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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 […]

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 a Murder Mystery

Platinum Wizard of Adventure Arvindh asks: Can you teach me how to create a murder mystery? Sure. A quick caveat before we begin though. A TTRPG murder mystery experience is different from a book or film. With static and scripted mediums, the audience is passive. Writers rely heavily on information silos to keep the audience […]

World Calendars & Campaign Timelines

Do you create a world calendar and campaign timeline? RPT GM Chris asks if this is common: Good day Johnn. I was working on my game world history a bit today, and found myself wondering if things I do are common among many other DMs? For instance, I always have a calendar for any world […]

My New Dice Tower

Check out this sweet dice tower I made on the weekend with my father-in-law: It just needs a couple coats of stain. Then the critical hits can begin rolling down upon my players’ heads like bard tears at an orc wedding. I’m learning woodworking, thus this is my “build a bird feeder” first project. While […]

The Meta Characters Method: Factions With Brains, Brawn & Betrayal

ExileInParadise made a great comment to a series I’m writing about villains. The method he calls out creates immediate campaign drama with built-in adventure hooks and tactical inspiration for play. Each role can act independently or together, keeping your faction scenes spicy. Take it away Exile…. I really like Mike Pondsmith’s “Meta Characters” from Cyberpunk […]

3 Tips for Groundhog Day Scenarios

Wizard of Adventure Buck asks: Have you ever run or heard of someone running a Groundhog Day type game? Do you have ideas on how to do this? We know: Great question, Buck! I recently ran a Groundhog Day scenario for my Basilica campaign. For Basilica, I used Groundhog Day as a way to convert […]

Two Villains That Shape Your Campaign

I’m back. Thank you for the emails and well-wishes. I had some unscheduled downtime, but all is well. More news on that another time. Been thinking lately about villains. They’re actually the topic of a writing challenge I started a few days ago to get me back into rolling up some words. There are two […]

Pantsers vs. Plotters: Being an Agile GM

In our August Wizard of Adventure Q&A Zoom, the topic of plotting came up. Afterwards, fellow GM Loren sent me this note about different ways of plotting a book: Quick note on “pantsers and planners”: I’m sure I’ve seen it elsewhere, but James Scott Bell starts his “Write You Novel from the Middle” with discussion […]

Halloween Meets The Demonplague: Spooky Nights in Luna Valley

As I mentioned in yesterday’s email, My Unfavourite Time Of Year & Price Increase Heads-Up, the price of The Demonplague goes up at the end of this week. If you’ve been thinking of buying the complete campaign and getting all its loot, you can still get everything for $39 until October 11. Click here to […]

Chamber Pots of Gold: Transforming Flat Hooks Into Arced Ones

What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work? A stick. I received this request from a Patron on turning sticks into boomerangs: Tips for creative writing. More adventure seeds, a little more in depth than some of the random event tables have been. I can do a lot with a man selling a magic […]

d8 Non-Combat Encounter Seeds for Weak PCs

Before digging into today’s GM tips, I wanted to mention a podcast I was on with Harley Stroh of Goodman Games and Ian Rotondi-Gray from StoryTogether. Listen to the podcast episode on Youtube here. It was great talking about Dungeon Crawl Classics, GMing, and creativity. d8 Non-Combat Encounter Seeds for Weak PCs Part II, GMing […]

Here’s How One GM Improvises Plots & Campaigns

Before I forget…again…this Saturday is the monthly Wizard of Adventure GM chat. Get help from me and smarter GMs to help your prep, encounters, world building, player issues, or any other aspect of your campaign. Wizards of Adventure, the meeting link is here. Roleplaying Tips GMs, if you’d like to join us and get some […]

Wielding Character Backstories for Epic Campaigns

Common advice out there is for player characters to have backstories to help the GM. But how, exactly, are we to leverage this information? This week, I’ll share a few ways I do this, starting today with…. Part 1. Free (or Not) Hirelings Rather than whack every capitalized noun over time from PC backgrounds, I […]

How Do You Eat a Tarrasque?

My latest book just released! It’s called Tiny Prep, and was co-written by Che Webster from roleplayrescue.com. You can buy our Tiny Prep book through this link to get a discount. Tiny Prep will transform your GMing with tiny tools that garner you big swings at the game table. Our book will: It’s the perfect […]

Wield the Unseen Ripples in Your Campaign

How do you motivate players to seize the story? RPT GM D asks: Thanks for your email and tips. When I read your opening sentence I was expecting a very different tack from you. I read it as ‘GMs being frustrated that players won’t make any decisions or show initiative’ and your response was about […]

Ziggy Zaggy Plots

Several Wizards of Adventure have recently expressed frustration over their players not taking enough initiative, their characters lacking backgrounds or goals, and the GMs feeling tired of being the only one pushing the game forward. I hear you. I used to be a linear plot kind of guy. I created the storyline of what the […]

How to Offer Diabolical Choices to Make Rewards Feel Well-Earned

This is Part II of a series on How to Make Encounters Fun. Read Part I, Part III, and Part IV here. There are three main things I look at when trying to make encounters fun: While encounters have many ingredients, dials, and levers, if you hit high notes with challenge, plot, and your energy, you’ll make […]

Why Story Gets the Horse’s Rump at My Table

Here’s something that might not be popular. I don’t know. But I see a lot of GMs online talk about the importance of story. And story is the last thing I care about when running a game. Ok, there it is. I’ve said it out loud. Gather your pitchforks and torches, lads and lasses! 🙂 […]

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 […]

A New Year, New Campaign Tool For You

Here’s a Mad Lib you might find useful for your GM Toolbox. There’s a January tradition in the RPG community. It’s called New Year, New Campaign. You might start a campaign. You could also run a different game system. I like to add a third option: campaign reboot. Why not take the opportunity of setting […]

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 […]

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