Preparation Archives - Roleplaying Tips

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How To Beat Prep Anxiety

Here’s a cool experiment from fellow RPT reader Iona to reduce the anxiety she felt before games. As smart, caring, sensitive people, we GMs want the best experience for our players. But this leads to perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and unease before sessions. Here’s how Iona solved it. I have something I would like to share […]

Kill GM procrastination with your First Move

Roleplaying Tips GM Leif told me this: “Game prep, or ‘designing’ as my DM Partner and I call it, is my biggest challenge currently. It’s tough to find the motivation to get started.” I asked for a bit more info, and while I wait for his response I’d like to share with you a quick […]

Unpack Last Session To Loopy Plan Next Game

After each game, let’s take 10 minutes to review our session log to help plan for next time. I outline below a quick approach we can follow using my Loopy Planning method. We do this for a couple of reasons. First, we tend to improvise a lot during sessions. So we want to review and […]

Hitting The Wall: When You’ve Got No Creativity And Have GM Burnout

RPT GM E. shared with me that they’ve got writer’s block, and maybe a little GM burnout. Here’s their email, paraphrased a bit: RPGwise, I realized this week my creativity is gone. I had to brainstorm and couldn’t whip up anything. Right now, I’m in a total slump gamewise. Right now is a great opportunity […]

Checklist: Compelling Session Alerts

Here’s another way to get players more engaged and better prepared to game when they arrive. It could also get more players showing up more often if you have that problem. Send a message to your players a week before next session. An alert. But with added strategic pieces to make it a fantastic new […]

d6 Ways to Spice Up Next Session

Sometimes things get dull, predictable, and stale. Your players get into the same old rut of “break down the door, kill the monster, take the loot.” Or if your group is more into roleplaying, perhaps it’s “meet the NPC, kill the NPC, Speak With Dead.” lol. Next session, let’s mix it up. Let’s inject a […]

d6 Ways To Spice Up Next Session

Next session, let’s mix it up. Let’s make things more fun for ourselves and our players using these d6 tables of dangers, goals, and plot twists for ideas.

How Long Should A Module Take?

Resurrected GM Anthony asks how many sessions a published adventure should take.

How To Make Campaigns Interesting While Avoiding GM Burnout

I just read your response to RPT GM Sam and thought about how I keep campaigns interesting.

Your First Idea Sucks

Why do we fear improv?In my experience, GMing by the seat of your pants means facing embarrassment and frustration because of?

Top 5 Soul-Draining Mistakes of Game Prep

Martin Ralya at Engine Publishing sent me a preview of his latest book, Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep. (Thanks Martin – the book looks great!) Written by Phil Vecchione, the 127 page book is carved into three main sections: Understanding Prep Prep Toolbox Evolving Your Style There are also meta […]

Dungeon Master Tools – MyInfo Software

Dungeon Master Tool Review: How To Be On Top Of Your Game Without Breaking A Sweat Track your entire world, your whole campaign, and every adventure with MyInfo Software Update January 2013: Video Course Shows You How to Use MyInfo Hi, this is Johnn. I’ve just setup an online course to show you how to […]

How to Create Blockbuster Box Office Hits with Your Players – Every Adventure — RPT#523

Applying the Hollywood Formula to RPG Storylines From: Brad Allen I’ve been GMing for many years but only recently tried to enhance my pacing and story-writing skills. For a long time my games suffered from frequent lulls and anti-climaxes, but no longer. A year or so ago, I did some research on plot structure and […]

For Awesome Campaigns Build A Player Campaign Book — RPT#517

From: Kit Reshawn As I’ve gotten older, I’ve run into a bit of a problem when it comes to running campaigns. Getting people together for a session becomes more and more difficult, so players often forget details about previous sessions. I’ve played with GMs who have a rule that can be reduced to, “If you […]

Speeding Up Combat

From Len Henderson One of the most enjoyable parts of roleplaying for many gamers is combat. However, especially in large groups, players can wait for a considerable amount of time between turns. This sort of wait leads to boredom and cross chatter, annoying the GM and the player whose turn it is. Here are things […]

Tips for GM’s, From a Player’s Perspective

By Paul Robertson Be prepared I list this first because it is the most important. I played in this adventure and for a few sessions the GM had done extremely little to no prep work. They flew by the seat of their pants for those sessions. This can usually be pulled off by more experienced […]