Treasure Rewards & Items Archives

The Merchant Says No, But…

The gear and equipment tip the other day drew a large response. In the Roleplaying Tips Discord, for example, Game Master Ian offers this idea: re: Double prices then mine their gear. I think a better way is not to change prices but availability. There’s a system in ACKS that restricts the number of items […]

Double Prices Then Mine Their Gear

Hola Game Master! Here’s a callout to a tip buried in the recent How to Make Haggling Fun piece I did: “Players’ Guide price is the floor, street price is double that.” Raise your merchant, equipment, and services prices to give you haggling room and siphon more party treasure. Game Master Rafael sent me a […]

Crafting Legendary Magic Items

Hola Game Master! GM’s Log #9: How to Build Legendary Magic Items was just published, and it cloaks my atomic unit of prep in the guise of juicy loot. What started as a quick way to outline NPCs in the 2010s has become my universal GM tool for instantiating any kind of game piece: NPCs, […]

The Minnie Haul GM

So I’m a cheap bastard. That’s number ten on The Gamemaster’s Hall Of Shame: Monty Haul’s Top Ten Cousins all the way back to Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #3: 10 Minnie Haul Players in previous campaigns joke about it. I like to pretend there’s no treasure chapter at all. Mice must’ve eaten those pages. But the […]

3 Questions To Turn Boring Loot Into Instant Encounters

Here’s a great tip from Game Master Cam on how we can add zest to objects, items, and treasure: Dear Johnn, Your Man/Nature/Monster dungeon history idea makes me think of my object history table: Thanks Cam, this is a great approach. I especially like the last bullet: Who wants the object? I used to make […]

Sola Dosis Facit Venenum

For my Obsidian Invictus campaign, I’m aiming to make every magic item unique. Potions was a bit of a head scratcher. I don’t want a lot of extra prep. In fact, I want the opposite. But Roleplaying Tips GM Daniel saves the day with some cool ideas on making potions distinct. He sent me this […]

Designing Your Villain’s Vault

Where does your villain stash their cash? That’s the topic of a brand new weekly mapping challenge starting today on the Roleplaying Tips Discord called 5 Minute Map Fridays. Because villains need money to support their operation, lifestyle, and goals. And many settings only operate with physical currency, be it coins, bank notes, or other […]

Legacy Gems

Legacy Gems is a set of homebrew rules created by Wizard of Adventure Auke. In his world of Tem, certain gems can be incorporated into magic items to enhance their power. The strength of these Legacy Gems grows alongside the wielder, reflecting their mastery and dedication. Download Auke’s gem homebrew rules here (3 page PDF, […]

Start With a Treasure Bang

Looking for a way to captivate your players right from session start? Last game of The Dark Eye, my knight got a chance to clobber some nasty creatures infesting a mine as we quest to rescue a kidnapped witch. Jochen, the GM, had a very strong start to the session, which is one of my […]

An Innovative XP System: Buying Your Next Level

Today, I’m sharing an interesting XP system from Wizard of Adventure @valenpendragon where you buy your next level. This method of XP came up during last Saturday’s monthly Wizard of Adventure Q&A call. Speaking of which, Wizards of Adventure: the call recording (MP4, MP3, transcript) from Saturday is now available here. I found the system […]

Dirty GM Trick: Reverse Rewards

Want to pull a mean trick on the characters? For a different project, I just finished curating a list of Honor-type rewards. On it were entries like: You might use such rewards to boost the party’s reputation and influence. Perhaps PCs get a bonus to their roll or an extra die. However, there’s a catch. […]

Give an Unfortunate Player Competing Sentient Magic Items

Wizard of Adventure Arvindh shared this great idea on the Roleplaying Tips Discord for making a character’s life…interesting: I have a player with an over-possessive sentient bow called Nuji. There’s a lot of jealousy. This woodelf has two named bows. One, an inheritance. The other, looted from The Room of Living Legends. I run a […]

