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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 […]

Running Demons

How do you liven up gameplay when the characters are near max level? Here’s a question posted in the #demonplague channel in the RPT Discord: …the party finally came to the entrance of Xancrown’s Dungeon. I perused the 4th adventure shortly, have to read it in detail, but aren’t the enemies too weak for this […]

Battle of the Organs: The Gallbladder Strikes Back

I was working on a campaign faction last night called The Choir and my wife gave me a gruesome idea. But the idea didn’t mesh with what I had in mind for The Choir, so I used it to homebrew a horrific monster instead. Choir Culture: Death, Music, and Bone Organs The Choir ruled as […]

Golemageddon: Golem Ideas for Your Next Campaign

A couple of quick announcements. First, I was on the Roleplay Rescue podcast recently with Tiny Prep co-author, Che Webster. It starts off with a question: What would you do if you had a new player to add to your existing roleplaying group? And the convo evolves from there. Here’s the link to listen. Second, […]

3 Design Tricks for Unique Races

Adding strange, wondrous, and interesting races to your homebrew world can get challenging, especially if you have a long list of races to brew up and you want to make each one unique. Here are three tips to ensure each race is distinct and thematically fitting to your setting. 1. Start With a Unique Anchor […]

Ideas for Dungeon Ecosystems and NPCs

Roleplaying Tips GM Thomas P. shares some great ideas below in response to my recent believable dungeon ecology tips. (Note, I added the headings — those aren’t Thomas’s fault, haha.) Hi Johnn, I have been loving the deep dives you write and this one looking into creating believable dungeon ecologies. Your ideas about food chains […]

Roleplaying the Villain Xancrown

The grand finale of The Demonplague has the party facing off against the mighty demon, Xancrown, in his dungeon prison within the heart of Luna Valley. Today, I’d like to share a summary of his stats and then some tips on how to roleplay him. Before I dig into that, a reminder that the price […]

The Dungeon After-Party

In response to my Stir Up Encounters with Interesting Locations tips, RPT GM Michael W responded with some cool ideas on what happens after the PCs have cleared an area. Here are d4 things that might happen after the party has kicked down the door, killed the monster, taken its stuff, and moved on…. 1. […]

One-Shot Monster Powers

Here’s a idea I think is cool from Points of Inspiration: single use monster powers. There are similar examples out there of this type of mechanics already. We’ve got limited dragon breath uses, D&D 4th edition rechareable dailies, and one-shot magic items. However, upon reading Craig’s article, I wanted to explore the idea further, And […]

Poisonous Ideas for Plots, Encounters & World-Building

I was chatting with moderator @ExileInParadise on the Roleplaying Tips Discord about how poison can inspire toxic challenges and venomous adventures. Poison is any substance that causes harm to an organism. It basically attacks a single biological process and takes it out. There’s often a spot in the rule book for how to handle poison […]

Garner Combat Victories Faster With Signature Moves

Here’s a tip from my business partner and Campaign Logger developer, Jochen Linnemann. It’s in response to an RPT GM who asked for help speeding up his GURPS combats. GURPS, if you haven’t played, is crunchier than most systems. You make more rolls to complete an action. Therefore, combat can become longer affairs. Here’s Jochen’s […]

Dogman Monster Design: Leader of the Pack

I got reverse-coached the other day! Last week I asked the group for ideas on Dogmen monsters that I’m currently designing. Dogmen in Basilica are like gnolls in D&D. Part man, part hound. And my core monster design process goes something like this: For my Dogmen, though, I was stuck on #4. I had just […]

What’s Your Bigfoot?

One of my favourite movies is Le Pacte des loups, or Brotherhood of the Wolf. It’s based on a series of killings that took place in 18th century France. A knight and his Iroquois friend quest to find what’s been slaughtering hundreds of villagers. I was reminded about this flick while listening to the Joe […]

Polar Adventures

The Polar Vortex has dipped into our neighborhood here in Alberta once again. I took this screenshot from my weather app the other morning: I tried to Photoshop it, but it froze! Ba dum bum. Speaking of cold, today I just released the next GM Cheat Sheet: Polar Adventures! Many of the GM Cheat Sheets […]

A Game Of Clues

Clues My family LOVES hidden object games. We’ve got PC games and iPad games. I’ve got several cool hidden object books on my shelf. And for Christmas, my wife is getting a hidden object jigsaw puzzle. While I don’t use hidden object games as session props (though if I did, I’d make the PCs quest […]

How To Turn Combat Into Clever Puzzles

How can we turn combat into fun and challenging puzzles? Here are three ways. RPT GM Micah asked me about how to turn combats into deadly puzzles. Great question! First, let’s start with…. What is a Puzzle? In the context of RPG battles, I define puzzles as problems that test player knowledge and ingenuity, and […]

d20 Ways To Hide A Golem

Dragon Magazine #139 offered great ways to hide a golem in a room. I love animated objects and golems as monsters. They need no air, water, or food, so make perfect dungeon foes. But if we serve up such obstacles and enemies the same way each time, it gets boring fast. So here are 20 […]

Wow Your Players With Monster Hunts

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1189 5 Room Dungeon Template When I invented the 5 Room Dungeon in 2003, I first thought of it as a physical adventure framework. Five literal encounters. This method still works brilliantly, but we can advance it for great monster hunter storytelling. After reading a bunch of work by American professor Joseph […]

4 Ways To Surprise Players Who Know All The Monster Stats

From Jonathan Hardin, sojournersawake.com Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1178 Hello Sojourner! My players know all of the stats for every villain I place in their path. Through searching on the internet, hours studying monster manuals, and good old fashioned wits, my players have found a way to circumvent the wonder of being surprised in battle. As […]

Making Monsters Marvelous – Monstrous RPT Gems For You

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1128 A Charter Member of the Adventure Building Master Game Plan asked me about monsters. Great topic. One might say there are three kinds of monsters: Constructs Tricksters Mirrors Constructs fulfill our System needs. Stats, abilities, xp/treasure. Tricksters serve our Story needs. Clue bearers, agents, plot twisters. Mirrors serve our Setting needs […]

Adventure Design: Build From The Monster’s POV

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1108 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 […]

Monster Design Tip: Take Away The Sun

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1110 Do you know how the eyeball works? It’s fascinating. Think about a camera for a moment. You point your camera at what you want to photograph. The shutter opens and closes to control the amount of light. A slow shutter action lets in more light. Great for dim conditions but poor […]

How To Rock Your Encounters With This Monster Design Tip

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0746 How To Rock Your Encounters With This Monster Design Tip Here’s a tip from Faster Combat: when you chose or design a monster, start with how you want the PCs to defeat it. I say “choose or design” because it doesn’t matter whether you’re picking the foe from the monster manual […]

Monster Challenge

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0761 Had a great game of Out of the Abyss on Friday. Lots of funny gameplay stories came out of it. Here’s two, plus a challenge for you. First story is about housekeeping. As a player, always confirm your XP! I’m playing a 4th level cleric who runs around saying “Praise Helm” […]

A Slick Three Step Wandering Monster System

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0775 A Slick Three Step Wandering Monster System Ever since running B1: In Search of the Unknown I’ve enjoyed wandering monsters. As PCs quested for the legendary treasure of Roghan and Zelligar, I’d roll and run all sorts of monster encounters. It gave me yet another opportunity to be creative during the […]

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