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Outsmart Your Players With 3-Step Villain Plans

How do we outsmart our players? It’s all their brains against ours. Surely the odds are against us. However, here’s a neat trick we can perform to make our villains smarter and our adventures more cunning. We look at the possible plots and actions our poor villain might take and group them into three buckets. […]

Factions & Villains – 3 Reader GM Tips

Let’s dive in with this observation from RPT GM Maja who brings up an interesting point about favourite villain types that mirrors my own experience. Let’s call it the Seinfeld Effect. Johnn, If you ask me what villain type gets the most attention, it is the personal type. My players interact in extreme ways if […]

My 7 Keys to a Great Sandbox Game

New RPT GM Eddie asked for advice on homebrewing adventures: I love that a campaign can be going strong that long. The one I’m running is like 6 months old. Even though I’m pretty new to the game (less than a year) I’ve been looking more into old school revival and alternative materials because although […]

3 Round Combat Plans For Lightning Combats – Part I

In Faster Combat, a Three Round Combat Plan is how your combat will end after your side has had three licks against the other side. Why would we make something like that? If your fights finish after the third bell, think how much faster they’ll be than melees that just grind on to the last […]

3-Step GM PiXiE Kaizen

There’s a myth about game master time management. Or even about time management in general. Folks think it’s about time. But in my experience that’s not true. It’s about energy. Doing campaign prep for 15 minutes a day will get more prep done over the long haul than doing it once in a while in […]

Don’t Be A Minnie Haul

I remember getting caught with my pants down running Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. One player had magic claws that could chew through six feet of rock each round. When the party finally made their way to the villain’s lair, they bypassed an entire page devoted to the magic barriers, traps, and tricks by digging through […]

3 Round Combat Plans For Lightning Combats – Part I

Starting a West Marches Campaign – Step By Step

By Jochen Linnemann Starting a West Marches Campaign (Part 1) Some time ago, I decided to start a West Marches type campaign with the idea of an episodic, easy-to-prep game for a group changing players in mind. So, I started to research the topic. Reading Tips Google was a good jump off point, and I […]

My 7 Keys to a Great Sandbox Game

Factions & Villains – 3 Reader GM Tips

Hitting too Close to Home Let’s dive in with this observation from RPT GM Maja who brings up an interesting point about favourite villain types that mirrors my own experience. Let’s call it the Seinfeld Effect. Johnn, If you ask me what villain type gets the most attention, it is the personal type. My players […]

Outsmart Your Players With 3-Step Villain Plans

How To Stop Campaigns From Fizzling Out

Here’s an email from RPT GM Sam about campaigning: Hi Johnn! Glad I stumbled upon your stuff over the weekend. I am a gamer from Melbourne, Australia. I’ve been playing RPGs for about 12 years and I’ve been interested in GMing for about 5 years now. My biggest problem is this: I find creating stories […]

A Quick Tip On Session Prep

I got this tip while reading The Index Card RPG by Rune Hammer Games. Treat every session like you were prepping for a one-shot. If you’ve ever run a convention game or organized play type game, you know it’s a bit different than your typical campaign prep mindset. No one expects to play again after […]

Create Your Memory Dungeon

I recently read about a memorization technique called Memory Palace, also called Method of loci. It helps you memorize lists and facts. Dungeons are more my style than fancy palaces. So today let’s look at how this quick memory hack can help you prep faster and run adventures better. We Think Story Our brains are […]

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%u2019ve-got-no-creativity-and-have-gm-burnout

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 […]

Tag Archive

Outsmart Your Players With 3-Step Villain Plans

Factions & Villains – 3 Reader GM Tips

My 7 Keys to a Great Sandbox Game

3 Round Combat Plans For Lightning Combats – Part I

3-Step GM PiXiE Kaizen

Don’t Be A Minnie Haul

3 Round Combat Plans For Lightning Combats – Part I

Starting a West Marches Campaign – Step By Step

My 7 Keys to a Great Sandbox Game

Factions & Villains – 3 Reader GM Tips

Outsmart Your Players With 3-Step Villain Plans

How To Stop Campaigns From Fizzling Out

A Quick Tip On Session Prep

Create Your Memory Dungeon

How To Beat Prep Anxiety

Kill GM procrastination with your First Move

Unpack Last Session To Loopy Plan Next Game

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

Checklist: Compelling Session Alerts

d6 Ways to Spice Up Next Session

d6 Ways To Spice Up Next Session

How To Stop Campaigns From Fizzling Out

How Long Should A Module Take?

How To Make Campaigns Interesting While Avoiding GM Burnout

Your First Idea Sucks