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Crunchy Mechanics and Rich Lore: My Journey into The Dark Eye

(Success generally means the story goes in the direction the hero intends, while failure works against the hero’s efforts.) I played The Dark Eye a couple of weeks ago. It’s a crunchy, old-school game with a relatively recent new edition. I’m especially enjoying the game’s lore. Its European sources are fresh to me like The […]

How to Put D&D on Your Resume

A silly bit of noodling today based on what moderator Allen shared on the Roleplaying Tips Discord: I saw a meme pic long ago about how to list D&D on your resume: “facilitated weekly creative brainstorming workshops” and “promote cross-functional communication” (between players in different classes) and stuff… That’s hilarious, Allen! I’m now adding the […]

The Inversion Technique

I am back from vacation. Thanks for letting me escape and take some time off! We camped, ate too much junk food, and read a lot of books while my foot injury healed. This year I pawed through several world-building tomes, including Aria Worlds, the TSR World Builder’s Guide, Worlds Without Number, and Cartographer. I […]

Pickpockets Signed Up. Then the Penny Dropped

Recently I posted some ideas for laws you could apply in one of your nations or cultures to make make your PCs flinch. Some great responses rolled, and today I present you with more thoughts on how to make your PCs’ lives legally interesting: Passports & Licenses From RPT GM Mark I have two favourite […]

A Clown Cart Rolls Up and Disgorges Endless Foes

Have you ever been to a circus? I mean the kind with clowns, animals, and smells, not the day job. Hmmm, I guess that doesn’t narrow it down much. 😛 Anyway, I went once when I was quite young. I don’t remember much except that I got a stuffed monkey that would smash a pair […]

Mungo’s Crystal Vault

Wizard of Adventure mungo9494 shared this idea on the RPT Discord about a secure vault to thwart his players: I made a bank security system for my players to heist and thought it might serve some use for y’all as well. Outside the city walls is a mine whose location is a well-kept secret. Peculiar […]

5 Laws to Make Your PCs Flinch

My Waterdeep campaign was the first time I applied a law to weapons. I believe this law came from the Waterdeep supplement. No one could enter the city without “peace bonding” or tying their weapons up to prevent quick draws in the heat of a moment. Further, there was a 1 gold piece tax per […]

4 Great GM Magazines

I’d like to call out four gaming magazines today, in case you haven’t encountered them yet. Most are free. And all offer excellent resources for we game masters. WorldBuilding Magazine Friend and RPT Discord moderator, @Auke, works with WorldBuilding Magazine. Worldbuilding Magazine is a free publication created by volunteer writers, artists, and editors, with a […]

Celebrate Character Birthdays (d12 Birthday Events Table)

Something I haven’t done in years is track the PCs’ birthdays. This realization came while I was reading an old Dragon Mag yesterday. We used to roll for character birth dates. When the calendar rolled ’round there was a celebration, even if it was a loaf of bread with torch mashed in to blow out. […]

Gamify Your Daily Prep

Do you know the difference between game masters and players? Game masters get to play every day! If you find session preparation a grind, put it off, and then panic come game day, one reason you’re in this vicious cycle is you aren’t having fun with prep. I’ve seen this lead to fizzled campaigns and […]

Write More Engaging Room Descriptions

Description Sorcery from a Wordsmithing Warlock Crafting concise and evocative descriptions provides a huge boon for our storytelling prowess. Descriptions serve as the bridge between our imagination, character perceptions, and player choices. A well-made description: Jeremy Brown is a repeat offender, er, contributor, to the Roleplaying Tips Newsletter. 🙂 During a convo we started up […]

Master the Table With One Essential Ingredient

This is the final part of a series on How to Make Encounters Fun. Read Part I, Part II, and Part III here. The final part of this series about making encounters fun is a bit fluffy, but critical. I received a nice compliment from one of my players recently about the energy I bring […]

