Players & Characters Archives

Try Flashbacks For Backstories

The first time I encountered a flashback mechanic was at Intrigue Con here in town in a Night’s Black Agents game. The second time was the following morning playing Blades in the Dark. The cool thing about flashbacks is you can add them to any game system. I’m doing it right now for my Lost […]

What’s The Heart Of An Encounter?

Read Time: 3 Minutes What’s one thing I do to make every encounter better? This morning I was drafting up a document explaining my CampaignCraft membership program, and I got to writing about my core GMing philosophy of encounters being the atomic unit of gameplay. Players judge our campaigns by how they feel last session […]

3 Tips For Better Player Engagement

How can you get players engaged more in roleplaying encounters? Game Master Vildara presents this tricky session situation: Last night was a bit of a first for me and I find myself here looking for advice to avoid a situation like this. The crew is escorting a bride to her new husband on some backwater world. […]

On Kidnapping Characters

Take Part in RPT Map Week #1 Hola Game Master! Starting next Monday, April 20, @Auke and I are running a fun, free, chill event on Discord for those who like to make maps. Each day for a week there will be a map hook I created. The theme is Locations Under Pressure. Read the […]

D&D Player Rules For Survival

Game Master! I received this funny list of player directives from Roleplaying Tips GM Noel and thought it would be a great way to start the week. We begin first though with some GM screen talk. Noel, I’d love to see pics of your screens sometime! Hi Johnn, I know what you mean when you […]

Add a Secret Level

The first rule of DungeonCraft: Give everything a secret. Ray Winninger’s Dragon column back in the day was fantastic and the first thing I eagerly read each issue. And his Rule #1 is something I abide by to this day, decades later. TigerShaman offered a fantastic tip along these lines in my Campaign Studio GM […]

A Trick That Gets Your Players To Roleplay (Works Great With New Players)

Here’s a way to combine world building with character building while using precious session time more efficiently. I’ve been seeing headlines in the RPG-osphere about campfire chats where, during the party’s rest time, you roleplay and explore the characters together. I have a specific method for this that works well, which I’ll share with you […]

Before the Quest – A Session 0 Backstory Game

Play a game and build character backstories at the same time. Wizard of Adventure Auke shared this little gem on the Roleplaying Tips Discord #gm-help-requests channel: I recommend a co-operative backstory-building improv session. Sit around a table with a large sheet of paper and co-create a mindmap. Start by writing down all the PC names. […]

Getting Players Attached To Their Home Base

Getting Players Attached To Their Home Base Home bases are like Swiss Army Knives for GMs. A collection of useful campaign tools in one small package. With home bases, we get great GM boons: When players get attached to their home, all kinds of plots and adventures open up. However, if players are willing to […]

First Aid, Troll Blood, and Magic Rocks – d6 Healing Alternatives

Big news from the Johnn Four household. Everyone is officially cancer free! My wife’s final radiation blast was yesterday. My mom also completed her radiation in January. To celebrate, I thought I’d offer three ideas for giving brittle parties extra healing options. Having played a few new RPGs in the last while, I’ve noticed some […]

Do Skill Systems Make Characters Too Similar?

Classless systems can feel liberating at first. But then characters start to feel same-same. Wizard of Adventure SDavies nails why in this great comment he posted yesterday in CampaignCraft: From 5 Room Dungeon to Universe: I ran a many-year RuneQuest campaign, which is classless. I wasn’t careful and some characters ended up various shades of grey, […]

6 Ways To Help Your Players Develop Compelling Characters During Play

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0050 Rewards: How To Help Your Players Develop Compelling Characters During Play These tips are all about helping your players develop interesting and unique characters during play. A player who really enjoys playing their character is almost always enthusiastic during play and has more fun at the game table. And feeling interested […]

Inspire Your Campaigns with a Movie Exchange

A friend and I have started doing something that’s turning out to be a lot of fun. This could be something you do with your players for campaign inspiration. My friend and I each put together a Top 10 Movies list. Actually, I said when handing my list over, “These are 10 great movies. I […]

Engage Players This Way When the Stakes Are High

Ever wondered how to turn a near-death experience into a moment of group triumph? I recently realized there’s something I do when GMing that I don’t think I’ve shared with you before. This falls under the umbrella of player engagement and is a fantastic method any GM can use to keep your whole group engaged. […]

Let Them Have The Last Word

I played The Dark Eye RPG again on Sunday. And with the GM’s permission, I’d like to share a tip I gleaned from the session: Let players have the last word. This can be taken on a number of levels. The case I’m talking about from the session is the end of a player’s turn. […]

Getting a New Group to Gel

A Wizard of Adventure asked me how to build group chemistry: How to start a game. I threw my whole plot and setting down the toilet, got new players, and three sessions in I have the new game clunkiness. How to engage new players, both in a new game and bringing into an existing game. […]

Teaching Players to GM as You Play

Have you ever wanted a break as your group’s Forever GM? Or maybe you ache to adventure with your best friends instead of against them. 🙂 I had a great email chat with RPT GM Chuck C. during my vacation. And something he does is teach his players how to GM during gameplay so he […]

Wielding Character Backstories for Epic Campaigns

Common advice out there is for player characters to have backstories to help the GM. But how, exactly, are we to leverage this information? This week, I’ll share a few ways I do this, starting today with…. Part 1. Free (or Not) Hirelings Rather than whack every capitalized noun over time from PC backgrounds, I […]

Celebrate Character Birthdays (d12 Birthday Events Table)

Something I haven’t done in years is track the PCs’ birthdays. This realization came while I was reading an old Dragon Mag yesterday. We used to roll for character birth dates. When the calendar rolled ’round there was a celebration, even if it was a loaf of bread with torch mashed in to blow out. […]

Give ‘Em Bragging Rights

Here’s a quick player engagement tip from RPT GM Damion: Another one I’d like to add to your list of things that get the players grinning like Cheshires and craving more is bragging rights. Was in a hexcrawl and we’d accidentally befriended a treant. Insane accident. Naturally, he became Treebeard when the Halfling Warrior named […]

Triple Hook: The 3 100% Motivating Factors

Got a great tip for you from RPT GM Ryan about motivating players. This tip works equally well for a question that came up on Saturday’s monthly Wizard of Adventure Q&A call about how to get players to hate NPCs. By the way, if you’re a Wizard of Adventure, you can catch the recording here. […]

When Players Are Black Holes

A game master in my GM coaching group expressed some deep frustrations recently in the private Discord. With their permission, I’ll share them with you now: I’ve been thinking about the “pain points” in my game and the “What do I want out of the game?” A knee-jerk response would be to find a new […]

How to Transform Passive Players Into Ones Who Seize the Day

RPT GM D echoes a sentiment I’ve heard from many GMs lately in my workshops and inbox: players are not seizing the plot and initiating gameplay. Instead, the GMs are doing the heavy lifting. Yet, despite carpet bombing plot hooks and poking the party with sharp irons — creating extra work and stress behind the […]

Great Snakes! What To Do When You’re GMing a Single Player or Small Group

RPT GM Kevin asks: I finally have a group to start DMing for. It’s a group of 1, well 2, including me. He’s a newer player, so I’m thinking buffing the party out with some NPCs once the challenges get tougher. Any advice? Hey Kevin! Thanks for the question. Here are a few thoughts. Add […]

What Makes Encounters Fun?

This is Part I of a series on How to Make Encounters Fun. Read Part II, Part III, and Part IV here. What makes encounters a blast at your table? For mine, I consider two audiences: the players, and YOU, the GM. Let’s talk about players first. Our friends have many reasons to suffer through […]

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