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Solutions For The Tough Academic Wizard Problem

A while back, community member Sir Tainley brought up a great world-building quandary: In a D&D type system, and a magic-rich setting where spells are taught academically, professional spellcasters inevitably gain high levels and unrealistically large hit point pools. Are there existing guides or workarounds to balance NPC levels so a typical scholar isn’t physically […]

Big Bang Events

Big Bang Events: How to Create Player-Proof Plots I’m very excited to announce GM’s Log #12 is now available. The topic is a core method I developed in the early 2000s that’s saved my Canadian bacon for over two decades now. A problem that hits my inbox and my coaching sessions on the regular is […]

Never Trust a Kenku

My friend in high school tricked me one time. He was GMing me 1:1 in a new campaign. I was following a Kenku. We played for an hour and he described the desert. And nothing happened. Just following the kenku. So, finally, I say something along the lines of, “This is boring.” My friend cracked […]

Balancing Magic, Bears & Hit Points

Happy Canada Day! While swatting mosquitoes and sipping cool bevvies, let’s look at a dilemma that community member Sir Tainley poses about explaining the strength of commoners in certain game systems: I’m designing a world for a D&D 5e clone. I want magic to be reasonably common, and taught in the universities. But, powerful enough spells […]

Try This Fantastic Adventure Mad Lib

On the Roleplaying Tips Discord, @Kodia Tomekeeper reminded me about the fantastic template Pixar used for story spines. It works well for our own adventure, campaign, and even world seeds: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. Let’s […]

What’s the Point (Crawl)?

Here’s a tip for new GMs or those new to point crawls. What’s a point crawl? I don’t know the official definition, but mine is an adventure you make based on story gates characters must get through. When the final obstacle’s been beaten and that gate traversed, the party’s won. Creating a point crawl confused […]

Make Your Battlemap Worth Fighting Over

A quick trick to make melees more exciting from this week’s GM’s Log. Ankhegs are one of my favourite monsters. Looking at their stat block, they’re a one-trick pony. Just a brute that deals damage. But their strategy involves verticality, making the critter agile, reusable, and always a challenge. Ankhegs burrow, but most characters cannot. […]

Today’s GM Tip: How To Create Dynamic Battle Maps

A 1-Minute Read My game on Sunday proved to me again why a bit of combat prep matters. One encounter featured a collapsing bridge, tricky terrain with barnacles and kelp, and a channel with strong tidal water. The other encounter offered only minimal terrain and lacked interesting routes, positions, and discoveries. Guess which one turned […]

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 […]

The Sovereigns of Stink – My Lost Isle Troglodyte Faction

How do we take a standard monster and make it feel alive without writing pages of lore? Today during Tiny Prep I added the first faction to my Lost Isle campaign. I am running troglodytes I call the Sovereigns of Stink, though in-game they’re the Rotscale Clan. To bring them to life and make them […]

Campaigns Are Hard

What kind of campaign do you run? We had a fascinating discussion in the Discord this week about how some campaigns end with a bang and others quietly retire. From RPT GM Gilladian: Campaign endings are hard. I have been a dm for over 30, maybe 40 years. I don’t remember most of the old […]

Fix Boring Dungeon Walls

It’s what’s between rooms that’s the real puzzle. Hola Game Master! Before I draw on today’s mapping tips, please consider this my invitation to you to join us for RPT Map Week. Draw, paint, thumbnail, click, sketch, or code a map based on a daily hook. Today’s Map Hook: A Flooding Dungeon. This is a […]

Break Reality To Build Better Dungeon Maps

Constrain one thing to transform your dungeons. Hola Game Master! Continuing our celebration of RPT Map Week (make sure you swing by the #rpt-map-weeks channel on Discord to check out the daily hooks), I want to talk about the hidden rules dictating your map designs. How Architectural Constraints Affect Maps We often draw floor plans […]

Use Moves To Beat Brain Freeze & Deepen Play

How to simplify things at the table and drop dynamic game pieces onto it. In response to a description tutorial I sent out, Wizard of Adventure GM Will asks: I want to know more about the “Moves” section Thanks Will. I first discovered Moves in the Dungeon World RPG. At first, I didn’t understand the […]

How To Fix A Dull Setting (Without Writing More Lore)

A great way to craft and maintain a consistent atmosphere without the heavy prep. I’m experimenting with a Sensory Bible for my Obsidian Invictus campaign to solve a specific problem. How to keep the vibe consistent without writing a tome of lore? One of my first steps was creating a Sensory Bible for the city, […]

Make Melees Faster With Combat Outs

How to end combats without grinding down to the last health point every time. Roleplaying Tips GM Paul asks: One thing that has always been difficult is that when the party have relatively low skills in combat and magic. A fight can take up to 2 sessions to get through. Fatigue playing a major part […]

Design First, Draw Second

5-Minute Megadungeon Maps. You have a great idea for a massive complex. But the thought of drawing every 10ft. corridor before you even know what goes where is so daunting that you never actually start. I’m faced with this proposition right now as I need to map the megadungeon for my Obsidian Invictus campaign. I […]

Dungeons in Modern Games

Running “dungeons” in any genre or setting. Roleplaying Tips GM Richmond grabbed my book, Logical Dungeon Design: Tactical Cartography, and sent me this note: Johnn, I have read the first chapter and part of the second. I don’t know how useful it will be for the game I am currently running, but I may be […]

Create Dynamic Dungeon Maps & Levels That Make Sense

Have you ever been running a dungeon crawl, feeling good, when suddenly a player asks a question that stops your dice cold? “Wait, why is there an ice room right next to a lava chamber?” “What do these monsters actually eat?” “Why are the ceilings only ten feet high if giants live here?” I call […]

Why Dungeon Maps Feel Fake – The Dungeon Timeline Method

How to make logical dungeon maps. Nonsensical maps were a major theme in the fantastic feedback I received from Monday’s request about your biggest pain point with dungeons: How to make dungeons make sense and believable? Most GMs think they need to design a dungeon for the adventure they are running right now. You sit […]

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 […]

Quarrel at the Quarry: Bottom-Up Encounter Prep

Quarrel at the Quarry: Bottom-Up Encounter Prep Here’s how I’m building certain types of encounters in my Basilica campaign using world logic. By world logic, I mean starting with a map based on terrain and environment details, and then having plot and gameplay wrap around that. Using biome, hex, and other relevant details from my […]

4 Steps to Better Maps

Tired of pausing gameplay to hastily sketch a scene? Front-loading your map prep is one of the best ways to help with session pacing. The #Mapvember2025 map challenge is still going strong on the RPT Discord, and it’s your perfect chance to front-load your prep and save yourself stress later. Thanks to @Auke for facilitating […]

Bake In The Pokey Bits: Design For Interaction

I try to keep it simple behind the screen and let players make it complicated. Part of doing that involves me handling The What and players handling The How. For example, I was creating a 3 Line NPC just now. Liorin, the wizard who created a powerful artefact in my Duskfall setting millennia ago: My […]

My 1,040 Page Brainstorming Tool (Johnn’s GM Bookshelf #03)

My 1,040 Page Brainstorming Tool (Johnn’s GM Bookshelf #03) One of the most useful books on my GM bookshelf is David Perry on Game Design. This tome’s so large it seems more weapon than spellbook. However, its massive size is one of its greatest strengths. Perry is a veteran video game designer, and while this […]

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