2 Ways to Make Your Mundane Items Marvelous

Imagine awarding a bit of equipment as treasure, and instead of the party fighting over the Wand of Orcus and Staff of the Magi in the treasure pile, they all fight over the 6 iron pitons. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, haha. But the point is, we can do a couple of simple things to make […]

The Riches of World-Building: Spending Party Treasure

A 5E GM expressed frustration to me over the limited ways in which players can spend their loot: The only issue with treasure as plot devices, and I already see it within the game. There isn’t anything to buy with the gold and riches you reward. In 5E, magic isn’t supposed to be bought and […]

XP For RP? The One Thing I Reward Roleplaying Experience Points For Now

If you have time, I’d love to hear how you award XP for roleplaying. I love the idea but my concern would be that I might turn into a judge – “your roleplay was pretty good, but not great, so you get 100 XP” etc. And players roleplaying for my amusement would become a not-fun […]

A Festive Twist on RPG Downtime: Surprise Your Players With This Great Idea

Here’s a fun and cool character downtime idea. I had another email planned for today, but I just received this in my inbox from RPT GM Maja and wanted to share it with you. It’s not only a fun seasonal tip, but I could see doing something like this for general character downtime. I want […]

GM Toolkit: A Magic Item Template For You

Here’s a template to help you design great items. In response to my Treasure First: A Quick Hack For Creating Adventure Hooks tips from last week RPT GM Jeremy Brown sent me this fantastic D&D 3.5 stat block for magic items. It’s my hope you might adapt it for your campaigns and game system to […]

Treasure First: A Quick Hack For Creating Adventure Hooks

Treasure First: A Quick Hack For Creating Adventure Hooks When players fail to trigger an encounter or adventure, our prep becomes moot and the game goes sideways. But how do you craft hooks so appealing that players bite on them harder than an orc at an all-you-can-eat troll BBQ? Earlier this week, I gave a […]

Plot Your Sandbox in Under a Minute with Player Magnets

Here’s how I plot out an old school sandbox in pretty much under a minute. In the Wizard of Adventure members area, we got to chatting about how to use Campaign Logger in conjunction with the The Plot Compass technique. The Plot Compass technique is something I shared with Wizards of Adventure recently. It boils […]

Beyond Gold Pieces: Amp Up Player Engagement With These Rewards

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1225 Amp Up Player Engagement With These Rewards Looking for different ways to reward players and their characters? Gold and gems are great, but you can’t dance to them. The best rewards engage characters and players, keep the Infinite Game going via story progression, open up choices and action possibilities, and create […]

How To Adjust After Handing Out Too Much Loot

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1187 Brief Word From Johnn Today I’ve got some great ideas for when we hand out too much treasure and game balance goes sideways a bit. And in the Reader Tips section at the end, I’ve got a 5 Room Dungeon and Campaign Puzzle tip for you. One thing in the 5 […]

Simple Ways to Enhance Your Magic Items

From Jonathan Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1184 Siema Johnn! In todays’ Roleplaying Tips Newsletter, I’ve got the following GM tips for you: 3 Simple Ways to Enhance Your Magic Items How can we spruce up magic items so they aren’t boring +1 shields? Jonathan Hardin (sojournersawake.com) shows us how via three quick changes we can make […]

Don’t Be A Minnie Haul

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1154 I remember getting caught with my pants down running Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. One player had magic claws that could chew through six feet of rock each round. When the party finally made their way to the villain’s lair, they bypassed an entire page devoted to the magic barriers, traps, and […]

How To Battle Dungeon Design Fatigue

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0978 RPT GM Tom G asks: I would like to know how my fellow GMs battle dungeon fatigue. I have no difficulties making the entry, the story of the dungeon and the first couple of rooms interesting. But after a while it all bogs down to left, right, or straight ahead. Any […]

D13 Magic Item Concepts from My Demonplague Campaign

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0747 I needed some minor mundane and magical treasures for my next DemonPlague game. So I made some and am sharing a few with you today. The party has a wizard, warrior, cleric, druid, and rogue in it. The first thing I did was make a table and a column for each […]

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