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Think About Encounters Like Game Tiles for Better 5 Room Dungeon design

Pizza last night was awesome. I ordered my favourite. My wife ordered the house special sans shrimp (I’m not a shrimp fan). Mmmmmhmmm. I’m a lightweight these days, though. Five pieces and I’m full. The pizza metaphor doesn’t handle well what I want to talk about today. But a board game like Carcassonne or a […]

Psssst, How To Tell A Secret

“Here’s something about myself I’ve never told anyone.” It doesn’t matter what NPC says that, your players are going to stop fiddling with their dice and tune in. Everyone loves a secret. And one of the classic laws of GMing from the old Dragon Magazine column Dungeoncraft [http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/] by Ray Winninger is to give everything […]

5 Room Campaign Planning

Roleplaying Tips reader Sean S. has great ideas about using 5 Room Dungeons in combination with story arcs. I neglected to mention how conversations I’ve had with Sean have influenced my thinking about 5RDs over the years (thanks Sean!), including making 5RDs within 5RDs, 5RD spawn points, and more. Today, Sean muses about how you […]

5 Room Dungeon Spawn Points

Ohayo %FIRSTNAME% You can make 5 Room Dungeons spawn points for deeper adventures. Here’s how. The basic formula is: Type: Ruins, campsite, tower, etc. Plot: Combat mission, quest, explore, etc. Room #1: Entrance or guardian Room #2: Puzzle or roleplaying Room #3: Trick or hazard Room #4: Conflict or climax Room #5: Reward or plot […]

Spikes Of Danger Tease Your Players While Filling Them With Fear

Even though we try to balance adventures, not so much for fairness but for fun, it is tough to get right. There are so many factors involved. Current character health. Whether it’s session start and players are fresh, or session end and players are making mistakes from fatigue. Whether the characters have just rested or […]

How To Create Your Own Plot Factory, Part IV

In this final part of the Plot Factory series, we confront a major problem some GMs have. So far we have solved two of our Plot Factory requirements: A fast way to create short adventures A way to keep all your plots and details well-sorted Robust hooks for those plots so characters get involved Let’s […]

How To Create Your Own Plot Factory, Part III

With 5 Room Dungeons as our core short-adventure building technique, we can introduce and intertwine multiple plots running at once in our campaigns. We do this so we put the odds in our favour that every session a climax or major milestone will trigger. This keeps our players engaged. And it gives you more control […]

How To Create Your Own Plot Factory, Part II

We add more NPCS to your campaign to create more gameplay options and interesting situations (you don’t jealously cling to and railroad NPCs when you have a wonderful abundance of them). We should add more plots or storylines for the same reason. Imagine if every session a plot thread was about to reach an exciting […]

How To Create Your Own Plot Factory, Part I

Unending plots become a grind. Encounter after encounter with no resolution or reward in sight causes players to lose enthusiasm. And when they lose their drive, game sessions fall off the wheels. When Players Sabotage Your Game For example, why roleplay hard to squeeze clues out of reluctant enemies when it’s not going to get […]

The Elvis Hook For PCs

One GM has a bard PC whose background involves being famous. So the GM has prepared a music festival in a town the PCs will travel to.