Running the Game Archives - Roleplaying Tips

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Uh Oh: When Virtual Players Join Face-to-Face Games

Do you have a remote player join your face-to-face group? If so, do you find it hard to keep them involved and engaged? Master of the 5 Room Dungeon Tom K shared this on the RPT Discord: “I have one remote player, I need to try and get her to engage more. For the most […]

How to Make Players Hustle in Your Sandbox Campaign

Siema TEST! Today I’d like to talk about how to prod our players into action in campaigns that might not have a baked-in deadline. But first, as December is now upon us, if you are thinking about running a season-themed adventure this month, please check out my GM Cheat Sheet: Christmas Room 5 Room Dungeon […]

Effortless & Dynamic Storytelling

Effortless & Dynamic Storytelling Among the many tools in my GM Toolbox, the method of Wandering Encounters holds a special place. It’s a simple yet profound way to keep the game world lively, the plot on track, and the characters engaged in evolving story arcs. The core essence of Wandering Encounters lies in its ability […]

Unlock Player Creativity With Descriptive Options

We played another session of the WOIN RPG conversion of my Basilica campaign and it went well. We were running Old School Essentials, and the group opted to try a crunchier system. So far, WOIN is ticking all the boxes. Today’s tip is not about rules though. Instead, it’s about something great one of my […]

Why Your Villains Should Be Making Moves

Why Your Villains Should Be Making Moves Today’s tip is inspired by a question about villains from RPT GM Gerald Lock. You can catch his full question, his one-shot Halloween adventure, and my video reply here. So, you’ve crafted an awesome villain, complete with a dark past and malevolent goals, but when game night comes […]

A Change of Pace: How To Evaluate Pacing In Your Game

A Brief Word From Johnn Before we dig into pacing tips though, a couple of quick items. Get Help With Your Campaign August 26, 2023 – Wizard of Adventure Q&A Zoom. If you are a Wizard of Adventure, here’s details and the link. Feel free to bring questions about your world, campaign, encounters, NPCs, technique, […]

Try Back Pocket Events In Your Campaigns

Did you know there is a Fantasy Grounds version of my complete 1-20th level D&D 5E campaign, The Demonplague, co-written by James Introcaso? I don’t advertise this on The Demonplague’s information page, but will fix that soon. Meantime, if you are a Fantasy Grounds GM, you can purchase the campaign here. Unfortunately, due to Fantasy […]

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 […]

From Dusk Till Dawn: Time Tracking in Your Campaign

I received this request from a new GM: How do I as a DM keep track of time passage? Suppose the PCs are traveling to a lair and it’s a two-day walk. Should I have them set up camp? What should happen during the camp setup and through the night? How long should I track […]

Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

Ahoi! Before my vacation I released GM Cheat Sheet #08 that I don’t think I announced to you. Check out the Forests 5 Room Dungeon Generator at DriveThruRPG. Have your dice ready to quickly create interesting forest-based 5 Room Dungeons, adventures, and encounters. You can also watch a video walkthrough of the GM Cheat Sheet […]

From Tasty Bait to Terrifying Consequences: Tricking Players With Instant Gratification

It’s great to be back from vacation! Thank you for your patience as I took a couple of weeks off from the newsletter. We went camping near a place called Rocky Mountain House where it’s not rocky and there are no mountains. The picture below was each glorious morning for me. This might leave you […]

Streamline Your Gameplay With This Cool House Rule

Streamline Your Gameplay With This Cool House Rule On a podcast with Dr. Keith McNally, Jonathan from Sojourner’s Awake shared his three table rules. And one of them I wanted to forward along to you because it is very good. Here’s a link to the 29 minute podcast on YouTube. Watch My Face Jonathan’s third […]

How To Keep Story Arcs Alive

How To Keep Story Arcs Alive How do you keep campaign arcs alive? That’s how I’d summarize this tip request I received from Wizard of Adventure Sharon: Our party meets every two or three weeks for a four hour session. With family and life taking center stage between sessions and memories fade, it makes remembering […]

1d12 Most Common Encounter Mistakes

1d12 Most Common Encounter Mistakes nuqneH TEST! I don’t generally dwell on the negative. We’re here to have fun at every game, after all. However, sometimes it’s great to review a list of gotchas and see if any resonate. If some do, we can then take action to fix. So today I have 1d12 mistakes […]

Get Ready to Roll: How to Plan and Prepare for GMing Successful Convention Games

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1224 We just played session #09 of my Basilica campaign that’s half sandbox, half Temple of Elemental Evil. The party was bequeathed land as reward for escorting settlers safely to the area. As it turns out, the land is a swamp with ruins of an old moathouse on it. Girding loins and […]

Why Players Get Bored With Our GMing (But Might Be Afraid To Tell Us)

Why Players Get Bored With Our GMing (But Might Be Afraid To Tell Us) As a player who gets bored easily (thus I am a forever-GM :), here are three reasons based on my experiences why a GM can lose player attention and participation in a game. Hopefully these tips help keep your table engaged. […]

The Sneaky GM Trap I Spotted At Start Of This Adventure

The Sneaky GM Trap I Spotted At Start Of This Adventure I was reading an adventure last night (an adventure that I also played in January) and something troublesome jumped out at me from the initial encounter’s boxed text. Here is the first sentence: The stairs leading to the basement of the Otari Fishery creak […]

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 […]

6 Ways To Spice Up Boring Combats

6 Ways To Spice Up Boring Combats Combats offer a delicious nexus between dice-rolling gameplay, storytelling, roleplaying, and tactics. Alas, many battles become boring slugfests that offer no variety. Here are a half dozen ways to spice things up in your next fight. 1. Add Space Fighting in a telephone booth restricts options and gets […]

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, […]

Prep This Instead Of Plans

RPT GM Steffen asks: Maybe you have a tip for a problem I’m having with prep. In my group, we sometimes play fairly open RPGs. Open in the sense of an open world. At the end of a game session, I don’t know how the players are going to approach a problem, and then I […]

Three MegaDungeon Tips

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1220 Three MegaDungeon Tips So, in the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some megadungeon tips and resources. These will be for any megadungeons, not just Dungeon23 stuff, to keep it as useful to as many RPT GMs as possible. And today I have three tips for you based on questions from RPT […]

How To Improvise When Players Do Combat Stunts in OSR RPGs

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1218 How To Improvise When Players Do Combat Stunts in OSR RPGs Bonjour, Johnn! Last session a player went way outside the rules. He wanted his character to leap through the air onto a giant bird’s leg, climb up the tarsus, then release a magical belt attached to the beast’s limb. This […]

How To Create Engaging Session Recaps To Get Players Ready To Play

From Johnn Four Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1215 Brief Word From Johnn Thank you to everyone who sent along birthday wishes. I had a great day and got to spend extra time working on my campaign, which is always a treat! In Wizard of Adventure news: Watch this video on YouTube where I walk through the […]

The Story So Far

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1213 I mostly run sandboxes these days. That means I wrangle a lot of details. After a few sessions I’ll have dozens of Pages and Log Entries in Campaign Logger. After a year, they’ll be in the hundreds. Here’s an example from Wizard of Adventure ExileInParadise’s Sword Coast campaign: And here’s a […]

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