How to Create Situations With 5 Room Dungeons
We want to cue up situations, not outcomes. By that, I mean we don’t dictate the actions of the characters. That’s the players’ job. But as storytellers, we have a job to do too. We need to weave good tales from our setting, adventure plans, and gameplay as it happens. How can we do this […]
Continue reading7 Tips On Crafting Dynamic Relationships For NPCs
From Ria Kennedy Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #287 NPCs are an essential game device, and it’s important to figure out how to get the most out of them. Following are a few quick tips to help you build dynamic NPC relationships. Give Every NPC A Purpose Every existent NPC should have a purpose. You have better […]
Continue readingThe Organized Game Room
From Jeffrey G. Table & Shelf This is a picture from the entrance to the gaming room. I use two 2′ 6″ x 6′ tables, and then put a 3′ x 4′ map table 12″ above the tables itself. There is a light underneath the top table along with a circuit breaker for anyone that […]
Continue readingHow To Keep Your Adventure Going At A Breakneck Pace
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #703 I’m building an adventure series with James Introcaso called The Demonplague Dungeon. It’s going to be four parts long and will take PCs from first level to 20th. There are dozens of sites, ruins, and dungeons filled with factions, secrets, and treasures. There’s a village called Tomar’s Crossing that’s the last […]
Continue readingVillain Secrets And Weaknesses
From Aesma Daeva Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #704 I was recently reading some of Johnn’s articles and other sources about creating villains and realized that, in many gaming tables, little focus is placed on the villain’s secrets, flaws, and weaknesses. Maybe that’s because when we think of villains, the first thing that comes to mind is […]
Continue readingHow To Spend Even Less Time Prepping Dynamic Campaigns
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #702 Loopy Planning Meets Dungeon World Fronts From Johnn Four This summer I spent time reading Dungeon World again and exploring blogs and articles about the game. On first perusal, Dungeon World felt weird and stilted. The terminology was odd and it seemed like the rules made GMing this awkward recipe of […]
Continue readingUtmost Evil: How To Make Strategic Use Of Villain Scenes
From Phil Nicholls Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #701 [Comment from Johnn: You’ve heard of the 3 Act Structure? Or the Hollywood Formula? Or the Hero’s Journey and Monomyth? Well there’s a Russian version different than those. And Phil is taking us through its highlights. Today he digs into villains! It’s great to learn new storytelling structures, […]
Continue readingHome Base Tips & Tables
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #699 Five PC Home Base Tips From Anson Brehmer Heroes are often shiftless wanderers, wandering from town to town looking for the biggest problem to tackle, the biggest monster to kill, and the biggest haul to score for a night of ale, wenches, and a shopping spree. This is a fine way […]
Continue readingSolve Scheduling Nightmares With The Schrödinger’s Characters Method
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #698 Schrödinger’s Characters A Way To Game Around Player Absences From Craig Judd “Sorry guys, I can’t make it to the game this time.” Getting a group of people together for a few hours can be challenging. Doing it regularly every week or month, doubly so! How often have scheduling conflicts and […]
Continue readingBuilding the Klok’k’ot Culture + Reader Tips
From R. James Gauvreau Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #697 Hi, this is Johnn here. In today’s newsletter, RPG Designer James Gauvreau kicks off a short series on culture building for you. As a bit of background, James ran a Kickstarter last year and one of his backer tiers was to build a custom culture. I emailed […]
Continue readingHow to Roleplay Seducers, Ancient Evils, Law Enforcement, and Genius NPCs
From James Introcaso Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #696 Roleplaying NPC Mannerisms Part II It is time to put on your acting hat. Roleplaying NPC Mannerisms Part I revealed the importance of distinct, specific non-player character mannerisms. When a great game master inhabits an NPC, the character’s physical and verbal mannerisms help set it apart from the […]
Continue readingCrossing Swords With Factions – How To Build Quick Guilds For Your Kingdom
From John Large Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #695 A guild is a group of artisans or merchants who joined together in an association to protect their members and control their trade in a specific area. Non-guild members attempting to ply their trade would either find themselves persuaded to sign up or be quickly run out of […]
Continue readingVillainous Banter: Using Propp’s Reconnaissance Scene
