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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 […]

Everything You Need to Start D&D 5.5 For Free

How can you get started with D&D 5.5/2024 without spending any gold pieces? New community member GW asks: Hi everyone. I learned about DnD but thought it was going to be too hard way back in about 8th grade, so that was like 1989. The books and the rules were very different than they are […]

Weaponize Encounter Weather With The Beaufort Scale

Use the Beaufort Scale to help make wind and storm rulings easier. I grew up on a street called Beaufort Avenue. When we moved there, it had no curbs or sidewalks. And it dead-ended a few blocks down the road. And we had some fantastic wind storms. The walnut tree became weather’s weapon during gales. […]

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, […]

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 […]

How to Create Non-Combat Encounters

A Brief Word From Johnn Hola Game Master! First, a quick note to say that yesterday I fixed the broken video links in the 7-Day GM Organization Challenge. To get the fresh links, you can re-join the challenge or feel free to email me and I will send you the link list directly. Today’s tip […]

How To Cure GM Overwhelm When Your Brain Runs Out Of RAM

Instinct vs. Prep. A GM in our community recently shared a struggle many of us face: “I generate NPC actions by zen and instinct, but eventually there are too many pieces to track. My notes become random, unactionable noise, and the prep becomes an exponential amount of work. How do I stop my campaign from […]

A Big Surprise From Session 0 Yesterday

The fighter awoke on flat, wet, cold rock, his face in a puddle of something warm and sticky. His eyes immediately fixated on a tipped, flickering lantern leaking oil right toward him. Thus began my Lost Isle campaign, an homage to The Isle of Dread and the TV show Lost. We started In Medias Res. […]

3 Tips For Roleplaying Multiple NPCs In The Same Scene

Welcome back to our series diving into Game Master V’s tricky session! Last time, we tackled the problem of Passive Players. Today, we’re looking at a big cognitive load pit trap, which I think of as the Multiball problem. This is when too many things are moving at once and we lets things drop. “…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 […]

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 […]

Anatomy Of A Back Pocket Encounter: The Screaming Ambush

Tuesday, I shared out the tip to create Back Pocket Encounters you can push into play in case you need to change the pace, stall, or provide a transition or clue. In response, Roleplaying Tips GM TT writes: Examples of each of the 3 Back Pocket Encounters would have been nice. Thanks for the suggestion, […]

Create These 3 Back Pocket Encounters For More Confident GMing

What do you do when the party gets stuck, the game gets bogged down, or you simply need to stall for time? In a recent Tiny Prep Challenge on our Discord server, one GM mentioned they were preparing a “backup/extra encounter to keep the fight-oriented players happy, if things go too lore-heavy.” This is an […]

Colony & Outpost Creation Checklist

I’ve got a great checklist for you today. @Exile In Paradise, a fantastic mod helping fellow GMs in my Discord, shared with me a great list of AI generated questions and details for creating colonies, outposts, and settlements in space. This is in response to Orbital Trouble: d12 Space Outpost Hooks. I normally don’t spit […]

4 Ways To Track Resources Without Slowing Down Your Game

Resource tracking has come up twice in my orbit recently, so I thought I’d share a couple thoughts on how to reduce tracking friction on encumbrance, spell slots, and other meters and pools. Case in point, Roleplaying Tips GM @jcauseyfd asks on the Discord: Has anyone run across any good systems/mechanics for DnD (5e) to […]

Reducing GM Pressure: Phase In Your Jobs

Reducing GM Pressure: One Thing Added, One Removed Go easy on yourself. And keep it simple behind the screen. I ran Night’s Black Agents for the first time on Sunday. We did the chase scene with the nuclear briefcase. Great game. Tricked my players to play again in March. The PCs are super agents. The […]

Solo RPG Suggestions

Do you play solo RPGs? That’s you, a game system, some dice – maybe, and a quill and parchment. If you quest for some sci-fi solo evenings, here are several recommendations from Wizard of Adventure @ExileInParadise based in response to a recent newsletter about asking the right questions to oracle in solo games. Exile’s a mod […]

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 […]

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 […]

In A TPK They Can’t Hear You Screen

To screen or not to screen, that is the question from Roleplaying Tips GM Eli: Johnn! Thank you for these wonderful articles. I was wondering, could you tell me why you do or do not use a DM screen? I’m interested to hear what you think! Thanks Eli. I stopped using a GM screen in […]

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 […]

How To Get Players To Like Your NPCs

How do you make an NPC likable so you can predictably say “The players will latch onto this one”? Right now, for many of us, it feels like a roll of the dice. RPT GM @Harebrained Tom asks this great question, and the top tip comes from @saket._.: I think overall my view is that […]

The Red Box Trick for Faster Sessions

Caller You’re on the Air Have you ever tried using a Caller? The topic came up in Saturday’s Wizard of Adventure Zoom session, and the role has several great uses. Gygax used this method a lot. Here are Mentzer’s instructions on using a Caller from the 1983 D&D Red Box (bolding is mine): The caller […]

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 […]

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