Running the Game Archives - Roleplaying Tips

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Online RPG With VTT: How To Engage Players Better

An RPT GM asked how he could help his player engage more and roleplay better after switching to online Virtual Tabletop (VTT) games. Several GMs wrote in with fantastic tips. Thank you! Here’s what they said.

Coax The Details Out

It all starts with a flaw. The item does not work as expected. This creates surprise, which makes great gameplay. After the surprise, it makes the item distinct and valued because it’s not just another +1 dagger. Design cost-value into your flaws and find that sweet spot where the penalty of using the item is […]

Trick Question For You – All Players Count

I had a great game on Friday. I’m a cleric for our Out of the Abyss campaign. A player complimented me for thinking outside the box. As I only had 9 hit points at the time, I assume he meant the box was a coffin. We all survived, fortunately, and found the stolen red dragon […]

The Storyteller’s Secret Weapon That Most Game Masters Struggle With

I recently interviewed former WotC employee, writer, and editor, Philip Athans. (I’ll be sharing the MP3 audio of it with you soon.) One of the questions I asked was about a GM’s secret weapon — how to show, not tell. Philip said it was all about getting players to feel like they are their characters […]

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 […]

Make Encounters Intense

Static RPG encounters become predictable. We roll initiative. PCs choose their targets. Grind until the last hit point. However, there’s a concept I’ve penned in my upcoming 5 Room Dungeons book called Intensify. Use this to make encounters come alive, surprise the PCs, and keep your players thoroughly entertained. The technique is simple. At some […]

Fear the GM

When I surveyed readers last year about what kinds of adventure design challenges you all faced, one thing that came up was how to solve the PCs rampaging through your encounters without a care in the world. The characters don’t plan, never retreat, and don’t parley. This topic is salient because I’m planning out Season […]

RPT Gem: A Fantastic Encounter Building Tool

If you have writer’s block, this is a fantastic GM encounter building tool created by Brennan OBrien. Today’s Musing is a short one. Just check this tool out and explore its possibilities. For example, I think it’s awesome for encounter building. Encounter Building Recipe Start with an encounter seed idea for a person, place, or […]

Why Will It Be Fun?

We get stuck in our own heads. What we think will be fun for players is actually ego strokes for our GMing. Don’t fall into this trap. Here’s a perfect example. A GM asked for help polishing their encounter: GM: “As the PCs explore a cavern I plan on having a flash flood hit them […]

Build Story Last

For RPG purposes, I define story as the sequence of events that come out of gameplay. And I think of plot as the GM’s plan for those events. Plot comes first, story comes second. Plot is based on ideas and connections for events and situations. It’s flexible and adapts to character actions and resulting consequences. […]

GMing Your First Game Session – d12 Tips

What advice would you give to a GM prepping their first session? A reader emailed me and shared their nervousness at sitting behind the screen for the first time. So I asked this question over at the Game Master Tips community (almost 9,000 members woot!) and received some great advice. Here’s d12 excellent pieces of […]

How to Avoid a TPK When GMing Intense Encounters

With the Encounter Intensify Technique you increase the stakes during an encounter to give your players a jolt of adrenaline. Just when you think it can’t get worse or more desperate, it does. A reader asked me how to avoid wiping the party, because I advised picking a moment when encounter outcome seems dubious. Pick […]

Get Off the Reverse Railroad

Do you create detailed backgrounds? Kingdoms, villains, magic items. These days I avoid them like the plague. They’re like reverse railroads. I only want a paragraph — two at most — about each game piece. Here’s why. You flesh out your campaign in two ways: either you play the game, or you talk about it. […]

My Table Rules

“The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don’t need any rules.” – Gary Gygax, Born Jul. 27, 1938. This quote was called out to me by my buddy Colin Theriot. And it came in handy last Murder Hobos game. The party is fighting a group of elemental cultists doing a […]

GMing Your First Game Session – d12 Tips

Panicked Prep for Next Session

We start at 6:30 pm. We finish at 11 pm. Four and a half hours or 270 minutes. That’s five 60 minute encounters, or nine half-hour encounters. Let’s combo and say 3×60 + 3×30. My goal is now creating just six encounters. Next, I brainstorm encounter seeds. The key here is to start with one […]

The Next Action Method – Small Moments of Game Prep

Hola %FIRSTNAME% When I have the major elements of my Loopy Plots figured out, I need to dig into certain details to get gameplay going and plug holes. A tool I use to do this is my Next Action Method. I grabbed this technique from Dave Allen’s productivity book, Getting Things Done. Planning stuff out […]

When Players Stop Talking, You Start. But What Do You Say?

What’s the problem: Work backwards from product referral, from GM doctor’s symptom prescription When players stop talking, you start. But what do you say? What’s the remedy: How does the GM doctor recommend solving this? Do they need more information? Do they need refocus? (Hints, prods, change thinking) Do they need a kick in the […]

Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization, Part II

Last Musing we chatted about the importance of characterizing details you bring into gameplay. As you provide encounter descriptions, introduce NPCs, offer treasures, tell secrets, and convey the world to your friends, you can think about both variables of the equation. The first variable is about how you inject physical and emotional energy into your […]

Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization, Part I

Better Storytelling With Two-Sided Characterization Characterization is how you roleplay the people, places, and things in your adventures. Here’s how to add panache, style, and zing via characterization to engage your players more and become a better storyteller. To me, it’s all roleplaying. But in the literary world, they call it characterization. When the PCs […]

Emotions Before the Game

I’m reading an interesting GMing book right now called How to Run by Alexis D. Smolensk. And Alexis has a pre-game welcoming stage I think is brilliant: “…I must motivate [the players], provoking their attention and creating the shared experience that is game play. “At the start of the session, the players enter the theatre, […]

Hello, Are You Listening?

Upon reflection, one of my biggest challenges is listening to the game. I’m not paying enough attention to my players. For example, how many plot hooks did I pick up from my players last session? Zero. The trick to being a happy game master is being present during games. Being in the present. If I’m […]

My #1 Learning from Last Game

Last week I talked about listening to my players better. It turns out listening is HARD. I GM’d last Friday and here’s how it turned out. First, a recap of my GM Quests for the session: Hooks: Get at least one hook from each player from something they mention during the game Excitement: Note at […]

7 Steps To Create A Gamable Culture With Example: The Hotha

I just worked on a culture for Duskfall called The Hotha. These folk have tamed dinosaurs and use the creatures as steeds, beasts of labour, and pets. I’m happy with the results so far as I think they’ll offer great gameplay. Today, I’d like to share with you the basic steps I took to build […]

It’s A Bomb

Here’s a great tip I read the other day: For character actions to be significant and purposeful, players need information about the possible consequences of their actions. I don’t know if there’s already an RPG design term for this, but in past Musings I’ve mentioned this as being part of Stakes. You want encounters to […]

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