too. Add More […]

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