Design Archives - Roleplaying Tips

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Adventure Design: Build From The Monster’s POV

When building cunning locations for your adventures and encounters, build out from their denizens’ point of view. Here’s a way you can do this in 5 steps: Step 1. Original Use Step 2. Who Built It? Step 3. Rooms Step 4. Map & Key Step 5. Recycle Step 1. Original Use Many locations have an […]

How Do You Keep Things Fresh For Your Players?

RPT GM Mark Ariesen asks this tricky question and my answer goes down a dark path. Here’s his question: How do you keep things fresh for your players year-in-year out, when they have seen it all and done it all? One easy way to do this is design your own stuff. Build your own adventures, […]

Coax The Details Out

It all starts with a flaw. The item does not work as expected. This creates surprise, which makes great gameplay. After the surprise, it makes the item distinct and valued because it’s not just another +1 dagger. Design cost-value into your flaws and find that sweet spot where the penalty of using the item is […]

Fear the GM

When I surveyed readers last year about what kinds of adventure design challenges you all faced, one thing that came up was how to solve the PCs rampaging through your encounters without a care in the world. The characters don’t plan, never retreat, and don’t parley. This topic is salient because I’m planning out Season […]

Why Will It Be Fun?

We get stuck in our own heads. What we think will be fun for players is actually ego strokes for our GMing. Don’t fall into this trap. Here’s a perfect example. A GM asked for help polishing their encounter: GM: “As the PCs explore a cavern I plan on having a flash flood hit them […]

Build Story Last

For RPG purposes, I define story as the sequence of events that come out of gameplay. And I think of plot as the GM’s plan for those events. Plot comes first, story comes second. Plot is based on ideas and connections for events and situations. It’s flexible and adapts to character actions and resulting consequences. […]

Welcome To Adventure Hacking

If you’re like me, you’ve got a bunch of published adventures on your shelf and your computer. More than you could ever GM. However, I love reading adventures. I get so many ideas for my campaigns this way. I also got an unexpected side benefit from reading adventures after awhile. I started to “think adventure.” […]

When Fluff Spawns From Rules, A Great Game Emerges

Guten morgen %FIRSTNAME% I’ve long had a fascination with how game rules affect game settings. Too often in game world products, I see a setting likely created separately as fiction in a word processor or wiki, and then the game patched onto it. What I quest to build is a setting that works within the […]

May – How to Use the Other Kind of Intelligence

Recently I challenged you to place a spy in the party. In response, RPT reader Joshua Barry wrote in with some excellent tips on Tactical vs. Strategic spying with some great fantasy examples I’d like to share with you today. Let’s dive in! I’d like to expand on your definition of a […]

Hide The Monster’s Stats To See The Story

If you’re like me, you sometimes let monster stats limit your thinking. I was reminded of this when I received Fourscore Phantasmagores in the mail for review. It’s a monster book created by Montreal artist Rupert Bottenberg. It’s what I’d call a high concept book. It presents ideas, not stats. Its weird and disturbing entries […]

Get These Two Things Right For Stories To Make Sense

We want to check Congruity first because it’s faster and easier to spot errors at this level. If we get the immediate details right here, it’ll automatically fix those errors at the campaign level.

Adventure Design Tip: How Do You use Chekhov’s Gun in Gaming?

From Ben Scerri Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #524 The literary principal of Chekhov’s Gun has been around since the late 19th century and has influenced every aspect of storytelling culture. However, in my experience, it has failed to fully affect gaming and the stories game masters tell. This might be due to the reactive essence of […]

How to Add Conspiracy Theories to Your Game

The most interesting thing about conspiracy theories is they could be true. Supporters will find evidence to support them, while the government will disprove them. The rest of the world doesn’t know or doesn’t care. That’s why many theorists keep ideas within sympathetic groups and only go public when they have enough proof. Create a […]

Free Heists Deck Helps You Run Awesome Heists

In RPT#512, Robert Corrina offered us a tip about using a special heists deck. to add more fun to heist adventures. The idea was to offer additional inspiration for story twists and turns in your game using a deck of cards. Well, Robert now offers us his deck of cards you can use for any […]

How Do You GM Great Droids?

In RPT #512 RND(axe) asked for help on running interesting droids in his Star Wars game. I received the following two great responses: Keep Droids Tools From Mark of the Pixie When I run droids, I stay focused on their purpose. Droids are tools, not characters (helps stop them outshining PCs). It colours their outlook […]