From Phil Nicholls Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #694 In RPT#692 I introduced you to the work of Vladimir Propp and his underlying story structure of 31 Scenes. While his sequence is too linear to use as a campaign framework, you can use several of the individual scenes as encounter design tips. Today I’ll dig into scene […]
Continue readingHow to Roleplay NPC Mannerisms
From James Introcaso Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #693 Memorable non-player characters are distinct. Whether you created an NPC or it came out of a published adventure, it is up to you as game master to make each quest giver, tavern goer, and orc slaver different from the rest. The key to creating a believable, distinct cast […]
Continue readingTriage 101: Five Ways To Get Players Unstuck
From Anson Brehmer Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #692 Getting the PCs to do things is like herding cats. It’s hard to get them all pointed in a single direction, and sometimes they get lost and confused about what it is they should be doing. If you’re trying to give guidance to the group, but don’t want […]
Continue readingSpace Opera Part 3: Making It Personal
From Christopher Sniezak Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #691 I love space opera, laser swords, and ray guns, jet bikes in space swooping around ships bigger than they are and winning. These epic stories in vast galaxies sometimes take place a long time ago, far far away, and sometimes they’re in our own time and space, but […]
Continue readingHow To Fill In The Blanks – Drawing Maps Dungeon World Style
From Phil Nicholls Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #690 Dungeon World by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel builds upon the ground breaking Apocalypse World by Vincent D Baker. Along with bringing a real OSR feel to indie gaming, Dungeon World includes fantastic advice for the GM. The first Dungeon World principle is to draw maps but leave […]
Continue readingGM Burnout: Tips For Prevention and Recovery
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #689 After awhile you don’t want to get ready for and run games anymore. You get writer’s block. You dread game day and find any reason to postpone. You feel uncreative and stressed out before each looming game day deadline. It’s a tough spot to be in. And I’ve been there. Maybe […]
Continue readingThe Card Grid – The Fastest Way To Map Your Kingdom With Adventure Sites
Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #688 What Does Your Kingdom Look Like? From John Large A kingdom map helps you and your players see how your kingdom fits together. Players will use it to decide where they want to travel and what challenges to tackle next. However, a map too detailed and complex harms gameplay. It blocks […]
Continue reading7 Tips for Creating Awesome Legends
From Anson Brehmer Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #687 Back in Issue #599, Johnn presented a method called “Heroes & Legends” in which he outlined a quick method for generating a story that exemplified a hero from a culture. It’s a great method for generating stories that contain nuggets of information you can use to roleplay people […]
Continue readingWrangling Unruly Campaign Outlines: How To Keep Track of Plot Threads
From James Introcaso Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #686 At the end of a long campaign, I want my players and I to feel totally satisfied. I mean the sort of satisfaction one gets when a story wraps up with no question unanswered. The kind of story that ends with every major character’s arc finished and accounted. […]
Continue readingSpace Opera Part 2: Building The Setting Core Elements
From Christopher Sniezak Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #685 What is the standard sci-fi setting? This is debatable, but for this I’m using TV Tropes as my basis, so let’s go with their definition: In the far future, the [faction a] fights a pitched battle against the mighty [faction b] Empire, but deep in the mysterious [region […]
Continue readingKingdom Building Part II: Who Rules the Kingdom?
From John Large Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #684 Knowing who is in power is important in any game where you want locations to serve as more than a simple backdrop, because the character of those in positions of power often reflects that of the kingdom itself. Having your ruler emphasize the themes of your kingdom will […]
Continue readingCountdown to the Apocalypse: Six Ways to Raise the Stakes
From Phil Nicholls Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #683 In RPT#666 I wrote an article explaining how to improvise rising action during the game. This approach adds tension at a tactical level, looking at the story one encounter at a time. However it is also possible to add increasing tension as a fundamental structure to the story. […]
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