Epic Tower Quest: A Campaign Seed With Strategy, Intrigue, and Adventure

RPT GM NecroFileMD shared their cool Campaign Seed with us over at Campaign Community. You might use this idea for a campaign, an adventure, or even some fascinating lore for your world. Here’s the Campaign Seed: I run a homebrew tower climber campaign based on 5E. A 100 floor tower has appeared in the center […]

d6 Polar Adventure Seeds

To celebrate the release of my latest GM Cheat Sheet, the Polar Adventures Generator, here are a half-dozen adventure seeds to help kickoff your next chilling adventure! Please note, the 9 GM Cheat Sheet adventure bundle sales ends tonight at midnight Eastern. Get the entire collection for 25% off here. Alternatively, you can pick up […]

The Merchant’s Machination of Relic Reagents

RPT GM Jabmist shared this cool plot with me yesterday: In a campaign I was running, the party had to go to the elemental plane of fire and kill a demon lord who was causing mischief. To get there, they had to trade with a merchant who collected rare and expensive things (to buy necklaces […]

Happy 2024!

I heard a nice story over the break. I’m paraphrasing the paraphraser here…. A mason was building a wall. Unfortunately, a pair of the hundred stones broke and he had to use extra mortar and position them a bit differently to get them to fit. After finishing the wall, he was filled only with disappointment. […]

How One RPT GM Exploits The Flatulent Feline

If you caught Monday’s announcement, I’ve written a new book with RPG AI expert Danny McKeever about how to use GPT for adventure building. It gives you detailed and specific prompts you can paste into ChatGPT (or Zorgon in Campaign Logger) to help you create adventures, worlds, NPCs, and treasure. In French, it turns out […]

d12 Great RPGs For Your GM Bucket List Shelf

My recent piece on Hasbro’s shifting away from pen and paper D&D to a purely online version drew a incredible response. And one common request was for a list of suggestions of other RPGs to try. These lists are all over the internet, methinks. But for what it’s worth, whether I’ve played, GM’d, or just […]

Mastering the Depths: Enhancing RPG Mines

Mastering the Depths: Enhancing RPG Mines Sometimes, a couple of extra details makes all the difference in helping players imagine our encounters and take interesting actions. RPT GM Chris N. sent me some great insights into the complexities of running a medieval or fantasy RPG mine. We can use these fantastic details to flesh out […]

Stopping The No-Game Blues

A Brief Word From Johnn How have you been doing? We just got back from a crazy camping trip. Mosquitoes, heavy winds, stuff breaking… I also earned a pulled neck muscle, so now I turn my whole body to look around. You could say I’m all-right now. 🙂 While I was killing bugs and cooking […]

Surprise Your Players: Betrayal Twist Mad Lib For Your Encounters

You know I’m a huge fan of adventure plot twists. That’s what Room V is all about. But we should try to add encounter-level twists, as well. Then we get to surprise and delight our players several times during sessions! Here is one of my favourite types of twists and d12 examples to help you […]

The Swamp Is Calling: d12 Swampy Tips

The Swamp Is Calling: d12 Swampy Tips Do you have any upcoming swamp encounters or adventures? To celebrate my newest GM Cheat Sheet for swamps that I released on the weekend ($3 on DTRPG, free to Wizards of Adventure), here are a dozen swampy tips to enhance your campaign. Play Up the Atmosphere Swamps are […]

3 Early Warning Signs You’re Suffering From GM Burnout

3 Early Warning Signs You’re Suffering From GM Burnout A GM replied to my recent Master of the 5 Room Dungeon email and said they’d lost the spark for GMing. I asked them for more details in case I can help, and am awaiting a reply. Meantime though, I’ve suffered from apathy and burnout several […]

How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1223 How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways How do you make dungeon crawling perpetually interesting? This was a frequent tip request made in December’s Dungeon23 poll. I struggle with this too, whether it’s an endless series of rooms in a megadungeon, a series of 5 Room Dungeons, or just a […]

Tiny Prep: How to Enjoy Prep Even More

Do you struggle being consistent with campaign prep? Do you suffer a bit from writer’s block when you do manage to start a bit of prep? Has prep become a fun habit for you, or do you still struggle getting the job done? I hope today’s Tiny Prep tip helps. If you are doing #Dungeon23, […]

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